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Saturday, June 01, 2002
posted by gbarto at 3:53 PM:
The Dreaded Purple Master is wary of TiVo, and with good cause.* * *
posted by gbarto at 3:48 PM:
Cool post on the wonders of the water hyacinth over at A Dog's Life.* * *
posted by gbarto at 3:42 PM:
Danger, thinking immediately below. To get back to the linking, click here.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:51 PM:
Natalie Solent (referenced in the post below) also mentions Hannah Arendt and the French versus American Revolutionary paradigms - and why the French is the most common. Here's my stab:Virginia Postrel tells us:
Stasists seek specifics to govern each new situation and keep things under control. Dynamists want to limit universal rule making to broadly applicable and rarely changed principles, within which people can create and test countless combinations. Stastists want their detailed rules to apply to everyone; dynamists prefer competing, nested rule sets. -TFAIE, xvi
The United States is a dynamic society; we have a federal government, defined by the Constitution, that serves the nation in its common purposes; then we have the states, which pursue their individual purposes; these oversee counties that serve their own purposes and cities that serve their own purposes. There are universal rules - federal level, and there are nested rule sets at the state, county, muncipal and individual levels. Federalism may not seem as much in evidence as it once was, but the different levels of government still have their own distinct turfs, eg individual communities can decide whether they want more city services and a city-wide sales tax or fewer services and lower taxes; whether there's money to fix the pothole on your street is determined by whether you vote for the county millage for road repair, not what a bureaucrat in Washington decides.
For France, I have a delightfully awful contrasting anecdote to US federalism. In 1993, when the conservatives won back the Assemblée nationale, I lived in Rennes, home to the powerful Socialist, Edmond Hervé. At the time, the city was getting ready to build a subway system. Within months of the nationwide election, the subway-stops-to-be were filled in and converted to bus stops! But other cities - with conservative legislators - suddenly turned up eligible for the funds to build subways instead of fixing the bus stops. That's how far national politics influences life at the local level in France.
France's centralization goes back a long ways, certainly to Louis XIV (who finally died in 1715) and probably back to Richelieu (under Louis XIII) if not further (I know, all the way back to Clovis, but it's not the same). By the time the French Revolution came along, France was governed from Paris. This provided an advantage to the Revolutionaries: Capturing Paris was as good as capturing the whole country. But this also meant that France never had a chance at following the path of the U.S.
Revolutionaries tend to be stasists. They have a clear idea of what rules they think should govern society and seek to put them in place. After all, who would take the risks involved in overthrowing a government so that somebody else's ideas could be given a try? If conditions enhance their stasism, things can only go downhill.
The French Revolutionaries thought their visions should rule, and they grafted those visions on to the existing power structure. New ideas could be incorporated into the revolution; factions could compromise, but in the end, it was always a question of what one vision would govern France. This meant that the leaders had to get everything right or the whole country was lost, and this led to an ever greater desire for control over the political sphere because the stakes were too high to let one detail slip. In the end, stasism was inevitable. When you're sitting in Paris and a quarter of the European continent shifts every time you move, you lose your taste for letting things run their course. The Revolutionary instinct for micromanagement - to reify the revolutionary's vision - is magnified in a continuous feedback loop: The people are counting on me, this must go right; I must have control to make sure it goes right; I was given control by people who are counting on me, this must go right...
What's incredible is that not every revolution leads inexorably to a first well-meaning, then vicious tyranny (though most do). What can prevent this process from happening? The U.S. affords one answer, but it's not a promising one for those who would replicate our national experiment. Quite simply, the United States was not formed by a revolution, but by a unified rebellion. While the colonies were (relatively) united in not wanting to be ruled by England, they did not have a shared vision of what should come next; or rather, they had 13 visions of what should come next. The American Revolution was not fought by America, was not even fought by 13 unified states. It was fought by a coalition with mutual protection agreements, more like NATO than an actual country. The American Republic was not formed to implement a vision; it was formed because the 13 individual states could not go it alone. Even then, several states had to be convinced to join; divergent interests and mutual mistrust between the industrial north and the agricultural south were sufficiently strong that every effort had to be made to prove to all the states that they were joining an alliance for freedom, not becoming enslaved to a new entity. How do you build a country in those circumstances? By limiting "universal rule making to broadly applicable ... principles" in a structure where "competing, nested rule sets" - i.e. state laws and constitutions can exist with minimal interference from above. Quite simply, the US formed the way it did because there was no unified vision for what revolution should accomplish and no center where power was concentrated (the power center was in London). Lacking a ruling center and ruling institutions, we had to build our own. This was a challenge, but a blessing: Too many revolutions attempt to use existing structures for new aims and since the structures were created to control, the revolutionaries end by enslaving those they sought to liberate. By starting from scratch with competing interests in discrete territories, we were able to create individual institutions specially suited to the aims of our 13 revolutionary peoples. I'm not sure that a revolution could have the salutary effects that ours did absent these conditions (to remind: absence of a discrete power center, absence of strong previously existing institutions and absence of a precise unifying vision of what the revolution should accomplish). Our divisions led to dynamism by default. Just as revolutionary conditions in France led to stasism by default.
The problem with the French Revolution is not one of national character, but of bad circumstance: it happened in one place in a structure that encouraged finding the one best way to create a new world order. The genius of the American Revolution is that it was broadly dispersed and the nature of the distribution of power and the competition among interests made it such that creating the precursor to a dynamic society was not merely innovative; it was a political necessity.
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posted by gbarto at 1:43 PM:
Natalie Solent has a little more on the French internet case and the question of whether unregulated boards are also interdits in England.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:13 AM:
The photographer who took this is braver than I am!
Link to photo here; the photo will come off the page Sunday.
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posted by gbarto at 9:11 AM:
S. Asia's Critical ImbalanceMilitary analysts say India's edge in equipment could push escalation.
Does this mean we have to ship weapons to Musharraf to prevent a nuclear escalation?
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posted by gbarto at 9:09 AM:
Nice Eric Burns column on some of what's up in the news biz.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:05 AM:
Explosives Stolen in CaliforniaATF offers $5,000 reward for info leading to location of dynamite
700 pounds stolen; i.e. enough for two seasons for the gold mining operation from which it was stolen. Police not sure if it's wanted for terrorism.
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posted by gbarto at 9:02 AM:
UN Orders Families to Leave South AsiaThings apparently heating up there. We and England pulled our people yesterday; now the UN's getting out too.
I'm crossing my fingers that we won't get a shooting war, but both sides are taking this too close to the brink. When's Rummy getting there anyway?
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Friday, May 31, 2002
posted by gbarto at 9:33 PM:
Thesis-antithesis-synthesis? Only Den Beste could work Hegel into a discourse on girlwatching.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:19 PM:
Henry Hanks points out that David Gregory's question in French was not grammatically correct, meaning Bush may have been right about the reporter spouting memorized phrases. Perhaps because I was still cringing from the exaggerated American-speaking-French accent, I missed the error but the transcripts apparently show it's there. I'm inclined to give Gregory credit for trying, but take away points for showboating. I'd be willing to give more credit for trying if he had followed up on his boast that he could go on with an obviously off-the-cuff question, however imperfectly formed. There's no need for those fluent in French (or any language) to get snooty with those who aren't all the way there. However, the novice must show an appropriate degree of humility, indicating that he or she is trying to meet his interlocutor halfway - since all the way is not possible. To pose as an international sophisticate because your French is as good as Bush's Spanish doesn't work. (via Instapundit)* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:00 PM:
Another Leader to Join the FrayReport: Jesse Jackson has accepted invitation to visit Mideast
Fill in your own comment.
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posted by gbarto at 8:55 PM:
Wounded Soldier With Wired Jaw Prevented From Boarding Plane With Wire Clippers...to open his jaws should he start choking. Guy takes a bullet for the country but the folks at SFO think a choking risk for a vet with a Purple Heart counts less than making sure their checklists look pretty.
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posted by gbarto at 8:50 PM:
Dennis Miller solves the Middle East problem: Give the Palestinians casinos* * *
posted by gbarto at 8:49 PM:
French news:Le Monde: World-Cup 2002: Blues upset (Senegal beats France 1-0 in the opening round); Kashmir: Westerners called to leave (by Washington and London); Ecology: EU ratifies Kyoto (now that the US has made sure it won't mean anything); Legislative Elections: Socialists take the offensive.
Le Figaro print headlines: How to protect expatriates; France takes a fall (in the World Cup); Portable phones don't pose a risk
Libé: Senegal surprises the Blues in the Opening Round; London and Washington call their people home from India
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posted by gbarto at 7:21 PM:
Returning to the post below, I've gotten a chance to look over the whole decision and while I'm not a French lawyer it looks like this internet forum did indeed pick out the key paragraph. It looks like the hosting company, along with the website, are required to abide by the provisions regarding not publishing libellous information about pere-noel.fr, but only the website operators will pay actual damages - a cool 80,000 euros plus a few fees and fines. The only positive thing I can see in this is that at least the hosting company wasn't actually liable for damages - which would have suggested that the private server business in France was also out the window. That, at least, is not the case. But if you're based in France and don't have people to make sure all the content on your site will pass the legal department, you'd best be basing your site elsewhere because you're liable. One suggestion for the French bloggers (Froglogs, Emmanuelle calls them) - you might want to read this decision to make sure you're not liable for your comment boxes, because a tight reading might indicate you are.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:14 PM:
Natalie Solent hinted that it might be good to have a translation of the ruling found here. The TurkeyBlog is not a legal scholar, so he may have missed a nuance or two or put in the wrong legal term, but here's a rough translation:"Father Christmas Affair": Pere-Noel.fr, Ltd. vs. Mr. F.M. and Miss E.C. and SARL Deviant NetworkLooking at this text, I'm not sure of the exact scope of the ruling; it looks like (as Natalie says) it could be the end of unmoderated discussion forums in France, but that depends. However, this excerpt does not make clear how many ideas were incorportated into the design of the site; site design includes not only the look and the gee-gaws but the philosophy behind the site and its purpose. If the site claimed to give a reliable gauge of what consumers experienced in dealing with companies, it would have (in my view) a responsability of following up while an unregulated board might be excused if it were sufficiently explicit on the point that it's unmoderated. Off to look at the full opinion and see if I'm up for a more thorough analysis.
Excerpts from the judgment:
"(...) that it is certain that the [people in charge] took the initiative of creating an audiovisual communications service intended for exchanging opinions on themes defined in advance and in type, relative to the difficulties consumers met dealing with certain merchants; that they therefore cannot offer in defense a lack of surveillance of the messages that are the object of the present litigation; that they consider themselves to be creators of the concept of the incriminated site and must therefore take responsibility for the infractions that might have been committed on the site that they created.
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posted by gbarto at 6:44 AM:
Jewish Settlements ExpandDozens of new projects have begun on the West Bank.
As Bush would say, this is not helpful. The Bush administration keeps trying to give Arafat enough rope to hang himself; Sharon has to chill enough to stop trying to take a share of that rope for himself. Is it unfair of the world to criticize Sharon for letting Israelis build houses in Palestinian controlled land while not criticizing Arafat for letting Palestinians blow themselves up in Israeli controlled land? Of course. But there are little gestures that could embarrass the equivocating "one the one hand, they killed a girl and her grandma, on the other hand they built a two-bedroom ranch" crowd and make things a lot easier for the Israelis in the long term.
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posted by gbarto at 6:37 AM:
CIA Wants More Palestinian CopsOf course it was this kind of thinking that led Bibi Netanyahu to give the Palestinian Authority automatic weapons - they would need them to fight terrorists. Of course we know they also were used to arm anti-Semites for the purpose of killing Israelis.
Until Arafat and his buddies are gone, the distribution of weapons, power and control to the "Palestinian people" has to be regarded with a strong bit of skepiticism because those who wield such instruments are not the Palestinian people, they're that people's most insidious oppressor (other than the out and out terror groups, maybe).
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posted by gbarto at 6:32 AM:
Not Over-ExposedIn Views: Study: WTC workers not exposed to excessive contaminants
What's ridiculous is that in the guilt-lies-where-the-money-is-easily-collected tort system, trial lawyers would be more likely to pursue WTC officials than those associated with the hijackers (though this does seem like a reasonable approach when one looks at all the litigation problems regarding the Lockerbie incident).
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posted by gbarto at 6:26 AM:
Helicopter Crew Survives CrashChopper was rescuing stranded climbers from Oregon's Mt. Hood
Nice to see this; looking at the helicopter slide down the mountain, it seems hard to believe.
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posted by gbarto at 6:25 AM:
U.S. May Ask Citizens to Leave IndiaState Department considers warning 60,000 Americans in country as tensions with Pakistan continue
I would hope they'd already been warned, though it seems likely that the sentient would have already picked up on some of what's going on.
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Thursday, May 30, 2002
posted by gbarto at 11:01 PM:
Reynold's new Fox column, Teen Sex and Media Hype. A pretty good column that sums up what's been floating around the blogosphere (including right here) on this issue.* * *
posted by gbarto at 10:31 PM:
Our nation's fine athletic departments: An ESPN story (found at Sullivan's site)on a football team that allegedly went too far with a fifteen-year old - she came to the college as a whiz kid and left drunk and drug-addled. The story comments on the incestuous relationship between police departments and athletic departments, but things do get uglier than the story lets on:Universities, desperate to keep rape statistics quiet, have long made a practice of shutting down allegations even with no-name defendants, in some cases going to court to argue that campus police and policy rather than state police and state law should determine how the cases are dealt with. For those who have wondered how the hell the Catholic Church came to the conclusion that it, not the law, should address sex crimes among its own, the universities provide a model.
Years ago, I used to clean a law office and would sometimes pick up the Northwest Court Reporter, a guide to all the most recent rulings in our judicial district. Among the cases I read through was one of a girl who spent months in court to gain the right to pursue rape charges outside the college system before she could even actually file charges. The college - like U of M with free speech - felt perfectly free to use the university's legal team and financial resources - ie tuition and state tax dollars -to challenge the student's standing as an ordinary citizen of the United States with the same rights as any other citizen. Sometimes things go in the other direction, as in the accused rapist at an ultra-PC university who was denied the right to confront his accuser or the evidence against him. He didn't go to jail; he was just expelled from the university for sex crimes with no good way to clear his name (or be properly convicted, we should add).
The judgment I'd make on the whole thing is that universities are learning centers, not court jurisdictions. In university communities, as in any community, the legal system should acknowledge local circumstances in its dealings. But it should not elevate those local circumstances to trump a legal system carefully crafted upon a lot of traditions designed to secure the rights of every citizen. And it should shout down any notion that a local circumstance justifies treating a citizen who is in college as having fewer rights than a citizen who isn't.
* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:01 PM:
French news:Le Monde: Kashmir: on the edge of war; Algeria votes; Kabylie boycotts; FBI not adopted to this era (quote from Bush); Chirac asks for a "coherent majority" - specifically, he wants an Assembly with which he can do business, instead of another cohabitation. And you've got to admire how he's transformed Le Pen's surprise second place finish into a national movement to rally 'round the president.
Le Figaro print headlines: The Day of the Blues is here (World-Cup soccer); Chirac asks for a "clear majority" (Le Monde said a "coherent majority"); A Common Police Force for Europe's Borders (proposed so that countries with lax entry requirements won't allow the EU to be flooded with immigrants, a real possibility since once you're in the EU you can go anywhere; haven't heard whether they've gotten a little better since 9/11 but a few years back the French customs service on the German border seemed to exist primarily to give souvenir passport stamps). And as to our comment a while back on the presence of the US in French media, the Agence France Press updates include the news that Diana Ross is in detox.
Continuing our America-dominates-French-media theme, we'll note that Libé's lead story is the FBI's reorganization:
L'avenir du FBI inquiète la presse américaineThe story mentions criticisms in the New York Times, Village Voice, Chicago Tribune and USA Today, along with links to the relevant newspaper articles (go to the site and click the links if you're curious). Others are welcome to the opinion that there is a tremendous gulf between Europe and the US, but when the newspaper of the French working class socialists features commentaries on the US press, complete with links to the US press on a social issue whose primary ramifications are for the US, I'm inclined to think otherwise.
REVUE DE PRESSE. Si les réformes annoncées par le directeur du Bureau fédéral d'investigations lui ont permis de sauver sa tête, le plus difficile sera de les mettre en œuvre. / The Future of the FBI worries the American press PRESS REVIEW. If the reforms announced by the director of the FBI allow him to save his own head, he'll still face the difficult task of putting them in place.
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posted by gbarto at 7:34 PM:
Volokh notes that the EEOC has been fined a pretty hefty sum for bringing frivolous lawsuits. Some might smile at the news, satisfied the government was finally getting theirs. Too bad we have to pay for it. Do you suppose the Republicans might demonstrate enough common sense to either cut their budget or make them decide what to cut to make up the cost? Nah. If they make the cost come from the EEOC budget, the Democrats will force them to raise the budget by that much and then some so that litigators aren't discouraged from their usual tactics.Here's a thought: Why not allocate half those costs proportionally to those bringing the suits and the other half to their supervisors, who might need to be reminded that using taxpayer funds to file every suit to come down the pike wastes our money even before we have to pay fines for frivolous suits.
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posted by gbarto at 7:23 PM:
Instapundit's a better speller than TurkeyBlog, apparently. Says he finished twenty-eighth at the nationals. The TurkeyBlog, alas, never made it past the regionals, though he did finish 3rd at these - on a word that he knew, but muffed. In other words, if the two people ahead of me had died, I could have gone to state. We'll stop there lest we get Sullivanesque.* * *
posted by gbarto at 5:10 PM:
Lovely Latin sentiments at Dr. Weevil. If we can just keep him working along these lines, I won't have to dig out the dreaded Latin grammars to recover what little I knew.By the way, if you're looking for a good intro to Latin (and who isn't) I loved Teach Yourself Beginner's Latin (by Sharpley), which won't get you reading Ovid, but which does give a good picture of how the language works with a charming story that was sufficiently interesting that, alas, I bumbled through the final few chapters to see how it ended rather than doing a proper review. I'd also recommend the Oxford Latin series by Balme and Morwood (written for British junior high schoolers) though they're a lot more expensive. As for Teach Yourself Latin (as opposed to the beginner's book), don't bother unless you've got a long attention span and a dead serious interest in mastering the language. A lot of the material's there, but you have to master it; it doesn't just gradually sink in from working through the readings and exercises.
Alas, my Latin has never been good enough to sit and read it straight (maybe a little Caesar, but who wants to read that?), but if my experience is any indication, these will give you enough to follow through the Latin with a facing translation to help where the grammatical structures get overly involved.
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posted by gbarto at 4:59 PM:
Natalie Solent with thoughts on the British rails.* * *
posted by gbarto at 4:55 PM:
Gotta love our national press. The Washington Post tells us:Bush, who at one point volunteered that he was feeling the effects of jet lag, had a heavy schedule, with events sometimes lasting until midnight. The result reinforced what Philip H. Gordon, director of the Brookings Institution's Center on the United States and France, called "the perception in Europe that he is unsophisticated."Huzzahs to Phil for his trenchant analysis, but I'm confused about this "blow to Bush's reputation" stuff. I thought he was regarded as a hick, know-nothing cowboy lout before he left. He went down from that? Frankly, the European leaders are playing the same game that second-tier people play all the time in order to puff up their own importance. What they said for local consumption was a great way for the leaders to show their countries hadn't become satellites of the US; at the same time, Chirac's comments on the bond between the US and France and his dismissal of genuine anti-American sentiment show that what we're looking at is not the dissing of Bush or rejection of America. It is natural that the Washington press corps would treat this stuff with undue deference; they're the sort who either studied at Oxford or feel embarrassed that they didn't, and chalk up too much to European sophistication. But they fail to notice that those sophisticated Europeans spend a lot more time reading about the US than the US reads about Europe. This isn't provincialism on the US's part, it's a simple realization in all quarters that Washington, New York and LA are where the action is, politically, economically and culturally. Europe resents this, but recognizes it. America knows it without even thinking about it. The only question is whether someone will ever tell the political correspondents, who heretofore are out of the loop on the fact they're based in the capital of the greatest country in the world.
This blow to Bush's reputation came even as he "effectively addressed many of the concerns that the United States in general, and Bush in particular, felt Europe no longer counted," Gordon said.
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posted by gbarto at 4:41 PM:
FBI Given More LeewayAshcroft says agents may monitor Internet sites, libraries more easily.
The Washington Post thinks it's hot stuff for having this report, but the TurkeyBlog has an even more astonishing revelation. If negotiations underway with Congress are successfully completed, the Justice Department may soon be given access to information in regional FBI bureaus.
Or was that too sarcastic?
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posted by gbarto at 4:37 PM:
Another INS screw-up:NEW YORK — Frustrated police in New York City had to free a suspicious group of illegal Middle Eastern aliens because the Immigration and Naturalization Service "didn't want to be bothered" on the Memorial Day weekend.Wow! It's like they want to see their agency self-destruct. I know government incompetence is pretty rampant across all departments, but it's rare to see an agency under the microscope show so little regard for its mission. Funny how they can find 9/11 widows to deport but can't be bothered for stuff like this. Of course it involved more than looking at the paperwork of someone who bothered to make a good faith effort to file it, and we've all learned that if there's one thing the INS hates, it's getting out from behind their desks to look for blatant illegals when they can meet their deportation quotas by looking for missing commas in the applications of the well-meaning. If only AFSCME weren't so powerful, because these yo-yos shouldn't just be reassigned; they should be sent to work at the local Taco Bell or Arby's where they can't do so much damage.
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posted by gbarto at 4:30 PM:
'Making It Very Clear'Bush dispatches Rumsfeld to India, Pakistan as region hovers near war
Curious that they're sending Rummy and not Powell. This suggests to me that the trip is not about diplomacy but pointing out to both sides that if this gets out of hand they're not only going to muck each other up but earn the hostility of a US that doesn't have time to mess with this.
I'm not sure who I'm more nervous about; India may be a democracy, but it's one where too many regimes have been ended bullets, not ballots, which makes the PM's rallying of the troops a week ago look rather ominous - can he take his country to the brink, then pull back without an impressive sounding diplomatic victory? On the other hand, the Pakistani military dictatorship seems to have only tenuous controls over said military and while I don't think they're behind the attacks in Kashmir, I wouldn't be astonished to learn that some elements within the military were winking at those who were. Of course this is based on what I read, which mostly comes from the same experts who probably would have discounted the likelihood of any of this happening two years ago.
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posted by gbarto at 4:18 PM:
Here's the Fox link for that helicopter crash. Apparently they were rescuing some stranded hikers, of whom 3 are now dead. From the story:Keith Mischke, executive director of a climbing club, said the crevasse into which the climbers fell is about 25 to 30 feet deep. Climbers normally go around it or cross it on one of the snow bridges that naturally form across the gap, he said...I know people have their sports and would be the last to advocate putting government in charge of protecting people from themselves, but the Oregon National Guard lost a chopper today trying to do just that, only after the fact. Which poses a question which I won't - and frankly can't - answer: when it is understood that government will rescue those who are in distress, does the government have the right to restrict the public's access to dangerous areas?
Mount Hood is the site of one of the worst climbing disasters in the United States. In May 1986, nine teen-agers and two teachers from the Oregon Episcopal School in Portland froze to death while retreating from a storm during an annual climb by students and staff.
Here in Michigan we have a similar phenomenon: the ice fisherman. Every year a half dozen choppers or so go out to rescue them because they've gone out - often when ice advisories were in effect - and gotten stranded when the chunk of ice they were on broke free. The ugliest spectacle came a few years back when a man, fresh from rescue, used his 30 seconds of tv not to thank the rescuers but to denounce the Coast Guard for not sending out a big enough chopper to get his truck too.
I'm certain this is not the case here and offer my prayers and sympathy to those involved. But I would also suggest that when it comes to places like Mount Hood climbers and others give due consideration not only to the dangers they will face in communing with nature, but the dangers others might face in rescuing them, should something go wrong.
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posted by gbarto at 4:01 PM:
Getting to the news, a helicopter crash on Mount Hood in Oregon. Just saw the footage on Fox News, something out of a bad movie only real.* * *
posted by gbarto at 4:00 PM:
For those who couldn't guess, the TurkeyBlog's spare time today went to the Ken Layne thriller mentioned in the post below. Very impressive, Fletch for the internet age only funnier. I won't run through clever plot twists because there are too many. If you can still get the book, it's worth every penny and then some. Go here and click the book link for Dot.Con.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:01 AM:
Instapundit wants to know where his Ken Layne book is. The TurkeyBlog finally got his today, but he ordered it April 26, apparently among the ten or twelve to order on the first night. A little patience, Glenn.Incidentally, a very cool book so far, with the same irreverent humor that shows up at Ken's sight. It's like Hemingway only interesting (there's the quote for the back cover of the next one; btw, no need to tell me how wonderful Hemingway is; some like him, I don't).
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Wednesday, May 29, 2002
posted by gbarto at 11:51 PM:
French news:Le Monde: Les lacunes du FBI,
la fin de "Ground Zero"
Des membres d'Al-Qaida mis sur écoute par la police italienne 13 mois avant le 11 septembre faisaient explicitement référence aux plans d'attaque du World Trade Center. Ils parlaient notamment d'aéroports, d'avions et des Etats-Unis, selon des retranscriptions obtenues mardi. Le FBI a annoncé, mercredi, une large réorganisation de ses services. A New York, la dernière poutre d'acier de ce qui fut le World Trade Center a été enlevée, les ouvriers quittent le chantier : la ville se prépare à célébrer, jeudi au matin, sobrement et tristement, la fin de plus de huit mois de travaux sur les lieux du drame du 11 septembre. Lapses at the FBI, the end of Ground Zero Members of Al-Qaeda overheard by Italian police 13 months before 9/11 made explicit reference to plans to attack the WTC. Notably, they spoke of airports, planes and the US, according to transcripts obtained Tuesday. The FBI announced a large reorganization of its services on Wednesday. At New York, the last steel beam of what was the WTC was removed and workers left the site: the city is preparing to celebrate soberly and sadly the end of 8 months of work on the scene of the 9/11 drama Thursday morning.
Le Figaro print headlines: Algeria: election already questioned; Raffarin's indictment of the socialists; France geared up for World Cup
Libé: Algerians turn their backs to the ballot box - opposition parties boycott the elections
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posted by gbarto at 2:13 PM:
Dave Weinberger (whom I found at Postrel's site) points out the existence of Kartoo.com, a search engine that shows the connections between links graphically and reveals what keywords it followed up based on your search so that you can use them for new searches. It's a strange site and I'd probably use google to find a particular datum. But if you're doing general research, the connections it reveals between web sites could give you a better way to follow through data not to mention inspirations for new leads to follow. I typed in brillig and wound up here a few mouse-clicks later (It's jabberwocky in the Jersey dialect of French, I believe - I can pick through it but haven't been to the pages explaining what it is or why it's posted).* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:23 PM:
Dick Morris, God love 'im, has the right read on India-Pakistan: Whether it's Al-Qaeda or something else, the terrorists who are terrorizing the Kashmir area need to be addressed as terrorists and India and Pakistan need to be made to understand that if they go to war, the terrorists win. Morris suggests that Bush make the phone calls to explain to both sides that they need to go after terrorists, not each other.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:20 PM:
And the answer is, probably.Some Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, are wondering whether removing Arafat will push that plan along faster, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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posted by gbarto at 1:16 PM:
Whaddya know? Terry Keenan just told us about Gray Davis' $25K from Oracle a week after they got a big California contract. It's old news around here, of course, but it was nice to see in the mainstream press, complete with a picture of Gray-out at a bill-signing. And it was linked to a story about whether the Guv showed bad judgment in his handling of the power crisis, resulting in all those outrageous energy contracts being signed.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:13 PM:
What do you do if you want a nuclear war but you don't have the bomb? Maj. Gen. Paul Valley, appearing on Fox News, says Al-Quaeda has found the answer and it explains the Pakistani-Indian conflict. Says he, Al-Quaeda operatives have been fomenting unrest in Kashmir and probably even launching some of the attacks. To what end? Well, if Pakistan is fighting with India, it can't police radical elements in its own country or give much help in sealing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. More important, a Pakistan-India conflict creates the kind of diversion that messes up our War on Terror.* * *
posted by gbarto at 11:33 AM:
Libertarians Embark on Spoiler CampaignMay we suggest the campaign slogan: Libertarians: Naderites for 2002
Interestingly, they're challenging Bob Barr. Barr is a pain in the ass on some issues, but if I'm not mistaken, he's also a Second Amendment absolutist with some pretty strong positions against government power and overreach in a number of areas. It looks to me like the Libertarian party, which has about as much to do with libertarianism as Democrats do with democracy and Republicans with republican government, is simply looking for vulnerable people so that in their 2004 mailings they can pretend they're relevant. But until Libertarians renounce their paranoia about all government, as opposed to bad government, and recognize that what's important is not the size of government but whether it is oriented toward maximizing liberty, they will remain just another party that has traded philosophy for inconsistent slogans. The only difference between Libertarians, Democrats and Republicans today is that the Libertarians have a lousy marketing department.
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posted by gbarto at 11:16 AM:
Carnivore Puts Terror Investigation at RiskWednesday, May 29, 2002
WASHINGTON — The FBI destroyed evidence gathered in an investigation of Usama bin Laden's terrorist network, thanks to a glitch in the controversial Carnivore e-mail surveillance system and the actions of a frustrated agent, an internal memo reveals.Up to now, the FBI has insisted that by some magical algorithm it was able to make sure only e-mails covered by a federal warrant were read. We know now - as if we couldn't have guessed - that this isn't the case. The agent who dumped those e-mails may have caught hell from his supervisors, but at least he knew that the law is supposed to err on the side of caution when it comes to using extraordinary government measures that might infringe citizens' Constitutional rights. Wonder if he'll get to tell Ashcroft.
The Denver field office's terrorist electronic surveillance probe of bin Laden's network not only snatched targeted e-mails "but also picked up e-mails on non-covered targets," said a March 2000 memo to agency headquarters in Washington.
"The FBI technical person was apparently so upset that he destroyed all the e-mail take, including the take on" the suspect, the memo said.
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posted by gbarto at 11:11 AM:
More Why Teen Sex doesn't seem so bad. In Farmington Hills, a 16 year-old had a few friends over to play pool. He had to take off for the family picnic so told them to lock up when they were done playing. Instead they threw a party, at the end of which the family liquor cabinet was empty, the house was trashed, the jewels were gone and (you didn't think that was all, did you?) half the house had burned down. Total damages: in excess of $1 million.Incidentally, one of the kids involved had a rap sheet as long as his arm, mostly for larceny. He's also 16 if I read the story right. Kind of makes you wonder what's up with kids. Of course his parents had it figured out: The family that lets its little monster run loose is probably even now telling the authorities they just didn't know what to do with junior. Mean time, the family whose kid trusted his friends but knew that he was supposed to be with his parents lost their house and a helluva lot more. Alcohol or no, kids will be kids or no, this kind of thing is way beyond the pale. It's gratifying that it's front-page news and not a ho-hum local feature, but it shouldn't have happened at all.
Of course, there are worse things. The story above was from the Free Press. Above it in the print publication was this story on the teens who have been killed in Detroit so far this year. The number is twelve; in nine of these, it was gang-related, drive-by or some other form of senseless violence. However, the latest and most horrifying doesn't really belong in this story: a 14 year-old girl was stabbed to death by her mother. Seems that mom was beating the daughter and flew off the handle when she found out the girl had been in touch with child protective services.
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posted by gbarto at 11:06 AM:
Holman Jenkins' notes that one of the big problems with buying stocks these days is the regulatory regime's fetish for equal access to information, which has the effect of driving out good information because there are too many rules for who can release it and to whom. One of the big problems here is that while some small investors may find a means of doing well, they can't process all the information that is out there they way that a research firm with a bunch of analysts and analysts' assistants can. Will the pros win every time? No. Will they have a better chance of sorting through the information that might help them win a disproportionate share of the time? Yes. There is a reason they say not to fight the tape: The big boys are supposed to have friends in high places who can give them the goods on what's moving and why. So not fighting the tape wasn't simply a matter of not going the opposite direction of a herd of stampeding cattle - it was based in part on the prudent assumption that if people with better information than you were going a certain direction, you might just want to give it a look. Today, not fighting the tape is reduced to the horrid stampede metaphor, because with the current regulatory regime, you can no longer assume that the big boys might just know what they're doing. They have more people to analyze the same data anyone can get, but they don't have better data which sometimes makes the difference.* * *
posted by gbarto at 10:57 AM:
Holman Jenkins' has a nice write-up in today's WSJ (subscriber-side, sorry) in which he explains who's at fault for all these energy company shenanigans. He says a good place to start is the small investor. Businesses make the things people seem to want. Corporate boards make stocks, preferably that people want. And in the boom '90s, the investing public seemed to want internet allure. Enron, Dynegy and others supplied the internet allure, sending share prices soaring. Then they got miffed that the CEOs couldn't alter reality to make it conform to their misguided judgment.This hit the energy companies especially hard because they make a real but transient and hard-to-see product. When you flip on the light switch, you don't think to yourself, guess I'll get me a couple watts here from the power company. You take for granted that the product is ready when you need it and waiting when you don't. Energy companies are already sort of in the magic business, so internet energy swapping didn't seem such a stretch - even when the energy wasn't there - phony wash trades and the like. Trouble is that while the pure dot-coms were just a bunch of people and computers, ready to go poof into the job and used office supply markets, Enron and Co. had something real underneath that was left horribly exposed and that couldn't just disappear when the market no longer needed the dot-com stuff on top. And now we're ticked that Enron is only worth what Enron was really worth all along. Fine. But did we expect Ken Lay to come on television and tell Ron Insana that Enron was a sell at $90 and he'd feel more comfortable with it at $6? Can you imagine the SEC inquiries if the same CEOs now in the dock for accounting practices had gone on television to say that they couldn't meet estimates without ginning the books so look out below because their share price was comin' down?
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posted by gbarto at 10:56 AM:
Off-blog: Blogger's down so it's a real quick French news summary tonight:Item 1: Russia welcomed to NATO
Item 2: EU regulations are restricting fishing boats and French fisherman are furious
[finally officially posted]
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Tuesday, May 28, 2002
posted by gbarto at 6:43 PM:
Buckley on Hannity and Colmes discusses the Nuremberg trials, about which he has written a historical novel. Comes the question: Is "I was just following orders?" a legitimate defense? It sounded legitimate enough that at Nuremberg the Free world did the only thing it could - it took it off the table. The same debate needs to be had about cultural norms, and indeed we've had it to a degree with respect to Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries where women are little more than property. Culture, like leadership, is an influence whose power cannot be denied, but also cannot be excused. Which is why it was so marvelous to see the Burqas go and the girls go back to school in Afghanistan. Or maybe I'm just a cultural imperialist. Either way, the causes pushed by terrorism today are the Naziism of our era and the civilized world should celebrate when they are rent asunder.* * *
posted by gbarto at 6:29 PM:
For the record: EU Rejects Plan to Change Flag (via Microcontent news)* * *
posted by gbarto at 6:10 PM:
A mountain of trash. A Dog's Life tells of Everest's woes.* * *
posted by gbarto at 5:58 PM:
Watching O'Reilly with Kevin Meaney, a comedian who was locked up for 10 hours for supposedly trying to steal an M16 from the National Guardsman who had detained him for filming near the security area. Hmm. It's illegal to tape near security areas? I thought I'd seen footage on the news. Of course I also think that as long as there are proper assurances that the privacy rights of the searchees aren't compromised, we ought to be able to take all the tape we want in order to assure there's something to show our Congressmen if the searches start getting out of line. After all, we can't count on Dingell getting searched often enough for Congress to notice the impact of the rules they pass or allow to be promulgated on the say-so of their vaguely written bills.* * *
posted by gbarto at 3:32 PM:
FBI Begins Massive TurnaroundAgency to shift from probing crimes to preventing terrorism in U.S.
Justice Department officials, perhaps anticipating congressional criticism of the new measures, pointed out to Fox News that critics of pre-Sept. 11 intelligence and investigative failures have frequently been quick to decry perceived threats to civil liberties.The Justice Department just lost me. For weeks, I've been defending the administration on precisely the grounds that in a free society, sometimes these things will happen. The administration has been saying this too. In particular, Cheney and Rumsfeld have made it clear another attack will probably happen or come close to happening. But here come Jumpin' John Ashcroft and Bob "I'm not Louis Freeh!" Mueller to tell us that if we'll just surrender our civil liberties, they'll take care of us. Screw 'em. They had some pretty useful data in the system when 9/11 hit; they just hadn't put it together. Now I'm not going to criticize them for having the 20th hijacker in custody and still not figuring out what was up. There was a lot of data to sort and the right dots weren't connected, an honest if costly mistake. But I'm not going to get enthusiastic about declaring them demigods with the right to rule for our own good either.
The officials said that those who criticize mistakes made in the past but now balk at steps to prevent recurring problems or attacks in the future either want it both ways, are playing politics, or both.
When government officials say that ACLU fecklessness justifies government excess, it's not the ACLU that's ridiculous anymore.
Update: The TurkeyBlog has just been told Ashcroft probably won't lay awake all night upset because the TurkeyBlog is unhappy. Well, he should!
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posted by gbarto at 3:02 PM:
Bridge Collapse Death Toll Rises to 13Crew says barge pilot appeared fine minutes before crashing into bridge
They say the boat didn't appear to be changing course when it hit, but FNC quotes an engineer as saying the force needed to slow up the boat was incredible. He estimates the hit to the bridge was equivalent to 62 cars hitting the bridge at 100 mph.
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posted by gbarto at 2:56 PM:
Chandra Case Now a Murder ProbeD.C. police chief vows to leave 'no stone unturned' in effort to find 24-year-old intern's killer
Only one year late.
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posted by gbarto at 2:54 PM:
Three Israeli Students KilledPalestinian shot high schoolers in West Bank; troops sweep into Jenin
Another proud victory in the effort to keep the Palestinians martyrs for Arab stupidity and cruelty and insure that nothing so ridiculous as a free self-governing Palestinian people might emerge.
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posted by gbarto at 2:50 PM:
There's an excellent essay on the virtues of libertarianism by Phil Crane and Roger Pilon on today's WSJ editorial page. Unfortunately, it's only available on the pay side. Briefly, Crane and Pilon note the rampant straw man abuse among neocons and old old-style conservatives. At issue is the hokum about September 11 proving the need for bigger government. In fact, we need better government, government that remembers its very libertarian purpose: protecting liberty. Of course even now our Congress will spend weeks hashing out how badly they needed to loot the treasury to buy re-elections for farm-state incumbents, all the while asserting that there just isn't any more money for defense, have to take back the tax cuts, or whatever. What's needed, as Crane and Pilon point out, is for the government to redirect its resources to those tasks the Constitution prescribes rather than those it fails to proscribe. Then the emphasis would return to that very libertarian and Jeffersonian notion that governments are instituted to secure to the people the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, i.e. defense of our borders from invasion, protection of citizens from those who would infringe their rights.* * *
posted by gbarto at 8:21 AM:
Handgun Giveaway Angering Chicago Law EnforcementJohn Birch (not of the society) runs a group called Concealed Carry, Inc. They give one gun a month to someone who has a compelling reason to have one (as determined by their submission to an essay contest about why they need it) and who has completed all the safety and training requirements. Chicago police are furious, as Birch is flouting the cities 20 year-old handgun ban. But one recipient said he'd take his chances with the cops:
"I would rather survive and have to go up against a court case than be buried and not have any chance whatsoever."Having watched the Chicago news more than once, I'm just wondering how the winner of an essay contest compares to a guy in the park with $100 in his pocket in terms of the threat to public safety.
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posted by gbarto at 8:10 AM:
Not so fun:Two Men Killed in Ride Accidents at Six Flags Amusement ParksOne was a worker who went underneath a ride and was hit by a passenger's legs; she sustained injuries, he died. The ride was going 104 mph. In the second instance, a mentally-challenged person unhooked his restraints and tried to get out of the ride. An OSHA investigation has cleared the park for use.
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Monday, May 27, 2002
posted by gbarto at 10:29 PM:
Yesterday, we noted that Chirac and Bush had evoked the closeness of France and the US. Apparently, David Gregory has done some sniggering about the closeness of Europe and the US and the President has rightly told him off. Instapundit had that story earlier. David Gregory was wrong.Those looking at our nightly French news summary might wonder why we bother. Ninety percent of the time, at least two of the three big headlines are the same as here in the US. That's part of the point. MEMRI and Charles Johnson (click Little Green Footballs in the left-hand column; it's all good and I don't have a particular post in mind) have done a great job covering the otherness of the Arab world. While there's some shouting into the wind involved, we're trying to make a point about the sameness of France. We tend not to see a lot of stories about France in the local paper but we make their front pages all the time. The stories are sometimes snide, but usually matter of fact. And usually very much attuned to where France and the US stand with relation to one another. The French may resent us. That's ok. The folks in flyover country sometimes get sick of reading about New York and California too. And nasty things may be said about the weirdos in either place. But New York and California are indisputably part of the US - 9/11 reminded us of this. Likewise and for all their crankiness, the French are indisputably part of the civilization to which we belong, a fellow people with a slightly different idea of how to maximize life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - but the same essential goals. They emphasize dignity and stability; we emphasize opportunity, even with risk. The two viewpoints are in contention and in my view the US viewpoint is winning. But in any case, this is Democrats versus Republicans, not terrorists versus the civilized world. The French aren't calling for a theocracy to please Allah, they just think Paul Wellstone's welfare plan is better than George Bush's.
We in the US tend to get frustrated by the French because we look at their old buildings and forget that for all their history, we are the oldest democracy and need not be bothered by their little criticisms. And of course they get frustrated with us because they look at their old buildings and try but cannot forget that we are the senior democracy. Thus our viewpoints clash, and well they should. But with an understanding that this is a rivalry among brother nations, not a dispute among enemies. Which is why Chirac is honored that his was the first country where a US President went to celebrate Memorial Day abroad, and why Bush told Mr. Gregory to take a flying leap for mistaking an affirmation of unity between brother nations in a time of war for an opportunity to score points with Europe-bashers back home, as though a much more important story wasn't taking place before his very eyes.
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posted by gbarto at 9:46 PM:
More French news: Le Figaro leads with the new Columbian president.Alvaro Uribe, un président à poigne / Alvaro Uribe, a president with an iron fist Tired of 38 years of conflict in which 3500 people a year die, the Columbians have voted for firmness against the guerillas. Partisan of a "democratic authority", in which his opponents see the "democratic authoritarianism" of August Pinochet, Alvaro Uribe takes a hard line against rebels and drug traffickers.
Le Figaro headlines for the print edition: Questions among Beurs (North Africans) disappointed by the left; Colleville: Bush's Memorial Day (le Memorial Day in French); World-Cup: Zidane won't play in the first round.
Finally, Libé leads with the Suicide Bombing, followed by the Bloody Conflicts in Kashmir - 18 dead since Sunday - and the really big news that the Blues will be without Zidane for at least one match.
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posted by gbarto at 9:33 PM:
Joanne Jacobs has... a post on the Palestinians exiled to Italy - not nice people from the sound of it - and further down, two posts on 9/11 and the fate of the victims in the top of the towers. Must reads, all.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:08 PM:
French news: Le Monde leads with Bush and Chirac marking Memorial Day at Normandy. Apparently, it's the first time the American President has been on foreign soil to mark the occasion."Here we are, two centuries after the friendship of our two countries was sealed in the founding act of your great nation. History bears witness to this. Whenever the stakes are high, you can count on us, as we know that we can count on you.... Today, again, our two countries fight together - against the terrorist barbarism which, on the morning of September 11, so cruelly wounded America. A barbarism that has struck anew in Pakistan, killing and wounding Frenchmen [on May 8 at Karachi].... In giving homage to the combattants for liberty in 1944, as in fighting today against terrorism, we push back fanaticism, marginalization, racism and xenophobia..." - Jacques Chirac (condensed from the Le Monde article)Le Monde's second lead is The War of Nerves between India and Pakistan
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posted by gbarto at 5:58 PM:
Fascinating commentary on whether the White House wants you to see Sum of All Fears at Daniel Wiener's site. Of course you already followed this link at Instapundit's site, but I wanted to note that while I haven't seen the movie, the books is excellent and very topical. It's on my re-reading list at the moment, which is why it's been quoted in the blog a few times recently. If you want a worst-case scenario to think about, this is a must-read.* * *
posted by gbarto at 5:51 PM:
Perspective on the anti-Bush demonstrations (see item below): A few days ago, they got three to four-thousand against Bush. At the end of April, the pro-Le Pen march drew 10,000 while the pro-Chirac/anti-Le Pen demonstration got 400,000. (the TurkeyBlog's May 1st write-up is here.)* * *
posted by gbarto at 5:49 PM:
Instapundit comments on the Paris protests against Bush. Says sister, "Big deal, they've got a 35 hour work week; they've got time." She also notes that as bemusing as it is to watch the protesters, the Paris-Roller is a lot more fun and would have been her choice too.As for the protesting phenomenon, anyone who thinks there are a lot of crazies trying to relive the '60s has never seen the light that comes into a French person's eye when you evoke May '68. Their demonstrations have actually caused governments to fall, and the likes of Arlette Laguiller (finished 4th of or 5th in the présidentielles round 1) are still seeking that glory. When I was in Rennes, one day some government workers (in one of those half government, half private sector fields like telecom) decided they were oppressed. I was stepping out of a bookstore a block from the place de la Mairie (where the city hall is and on the way to the regional parliament) when 2,000 people (according to the next day's paper) walked by hurriedly with their signs. For two minutes, there was no leaving (my bus stop was in the opposite direction of the way they were going). After three minutes, everything was calm and I walked on, passing two or three people at most. I commented to one of these and they shrugged, "oh, another demonstration?"
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posted by gbarto at 2:27 PM:
Musharraf Tries to Avert WarBut Indian leaders say his speech today actually made it more likely.
And so it's looking more and more like, despite Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia's efforts, the real problem on the horizon is the Indian subcontinent.
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posted by gbarto at 2:25 PM:
Bush Honors U.S. VeteransIn France, the president vows the U.S. will never forget those who perished "for the future of humanity."
And in another fight for the future of humanity, we're fortunate to have a leader who, notwithstanding many flaws, understands the importance of this.
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posted by gbarto at 2:22 PM:
Fourth Body Pulled From RiverDivers look for more victims of bridge collapse in Oklahoma
In all this, one heartening story:
Norman Barton Jr. watched the bridge crumble from only a quarter-mile away as he competed in a bass-fishing tournament.There are heroes and good Samaritans all over the place.
"I just watched one after another go off into space, just like you see on the action movies," Barton said.
His fishing partner drove the boat near the barge and Barton got out a rope and fashioned a lasso.
They found James Bilyeau, a truck driver from Conway, Ark., and pulled him out of the water.
"He was in really bad shape. I don't know how he hung on like he did," Graham said. "I said, 'You're all right. We got you."'
Bilyeau, who remained in a hospital Monday with head injuries, telephoned Barton on Sunday night, and "he kept saying over and over, 'You saved my life,"' Barton said.
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posted by gbarto at 2:20 PM:
By the way, the bombing was Al-Aqsa again, ie an offshoot of one of Arafat's own groups.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:17 PM:
Finally catching up on the news, and wouldn't you know the Middle East would be in it again:Homicide Blast Kills Two IsraelisFor the six people out there who still haven't caught on to the nature of the Palestinian fight, imagine dying for an ice cream cone. I'm sure the Palestinians are suffering, I'm sure they're frustrated. But if they can't come up with anything better than this, they're going to continue to be frustrated because civilized people cannot pretend that this is political discourse. It's nothing more than self-destructive anti-Semitism. In case no one noticed, Israel (the Likud vote notwithstanding) is open to the idea of a Palestinian state. A majority of Israelis would give them a Palestinian state if they'd just stop blowing themselves up in the presence of Israelis. But people like today's bomber are - let's make this clear - part of the problem. Their mission is not a Palestinian state; it's the destruction of the Jewish state - the secular Jewish state, and at this point I'm pretty sure that the "secular" part offends them more than the "Jewish" part. These are mad-bomber would-be theocrats and right-thinking people should shun their cause, instead favoring a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state (kinda like the plan Arafat walked away from two years ago, preferring to launch a new intifada rather than confronting Hamas with a proposal that looked more like peace than Hitler's final solution).
2-year-old girl, woman die in bombing at ice cream parlor
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posted by gbarto at 12:32 AM:
archives misbehaving.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:29 AM:
French news:Le Monde: Bush and Chirac against terrorism. The two met Sunday at the Elysée Palace (the French president's residence) and affirmed that France stood with the US in fighting terrorism. Chirac insisted that despite disagreements between the two countries, we have many shared values.
In spite of those shared values, Several Thousand Protest Bush Visit.
Le Figaro: Bush satisfied with his "friend" Chirac. Bush was apparently all smiles in meeting with Chirac and even said Chirac was his greatest ally in the war on terror, making Chirac the fifth or sixth greatest ally of the US this week, but hey, he also thanks "his friends" in Congress when they pass bills he can't get out of signing. It sounds like Bush enjoyed the first visit to Paris; I guess tomorrow is Normandy, a polite tipping of the hat to today's conflict and a not so subtle reminder to Europe that when it comes to both modern warfare and modern democracy, they are neither "les plus sages" nor "les plus anciens", just earlier cases in our drive to build democratic nations where the enemies of liberty had thrived.
Libé: Bush and Chirac: A cordial talk. Emphasizing that Bush and Chirac put their differences aside, rather than emphasizing shared values, etc.
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Sunday, May 26, 2002
posted by gbarto at 8:30 PM:
Robert Kagan making noises to the effect that peace among the Europeans offers a model for the rest of the world while showing how unsophisticated the American approach to the world is. But Joanne Jacobs knows the real reason there's peace in Europe, but not in the Middle East:Because Hitler's dead and Saddam Hussein is alive.Of course the US is fixing that, which leads Kagan to his troubling paradox: Europe's move into "post-history" relies on us staying in history. Where I come from, it's not a paradox. It's just freeloading.
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posted by gbarto at 8:23 PM:
Joanne Jacobs has an excellent suggestion for the teen sex question. Unfortunately, she doesn't have permalinks, so you'll have to scroll down to "Teen Sex"* * *
posted by gbarto at 6:41 PM:
Teen sex doesn't seem so bad:Homicides Of Youths Soaring in Pr. George's
Arrests of youths also have increased. Nearly 40 percent of the 13 people arrested in homicides committed this year have been teenagers, including two juveniles charged as adults in the strangling death of an elderly man and two teenagers charged in a triple shooting at a Bladensburg convenience store.
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posted by gbarto at 6:36 PM:
Musharraf Seeks to Ease Threat of War in KashmirAs troops mass along the line of control, Pakistan's leader demands talks with India.
So is Musharraf responding to Bush's comments or to prudence and reason? Either way, we'll hope this is a positive development. Of course it's also a chance for Musharraf to one-up the leader of "the world's largest democracy," since the latter has already been to the front lines to rally the troops.
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posted by gbarto at 6:31 PM:
How did we miss 9/11? Political correctness? Congressman Porter Goss says the info he's gotten indicates the answer may be yes. Apparently the Washington office rewrote a Minnesota request for a search warrant on Zacarias Moussaoui to make it look less like the FBI was engaged in profiling. Among other things, the revised letter failed to play up Moussaoi's connection to Islamic extremists. In a pre-9/11 world, of course, this was smart thinking. In retrospect... not so smart.If the charges about revision of the request are true then shame on the FBI Washington office; at the very least, they should have consulted with the Minnesota office as to how strongly they felt about the seriousness of the situation. More probably, they should have let a judge decide whether evoking connections to Islamic extremists was germane.
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posted by gbarto at 6:18 PM:
Several Feared Dead After Bridge in Oklahoma CollapsesThis after a barge ran into it. It's suspected that the captain of a tug had a seizure or blackout though there's no official world. It's also noted that another bridge had been hit earlier and had a piling damaged though it was still in use. No word on if it was the same barge.
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posted by gbarto at 1:53 PM:
Pakistan Tests Second MissileTensions high with India
Don't like where this is going. Never thought it would be relaxing to see an update from the Middle East, but Central Asia looks worse.
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posted by gbarto at 1:51 PM:
Oklahoma Bridge CollapsesSix to 11 victims remain trapped in vehicles in Arkansas River after barge plows into bridge; fatalities predicted
A 500-foot section of the Interstate 40 bridge in southeastern Oklahoma buckled during a severe thunderstorm at 7:48 a.m. Sunday, hours after a barge plowed into it. Officials speculated the collision weakened the 75-foot-high bridge, causing it to crumble under the weight of the vehicles.A rough start to Memorial Day weekend and a hell of a liability suit facing the barge operator I'd guess. I'd reprimand officials for not closing the bridge, but while in retrospect they should have I have to watch myself given the post below.
The barge was not loaded when it struck the bridge, but previously had hauled oil products.
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posted by gbarto at 1:47 PM:
A little horse sense I was thinking of Malcom Baldridge earlier today (that happens to everybody, doesn't it?) when a question came to mind. Baldridge, some may recall, was Secretary of Commerce for a while under Reagan. His wife, Laetitia, a prominent Washington socialite at one time, was the more glamorous of the pair. Malcom liked to get back out west, where among other things he would ride his horses. One of these fell on him, injuring him badly; he would die soon after. Now at the time, President Reagan extended his condolences, as did many others. However, Reagan did not renounce his saying, "There's nothing so good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse." We didn't have commissions inquiring into the safety of horseback riding - Baldridge was an experienced rider, not a novice unknowingly pushing his horse too hard. Of course that was the Reagan years, when we were less sensitive to the need for a government guaranteed perfect life.The funny thing is, while Baldridge came to mind for me, many others, on thinking of a horseback riding injury, would think of Christopher Reeve. He fell... during the Clinton years. And still no Congressional investigations, no demands that horses be made safer. What's going on here? To put it neatly, it's the nature of the beast. Like deer running into cars, like bees stinging those who are terribly allergic, sometimes things happen because that's the way things go. We understand that about horses. Why don't we get it when it comes to terrorism?
I won't rehash the whole argument about why the White House probably couldn't have stopped this, etc. I'll just note that when large bureaucracies are dealing with gargantuan mountains of information, most of it noise, they will sometimes make a as mistake as to which memo or report needs to be read right now, and which one can wait. There's not a one of us out here who would want to be charged with reading every warning or potential threat our federal agencies have on file, never mind being asked to decide which ones need following up. It is the nature of the beast that the government will follow up the wrong report, will screw things up even if the answer is handed to it on a golden platter, because the government is made up of people doing their best and sometimes that just isn't good enough and that's too damn bad. Just as it's the nature of the beast that even the most expert rider will get hurt when a horse gets spooked or something else happens. So let's keep our eyes open, be alert and wary, and finally, let's try to put things in enough perspective to acknowledge that it's a lot easier to talk about what the government should have known when you're not part of the office in charge of figuring it out yourself. In other words, life has risks. Some are worth taking. Some can't be avoided. So before leaping to judgment when bad things happen, show a little horse sense.
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posted by gbarto at 12:16 AM:
A Dog's Life says that the Harvard Crimson wants the repeal of the Second Amendment (the guarantor of the other 9 big ones the last time I looked). He says he'll leave the debate to the heavy hitters, but has an elegant formulation of the larger issue that shows his humility to be unjustified:I regard most attempts to amend the Constitution with extreme skepticism. If it is to be amended, the amendments should place limits on the powers of government and/or expand the rights of individual citizens. The two worst amendments to the Constitution were the 16th (allowing the government to impose the income tax) and the 18th (Prohibition), which expanded the power of government without vindicating the rights of citizens. The Second Amendment is one limiting government; let's keep it that way.Notwithstanding the internal contradiction, I think the second sentence should maybe be a Constitutional amendment.
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posted by gbarto at 12:03 AM:
Steve Den Beste says NATO is spelled USA. A very sharp piece on why if Europe doesn't get its act together militarily the US won't be going it alone because we're intransigent, but because the Europeans simply won't be able to keep up. Thank God at least we can still do it.* * *
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