School tax

Portland School District is going to be out of some money, as they don't plan on renewing $33.5 million in property taxes to pay for education. So the article in the Oregonian says that this money pays for 280 teachers and other staff (I wonder how many staff and how many teachers). Yet there is this other big fat tax sitting out there that costs all of us in the county (not just the district) every year, and that's the Multnomah County Income tax (on of only about a half dozen such local income taxes in the nation). It only has one more year to collect from the peasants, so what are they going to do then? Personally, if I had to make a choice, I would want the County tax ended now and another bond passed.
Fortunately, even though the article sounds skeptical, I think that the state budget is going to help out a lot. The economy has picked up and Oregon jobs are at the same level that they were at in 2000, before the recession.

METEOR

I often say that I miss all the great geological and astronomical events here in the Northwest. Mt. Saint Helens has blown several times in the last few months and I haven't seen ONE of them live and outside. Always later on the news, or in the paper.
Well, I missed another one. But Michael Totten didn't. Apparently there was a bright and quite large meteor that came down over the Portland area this weekend. Here's the actual report.

Residents across the Northwest reported seeing the bright streak of light as it flashed across the sky. The flash lasted up to five seconds, and was captured on home video by a witness in Talent, Ore.

Scientists said the flaming object was probably a meteor, and that it likely disintegrated before any fragments fell into the Pacific Ocean.

Who reads the paper?

Via Oxblog:
THE OXBLOG GUIDE TO THE NATIONAL MEDIA:*

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like the statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country ... or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

Dueling demonstrations

In Lebanon they are having another Lebanese freedom demonstration to show opposition to they Syrian-backed government. This one seems to have dwarfed the previous pro-Syrian demostration last week. There are reports of 1.5 to 2 million people (half the population of Lebanon) gathering in Beirut.
PubliusPundit says that cities and towns are practically empty as people walk, bike, ride to the capital for the demonstration. He has LOTS on what's going on today, so I recommend visiting his looooong post.
He also has this FOX interview with Walid Phares about why the pro-Syrian demonstrations won't stop or even slow down Lebanese independence from Syria.

China flexes

China "legislators" authorized the government to use force to subdue Taiwan and prevent them from declaring independence.
This was just meant as a warning for Taiwan, so the Chinese are probably not going to act yet, but it increases tension in the area. Which, of course, poses problems for the U.S. as we have been trying to use China to influence North Korea, but are squarely against them using force against Taiwan, and have promised to intervene if China tries to invade.
Stay tuned...

Voting felons

Some are of the opinion these days that people who have served time for a felony should be able to vote, assuming of course that they are not still in prison. I think this is short sighted, as does this well written article in TCS. If you are under the impression that some felonies are not harsh enough to strip a person of his civil rights, then work on the felony system, not on the voting system.

It's fair to point out that Felony Nation may have gone too far in declaring certain crimes to be felonies. The argument for the enfranchisement of felons often seems to be a proxy fight against mandatory felony sentencing for low-level drug users. It's political poison to suggest that possession of a smidgen of cocaine ought not to be a felony; the enfranchisement of felons is much more palatable. If we're creating too many felons through the drug laws, let's re-examine the drug laws, instead of demeaning the importance of felonies themselves.

Voting is a right in this country, but obedience to the law is a requirement in this country as well. I think that felons can work their way back into the graces of the system, but they need to earn the right to vote again by being clean after they have paid their due.

One YEAR!!

I just realized that March 9th of last year is the day I started this blog. Happy birthday to me. By next year I might actually have 2 or 3 people regularly reading this site.
Technorati says that there are over 7 million blogs out there. So I'm in good company.

Canadian Timber, Eh

For the past few years there has been this running dispute between Canada and the United States over the price of imported timber from the western Canadian provinces (this problem, incidentally, does not occur in the east). The United States insists that Canadian timber companies get to cut timber off Crown (government owned land, which is most of the timberland in Canada) for pennies per hectare, whereas American timber firms must pay market price for their timberland.
This wasn't as much of a problem a decade or two ago, when timber companies still had large contracts to cut on federal forests here in the US, as they were getting a relative steal on that land too. But things have changed, and almost all the timber coming out of the U.S. is off private land and therefore is more expensive than timber coming out of Canada.
I am all for free trade, and have supported NAFTA, and now support the on-coming CAFTA (central American free trade agreement). I was very critical of Bush when he decided that we needed a tariff on Steel, as imported Asian steel was hurting out industry. But I'm not so sure the Americans are on the wrong side of this issue. It's hard to compete in a free and open market when someone's taxpayers are supporting the industry in another country. This issue has only come up as the US has stopped that practice, but I think that the U.S. has a right to protect it's timber economy until such time as Canada reforms it's timber industry.
Here was a press release today.

The Canadian government sent what it called an initial proposal to the U.S. to gauge its interest in returning to negotiations in the softwood lumber dispute. The five-page document outlined what Canada is seeking to settle the longstanding dispute. It calls for the U.S. to revoke the current countervailing and anti-dumping duty orders, and Canada then would apply an export tax on lumber shipments to the U.S. The proposal does not give a specific level for that export tax. It also calls for the U.S. to refund 100% of the duties already collected, with interest, since they were levied in May 2002. It also stipulates that for the duration of the agreement, the U.S. government would not file a CVD or AD investigation on Canadian lumber imports, and that the U.S. industry would not undertake any new cases. Under the plan, Canadian provinces would be able to reduce or eliminate the export tax if they completed specific reforms of their timber policies. A spokesman for the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports said they declined comment until they had time to study the document.

What Canada is saying here is that they are conceding that there is an issue with their industry and it needs to be reformed, but that they want the money that comes from making the situation equitable, instead of the US profiting from this.
In a way I can see their point. The Canadian government gets a pittance from timber companies (when they should be charging more for the use of their land), the timber companies benefit, but then get charged the difference in order to export to the U.S. market. The U.S. gets money that the Canadian government should have been getting if they charged market rates for use of the land.
But the question is, why don't they just reform their timber leasing practices? The press shot above kind of indicates that is where they are going, but the demand that the U.S. give back all the money they have collected so far might be asking a lot. Call it the penalty for not addressing the problem in the first place and trying to fight the U.S. on the issue for the last 4 years.

There is another issue here too. Canada has threatened to retaliate against the U.S. by boycotting certain products of ours, like wine. Rogue pundit has thoughts about this.
I mean really. The U.S.: "We feel you are unfairly helping your timber industry, so we're going to protect ours a little bit."
Canada: "Waaaaaaaaah! Oh yeah? Well, we're not buying any more of your wine. How do you like them apples, eh?"
Whatever.

Update: "The Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, the U.S. industry group that filed the duty petitions, said today that it expressed to the U.S. government its "strong support for face-to-face negotiations" with Canada. While the Coalition noted there are aspects of the proposal that they do not support, they called the proposal 'a positive step and a show of good faith.'"

If you can't fire them...

In relation to a post I made the other day about school closings in Portland, Roguepundit finds this example of government employment tradition in Oregon. He quotes from the Grants Pass Daily.

The Grants Pass School Board fired Wilson in June for threatening students and using foul language. One of his most outrageous statements was telling a female student the only way he could be fired would be if he raped her. The state Department of Education's Fair Dismissal Appeals Board didn't go that far, but did order District 7 to rehire Wilson.

The three-member board confirmed Wilson's behavior, but said it didn't justify firing. Wilson didn't really mean those threats of violence to the girls and others, the board concluded. It's disturbing the board apparently feels it's OK for the driven choir director to be verbally vulgar and belittling to his students.

He goes on to site other examples. Really, its a testimony to large beaurocracies that the unions ensure their employment. Agencies and programs continue to grow while the reason for their existance slowly ebbs away. This is occurring with the Portland School district, as Schools are closing, but teachers and administrators are not being let go.

Reading for the day

Here is a speech that Bush gave at the National Defense University. Bush keeps getting clearer and clearer that Democracy is his aim.

The advance of hope in the Middle East also requires new thinking in the capitals of great democracies -- including Washington, D.C. By now it should be clear that decades of excusing and accommodating tyranny, in the pursuit of stability, have only led to injustice and instability and tragedy. It should be clear that the advance of democracy leads to peace, because governments that respect the rights of their people also respect the rights of their neighbors. It should be clear that the best antidote to radicalism and terror is the tolerance and hope kindled in free societies. And our duty is now clear: For the sake of our long-term security, all free nations must stand with the forces of democracy and justice that have begun to transform the Middle East.

So when are we going after Sudan? And Saudi Arabia?

My take on the Roper v. Simmons opinion

The Supreme Court issued this decision last week on the juvenile death penalty, and the decision has turned out to be quite controversial. The verdict itself was not that vital to American life, in that no rights are going to be squashed, etc. Many people, in fact, will probably agree that minors lack the legal responsibility to face such a harsh sentence, and agree with the judgment on principle.

But that’s an opinion, and it’s not based on any objective evidence. At least none offered by this verdict.

Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion for the case, and his arguments can be summed up into three points. One is that the Eighth Amendment to the constitution bars cruel and unusual punishment, and states that "the Court must refer to “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society to determine which punishments are so disproportionate as to be cruel and unusual." In other words, we determine what “cruel and unusual” is by what we think the consensus of Americans think it is.

Two is that minors are not as culpable for their actions as adults in that they display a lack of maturity and understanding of personal responsibility. Kennedy noted that the court recently declared that the death penalty was unconstitutional for a mentally retarded person convicted of a capital offense. “Mental retardation, the court said, diminishes personal culpability even if the offender can distinguish right and wrong.”

The third argument was that America is quite alone in the world (relatively) in it’s use of the death penalty. His reasoning here is “from the time of the Court’s decision in Trop, the Court has referred to the laws of other countries and to international authorities as instructive for its interpretation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments.” He goes on to say that it didn’t help the Justices come to a decision, but only “confirmed” what they had decided.

I read the opinion, but remain unconvinced, and alarmed for a few reasons. Justice O’Connor’s dissent and Scalia’s dissent are much more convincing.

In Kennedy’s first point, that there is consensus in the US on this topic, the numbers he uses are not enough, and in other cases have not been enough. There are still 20 states that allow the execution of a minor. Hardly a consensus.

Scalia responded to this "Now the Court says that a legislative change in four states is significant enough to trigger a constitutional prohibition. It’s amazing to think that this subtle shift in numbers can take the issue entirely off the table for legislative debate."

Kennedy tries to compare the direction of change in legislative action regarding juvenile capital punishment with that of the mentally handicapped, to try and show that the nation is moving overwhelmingly toward that end. O’Connor states otherwise, in that the movement toward the latter was much more evident, and the action toward juveniles was “considerably slower.”

O’Connor points out that in this case, the defendant was well aware of consequences and had considered them when he declared to his friends, in planning the murder/burglary, that they could get away with it, as they were minors.

This is a point that is brought up much in this debate: some minors do have the understanding and sense of right and wrong enough to be responsible for their actions. Indeed many are tried as adults because of the severity of their crimes. If you are going to try someone as an adult, then treat them as an adult, with adult responsibility and culpability. Death penalty included.

It is Scalia who is much more scathing of this opinion. Especially the last point Kennedy makes, which looks to international mood and opinion. O’Connor does not mind this action, as she notes that the Court does this frequently in the cases regarding “cruel and unusual punishment.” But Scalia’s point is that the Court shouldn't be doing that anyway. After all, most of the world (outside of Europe) outlaws Abortion, but the Court wouldn’t necessarily take that view. Scalia accuses Kennedy and company of “looking over the heads of the crowd and picking out their friends.” In other words, using International opinion when it suits their personal preference. He is astounded that the Court would change its mind after only 15 years.

One more thought. Scalia made another point that the Court took the subject off the table for debate in this country based on some pretty flimsy numbers. This is the part that is disturbing to me. It seems that many people, and most people in States where the juvenile death penalty is still active, believe that there are some people who can be considered culpable, even though they are below the age of 18. Kennedy makes the case that this sentence is rarely issued to minors. This is true, but as it is true, it is the reason that I think the system works correctly. What the Court has done here is take the power of deciding, on a case by case basis, whether or not a minor is responsible enough to warrant the death penalty, from the jury. And from the legislature.

Scalia said: "(The) infrequency (of executions for under 18 murderers) is explained, we accurately said, both by the undisputed fact that a far smaller percentage of capital crimes are committed by persons under 18 than over 18, and by the fact that juries are required at sentencing to consider the offender’s youth as a mitigating factor."

Powerline responds here. John Hinderaker has an article in the Daily Standard critisizing Kennedy's decision to compare international law. I like it, but I thought Scalia's dissent was better.

Who said this...

Come on, take the challenge. Oxblog says that you won't guess who said this:

Europeans cannot criticize the United States for waging war in Iraq if they are unwilling to exhibit the moral fiber to stop genocide by acting collectively and with decisiveness...

Every day that goes by without meaningful sanctions and even military intervention in Sudan by African, European and if necessary U.N. forces is a day where hundreds of innocent civilians die and thousands are displaced from their land. Every day that goes by without action to stop the Sudan genocide is a day that the anti-Iraq war position so widely held in the rest of the world appears to be based less on principle and more on politics.

I'll give you a hint: He is a governor of a northeastern state, got slaughtered in the Democrat primaries last year, and just became top Democrat numero uno.

On a different note, why isn't this person, or anybody, arguing that we should just go into Sudan unilaterally. Would we get critisized by the EU or UN any more than we are already?

Bill Richardson

Citizen Smash has a conversation with Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico (the state I grew up in) talking to Katie Couric on the Today show. In the conversation Governor Bill sounds more like a Neo-Con then a Democrat (which he is) and praises Bush for the work he has done in the Middle east.
Bill is also known for cutting taxes in his first two years as Governor. He is also hispanic, and was a former US Congressman and Energy Secretary under Clinton. What an interestingly strong choice for President in 2008 this would be.

Blogging threatened

The Federal Election Committee has made noises as if it's going to apply the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act to blogging, such that there would be penalties when bloggers tried to link to candidate's websites, or at least it will be seen as a contribution to the candidate under the act.
They picked the one issue that brings all bloggers, liberal and conservative, left and right, together. Everyone is attacking this, from Atrios and Kos (left) all the way to Powerline and Charles Johnson (right).

In 2002, the FEC exempted the Internet by a 4-2 vote, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly last fall overturned that decision. "The commission's exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines" the campaign finance law's purposes, Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

The commission is split 3-3 on whether the decision should be appealed. Predictably, it's on partisan lines.
Says Bradley Smith of the commission:

How can the government place a value on a blog that praises some politician?
How do we measure that? Design fees, that sort of thing? The FEC did an advisory opinion in the late 1990s (in the Leo Smith case) that I don't think we'd hold to today, saying that if you owned a computer, you'd have to calculate what percentage of the computer cost and electricity went to political advocacy.

It seems absurd, but that's what the commission did. And that's the direction Judge Kollar-Kotelly would have us move in. Line drawing is going to be an inherently very difficult task. And then we'll be pushed to go further. Why can this person do it, but not that person?

Update: Totten has feelings on this as well.

Another Update: It seems that, related to the Jeff Gannon incident, a blogger sought and got White House press credentials. Which further blurs the line between Blog and Main stream journalism, which should give the FEC pause. (hat tip Instapundit)

Bush and Social Security

Looks like Bush is backing off a bit from his original proposal. The Dems have been pretty stout in their refusal to even consider carving into the payroll tax for private accounts.

President Bush said on Thursday he would focus for now on the financial problems facing Social Security, signaling a shift in tactics amid a slide in support for his private account plan.

Ok, that's Reuters talking. Really Bush is not backing off that much.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan made clear Bush was not backing away from private Social Security accounts despite a suggestion by a top Senate Republican they be taken off the table to get a bill this year.

That's further down in the article. Cute how journalists do that. Republican Senators are, however, saying that this battle is distracting from the debate about what to do about the program. That's kind of disingenuous, though, as it is part of the debate, not a distraction from it.
Although, when you think about it, this has all forced Dems and Reps to try to calm the issue down by saying that they WILL talk about making changes to the program so that it will retain solvency farther into the future, but not as long as private accounts. If I were the President here, I would be willing to drop the private account issue as long as it forced the Senate to actually do something about the program, like tying benefits to prices or something. That in itself would be a victory.
Or, if it doesn't get the Senate to do anything, it'll make them look really bad and the President really good.

On another note, check out this poll that the Times conducted.

In a New York Times/CBS News poll published on Thursday, 51 percent of respondents said diverting Social Security taxes into private accounts was a bad idea. The number rose to 69 percent when respondents were told the accounts would result in a cut in guaranteed government benefits.

Duh. This reflects less on the Times and CBS and their stupid questions designed to get poll numbers that make the president look bad than it does the public answering the questions.
So, really, if I contribute less to the system because I'm contributing more to my own personal account, I can expect less from the government upon retirement? Well, duh, I didn't think the idea was bad before, duh, but now that you put it that way, duh, I definitely think it's a bad idea.
Duuuuhhhh.

Lebanon, a summary

Country of the (insert time period here).

I thought that I would write up a little about the country of Lebanon this week, as there are happenings there of great historical significance. I have noticed that there have been many articles and blogs talking about the events of the last couple of weeks, with former Prime Minister Hariri being assassinated, the Lebanese people taking to the streets in protest of the Syrian occupation and the current Prime Minister dissolving the current government.
This is not a comprehensive analysis of Lebanese history, nor is it an attempt to bring out all of the relevant historical events that might have some bearing on what is going on over there right now. I am by no means an expert in this area. I just have an interest, and the current media seems content to bring out only the facts they seem to need in order to tell whatever story they want to spin.

Lebanon is a small country in the right place. It is about the size of Connecticut (and for us Oregonians would fit nicely on the west side in the Willamette valley to the coast) but has about 3.7 million people (so it's a might bit more crowded than the Willamette valley), but its location on the Mediterranean sea gives it a favorable status as a trading center. There are a few geographic regions that all stretch north to south (which, again, reminds me of western Oregon, although much drier). From west to east you have the coast, which is very Mediterranean, the Lebanon mountains, the Bekaa valley and the Anti-Lebanon mountains. The mountains are fairly rugged, and in past times have kept the coastal civilizations semi-isolated from the interior. The highest point in Lebanon is Qurnat as Sawda in the Lebanon mountains at 3088m (just over 10,000 feet). The Anti-Lebanon mountains are almost as high and form the border with Syria. The Bekaa valley is where much of the agriculture is, and where the bulk of the Syrian troops have been since the Taif accords were signed.

The area of Lebanon has a history dating back to ancient Phoenicia. You might have read some of that ancient people while you were skimming the Bible. David and Goliath and all that. The people there preceded the Israelites coming out of Egypt, and are thought by some historians to go back as far as 10,000 BC. They had excellent naval navigational skills and basically ruled the Mediterranean. They are also thought to have created the first alphabet.

Next we get into a long period of conquest by other civilizations. First the Assyrians, then Babylonians, Persians, and finally Alexander the Great came through. It is at this point that we see a decline in the Phoenician civilization as they were gradually Hellenized. In 64BC Pompey conquered Phoenicia and it became part of the Roman province of Syria. Because of all this conquering there are many great ancient temples, buildings and other sites dating back to the Greek and Roman periods. Lots of large stone edifices with large columns and stuff.

After the breakup of the Roman empire, Lebanon became part of the Byzantine empire and Christianity became prevalent, until the Muslims came in from the south, and were well received by the inhabitants, who didn't receive the Christianity of the Byzantines well. From this point Lebanon was a part of various Muslim dominated empires, but with Christians, Jews and Muslims living along side one another, often not in peace.
The last of these was the Ottoman empire, which captured the region in about 1515 and held it until WWI. It was in this time that the present form of Lebanon took its shape and was awarded an emerate by the Ottomans to Ahmad Maan about 100 years later.

I'll copy the next part from a history website as it's relevant, and says it better than I can:

When Ahmad Maan died, power passed to the Shihab family, who reigned until 1840, when internal power struggles brought the age of emirs to an end.
In 1842, the Ottomans divided Mount Lebanon into two administrative regions, one Druze and the other Maronite. That they immediately set to squabbling was anticipated and encouraged by the Ottomans, who practiced a 'divide and rule' policy. By 1845, there was open war, not only between Druze and Maronite, but also between peasants and their supposed feudal leaders.
The Ottomans, under pressure from Europe, created a single Lebanese administrative unit under an Ottoman Christian governor and the feudal system was abolished. The system worked, producing stability and economic prosperity until WWI, when Lebanon came under Turkish military rule and suffered a serious famine. Following the Allied victory in 1918, Lebanon came under French rule.

After WWII the Lebanese became independent from France, and for a time became, once again, a major trading center in the region. The problem was that the French had set up the government so that the Maronite Christians held power, and in a country where half the population is Muslim and there were lots of displaced Palestinians due to the conflicts in Israel, you are just asking for trouble. Leftist Muslims wanted power, Right wing Christians didn't want to give it up, and no-one really wanted the Palestinians there. In 1975 Civil war broke out.
The next 20 or so years involved a lot of civil war and high profile hostage taking. On the one hand you had the Muslims and Christians fighting over the government, and Syria coming in (at the Lebanese president's invitation). At the same time you have the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) making occasional attacks into Israel, so that Israel invaded a few times in order to eliminate the Palestinians living in Lebanon. After the second of these Israeli invasions, in 1982, the UN sent a peacekeeping force to prevent more bloodshed on either front.
This is where one of those watershed moments in the history of US involvement in the Middle east comes into play. That anyone in this scenario would drive a truck with explosives, on a suicide mission, into a building with peacekeepers, was probably quite a shock to Americans. So the bombing of the US compound in 1983, killing 241 US marines and 60 French soldiers was our first high profile exposure to what has become a regular fixture in our coverage of events in the Middle east.
Skipping some here. By the turn of the decade, Israel had retreated most of the way (leaving a DMZ at the border), and Syria had established control over most of the country.
Except for another Israeli invasion in the mid nineties, where they bombed several villages and killed many Palestinians, as well as thousands of Lebanese, the Syrians have had a measure of control over the government, due to the Taif agreements in the early nineties, and internal strife has been muted. However, the Lebanese have expressed their desire that now that things are relatively peaceful, that the Syrians pick up and go, which they have not. Last year the United Nations passed Resolution 1559 calling for Syria to withdraw from Lebanon and end all influence in Lebanese affairs.
So far Syria has not complied with the resolution, but with Iraqi elections and the assassination of Hariri, the Lebanese people have decided to take a more aggressive approach, and the US has put more political pressure on the Syrians to oblige. Syria still maintains that it is there because the Lebanese government asked it to be (although that was a long time ago) and because the government has yet to implement all of the constitutional reforms of the Taif accord. Now you all can tell me if you think Syria has any place advising another country on constitutional reforms.

Really, with all the joint - Christian and Muslim - protests going on I don't find it hard to believe that the Christians and Muslims can get along in a truly democratic situation. The government and power structures that the French left behind (another great job by the CESM) created a situation where the Christians had the power and the Muslims didn't. If the government is a fair democracy I see both groups getting along for the most part. They've each lived in the region of Lebanon for centuries, and the original civil war was, as is usually the case, more nuanced than just "Christians vs. Muslims."

The government of Lebanon, as provided by a loose constitution created in 1923 (amended in 1992, Taif accords), is a democracy, with three branches. The Judicial branch in this system is pretty weak, as it cannot provide for not judicial review of legislative acts, but can hear accusations against the president and Prime Minister. The Legislature is a single body with 128 seats, elected by popular vote on the basis of proportional representation, but divided equally among Christians and Muslims (there are 64 of each in the body). They serve 4 year terms.
The Legislature elects the President (currently Emile Lahud), who serves a 6 year term, and the president appoints the PM and the deputy PM.
Interestingly, by agreement, the president is a Maronite Christian, the PM is a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of the legislature is a Shiite. I don't know if this will change, because as of last week, PM Omar Karami stepped down and declared the government dissolved. One hopes that the Lebanese will have some free and fair elections soon and not change the system, as it was generally thought that most elected officials were in Syria's back pocket.


Things are looking up, as the protests and demonstrations against the pro-Syrian government have been peaceful, with Christians and Muslims marching side by side in some cases. There have even been some reverberations in Syria. Also note the interview with Syrian opposition leader Farid Ghadry I noted below.
President Lahoud is giving the legislature 48 hours to pick a new Prime Minister, but some are calling for a "neutral" transition government ahead of elections due by the end of May.
This whole event has caused two bickering siblings to put aside differences:

In a rare display of unity, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for the immediate withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and the holding of free and fair elections there.

Here is a nice timeline of events in the Daily Star. Hat tip to PublisPundit.

The power of words

And a little strength to back it up.
Farid Ghadry, the president of the Reform Party of Syria (a US based opposition party, pro-democracy) was interviewed by the National Review.
When asked if the Syrian people will be encouraged by the Lebanese uprising, he replies:

In my talks with the Syrians inside Syria, they are resisting demonstrating because as one human-rights activist told me: "President Bush has yet to call for freedom for the Syrian people." The Syrians are afraid to march without the international cover and the encouraging words of our president. We believe that the moment Syria leaves Lebanon, the president will hammer a strategy for Syrians to gain their freedom and democracy away from a culture of violence that is besieging Iraqis, Lebanese, and now Israelis.

Wow. One wonders if the Bush administration knew how well their strategy would be in promoting democracy in the entire region by forcing it in only one of them. Can this really work? And can it be applied to Iran? I'm betting the answer is yes.

Totten in Puerto Rico

Michael Totten has pictures and descriptions of our only remaining non-state territory from his trip. Great stuff. No history and politics, just culture and touristy descriptions.

The Origin

It all started here.

The journey actually began with a PowerPoint presentation at the Pentagon in 2002.
It was at a routine meeting of a Pentagon advisory board that Rand analyst Laurent Murawiec (whose public resume bizarrely includes a fling with LaRouche and just about nothing else) laid out a philosophy based on the old addage "When it rains on the Tigris, Egyptians open their umbrellas."

There are probably infinite variations of that phrase. Creating democracies in Iraq and Egypt was the crux of the presentation.

One person, however, borrowed the Baghdad/Cairo concept and made it the centerpiece of his Middle East strategy. He did so against the very strong urgings of every human being who has studied the history of the Middle East or been involved in Middle East diplomacy. "This is a different place with different rules...", we told him. "You're being naive. They're going to chew us up and spit us out...". We begged him to listen. He didn't. And now we're very close to the point where historians will be naming George Bush as the founding father of democracy in the Middle East.

This is what impresses me the most about Bush. I disagree with him on many levels. He's not charismatic in the traditional sense. But vision is the thing that drives leadership. No president has had the long term vision that Bush has on any issue for decades.
Except Reagan.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

Beirut fallen

There is a big protest going on in Beirut, Lebanon. The Caveman in Beirut estimates that there are over 200,000 people involved. And then there's this:

Prime Minister Omar Karami just did it - he resigned right in front of the Parliament after a lengthy speech introduction in which he complained of personal attacks in the local Lebanese media. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri objected, saying that proper procedure required that Karami notify him first, but it looks like what's done is done.

The government has fallen. And now the fun begins.

AP story of the resignation here.

Uh oh.

This is disturbing.

Since the Jan. 30 elections, Shiite militants have stepped up their campaign to exact street justice from men who were part of the regime that oppressed and massacred members of their sect for decades. While Shiite politicians turn a blind eye, assassins are working their way through a hit list of Saddam's former security and intelligence personnel, according to Iraqi authorities, Sunni politicians and interviews with the families of those who've been targeted.

Former Baathists have responded in kind, this month killing several Shiites allied with major political factions. Cases under investigation include the killings of two Shiite militiamen outside a popular restaurant in Baghdad a week ago and the deaths of three Shiite militiamen who were in police custody.

Sistani has called for restraint, so I don't think, from the report, that this little campaign has the backing of the Shi-ite majority. But it could stir up a hornet's nest regardless.

"The head of Iraqi intelligence accused us of these assassinations and I told him, `If you have proof against us, give me the intelligence.' I offered to form a committee and hand over any guilty men," al Ameri said. "We don't want revenge from anyone. We've been oppressed and we shouldn't oppress others."

The guerrilla-turned-politician conceded that some Shiites were attacking former Baathists of their own accord. If al Sistani hadn't asked militiamen to use the courts - not guns - for revenge, he said, the situation would be much worse.

Bush the Extremist

I was perusing Kevin Drum's site the other day and I came across this post called Conservatism vs. Extremism. In it he starts out with a discussion on a article in the Prospect arguing that conservatives are more concerned with conservative philosophy, while liberals are more concerned with strategy (he uses "obsessed" instead of concerned).
About half way through he changes the subject slightly and says this:

For now, though, let me just say that I think both of these pieces gloss over an important point: extremism. I'd say that extremist liberals are every bit as ideologically driven as extremist conservatives and that moderate conservatives are every bit as interested in problem solving as moderate liberals.

Which I agree with him on. I'll take it a step further and say that I don't think that you can really say with any degree of accuracy what moderate liberals and conservatives believe (unless you are looking solely at elected officials) because peoples views are never confined to those stereotypes. I'm liberal on some issues, conservative on others. Am I a moderate? On some issues yes, and on some issues a resounding no.
After that he brings out this little diddy:

Back here on planet Earth, though, we happen to be at a point in history when the Republican party has been taken over by extremists like Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist, and George Bush. If the Democratic party were headed up by, say, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, and Barbara Ehrenreich, you'd have all the liberal philosophy you could stomach. But it isn't. Those three have their own spheres of influence, certainly, but the actual Democratic party is run by folks like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Howard Dean, and Bill Clinton, none of whom are agitating to take over the means of production or disband the military-industrial complex.

Um.... Excuse me. Bush is an extremist? I'd pair Bush up with Clinton or Dean any day. If Kevin thinks that Bush represents the extreme right in American politics then he is further left than I thought he was. Noticeably, when your philosophy is far to the right or left of the spectrum, your idea of where the middle is can get kind of distorted.
The way I look at it, Bush champions issues like prescription drug support, liberalized immigration, large education programs that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and I think I'm looking at the most effective liberal (modern definition) in recent memory. When I think what he's done internationally, I think I'm looking at the most effective liberal (classical definition) in recent memory.
Sure, he's conservative in many areas too, such as the social arena, and the generally conservative issue of Social Security reform (which was actually taken up in a similar way, but then dropped, by Clinton). So Bush is an extremist why?
Perhaps Kevin is referring to the reputation the current administration has, which has been built up by the left, of not conceding evidence that might refute his philosophy. "It's extremism that cares nothing for empirical evidence, not conservatism." OK, but in that case I wouldn't call Bush an extremist, I'd call him an American Politician.

Schiavo revisited

A judge made a decision extending the stay that's keeping Terri Schiavo alive for the moment. I've been concerned about this, as I think her husband is a slime for wanting this.
But the decision by the judge raises another flag that's a little disturbing. His reasoning for the extension of the stay is thus:

A judge Wednesday extended a stay keeping brain-damaged Terri Schiavo's feeding tube in place, saying he needed time to decide whether her husband, who wants to let her die, is fit to be her guardian.

Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer extended until Friday an emergency stay that was to expire Wednesday afternoon. He said he also needs more time to determine whether Terri Schiavo needs more medical tests to determine if she has greater mental capabilities than previously thought.

Ok, I'm with the second reason, but the first one gives me pause. There's a pretty sacred tradition in this country that Spouses have the right to make the decisions for their respective others, if they can't make it for themselves. It's as if they are one in this decision making ability. At what point can a judge just say that a husband is not "fit" to be a guardian for his wife? Is there precedent here? I think that Michael Schiavo is a selfish bastard, but he is her husband. I would hate for a court to interfere with a decision I made on behalf of my wife just because folks don't like it.

Girls and Boys equal

Washington Post has a story about a study done that indicates that boys and girls have it about the same in the school years. Looking at individual areas, sometimes boys have the advantage, sometimes girls do, but as those things cancel each other out, both sexes fare pretty equally.

Although boys have the advantage in some areas and girls score better in others, they are doing about the same in a broad array of measures assessing essential dimensions of life, such as health, safety, economics and education, the researchers found.

However...

"If you're on one side or the other of the gender-wars debate, you could pick a specific indicator to buttress your case," said Kenneth C. Land, a professor of demographic studies and sociology at Duke University, senior author of the study.

Which, of course, happens.

"This reminds me of that saying, 'lies, damn lies and statistics," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "There's no question that boys and girls have disadvantages in different ways, but the variables they have chosen seem designed to show girls are doing better."

Oh, you mean like drug use, suicide, graduation rates, test scores? Variables like that? What do they want? I would think that any study proving the equality of the sexes would be what NOW people want! But apparenly a thriving female class might be dangerous to the cause. You can't protest high graduation rates and low drug use.

Iranian Blogger Day

The call has come over the wire, to dedicate today, Tuesday, Feb 22nd, to a couple of Iranian bloggers known as Mojtaba and Arash. This blog recognizes that they are probably not the only bloggers in Iran that need our moral support and encouragement.
Jeff Jarvis posts:

I first discovered the Iranian blog culture when its Johnny Appleseed, Hossein Derakhshan, reported on the arrest of blogger Sina Motallebi. We blogged about that and brought international attention to the story and Sina credits that with helping to get him out of jail and out of the country.

These people are in jail for doing exactly what we have the privilege of doing: Speaking. We must stand with them.

Totten has more too. And here is the website of the Commitee to Protect Bloggers.

Nepal

Winds of Change has a great post today on many things going on in South Asia, but most notably Nepal. For those of you not in the know, the King of Nepal has seized executive power and declared a state of emergency so that he could clamp down a bit on his government. India has been pressuring Nepal to slowly reform into a democracy, but this is a step in the other direction.
India has a great opportunity to reverse the flow here, but China is keeping quiet. Apparently the king closed down the Dalai Lama's office in Nepal, and the Chinese aren't crying about that.
Anyway, there's much more.

Does it include all countries?

One of the things that I learned, even about myself, when sitting before a marriage counselor in the early days of my marriage was that men typically say things, like "I'm sorry," before what they feel actually, emotionally, backs up what they just said.
I kind of understood that theory when it was explained to me, but later in my life I have actually experienced what it is like. I have to say I'm sorry whether I feel it or not. Later I realize what an idiot I've been, but I won't as long as the argument is continuing (and if I don't say I'm sorry for something the argument will continue). The same goes for I love you, and a whole host of other sentiments. For guys emotion is very much a decision to make, not an something you feel at that moment.
I wonder how that plays in politics sometimes. I have noticed that, despite the past actions of a politician, that when he starts talking about a particular philosophy in public, that his actions kind of follow that trend, whether that's where they started or not.
Take Clinton for instance. I was often amazed by how moderate he sounded in his speeches, and how much some of his rhetoric on programs almost sounded conservative. Later he would prove to move his administration pretty far to the right compared to the early days of his administration.
Bush has been like that too. You can't say that he has not made great strides in following an agenda that was set in his campaign speeches. One area in particular has struck me lately as a great example of this phenomena.
Back in the 1980s, Reagan had this habit (as did Carter and others) of supporting bad regimes in the fight against the USSR. Afghanistan is one example. But something happened in the 2nd term that kind of shifted that policy. Reagan began to talk freedom and democracy. His speeches began to look something similar to what Bush has been repeating over the last 3 years. The problem was that Reagan's track record to that point had not been great. But that changed. Say whatever you will about his methods, he sent the Philippines down that road by forcing the Marcos dictatorship out. Reagan was trying to support Democratic revolutions in central and south America (somewhat badly when that revolution was militant and brutal itself). The point is though that Reagan became more of a champion of democracy because of his own rhetoric.
Now GW is on that path. Lest anyone think that the only reason we invaded Iraq instead of, say, Togo, is that Iraq has lots of oil, see events in recent days as a partial refute.
There were some making the point that Togo was regressing, because the military took over and appointed the son of the just deceased leader as President. Calls came out for Bush to do something, or say something, because if he didn't it would prove the critics right.
Well, this weekend the Bush administration has announced that it will cut off military assistance to the country and endorse the sanctions imposed on it from the regional ECOWAS. How's that for an answer.
The Bush administration has reacted favorably to the Ukrainian elections and the Georgian elections. In addition, he finally has talked tough to Putin, showing a hardening of his attitude toward the crumbling democracy in Russia.

We must always remind Russia, however, that our alliance stands for a free press, a vital opposition, the sharing of power and the rule of law - and the United States and all European countries should place democratic reform at the heart of their dialogue with Russia.

In doing this, Mr. Bush has refuted my rather snarky comment regarding his past statements where Mr. Putin is concerned. Good show, Mr. President. (Hat tip to Oxblog)
I must say that based on my little story at the start of this post, that I expect that Bush will indeed be a champion of democracy during his second term.

Someone gets it

When you talk about cutting the budget (any political budget) one always hears the moans and groans about how all these vital programs will get cut, and sick old ladies will get thrown out onto the street, your son won't be able to run track because that's bee cut, and so forth.
When I read this it was a real breath of fresh air.

To hear the bureaus tell it, police would no longer have an officer assigned to public schools, grime would collect on downtown streets, fire stations would close, street lights would go dark and more 9-1-1- callers would be put on hold if the City Council went through with its plan to find major cuts in the city's spending.

Yet City Council members don't believe the fiscal sky is falling -- at least not to the degree suggested in the bureaus' budget proposals filed last week and Monday. Yes, City Council members have said they want to cut $8 million, or about 3 percent, from services in the general fund budget in 2005-06. Yes, Potter has said he's serious about rethinking the role of city government, and shrinking it if necessary.

But so far, commissioners aren't convinced bureau leaders have looked under every sofa cushion and behind every manager's office door for savings.

Commissioner Randy Leonard said the suggested trims he's seen were offered "to scare the citizenry." Commissioner Sam Adams said he's seen too many "Washington Monument" cuts -- slashes to services the City Council can't possibly make without huge public outcry.

"I'm seeing too many proposals that call for cutting programs rather than cutting management," he said. "That's not acceptable."

Finally someone gets it.

School closures in Portland

The student body population in the Portland School district has been steadily dropping over the last decade or so, as families with school age children head for the burbs. Some individual school populations are causing those schools to reach the point where the money coming in won't support certain activities or services, or much needed maintenance.
So the superintendent Vicki Phillips makes a plan to close some schools. This, of course, makes some people angry.

Superintendent Vicki Phillips on Monday unveiled a sweeping proposal to close four small elementary schools and two small middle schools in the next 18 months while expanding Ockley Green Middle School and Jefferson High School. Phillips said improving the district's academic performance was her primary motivation, though the district's budget picture also is a factor.

Academic performance was her primary motivation. Yeah, sure, whatever.
The reason that people are really upset is that Phillips didn't really think this through, and the parents of the schools say that they had no input into this process.
But beyond that, I think that tough decisions need to be made, and Phillips has at least moving in SOME direction. There are some interesting ideas on the table, like creating k-6 and 7-12 (or k-8 and 9-12) schools, eliminating the middle school altogether.
Here's a suggestion though. While you are making tough choices with students because you are having budget problems, PSD is running out of room in it's central office complex. That's right: the student population is decreasing, but the bureaucracy is increasing. And you wonder why there is a budget problem?

Carter worst President ever?

Powerline makes their case.

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.