Tom Elia, at The New Editor, writes about Rahm Emanuel's being on the spot

Tom Elia, writing at The New Editor blog, has an enlightening piece about the reception Rahm Emanuel got at a recent meeting with other Democrats:

The Chicago Tribune's Jeff Zeleny has interesting and revealing article on some tense exchanges at a recent breakfast meeting that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) had with Ohio Democrats over their party's position on national security.

Zeleny writes: (emphasis added)

The audience was supposed to be a gracious one.

But Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the leader of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, found himself fielding spirited questions at a breakfast meeting late last week as he laid out his ideas on how Democrats could seize control of Congress from the Republicans. When the Illinois congressman didn't include national security in his top five talking points, a man raised his hand and his voice.

"Can I give you a piece of advice?" said Ford Huffman, a Columbus attorney. "They obviously believe it's their winning issue. Why can't we get out in front with it and say there's not an issue about security? Every American believes in securing America."

Emanuel tried to answer the question, asserting his eagerness to challenge the White House, but said he does not believe national security should be a political issue. As Emanuel spoke, Huffman turned his head and told those sitting around him: "It sounds like we are trying to dodge the issue. People are going to say the Democrats are being wussies."

Marc Cooper thinks that the Alito "filibuster" was botched

The Alito "filibuster" flopped, as 72 senators voted for closure of the debate while 25 voted against. Those voting against apparently included Lincoln Chafee, our Liberal Republican buddy. Marc Cooper doesn't approve of the filibuster attempt, as it was done under false pretenses, and appeared to be absurd:

That was a pretty marvelous and transparently craven moment late last week when waffling 2008 Presidential Candidate John Kerry decided to call for the filibuster from Davos, no less. I suppose the imagery could have been worse; if the water temp had so permitted Kerry might have made the call from atop his wind-surfboard. In French.

Marc would prefer that the Democrats would state the real reason for opposing Samuel Alito:

The Democrats –[...]—had months and months to make the case, topped off by some prime-time broadcasts of the actual Judiciary Committee hearings. What we got instead was some erratic nit-picking, the usual Category 5 gusts of bluster from blabber-mouth Senator Biden, and some pretty cheap and distracting shots trying to smear Alito as a petty racist.

All the Democrats had to do, instead, was to tell a much simpler and direct truth: Alito’s a nice guy and an extremely accomplished jurist. He’s even in the mainstream albiet on the conservative side. We just don’t want the country to go anymore in the direction it’s been heading and want you to join us in this effort and force the President to name a more centrist judge.

Our visiting pastor today was named Hood

We had a visitor on the pulpit today, as our regular pastor was in Austin for a continuing education class. He married name is Hood, so I asked her if the Hood family was related to the famous British admirals.

What I study is 17th and early 20th Century naval history, so I only member of the family of whom I very familiar is Rear-Admiral the Honourable Horace Hood, who commanded the 3rd Battlecruiser Squadron at the Battle of Jutland. Horace Hood was killed when his flagship, the Invincible, exploded on 31 May 1916 after being hit by return fire from the German battlecruiser Derfflinger. The Invincible and her squadron mates had been pummeling the German battlecruiser Lützow, when the Derfflinger hit the Invincible. The probable cause was the unstable nature of the Cordite that the British used along with unsafe handling practices.

Horace Hood's ancestors fought in battles in the 18th and early 19th Centuries. One, Sir Samuel Hood fought in the Battle of the Saintes against the Compte de Grasse, and criticized his commander, Sir George Rodney, for not chasing the retreating French ships.

Problems caused by careless gunpowder handling caused the loss of a number of Dutch ships in the 17th Century. At the Battle of the Gabbard (or the Battle of Nieuwpoort) on 12 June 1653, the Dutch ship Gelderland exploded because of too much gunpowder in the air being accidentally ignited. At the Battle of Lowestoft on 13 June 1666, the Dutch flagship Eendracht exploded after firing a gun. The Dutch fleet commander, Jacob van Wassenaer was killed. In this sort of explosion, such when the battlecruiser Hood exploded in action with the Bismarck on 24 May 1941, typically only five or fewer men would survive. Those often were situated on the masthead and were protected from the explosion.

The Nanny State

The Democrats have won in a fundamental way. We now live in a nanny state where our rights are sharply curtailed, because someone wants to keep us from doing what they think is the wrong thing. I just watched two short segments, one said to be from 1951 and another from the late 1940's or early 1950's, and everyone was smoking. Now, smoking is demonized and banned from most places. Smoking is not a great thing to be doing, but thanks to the Democrat sponsors, the trial lawyers, and their judge buddies, our right to do whatever we want, good or bad, is limited. They want to do the same thing to fast food, alcohol, and (can you believe it) shopping at Wal-Mart.

Eleanor Clift comes across as a sore loser

Eleanor Clift is correct in that by President Bush (and the Republicans) winning the 2000, 2oo2, and 2004 elections, President Bush was able to appoint his choices for Supreme Court justices. He "made their careers" is a true statement. From what she writes, Eleanor is not happy being on the losing end. If someone wins an election, he can do what he thinks is right (or what he wants to do). If you lose, you do not have any right to expect that you are going to be able to influence what happens. Only someone living in a fools world should expect otherwise. Eleanor's piece is called "50 Plus One", as if a party and president has a majority, than to make substantive moves only requires 51 out of 100 votes in the Senate. There is the small matter of cloture votes, but that is not an issue in this case, as they Democrats don't have enough votes.

Things are getting interesting in the Libby case

Tom Maguire, at JustOneMinute, writes more about a favorite subject of his, the involvement of NBC news in the Plame affair and their vulnerability to Scooter Libby's legal team:

The Libby defense team recently filed a request for the court to order Special Counsel Fitzgerald to turn over the information he gleaned in his many court tussles with reporters during his investigation of the Plame leak.

Links to the filings are here; we find a special bit of bad news for the Washington Desk of NBC News:

Another issue concerning Mr. Russert’s expected testimony which the defense needs to investigate to examine him effectively at trial is whether any of the NBC reporters who worked for him were aware of Ms. Wilson’s identity prior to July 14, 2003. (6) If any such NBC reporters knew this information before that time, the defense would be entitled to gather that information to prepare its cross-examination of Mr. Russert. Once the defense gets further information about the sources who disclosed Ms. Wilson’s employment status, we can investigate whether these sources were in communication with any reporters in the NBC Washington bureau prior to July 14, 2003, or if they talked to other individuals who might have passed this information on to NBC’s Washington reporters.

The filing specifically cites Ms. Mitchell, noting her statement on Oct 3, 2003 that, among journalists following the Niger story, it was "widely known"that Ambassador Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. The filing also mentions her subsequent backpedaling (Background and transcripts here).

James Joyner on "How Wal-Mart Is Like Academia"

James Joyner has a piece at Tech Central Station about why academia is like Wal-Mart. The thrust of his piece is that both in academia and at Wal-Mart, people apply for jobs knowing that that conditions are not great, but having such a job is better than not having it. He points out the ironies of the current vendetta against Wal-Mart, after writing about the similarities to academia:

Still, some of the same conditions apply. TCS Contributing Editor Arnold Kling points out the irony that self-professed advocates of the poor are standing in the way of their progress:

“In the liberal morality tale, Wal-Mart is a villain, and its workers are victims. However, Wal-Mart workers themselves feel lucky to be able to work there. What low-skilled workers need are more Wal-Marts. More Wal-Marts would increase employment for low-skilled workers, and ultimately this could drive up wages for such workers.”

Even for the New Donkey, abortion is the only issue

The Democratic Party often gives the impression that the only important issue to them is abortion. The New Donkey blogger seems to confirm that for him, that is also true. He opposes Samuel Alito strickly on abortion rights grounds:

know I'm late in officially registering opposition to the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, but I've said enough negative stuff about him to make my position clear. I agree with the arguments for opposing Alito mentioned in yesterday's New Dem Dispatch. But I would add to them my particular concern that he is almost certain to do his best, or worst, to undermine or reverse Roe v. Wade, not only eliminating every woman's constitutional right to choose, but also turning the politics and legislative process of many states into an obsessive, nightmare struggle on abortion restrictions for many years to come.

OpenRICO and AJAX (Tech stuff)

Technical people are well-aware of AJAX, which is the technology used in sites such as Google Maps. In my work, I am doing some AJAX UI prototyping. I have found that examples and documentation are very uneven. Frank Zammetti has several end-to-end examples that I found very useful. I was able to implement my own page using AJAX with his approach. I also have been trying use OpenRICO (rico.js), but have not been successful, to date. For one thing, their documentation and examples are light, and lack any end-to-end examples. My interest is in Java and Struts on the server, while much of what is on the web is PHP-oriented.

The other tool that I am trying out is JSON, instead of XML documents. I have JSON easy to implement in the browser and in Java in my Struts actions. JSON is short for Java Script Object Notation. There are plenty of examples and useful Java utilities that are easy to use. Reportedly, the principals in RICO are using JSON in their own work.

Radio Blogger has the transcript of Hugh Hewitt's interview of LAT columnist Joel Stein

Duane Patterson, at Radio Blogger, has the transcript of Hugh Hewitt's talk with Joel Stein, LA Times columnist. Unlike sometimes, Hugh seems to have been courteous to Joel Stein. Joel Stein, by the way, does NOT support our troops:

HH: All right. Now who is your...this is a column about the troops that begins, "I don't support our troops." We'll get to the specifics in a second. But who is your closest family member or friend who is on active duty?

JS: That's an excellent question. I wouldn't say I have a very close friend. I would say only acquaintances. No family at all.

Hugh zeroed in on the what motivated Joel Stein's column:

HH: You do honor military service?

JS: Yeah. No, I'm grateful for people that serve in the military.

HH: But you don't support our troops?

JS: I don't...I don't believe in supporting the troops in an action that you don't believe in.

HH: And so, that would be everything I've named thus far. So I guess...did you support and honor the troops in the Pentagon on 9/11?

JS: Sure, yeah.

HH: All right.

JS: All the troops that are here to defend our country, I'm very, very grateful for. I'm grateful for the police...

HH: Provided they don't leave the country?

JS: Yeah, provided they don't fight in wars that I think are endangering them for no reason.

Marc Cooper on Pacifica Radio

No one who is interested in a genuine political dialog should show any glee about Pacifica Radio going totally bonkers. Marc Cooper has the inside scoop. Marc writes:

This is a long, long, long way from the origins of the network. In its heyday – from the late 60’s and into the early 80’s—the bigger Pacifica stations were exciting and refreshing meeting points for artists, poets, musicians and free-thinkers. The air would be filled with live drama performances, poetry happenings, literary readings, world-class public affairs interviews, and quality music that ranged from the avant-garde to classical. While the programming always leaned decidedly left, you’d nevertheless find libertarians and Buddhists mixed in back to back with Communists, radicals, and liberals and even some odd conservatives (Caspar Weinberger was once a Pacifica commentator. Pauline Kael got her start reviewing movies for KPFA).

When Pacifica was once a magical place that taught you how to think it is now a dreary drumbeat telling you what to think. Its air is filled with shrill, clumsy and dogmatic denunciations of “fascism.” Any trace of high culture, meanwhile, has been ruthlessly rooted out and expunged. The program schedule is divvied up among self-appointed “community leaders” and paid staff who – for the most part—could never dream of earning a paycheck from any other media entity in the world. What paid and volunteer programmers have in common is a death-grip on their personal slice of air time. Try to take it away and you became the target of a virulent campaign accusing you of being a sexist, racist, and corporatist nazi.

Google Analytics

I had first heard of Google Analytics when I had read about it on Michael Heraghty's blog, "Media Junk" in late November 2005. Google Analytics did not stay open for signup for very long. I put myself on the waiting list, and only last Friday got an invitation (it didn't work on Friday). It was only on Saturday evening that I was able to actually use the invitation and get started. By last night, my blogs were starting to accumulate interesting information.

Michael Schiavo is going to marry his girlfriend

Thanks to the American Princess for pointing out this article from the St. Petersburg Times, online. Michael Schiavo, former husband of Terri, is getting married to his girlfriend, by whom he has two children. All along, it seemed that the girlfriend and children were why he wanted Terri out of the way. He couldn't just divorce Terri, which would have been the humane thing to do, because he would have lost access to her money. The article has a picture of Michael Schiavo. I can see why that we had not seen a contemporary picture of him, as he is not a very sympathetic figure.

Google Analytics

This evening, I was able to get into Google Analytics, and added the scripts to all of my blogs. Google Analytics doesn't seem to see the script or my blogs (one of the two). Hopefully, this can be worked through quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if their verification process isn't working right. Google is trickling out Google Analytics, much the same way as they did with Gmail, at the start. Google Analytics is Google's website statistics tracking system.

I enjoyed John Ydstie's story about high school basketball in small-town North Dakota, in the late 1960's

John Ydstie had just spoken with Ron Rapaport, of the Chicago Sun-Times, about the movie Glory Road, and about its historical inaccuracies, and about their favorite basketball-related movies (like Hoosiers). John was sitting in for Scott Simon, who has laryngitis. John then played his segment about living in a small North Dakota town of less than 100 and making it to the State Class B finals. John played on that team. They ended up losing to a team from a larger school (and town). I consider this to be the thing that NPR does best: telling a good, and inspirational story. They are at their worst when ranting about President Bush and Republicans (or even "moderate" Democrats).

Our leftist buddies continue to be nasty to anyone who is not rabidly anti-Bush, anti-Republican

Jay Rosen, at PressThink, has a conversation with James Brady over the Washington Post decision to close the comments at post.blog:

When Jim Brady decides to shut down the comments at post.blog to prevent even bigger problems we’re going backwards in our ability to have a conversation with the Washington Post. That isn’t good. If the press decides to close itself off because the costs of participating in the new openness are judged to be too high, that is a loss for everyone. (For background, see the AP story, the summary by Editor & Publisher; Vaughn Ververs at Public Eye here, and here; and Fishbowl DC on Media Matters vs. Deborah Howell.)

DavidB, at Gene Expression, talks sense about nuclear waste

DavidB has a post at Gene Expression that talks sensibly about nuclear waste. The knee-jerk opponents of nuclear power want to talk in terms that are impossible to meet (I suspect, because they have a strong Luddite-orientation). David had written on the subject in the past, and is responding to an article:

So naturally I was pleased to see an article in today's (January 19) London Times, by their Science correspondant Nigel Hawkes, which includes the following:

Forget the idea that we must produce a site safe for a million years without human intervention... Setting the bar that high makes the best an enemy of the good... What, people say, would happen to an engineered burial site if mankind reverts to savagery and can no longer look after it? That's a stupid question. If man reverts to savagery, nuclear waste in a deep hole in the ground will be the least of his problems... We just need a strategy that makes it safe for a period of history that falls within the human imagination. I reckon 200 years is enough. The store should be inaccessible to the malevolent but readily accessible to those responsible for curating the waste. It will be a legacy, but our descendants will be well able to cope.

Great minds think alike. Or something.

Eric Alterman is complaining about the MSM coverage of the Alito hearings

To hear Eric Alterman, in The Nation, the MSM is giving coverage biased towards the Republicans. He cites the Alito hearings and an example. His piece in The Nation is called "Never Mind the Truth". Eric says that Joe Klein, from Time, is an example of bias against liberals in the MSM:

Among the most egregious offenders against journalistic standards and simple honesty for the purpose of abusing liberals is Time's Joe Klein, who is, amazingly, the most liberal commentator currently employed by America's highest-circulation newsweekly. (Klein's animus toward liberals coupled with his cavalier treatment of inconvenient facts could hardly be in greater contrast to that of Newsweek's high-profile liberal columnist Jonathan Alter, whose solid reporting and tempered idealism serves as a kind of remnant and reminder of the long-defunct liberal Establishment.)

Eric apparently disapproves of any coverage that is not rabidly anti-Bush and anti-Republican.

Moscow is cold, but so is Minneapolis

While -24 degrees is cold, it is unclear if that is a Centrigrade or Fahrenheit figure. The last winter I spent in Minneapolis (2003-2004), one morning, my car thermometer read -23 degrees, and that was a Fahrenheit figure. Moscow is reporting a record low of -24 degrees, but I can't tell if that is a Fahrenheit or Celsius figure. The -23 degrees Fahrenheit was as cold as I have experienced, as Minneapolis was not that cold during the winters of 2001-2002 and 2002-2003. The previous coldest temperatures I had experienced were in North Chicago, at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in 1971. The previous winter, I arrived on Groundhog Day 1970, and that day, they told us the windchill figure was -69 degrees Fahrenheit. Rob Port lives in Minot, ND, and I have long heard that it is colder there. The NOAA page for Duluth says that on on January 17th, "Embarrass, MN recorded a bitter temperature of 54 below zero".

I just moved forward to Firefox 1.5

I will be curious to see if some of the buggy things I intensely dislike about Firefox are fixed in 1.5. The answer seems to be that they are "not fixed". I just tried copying and wanted to paste, and while I could copy, paste did not come up on the menu, when I right-clicked a second time. Admittedly, it is hard to separate out what is Firefox and what is a Blogger problem. I just tried the browser Edit menu, and that seemed to work correctly, while right-clicking in Blogger did not give me a paste after copying.

Animated GIFs are bad news

When I was doing Swing programming in Minneapolis in early 2004, I found that animated GIFs were resource hogs. You might try and experiment, if you are a Firefox user. Have multiple tabs open and have an open SiteMeter for this blog in one tab. SiteMeter banner advertisements almost always have animated GIFs. Leave that as the open tab, so that the others are hidden. Minimize the browser and open the Task Manager (for Windows users). You will find that Firefox is using most available resources, despite being minimized. Now "restore" Firefox and switch to a tab that does not have an animated GIF. Minimize Firefox again and re-open the Task Manager in Windows. You will see that the System Idle process is using most resources and Firefox is zero.

Jerry Bremer ("the rest of the story")

Kevin Drum explains why L. Paul Bremer is called Jerry Bremer:

JERRY....Jon Stewart's interview with Jerry Bremer last night wasn't very enlightening, but it did answer at least one question that many of us have long been idly curious about: why does a guy whose legal name is L. Paul Bremer go by Jerry?

Hint: it has something to do with his birthday, 30 September.

Transplants are only the last resort

From I have been observing over the last few years, transplants are not something to rely upon for ever. We lost a friend, earlier this year, who had Type 2 Diabetes, and eventually had to have kidney transplants. Ed Morrissey writes about his wife's situation, and it is yet another example of why we do not want to be in position to have that as our only option (although it may be, through no fault of the person: diabetes is bad stuff):

I'm afraid today hasn't been a good day for the First Mate and I. Today she started her third week of treatment for her polyoma virus infection, and her blood pressure and creatinine levels have gone up rather dramatically since last week. The doctors informed us today that the FM will need a new kidney and that we probably can't expect too much more function from the current transplant. The average wait for a cadaver donor in this part of the country is four to five years, which means that she'll need to go back on dialysis if the treatment can't recover at least some part of the current transplant's function.

Jim Geraghty on Jordan, in his NRO blog

Jim Geraghty was very impressed by the kingdom of Jordan. His says that the people are tolerant and (seemingly) everyone knows English. King Abdullah is determined to keep good relations with the West, as Jordan doesn't have oil. The country is pretty much dependent on tourism. Jim writes on his NRO blog:

Actually, it’s hard not to appreciate King Abdullah after a couple days in Jordan. Surrounded by Israel and the West Bank, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Syria, Jordan is the one Arab country in the neighborhood that has concluded, “Fight the West? Are you kidding me? We’re embracing the West. Come, visit the ruins of Petra and Jerash, swim at our Dead Sea resorts. Spend money. Invest. Please. We’ve got almost no oil, little water, only a little bit of minerals to mine and one mid-sized port. We’re fighting extremism in every way we can. Almost everyone speaks English — in fact, our cab drivers speak better English than the ones in the U.S.. We’ve trained our merchants to be helpful but not pushy, unlike Cairo or Istanbul. We’re cool if you want to wear a veil, or if you want to walk around wearing pants from the Too Sizes Too Small Store.”

You look around the rest of the leaders in the Middle East – Mubarak, Assad, the Saudi Royals, or that lunatic Ahmadinejad – Abdullah’s the only one with a positive vision for his nation, an ideal that he wants his country to strive for, instead of desperately trying to hold on to an antiquated, failed status quo.

He concludes, commenting on the whining Washington Post article that had an interview with an Iraqi woman:

Later on in the article, the Washington Post permits their interviewee to let loose with some inaccurate, unhinged ranting:

Alaa Abbas, 39, who was wrapped in a dark shawl against the evening chill, said she was recently singled out at the airport when she arrived from overseas, and was now headed to Baghdad by car. "They made 100 copies of my passport," she said. "We are the mother of civilization. Why does everyone treat us like this? I am an Iraqi! I am an Iraqi! I was the only one at the airport they searched."

I’m sorry, this is nonsense. I’ve just been through Jordanian airport security. Everybody gets searched, and it’s thorough, as it ought to be. I had my laptop checked, and got the usual, “where do you live?” “What is your nationality?” etc. There were two separate security gates with metal detectors, and in both, I had to take off my belt, shoes, watch… the only bit of metal left on me was my jeans button, zipper and a filling, and the metal detector was still going off. Both times, I got the usual pat-down. I’d rather deal with that than get blown up.

This Post article makes it sound like Jordanian security is treating Iraqis unfairly, and that their measures are unreasonable. Neither this angry Iraqi woman nor the Post correspondent is in any position to deem these measures as unnecessary, and after the Amman hotel bombings, the threat is clear.

I found Jeff's story very moving

I found Jeff Harrell's story about his journey from a 17-year old Socialist to a conservative quite moving. I was an Anarchist at 17. I was a Liberal Republican up until 1984. Jimmy Carter had helped the process along, and I had been very disturbed about the failed Iranian hostage rescue attempt. I was a Lieutenant in the Navy (a Mustang) at the time. Jeff writes:

I have friends who’ve been Republicans all their lives. I think we all know people like that, people who inherited their political opinions from their parents and never wavered. I had to strike out on my own and experience a sort of philosophical Wanderjahr before I was ready to come back to the values I learned from my parents.

Does that make my political opinions any more valid than anyone else’s? Of course not. But it does make them complicated. I believe that personal responsibility is a cardinal virtue, but I believe that society must sometimes protect us from ourselves. I believe that free markets solve problems better than governments, but I believe that public education is too important to leave to the invisible hand. I believe that sometimes war is the inevitable extension of a strong foreign policy, but I believe that the state has no business executing prisoners. I’m a swarming, teeming mass of political contradictions, and as such I fit in perfectly with no political party.

But I think that’s how American politics is supposed to work. I think American political parties are supposed to be made up of smart, dedicated people who disagree about practically everything but who find enough common ground to work together. I think that American politics is the politics of persuasion, and that people with strong convictions have a responsibility to get out there and start persuading others to see things their way.

And I believe that strong-willed people who disagree with each other can change the world for the better. Because I think that those are the only people who ever have.

I think that many good people walked away from the Democratic Party after September 11th, 2001. Those that are left are way to the left, or not knowledgable about the facts. My mother was a Liberal Republican who has moved to the Democratic Party, because the Religious Right in the Republican Party were too much for her. I have friends in that category, but they were part of what drove a wedge between the Republicans and a certain youngish man, to whom we are close, who is an Objectivist and an Atheist, who is militantly Pro-Choice.

The president of Iran

The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, apparently believes that he is the Mahdi. We are gathering suitable material to excite the End Times enthusiasts, as Ahmadinejad is ready to nuke Israel, providing a final solution to the Palestinian problem: he would kill them all and destroy Jerusalem. Link Mecca has a post that says that the Israelis are readying a strike against Iran. They certainly have a great deal at stake. The can either survive, while angering many of their neighbors, or than can be destroyed. Link Mecca says:

At the Hatzerim air base on the edge of the Negev desert, the elite 69 strategic F-15 I squadron is ready to attack. Months of preparations have been completed and the young pilots have finished training for the long-haul flights that will be necessary to reach Iran and back without refuelling.

The Sunday Times also has a long piece about the Iranian situation.

Michelle Malkin has a summary of opinion about Iran

Michelle Malkin paints a bleak picture about Iran and our options. She summarizes opinion from the Blogosphere. She says "we are on the brink" (of a war with Iran, caused by Iran). If we do nothing, we will still be at war. None of the options seem good. She writes:

My simple question: Do Americans understand the gravity of the situtation? I fear not. Once again, we are ill-served by a short-sighted, narcissistic, Bush-deranged news media far more interested in playing "gotcha," selling fish-wrap, and serving as Democrat Party adjuncts than keeping readers/viewers informed of the world's biggest threats.

Ann Althouse says that the Democratic strategy on judges has failed

Ann Althouse comments on a New York Times piece that says that the Democrats have given up hope of stopping Bush nominees who are very Conservative from being appointed:

This is a tremendously important lesson. I have heard so many liberals say that they only want to talk about ideology. They want to rely on the portrayal of judging as ideological, but then deny the President his choice of ideology. This doesn't work, and it shouldn't work. If we accept the foundation of the argument -- that judging is ideological -- then there is no trump to the President's appointment power when his party controls the Senate. Your unhappiness with the President's choice of ideology has one answer: Win elections. By declining to frame arguments in terms of legal analysis, the Democrats empowered the nominee to win by simply explaining a lot of legal arguments.

She concludes:

How are people confused? If it's political, the winners of the elections should prevail. If you want to say it's not political, then why did you portray it as political, throughout the hearings and as part of a strategy devised years ago at your retreat?

Mark Tapscott has more about Joel Hinrichs

Mark Tapscott has the latest scoop on Joel Hinrichs. Mark also has an FOI request that could be interesting. Mark writes:

Note the reference to three Algerian terrorist plotters with al Qaeda links who were arrested in Italy last month for planning attacks on U.S. stadiums and other targets.

Now, watch this news report by Oklahoma reporter Tamara Pratt at News9 and note the destination on the plane tickets for Joel Hinrich's roomie, which were reportedly found in the apartment the two men shared.

Here's what the Turkish Press report said, quoting a senior Italian official:

"The attacks would have targeted ships, stadiums or railway stations in a bid to outdo the September 11, 2001 strikes by Al-Qaeda in New York and Washington which killed some 2,700 people, Pisanu said."

And note the visiting professor in Hinrichs' apartment who "had his suitcases packed and was ready to leave the country on an airplane the following day," according to this news report from The Daily Oklahoman, which is archived at Free Republic. He was from ... Algeria.

Scott Johnson writes about the late Bob Feldman

Scott Johnson, on the Power Line blog, has a piece about Bob Feldman, the owner of Red House Records, who died this week. Scott tells of him (we are Lucy Kaplansky fans and Red House customers):

I ran into Bob at events around town and always looked for an excuse to stop him and chat. On one occasion in 1997 Bob was taking Lucy Kaplansky to lunch following her performance the previous evening celebrating the release of her new recording on Bob's label. He was a fan of hers (as was I) and obviously delighted to host her, but Lucy seemed to look up to Bob as well. He was a guy who more than anyone I have ever met managed to unite his passion and his livelihood.

Bob unexpectedly died this week at the age of 56. The St. Paul Pioneer Press has a good obituary here. An industry site posted an excellent profile of Bob and Red House here. City Pages profiled Bob and Red House here in 1998.

Bob was one of a kind. I suspect that there is no one to take his place, and know he will be missed by many, myself included. RIP.

Eleanor Clift says that abortion could split the Republican Party

Eleanor Clift says that there are many "Pro-Choice Republicans" and the part could be easily split, if abortion were outlawed by the Suprume Court. She thinks that with Alito on the court, the court might overturn "Roe-v.-Wade". She also says that there will be fewer Democrats voting for Alito than voted for John Roberts. Eleanor expects that abortion rights will be eroded, until little is left, and then Roe-v.-Wade will be overturned. She thinks that parental notification will be the first step.

I am amazed at the knee-jerk opposition to common sense provisions such as parental notification for minors. The parents are held legally responsible for the children, so they need to know what is happening. I am sure that "Partial birth abortion" is another thing that the left will fight for, tooth and nail, rather than accept any limits. Third trimester abortions are contrary to common sense. Often, the child could survive outside its mother, but we let an abortionist kill it. I was particularly struck by how, on the radio, a newsreader mentioned that Angelina Jolie was "carrying Brad Pitt's child". Angelina Jolie cannot have been pregnant for too many months. A certain segment wants to deny that a pregnant women is carrying a child. They want you to think of it as a "fetus", and that it is no big deal to have an abortion. I am opposed to abortion, and think that medical science will make it so obviously wrong, that it will be stopped, when a very small fetus can survive and grow outside its mother. Despite my opposition, I would be willing to accept abortions in the first trimester, as banning abortion at that stage could not be sustained. We would be back to where we were in the 1960's and before, with abortionists working in the shadows. That would be a "bad thing".

The New Donkey on Progressive Activists

The New Donkey blogger's piece on "progressive activists" still is interesting to me. He says that the "netroots" activists are mistaken in thinking that it was the Washington insiders that took down their candidates (Wes Clark and Howard Dean):

We already know Washington Elite Activists have never had the power to simply impose their will on the Democratic electorate, long before there was any netroots. Lyndon Johnson in 1968, Ed Muskie in 1972, a whole host of candidates in 1976, Ted Kennedy in 1980--these were all "DC elite activist" candidates who crashed and burned. And by the same token, Democratic nominees George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, and Bill Clinton had limited support from those quarters when they first ran for president.

The "netroots" activists are too new to have that kind of humiliating track record, but the fate of their two favorite 2004 candidates, Howard Dean and Wes Clark, cannot simply be dismissed as irrelevant. This is by now an ancient argument, but I'm struck by the unwillingness of many Dean veterans (more now, oddly enough, than at the time it was happening) to worry about the fact that the campaign peaked before a single actual Democratic voter had a chance to say anything about it. Yes, there were many factors that contributed to Dean's demise, with media obsession about "the scream" being one of them, but the widespread assumption in the netroots that Dean was "taken down" by Washington Democrats unfortunately avoids reflection on the possibility that all the cash and energy and excitement simply were not communicable to actual voters.

In other words, activists of every class and every stripe are important to what happens in 2008, and perhaps netroots hostility to Hillary Clinton is a leading indicator of an attitude that could eventually engulf an HRC campaign (if she actually runs, which I for one am not that sure about). But in the end, it truly is about the party rank-and-file, and even the independent voters who participate in many key stages of the nominating process. All of us activists need to remember that, and regularly balance our self-regard with a slice of humble pie.

Clayton Cramer writes about Global Warming on Mars

We know that we are in orbit around a star whose energy output is variable. We know that coming out of the last ice age, the earth has warmed, and believe that is due to the Sun putting out more energy. The same thing is happening on Mars, which should say something about our situation on Earth. Clayton Cramer writes about global warming on Mars:

I've mentioned before that Mars has been showing evidence of global warming for a number of years. In particular, I mentioned this particular news release from JPL back in September. And there are a variety of articles that I've linked to over the last several years that with slightly different forms of evidence show that global warming is affecting Mars as well--suggesting that if man is part of the problem here, he is only part of the problem.

Jeff Jarvis has a piece on Google and Media

Jeff Jarvis, reacting to a piece by John Fine, writes about Google and (Old, Big) Media. Ask the New York Times how putting their columnists behind a wall is working. As I have found, you want to be indexed by Google and linked to by everyone else. This is some of what Jeff is saying:

So when AFP sues Google to stop it from quoting and linking to its stories, it is cutting off its nose to spite its face. When newspapers put content behind pay and archive walls, they are killing their own Googlejuice and thus their audience — that is, the audience are not now attracting to their print products and their brands. When book publishers try to stop Google from indexing books so they can be found, they are killing the words and thoughts in them and cutting them off from the world.

Meanwhile, the smart guys are hiring search-engine-optimization experts and trying to figure out how to get more people to their stuff thanks to Google. See the post below: Walled gardens are no more. Or, if they do exist, they are lonely places populated only by their few, cranky proprietors.

Marc Cooper is cheering for illegal immigrants from Mexico

Marc Cooper has been in the Mexican border area recently (still is, today) and is in favor of the continued (illegal) immigration that is happening. Marc writes:

I’m happy to report that after — yet one more day– on the Mexican border, we didn’t detect any decline in the BIBILICAL EXODUS of Mexicans heading north, And latest reports indicate that no such let up is predicted for the next 15–20 years – regardless if the U.S. builds its 700 mile, $2 billion border wall — or not.

The jokes around the border this morning have changed: "Hear abut the new jobs for us?" asks one Mexicn ditty, "who do u thin’s gonna wind up building that wall?" Another story now circulating: "New Wall 50Ft, New Ladders for Sale 51ft."

Tom Maguire has a long piece about the Scooter Libby case and the press

Tom Maguire, writing at the JustOneMinute blog, has a very long piece about the possibilities for damaging the press and prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the Scooter Libby case. There are a good number of shoes that could drop, and have some interesting consequences. This is not a situation where everything is peaches and cream:

Jeff Toobin of The New Yorker comments on the likely strategy of the Lewis Libby defense team in the Plame investigation:

At the trial, Libby’s team will try to undermine the journalists’ credibility by challenging them on everything from sloppy note-taking to evidence of bias. “This guy is on trial for his freedom, and it’s not his job to be worried about the rights of the witnesses against him,” a person close to Libby’s defense team said. “There are going to be fights over access to the reporters’ notes, their prior history and credibility, and their interviews with other people. By the time this trial is over, the press is going to regret that this case was ever brought.”

And how much damage might Libby's team be able to do? I have no idea, and part of the answer will depend on how much latitude the judge allows the defense in deposing witnesses from the media. However, as a matter of SPECULATION, readers might be interested in my guesses as to just how badly the Libby trial might damage the stature of the news media.

Tom Maguire comments on Joe Klein's assessment of the NSA surveillance

Tom Maguire, writing at the JustOneMinute blog, comments on Joe Klein's assessment of the NSA surveillance issue:

Joe Klein explains that liberal Dems have lost touch with the country on the NSA warrantless eavesdropping story:

A dodgy response at best, but one invested with a larger truth. For too many liberals, all secret intelligence activities are "fruit," and bitter fruit at that. The government is presumed guilty of illegal electronic eavesdropping until proven innocent. This sort of civil-liberties fetishism is a hangover from the Vietnam era, when the Nixon Administration wildly exceeded all bounds of legality—spying on antiwar protesters and civil rights leaders.

Tom's conclusion is that he is not sure about the legality:

OK, so count Mr. Arkin among those who think the program may be legal. For myself, I am in agreement with the Congressional researchers who concluded that the program is firmly in a grey area:

President Bush's rationale for eavesdropping on Americans without warrants rests on questionable legal ground, and Congress does not appear to have given him the authority to order the surveillance, said a Congressional analysis released Friday.

The analysis, by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, was the first official assessment of a question that has gripped Washington for three weeks: Did Mr. Bush act within the law when he ordered the National Security Agency, the country's most secretive spy agency, to eavesdrop on some Americans?

The report, requested by several members of Congress, reached no bottom-line conclusions on the legality of the program, in part because it said so many details remained classified. But it raised numerous doubts about the power to bypass Congress in ordering such operations, saying the legal rationale "does not seem to be as well grounded" as the administration's lawyers have argued.

The governmental folks with the strongest insitutional imperative to argue that the Executive Branch exceeded its authority are not sure whether the President did so.

Well, I am not sure either, nor have I been.

The New Donkey defends Joe Lieberman

The New Donkey looks at the criticisms of Joe Lieberman form the Left and says that they are wrong:

I watched with some interest the blogospheric debate last week over Peter Beinart's TRB column for the New Republic about Joe Lieberman and his critics. Markos went after Beinart, with some justice (and a lot of unnecessary abuse) for conflating ideological and purely partisan grievances about Lieberman. But I have to say he missed the important point in Beinart's piece, which was that both Joe and Joe-haters are in danger of treating the Iraq War as the only issue that really matters. Markos' defense of Joe-hating cites Lieberman's status as "the go-to guy whenever the press needs a Democrat to bash another Democrat." Maybe I've missed something, but I can't really think of any examples where Lieberman has bashed Democrats on any subject other than Iraq.

Indeed, the only non-Iraq issue that Markos cites against Lieberman is this: "[He] rolled over during the recount in 2000 without fighting for the victory Gore had earned."

And that's just a bad case of revisionist history. Put aside for a moment the fact that Al Gore, in the opinion of most objective observers from both parties, would have won decisively if he and Bob Shrum had not perversely refused to run on the successful policy record of the Clinton-Gore administration ("I'm Clinton without the sex" was the message even a child would have understood).

Michelle Malkin has a piece about Harry Belafonte

Michelle Malkin has a piece that tells about what Harry Belafonte has been doing and talking about. Harry Belafonte thinks that Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez are great guys who are doing good work (keeping Communism alive and well). If Harry Belafonte thinks that millions of Americans support Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, he really has become detached from reality:

Barking moonbat has-been Harry Belafonte travels to Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez's side and calls President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world." From ABC News:

The American singer and activist Harry Belafonte called President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" on Sunday and said millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

Belafonte led a delegation of Americans including the actor Danny Glover and the Princeton University scholar Cornel West that met the Venezuelan president for more than six hours late Saturday and attended his television and radio broadcast on Sunday.

Razib has a piece from Friday about religion and science

Razib has a longish piece on Gene Expression about the relationship between religion and science. This is partly brought on by the argument that people who believe in evolution tend to be atheists:

A larger problem in the religion vs. science circus that crops up whenever a neo-Scopes surfaces in the public eye is that the texture and detail of the various positions in the debate get obscured. Within the "anti-evolution" camp the current intellectual stars like William Dembski and Michael Behe seem to espouse an extremely attenuated philosophy which accepts macroevolution, which is at radical variance with the position of the half of Americans who are their natural supporters. I am in fact confused as to what difference William Dembski (sympathetic to Eastern Orthodoxy) Michael Behe (Roman Catholic) would have with Kenneth Miller (Roman Catholic) in regards to evolution in the details, as opposed to points of emphasis and meta-scientific philosophy. There are surely deep philosophical nuances I'm missing, but their eruption into the public square inevitably results in the details being swept up in the vortex of greater social forces.

Michael Kinsley on newspapers

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, Michael Kinsley writes about the plight of newspapers. I used to think of Michael Kinsley as a radical left-winger who didn't have anything reasonable to say. Now, in the days of the rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth left wing, Michael Kinsley seems like a reasonable person, even if I often disagree with him. He says that newspapers still have content and they have a brand name. If they can get past the current process that is not a convenient or cost effective, they may still have life left.

Marc Cooper on Indian Tribes and Jack Abramoff

Marc Cooper doesn't think much of the attempt to portray Indian tribes as innocent victims of Jack Abramoff.

This extremely politically correct piece in the Washington Post twists itself into a mutli-knotted pretzel attempting to portray a major Abramoff-linked Indian tribe as purely innocent victims.

Reporter Peter Whoriskey lards the piece with self-serving quotes like this one: "Abramoff and his partner are the contemporary faces of the exploitation of native peoples," said David Sickey, a member of the tribal council. "In the 17th and 18th century, native people were exploited for their land. In 2005, they’re being exploited for their wealth."

The real truth was that the tribes were doing everything possible to gain political influence:

One of the principle reasons that Abramoff was able to put his scam together was the reluctance of just about any member of Congress to speak out against the underlying scam: the genetic monopoly of gambling rights granted to (some) Indian tribes. Instead of confronting this for what it is — the creation of wealthy and politically powerful elites– Republicans and Democrats alike indulge in the fiction that tribal casinos have something to do with civil rights and racial justice.

As the Abramoff scandal evolves, the media should drop the absurd pretense that the tribes were merely naïve victims. There was nothing at all naïve about their pacting with Abramoff. The gambling tribal leaders are hardball political players determined to do what necessary to protect their money-minting operations. At worse, they got seriously overcharged by Abramoff. It was the gambling tribes’ own greed and naked self-interest (and willingness to hose down other tribes) that provided the financial basis of the whole scheme. Abramoff fleeced them like any pro would. But everyone was sitting at the table voluntarily.

As usual, Terry Gross was demonstrating her left-leaning tendencies

I listened a little bit to yesterday's Fresh Air, hosted by Terry Gross. She had on Tom Blanton, from the self-styled "National Security Archive". This segment was titled "Wresting Secrets from the U.S. Government". That is the goal: to get access to previously classified documents. Their charter seems to be to fish for embarrassing documents, using the FIA. They are only looking for things that might embarrass President Bush, and the defense and intelligence establishment. My take is that if they can find something that damages the security of the United States, it is an added bonus.

Mark Levin explains Jack Abramoff's dress

Mark Levin says that Jack Abramoff dresses the way that he does, because he is Orthodox. I was not sure that being orthodox explained the coat, but the hat now makes sense. Mark Levin, on his show (cut to an hour because of sports in Dallas and NY) last night, also said that there is plenty for Democratic politicians to worry about, not just Republican. We can be sure that there are probably many Republicans involved, but you also have Harry Reid taking something like $60,000 from Abramoff, according to Mark Levin. There is a NewsMax piece on the subject.

Ann Althouse points out this lawsuit in Massachusetts

This lawsuit (pointed out by Ann Althouse) seems designs to circumvent the normal political process. When things go "their" way, everything is great. When someone finds a way to fight back, it is "unfair". I kind of wish I was not so hostile, but I am:

A lawsuit to stop the anti-gay marriage amendment in Massachusetts:

The lawsuit, filed by Gay and Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, challenges a September ruling by state Attorney General Tom Reilly that found the amendment drive was legal.

Fresh Air and Munich

Terry Gross, on Fresh Air (on NPR) talked with a screen writer (Tony Kushner) for the movie Munich. You could tell that they didn't approve of Israelis trying to kill Palestinian terrorists. Our leftist buddies don't approve of Israel, so it is fair game for anyone to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli people. Retaliating against terrorists is bad, as some of our lefist buddies' friends might get killed. It sounds like the movie Munich is as bad as I had suspected.

Network card problems

On my two machines, I am using different wireless network cards. On my machine where I have Outlook and where I do my main graphics work, I have a Belkan card that does not seem to automatically reconnect. On my other machine, I have a D-Link card that does automatically reconnect. The combination of this machine and the D-Link card has issues, however. This machine claims to be connected to the network, but in reality, there are insufficient resources to actually do anything involving connecting to the internet, or even the other machine on the network. By blowing away processes, I was able to connect to the other machine's shared directory, but not to the internet. The symptom is that Gmail has the red loading mark and never can load. Blogger complains about not having a connection to the server. If I open a browser, it cannot reach the Firefox home page. The same is true of IE6, that it cannot reach the internet. The only solution seems to be to reboot. I keep going like that. Often, the need to reboot is at an inconvenient time. I probably will buy a network card from a different vendor, as an experiment. If I can find a reliable card, I will put one in both machines.

Razib has a long piece "Don't pretend, believe...."

Razib has a long piece, the principal behind Gene Expression, that is ostensibly about Islam. I enjoy reading what Razib has to say about non-technical topics. He has some special insights, being from Bangladesh. This is part of what he has to say:

When the riots in France broke out I wasn't surprised. Something restive and sinister in European Islam has clearly been simmering under the surface for several years now, as illustrated by the Madrid and London terror attacks, or the stabing of Theo van Gogh, etc. etc. But the details that the riots were multiracial (i.e., black Africans, both Christian and Muslim might have been involved) and that many of the youth might not have been particularly religious were confusing. Some on the American Right seemed to take the opportunity to attack France by utilizing the inevitable accusation of racism, while many on the Left seemed to be taken aback as the mental model of "it is always better in Europe" was now being challenged by the reality that the "race problem" was more problematic across the Atlantic. Some individuals made the call for affirmative action and multiculturalism in contravention of the republican tradition of equality before the law, socialism with a more color conscious face. Others argued for free market economics and looser labor laws.

After the past few years it seems that Sam Huntington's observation in The Clash of Civilizations that Islam has bloody borders is on first glance obviously correct. Though this truth can be mitigated by observing that the geography of the Dar-al-Islam facilitates inter-civilizational conflict (the higher perimeter:area ratio vis-a-vi other clusters), the recurrent problems with Muslim minorities across many nations suggests the robusticity of the observation. A common dismissal of Huntington as a racist or shoddy scholar are in my opinion simply dodges of the truth at the heart of his contention. Islam is a genuine problem. The scope of the problem may be disputed, but that does not negate that the problem exists, sometimes manifesting in very a personal manner.

Michelle Malkin on the New York Times

My take is that the present management of the New York Times is intent on flying the paper into a mountain. They are so obsessed with trying to damage the Bush administration, that they are ready to damage the security of the United States, in order to accomplish their goal. Michelle Malkin has a long piece that quotes the NYT ombudsman, who is being ignored by his management.

Yes, it's New Year's Eve. And since there's no rest for the NYTimes, I'm not taking it easy tonight either.

You see, NYTimes' reporter James Risen has been a busy bee over the holidays. The co-author of the infamous Chicken Little opus exposing the NSA special collection program to monitor international communications between suspected al Qaeda operatives and their contacts will be launching his new book, State of War, on January 3.