August 20, 2003, NYT
No Time to Lose in Iraq
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
"Everyone has advice now for the U.S.: bring in U.N. peacekeepers, bring in the French. They're all wrong. There are only two things we need: more Americans out back and more Iraqis out front."
August 31, 2003, NYT
Policy Lobotomy NeededBy THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
"Our Iraq strategy needs an emergency policy lobotomy. President Bush needs to shift to a more U.N.-friendly approach, with more emphasis on the Iraqi Army (the only force that can effectively protect religious sites in Iraq and separate the parties), and with more input from Secretary of State Colin Powell and less from the "we know everything and everyone else is stupid" civilian team running the Pentagon.
There is no question that we would benefit from a new U.N. mandate that puts U.S. forces in Iraq under a stronger U.N. umbrella."
I don't even know what this whole "lobotomy" metaphor means...
On Tuesday, the President will participate in the presentation of the first game football of the 2003 NFL season. The commissioner of the NFL and representatives of the Washington Redskins and the New York Jets will be on hand in the Oval Office to present him with the traditional game ball of the first game.
..
Q Claire, how old is this tradition of the first game football of the 2003 NFL season?
MS. BUCHAN: I don't know. I think it's been done before.
Every time I mention Charles Murray I get the standard flow of people who think Murray is just peachy. And, every time I have to trot out a bunch of critiques.
Arnold Schawrzenegger is on the board of U.S. English. The co-founder of the group is John Tanton, who once circled this Murrayesque memo to his fellow travelers:
"In this society, will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile," Tanton wrote in his 1988 memo. "Can homo contraceptives compete with horno progenitivo if our borders aren’t controlled. . . .Perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down. As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion."
That was enough to get Walter Cronkite and Linda Chavez to resign. Not Arnold.
About three months ago U.S. English hired James Lubinskas, an assistant editor of American Renaissance, white supremacist magazine. This apparently caused David Horowitz to leave the board, (despite that fact that Lubinskas seems to have been frequently published in Front Page Magazine). But, not Arnold.
Ah, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop this weekend. None of the other Friday afternoon surprises were that big of a deal:
LOS ANGELES --
Federal regulators filed motions to dismiss claims that utilities illegally manipulated the power market to profit during California's power crisis, and a federal court judge dismissed seven class-action lawsuits that accused Duke Energy and other defendants of manipulating energy prices.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission attorneys filed motions Friday to dismiss claims against more than a dozen public and private companies in an investigation into manipulation of the state's power market. They included city-owned utilities in Los Angeles, Anaheim, Pasadena, and Riverside.
How many Republicans have condemned the American Enterprise Institute, home to Charles Murray, purveyor of racist pseudo-science and propganda. How many have condemned the Hoover Institute and the National Review for housing trash-spewing bigot Dinesh D'Souza?
In fact, the Hoover Institute is now advising Arnold Schwarzenegger. From this, can we conclude that he supports D'Souza's view that slavery was not actually a racist institution?
What can we conclude about Lynne Cheney, David Frum, and Michael Ledeen? All current or former Fellows of the AEI, where the racist Charles Murray is supported and coddled? Why have they not denounced this man?
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
-Whistle-Ass
David Cullen's been pointing out that the rape/attempted rape statistics at the Air Force Academy are lower than for the general college population. He's right, despite the Roiphean attempts to claim otherwise.
I think it is a fair media criticism. My guess is the failure of the media to properly contextualize these statistics is due to a) hyping a big story and b) the memories of the wingnut howls when anyone dares point out the Very High incidences of college rape.
On the other hand, though, the Air Force Academy isn't just any institution. It isn't just any elite institution. It's a place where the best and brightest are trained for military careers, and where a high degree of discipline is thought to exist. It's fair for people to be shocked about these "high" numbers even if the numbers are "less high" than one finds elsewhere.
In addition, the scandalous part of this scandal was the failure of the school's administration to deal with complaints when they were made, and to actually discipline the victims.
Is the Air Force Academy being held to a higher standard? Well, perhaps, but I'm not sure that's entirely unreasonable. Should the media provide better context? Yes, as usual.
Jesse Taylor is a highly intelligent graduate of a top liberal arts college. His writings on his weblog, Pandagon, over the past couple of years clearly demonstrate a broad and nuanced understanding of history, current events, and contemporary politics, as well as an ability to smash his debating opponents into pulp. Your newspaper/think tank/policy research firm/lobbying company/political party would be insane not to take advantage of this opportunity to hire him.
The Poor Man finds some disturbing things about the Republican party. Shocking stuff.
On a more serious note, when did Republicans and conservatarians start "playing the race card." Odd that the only bigotry they ever seem to find is bigotry against overprivileged white guys. Odd, that.
Anyway, as a wise man once said "Sure, you can criticize ____ without being anti-_____. But when you criticize _____ for things you ignore in others, it raises certain doubts."
CNN keeps referring to it, in the context of countries that might send troops to Iraq, as a Muslim country. Yes, Turkey has a lot of Muslims, as the US has a lot of Christians. Turkey is not a Muslim country anymore than the US is a Christian country - in some ways less.
And, of course, nowhere in the SCLM is it mentioned that a good number of the “activists” — CNN’s term of art — who’ve gathered to prostrate themselves are the kind of folks who believe that things went bad wrong after Appomattox. Probably ought to have mentioned that in all the soft-focus reverie regarding the 40th anniversary of Martin’s Big Speech. However, a couple hundred thousand antiwar marchers get tagged with a few dozen unreconstructed Stalinist gobshites.
Perhaps the only hope lies in the story going around town that President Bush has told the Pentagon he wants "no more American dead" after next March. By then, the electoral campaign will be well under way, and perhaps zealotry will give way to reality--or at least to a change in administration.
Indicted ex-Enron Treasurer Ben Glisan Jr. is negotiating a plea bargain and cooperation agreement with federal prosecutors.
Glisan, one of the highest ranking Enron officials before he was fired for his involvement in a side-deal, is charged with two dozen counts of money laundering, fraud and conspiracy. His charges are part of a 109-count indictment against Glisan, former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and former Enron executive Dan Boyle.
"When Glisan flips, this could be a bloodbath," said one lawyer familiar with the Enron investigation. Glisan was installed as Enron treasurer in 2000 and was known as a protege of both Fastow and ex-CEO Jeff Skilling.
Glisan's Washington, D.C.-based attorneys, Henry Schuelke and William Shields, met behind closed doors Tuesday with three Enron Task Force prosecutors and U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt. Such a meeting, especially without counsel for co-defendants, is often a prelude to a cooperation agreement. The judge has made public the broad topics of two other secret conferences in this case, but his public notes on the Glisan meeting did not say why they met.
Back when Monica Madness was in full swing, our prudish press and right wing scolds kept wondering out loud how they would explain to their children what a blow job was, now that Bill Clinton made Ken Starr write his little book of pornography they kept putting on the front pages.
I'm of two minds on this, frankly. Sure, the "we broke it we bought it" logic seems sound, but that only makes sense if our continued presence is actually good for "the Iraqi people." I put that in quotes because despite the platitudes and mixed metaphors rolling off of Tom Friedman's tongue, presumably our continued presence may be good for some Iraqis and less good for others and there is no single metric one can use to determine this.
But, anyway, I tend to suspect our continued presence won't actually be good for "the Iraqi people." Whistle-Ass and the crew don't have a clue. So, I could spend my time doing what the left wing and well-meaning right wing hawks keep telling me to do, and uselessly try to lobby to "make things better," while knowing full well Wolfowitz of Arabia isn't going to do anything that might actually make things better. Or, I can simply say it's time to get the hell out. Note, getting out really implies that the UN would move in and take over one way or another so it isn't about letting chaos take over.
I say we go.
Just one more thought - the other disturbing argument for why we need to stay and prove we can do it right is the old chestnut about our national pride, or our world stature, or our moral integrity, or whatever. Look, we already threw that shit out the window. No need to make it worse.
DALLAS (Reuters) - An out-of-court settlement has been reached in the case of a North Texas man who woke up from bladder surgery only to find that doctors had amputated his penis without permission, lawyers said on Thursday.
Terms of the out-of-court settlement were not disclosed but Hurshell Ralls, 67, had been seeking over $5 million in a civil suit he filed in Wichita Falls, Texas, against the two doctors who removed his penis. They did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement.
The hospital where the surgery was performed was also named in the suit.
Ralls' attorney Steve Briley said that his client was having surgery in 1999 to remove a cancerous bladder, which would likely include the removal of his prostate gland.
He contends that doctors removed Ralls' penis after they mistakenly thought the cancer had spread to the male sex organ. He charged the doctors -- John S. Dryden and Farid Khoury -- with not seeking consent for the penis amputation and negligence.
I don't care how many orgies Arnold participated in during the 70s. But, the media keeps telling me that what he did when he was 29 years old shouldn't be relevant. I look forward to that standard being applied to Democrats.
OKay, I'm really annoyed. I wasted about half an hour skimming the Worst Book Ever Written, Tom Friedman's the Lexus and the Olive Tree, trying to track down a particularly striking quote which I think provides a perfect representation of the man's twisted psyche. I failed. It's in there somewhere, but the brain was going to explode if I had to read any more of those words.
But, anyway, somewhere in that pile of poop Friedman says something along the lines of "When the economies of Mexico, Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand collapsed I was thankful. Maybe they'll learn their lesson." Now, that wasn't the exact quote. I can't find the exact quote. But it's in there, it's something like that.
Of course, when economies collapse like that people go hungry, child prostitution and other kinds of exploitation thrive and, frankly, people die. Friedman was thrilled because it confirmed something about his muddled confused inconsistent world-view.
"I believe globalization did us all a favor by melting down the economies of Thailand, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Brazil in the 1990s, because it laid bare a lot of rotten practices and institutions in countries that had prematurely globalized."
Just a note to journalists out there. I know you were all afflicted with Clinton madness, what with him getting blowjobs and all. And, you didn't quite get your rocks off over that because he survived your little jihad, making you all look like idiots. And, hey, okay, you couldn't resist going after Gore after that. I mean, someone had to pay for your own mistakes after all.
But, now, it's time to get past all that. Maybe now you can wake up and notice how the Freeper Bone is connected to the... Drudge Bone. The Drudge Bone is connected to the.. Kaus Bone. The Kaus Bone is connected to the... Kurtz Bone... The Kurtz Bone is connected to the... Rush Bone... The Rush Bone is connected to the... Rove Bone... The Rove Bone is connected to the... Fox News Bone.
You have a choice. Each time they manufacture "outrage" simply by ringing Drudge's little red light, pulling a quote or event out of context (or simply making it up), and then spewing it out of 400 right wing media outlets simultaneously you can either be lazy and parrot them or you can investigate and trace the story yourselves.
We've been making well-publicized requests for additional soldiers from other countries while simultaneously claiming that we don't actually need more soldiers in Iraq.
Just had a lovely dinner with one of my guest bloggers lambert strether. Two odd things - we'd actually met before without realizing it. And, we're both substitute gym teachers.
Strange coincidences.
But, more to the point, my invaluable guest bloggers have left me behind and gone out on their own - go check out corrente where leah, lambert, farmer, and tresy will be delighting you with all kinds of blogging goodness.
As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn’t too extensive, but it would be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.
Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let’s pretend he hasn’t been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let’s pretend he didn’t work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.
A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000 !!
PARIS (AFP) - It seems US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) is not the only person in the White House who draws the line at the French sense of humour. His chef, Walter Scheib, also found the Gauls galling after being the target of a gag for French TV.
According to Le Parisien daily, Scheib was approached by a woman pretending to be French President Jacques Chirac's wife Bernadette with a request: Would he consider switching presidential pads to make hamburgers and pizzas for Jacques?
The answer, despite the brouhaha over "Freedom Fries", French wine boycotts and the small issue of working for a man Scheib's current boss has little time for, was "yes", the newspaper said.
But when he found out it was all a set-up for a popular Candid Camera-style programme called "On a Tout Essaye" (We've Tried Everything), Scheib grew furious.
He reportedly contacted the White House, which in turn called Chirac's office to demand that the embarrassing scene be cut from the TV show.
The newspaper said it appeared that the public network France 2 decided to bow to the request and avoid a diplomatic incident, but that the US administration had such a sour taste in its mouth it was asking for a formal apology from French officials.
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