A Garden With A Fertile Plot & Party That Will Never Stop

From the Sunday Times:
Far across the frozen river two figures hurried from the North Korean shore, slip-sliding on the ice as they made a break for the Chinese riverbank to escape a regime that, by many accounts, is now entering its death throes.
The article goes on the speculate that Kim may have already been secretly deposed by a military clique and that there are many other signs that the government is losing control (including the possibility that the massive railyard blast that took place last year was actually an assassination attemot). Some hardliners will press for a regime change strategy to deal with the North Koreans based on these accounts. However, that is a risky move. It could be that Kim Jong-il or at least people not a whole different from Kim will continue to rule the DPRK. Therefore we should continue to try and negotiate in order to deal with North Korea's nuclear weapons program. If the rumors are true and the government is falling apart, it should make it so that the North Koreans are more open to a deal. If the rumors are fals or if the government is able to stay in control, then at least we have not alientated them by acting too aggressively and grad bargain will still be possible.

Maniacs

The following appeared as a post on National Review's weblog, The Corner, under the title "SUDETENLAND, U.S.A.":

Several papers reported on the Mexican foreign minister’s threat that if American courts don’t overturn Arizona’s Proposition 200 (which requires proof of citizenship to vote and proof of legal status to receive public benefits) Mexico may take the issue to an international human rights tribunal. This is one more example of the Mexican government’s long-term strategy of extending its reach into the United States, not so much to control territory as to share sovereignty, and assert a veto over any federal, state, or local government policy that in any way affects people of Mexican (or any Hispanic) ancestry...

How unfair! The US ever tried to infringe upon the sovereignty of Mexico. No, Neber. Have you ever seen a more revolting bunch of Nazis? After all, only Nazis would would dare do something so dastardly as pester the United States with their trifling concerns about the welfare of their insignifcant people. Don't they know that Mexicans don't have rights?

Light at the end of the tunnel?

The removal of the United Iraq Alliance's anti-occupation plank from its platform just before the election looked as if it would mean that American military could be in Iraq indefinetly. That may not be the case, though. Falah al-Naqib, the Iraqi interior minister and member of Prime Minister Illayd Allawi's party, has told British television that he expects US troops to be out in 18 months. Of course this is more of prediction than an actual time table for withdrawl, but it the Interior Minister's statement is important since it sets up a yardstick. Whether or not the target can be reached really depends on how quickly Iraqi forces can be trained and so far the news on that front is not very encouraging.

Tax-And-Spend

Fox Reports:
Lawmakers trying to plump up the bottom line are considering a "vanity tax" (search) on cosmetic surgery and Botox injections in Washington, Illinois and other states.
As a socialist out to destroy the American way of life I support any and all progressive tax hikes, particularly when the revenues will be used to support anti-poverty programs, as is the case in Washington. This story makes me wonder if selective luxury taxes targeted at the upper brackets might be more politically viable than income or property tax hikes. It might be more effective to target the emblems of wealth and status instead of targeting the wealthy directly. By going after such purchases cultural conservatives associate with Holywood liberals we could have an opportunity to broaden our coalition. What sort of red-blooded red stater wouldn't rally to cause of taxing specialtity coffee drinks, summer homes, limousines and fashionable, small, yippy dogs?

The Big Day

The elections in Iraq are set to take place on Sunday, which has technically already begun in Baghdad. Knight Ridder provides a simple guide to the elections, complete with with information on the the different slates vying for power.

Got 'em

The payola/propaganda scandal, which started with Amstrong Williams, has grown even larger. Now it is being reported that a syndicated columinist named Michael McManus was subcontracting for the Department of Health and Human Services and never disclosed his connection to the government. McManus helped the DHHS with a marriage initiative and promoted the intitiative he had worked on his columns.

The Democrats really ought to beat this story to death. The payola scandal represents an excellent opportunity to expose wrongdoing, tie the GOP to abuse of power government corruption, discredit the conservative punditry and shut down a patronage program for Republican hacks in the media. The "Stop Government Propaganda Act" is a good start, but we are very far from total saturation.

The Press should be making a much bigger deal out of this, too. The Administration is soiling their profession and yet there is a chance that the guilty parties will get away with it. Additionally, I thought it was the job of the media to protect the public from the excesses and crimes powerful instead of rewording politicians' press releases and writing about that squirrel that can water ski.

Another Gonzales?

George W. Bush's new nominee for the Dept. of Homeland Security has been found to have been consulted the CIA on interrogation techniques:


Michael Chertoff, who has been picked by President Bush to be the homeland security secretary, advised the Central Intelligence Agency on the legality of coercive interrogation methods on terror suspects under the federal anti-torture statute, current and former administration officials said this week...

Asked about the interaction between the C.I.A. and Mr. Chertoff, now a federal appeals court judge in Newark, Erin Healy, a White House spokeswoman, said, "Judge Chertoff did not approve interrogation techniques as head of the criminal division."...

One current and two former senior officials with firsthand knowledge of the interaction between the C.I.A. and the Justice Department said that while the criminal division did not explicitly approve any requests by the agency, it did discuss what conditions could protect agency personnel from prosecution....

...Mr. Chertoff opposed some aggressive procedures outright, the officials said. At one point, they said, he raised serious objections to methods that he concluded would clearly violate the torture law. While the details remain classified, one method that he opposed appeared to violate a ban in the law against using a "threat of imminent death."

The Senate better be aggressive in investigating exactly what Chertoff's currently secret recommendations are. If it turns out that he approved of methods that went too far, methods that any person with common sense would consider torture, then his nomination should be resisted with the same vigor that is being shown in resisting the nomination of Alberto Gonzales.

The F-Team

This isn't good:
The Pentagon has created a new spying agency that has already been operating secretly in Iraq and Afghanistan for two years.

The unit, called the Strategic Support Branch, has also been in operation in other places sources would not disclose, the Washington Post said, citing documents and interviews with participants...

The secret spying organization is designed to provide Rumsfeld with tools to conduct so-called human intelligence tasks, such as interrogation of prisoners and recruitment of foreign spies.

Recruited agents may include "notorious figures" whose association with the US government would be embarrassing if revealed, the Post said, citing a Pentagon memo.

I have the sinking feeling that this super secret spy agency (which seems to have had no oversight from anyone outside the administration) is responsible for a lot of electrode-on-genital action. An agency that is under the control of Donald Rumsfeld, uses "notorious figures" and operates (it would seem) without congressional oversight cannot be up to anything good. Given the record of Rumsfeld's other "secret" intellignce group, the Office of Special Plans, which basically manufactured intelligence on Saddam's WMD program, it is unlikely that the this other agency has accomplished anything useful.

Correction: I have misunderestimated this Strategic Support Branch. According to an article I read after writing this post, the agency helped capture Saddam Hussein, so in fact it has accomplished something. However, having such a unaccountable, secret agency remains a bad idea. I regret the error, which has revealed how lazy and prejudiced I am.

NY Post Post

In an editorial today (via Mattew Yglesias) the New York Post expressed its deeply held belief that ignorance is strength:

Talk about adding insult to injury: Doubleday Broadway — a New York-based imprint in Bertelsmann's Random House domain — plans to promote the works of the world's most evil twosome: Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden.

No kidding: As soon as perhaps next year, a collection of the deadly duo's hate-filled writings, translated into English, will be turned into a book, tentatively called "Al Qaeda Reader," and bound for a bookstore near you...

Bertelsmann is serving al Qaeda's ends by publishing and promoting its rantings.

Sadly, the wingnut potential of this editorial was completely wasted. Here was a golden opportunity to demand that someone be sent to Guantanamo Bay for printing something the Post didn't like, since it is the logical extension of the first part of the editorial. but the cowards on the Post's editorial board decided to back down and takes a reasonable posistion:

Then why, if this is to be a public service, hasn't the company explicitly refused to take any profits from the book?

That's what Houghton Mifflin did in publishing Hitler's "Mein Kampf." Instead of pocketing profits, that company channels them to anti-hate groups.

All that huffing and puffing about aiding the enemy only to meekly suggest that Doubleday deny itself the profits from its book? Honestly, I expected more from the newspaper that brought us the "Axis of Weasel"

Billionaires for Liberalism

From The Foward:
A handful of ultra-wealthy Jewish liberals are resolving to do battle with conservatives by providing a big infusion of cash to progressive think tanks and idea mills.

New York-based financier George Soros, Cleveland insurance king Peter Lewis and Oakland, Calif., banking magnates Herb and Marian Sandler made the pledge at a meeting in San Francisco last month.

The new pledge to support liberal causes represents a potentially important infusion into the coffers of the Democratic policy establishment, which generally has failed to keep pace with the massive investments that Republicans have made during the past quarter-century into their intellectual infrastructure, including two influential Washington-based conservative think tanks: the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute.

The question of how to spend the promised funds is likely to become a part of the wider fight within the party over whether to pursue more liberal or centrist policies.

The fact that wealthy liberals are interested in helping to build a center-left counter-establishment is very encouraging. Campaign contributions are not everything and the Forces of the Right enjoy a tremendous built in advantage from the existence of propaganda outlets likes like the NY Post, Fox News and Talk Radio and the nebulea of conservative think tanks. I just hope that the money in question will not be invested primarily in developing "new ideas", at least with regards to policy, because that is not what the Democrats need. In a general sense, we already have the right ideas (tolerance, economci justice and a foreign policy based on our values, interests and an understanding of the limits of our power) and money doesn't really need to be put down in order to make them better. The past 12 years have show very clearly that progressive program works and conservative one doesn't. The real issue is selling our ideas. The folks at the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute aren't paid to come up with creative policy solutions, they are paid to promote the policy posistions (taxs cuts good, poor people lazy, free markets magical, etc.) that the the Republican party has had for decades. Any successful liberal counterweight will have to be more hackish than academic. If the billionaire liberals mentioned in this article are feeling particularly generous, they ought to make substantial investments in new media ventures as well, a move which would greatly amplify their support in other areas.

The Blogs of War Don't Capitulate!

Attention blog readers: web renound warblogger Tim Blair has struck another decisive blow against islamofacism and the MSM (Mainstream Media, for those not in the know)! In his latest daring venture, the couragaeous Mr. Blair reads an article from that anti-American organ, the Washington Post, and gives an angry muslim man the fisking of a lifetime. I am sure that irrate Iraqi is bound to log onto the internet at any moment, read that devasting blog post and realize how foolish he is being. Exposing the objectively pro-Saddam slant of the Press and defeating the Iraqi Insurgency is all in a days work for the pajama clad heroes of the blogosphere.

A Chill In The Air

Looks like there are some real genuises at work over at News Corp:
Fox says it covered up the naked rear end of a cartoon character recently because of nervousness over what the Federal Communications Commission will find objectionable.

The latest example of TV network self-censorship because of FCC concerns came a few weeks ago during a rerun of a "Family Guy" cartoon. Fox electronically blurred a character's posterior, even though the image was seen five years ago when the episode originally aired.

That doesn't make any sense at all. Cartoon nudity has been common for many years and I doubt there is a single instance of a broadcaster being fined by the FCC because of it. Furthermore, it strikes me as rather odd that someone wouldn't take offense to the substance of "Family Guy" (a show which reguarly makes fun of assorted minority groups and cracks some of the most indecent jokes on television) and yet would be so bothered by the presence of Peter Griffin's cartoon ass that they would file a complaint with the Federal Government.

Full disclosure:I think "Family Guy" is great and cannot wait untill Cartoon Network starts making new episodes in May. I just hope they don't mess it hope.

"Time" Magazine Takes A Contrarian View

In "What The President Reads" from the Jan. 17th issue of Time, the newsweekly attempts to cover for the President's famous lack of curiosity. However, they blow their attemtp to puff Bush in the very first sentence: George Bush is famously anti-intellectual. But he seeks out authors who share his views and looks for reassurance. That last clause completely validates charges of anti-intellectualism. Even the most hyperbolic Bush basher is like to admit, however grudgingly, that George Bush is capable for reading and it is likely that he has at least read a few books (or at least the blurbs of a few dustjackets). This does not make him an intellectual or a person interetested in ideas. A serious person does not read just to confrim his prejudices. Reading books simply to reassure yourself of your rightness doesn't make you deep, it just makes you a wanker.

Update:Reading the newspaper only for the sports page and demanding that you are only told the good news about your war also means that you are a wanker, The Greatest of All Time, in fact.

Yet Another Update:< What has happened to Time? Time is suppose to be the top news magazine, but Newsweek and the New Yorker (which is a monthly and not really a news magazine) are scooping them around the clock. All they seem capable of is publishing mash notes for that Long Not-So-Tall Texan they seem to fancy.

ITEM: I Still Hate David Brooks

From dabrook's latest column:
The Social Security debate has exposed interesting differences within the Democratic Party between those who are inspired by Bill Clinton and those who are inspired by - wait for it - Newt Gingrich.

Oh, how clever! What an ironic twist! Now I understand where Mr. Brooks is paid the big bugs. That kind of material doesn't just write itself. Never mind that Brook's article is completely wrong headed. In the remainder of his essay David Brooks explains why vigorously opposing the President's plan to partially privatizing, bankrupt the federal government and ream future retirees would do little to help the Democrats politically. Brook's analysis pretty well sums up his world view. The notion that the Democrats might be remotely interested in social justice and want adopt Gingrich-esque tactics to defend it for that does not seem to enter Brook's head. Politics for Brooks is not so much about the implementing a good policies (or in this case, protecting good policies), because good policy is desireable in itself, but rather about gaining and holding power for its in own sake. And to rip off an device from Brooks (the silly analogy), I would like to note that Brooks is much different from New Gingrich, since Gingrich had (unsound) principles and a lot more like Bush's doughfaced political advisor, Karl Rove.

WWJD?

According to UPI that in addition to considering employing death squads, the US is has now embraced collective punishment as tool to enrage Arab public opinion further comabt the Iraqi insrugency. Remember that "moral clarity" business? Back before certain leaders in the government decided that torture was okay? Back Before we started harming people because they were very vaguely associated an other group of people we didn't like? Yeah, I missed the Clinton era, too.

Oh, the Hilarity

To quote a great former blogger, "well sirs, it is blogging time." I would like to take today's "blogging time" to promote McSweeney's. McSweeney's is an internet humor site that is home to "Unused Audio Commentary By Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky Recorded Summer 2002, For 'The Fellowship of The Ring'".

Rice Grilla

Rice grilled on Iraq, Mideast
">Rice grilled on Iraq, Mideast
Rice faced sometimes heated questioning from Democratic lawmakers who sought her positions on the war in Iraq.

A good start, but clearly the grilling is not intense enough. It is time the Dems turn up the heat. When Rice thinks she can make state my like "I do believe that he got good military advice, and I do believe that the plan and the forces that we went in with were appropriate to the task," without being laughed or shouted out of the place, then clearly she is being treated to kindly. The Opposistion needs to take some ice grilling tips from this man:

Undertoe

Every trime I try to quit blogging, they pull me back in. By "they" of course I mean you, "Bob", the psuedononymous commenter. It isn't like an egomaniac like myself can stay away from the is webloggery business for very long anyway.

Firsting

When they say, "America First"
They mean "Americans next"