Margin Note

So articulate

2008-10-16T16:42:00.002+11:00

McCain called Obama "eloquent" twice in today's final presidential debate. 'Eloquent'/'articulate' is such a subtle racial put-down, I wonder whether it was deliberate or not.

When you couple that with the chutzpah of some of his personal attacks ("Obama launched his campaign from Bill Ayer's house"), it almost seems as if McCain is goading Obama into losing his cool.

But he's probably spent a lifetime learning to deal with guys like McCain without spooking the horses. He's very good at it.

Unity deferred – but between who?

2008-08-31T20:32:00.003+10:00

Somewhat ironic first sentence:

Few people claim to understand the dynamics of the Clinton vote. In the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted Aug. 15-20, 22 percent of voters who said they had voted for Mrs. Clinton in the primaries say they now support Mr. McCain, while 61 percent back Mr. Obama. Among the women who voted for Mrs. Clinton, 17 percent say they support Mr. McCain, and 63 percent Mr. Obama. (The rest were undecided.) “This says again, you can’t take these women for granted,” Ms. Walsh said. [NYT 8/30/08]

No – it says you can't take the hawks for granted. The whole story is about Hillary Clinton's women voters potentially supporting McCain. So they survey Clinton supporters and the numbers show it's actually the men among them who are more likely to back McCain. And by a significant margin: the report says 22% of all Clinton voters now back McCain, but only 17% of the women. So even if her supporters were 50/50 men/women, that means that 27% of the men have switched to McCain, vs 17% of the women. If the ratio of women to men is greater than 50/50, that difference has to be even larger.

An alternative explanation for why some Clinton supporters are now backing McCain might be their stance on the actual issues. And on at least on one of the biggest issues, the war in Iraq, Clinton and McCain sat firmly on the opposite side from Obama. That seems like a more plausible explanation than the idea that Hillary supporters just want to punish Obama for defeating a woman.

The hidden footage from Iraq THEY don't want you to see

2008-04-26T14:30:00.002+10:00

This exclusive footage, shot in Anbar province just days ago, proves that the liberal media are hiding the true story of success in Iraq:

A new 'pro-peace' version of AIPAC?

2008-04-16T10:26:00.003+10:00

J Street is the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement. We seek to change the direction of American policy in the Middle East and to broaden the public and policy debate in the U.S. about the Middle East. -www.jstreet.org, 2008

Stuck in the corner

2007-06-11T22:19:00.000+10:00

Murdoch's home-town boys pull no punches in the world-wide battle for fairness and balance:

Reality bites the psychotic Left
While the Left is still fighting the intellectual battles of the 1970s, the rest of the world has moved on. Progressive only in their own, inflated self image, the commentariat finds itself stranded on the outer fringes of the national debate, stuck in an intellectual cul-de-sac without the courage or confidence to retrace its steps. Their voices have not been silenced, they have simply lost their relevance. While the mainstream debate is conducted elsewhere, the progressives are stuck in the corner, muttering darkly among themselves.

-The Australian, editorial - 11 June 2007

With the left in the corner begging for mercy, Murdoch's guy lays it down:

This conceit informs the kind of rigid political correctness that shuts down debate. ... To challenge the precepts of political Islam is to demonise Muslims and to demonise any minority group is failure to recognise the superior virtue of the oppressed. [ibid]

Let me get this straight: we're not demonising minorities. But if we were, it would be ok anyhow, because - uh - it's not true that they're superior.

Fox News: Foley is actually a Democrat

2006-10-04T11:13:00.000+10:00

On tonight's O'Reilly Factor, Mark Foley was shown on-screeen on three separate occasions, each time as "Former Congressman Mark Foley (D-FL)" -- identifying him as a Democrat, when he was (and is) a Republican.

Homeland Security vs hippies

2006-08-23T03:29:00.000+10:00

Is Eric Cartman running the Department of Homeland Security?

They ran a "large scale international cyber terror simulation" called "Cyber Storm", whose logo is about as lame (pronounced "L/\M3") as you might expect given the name.

I suppose you could forgive the lameness if they were out Protecting America^TM from the Evil Doers. But who were the Evil Doers causing the "cyber terror" in this exercise? Not Al Qaida, but a fictitious left-wing "Worldwide Anti-Globalization Alliance" in cahoos with "Freedom not Bombs". Kevin Poulsen writes in Wired:

... Does the administration really see the far left as potential cyber terrorists ready to take down the power grid and air traffic control systems? This might explain why the U.S. keeps getting caught spying on peaceful war-protestors.

100+ civilians now killed per day in Iraq

2006-08-21T23:20:00.000+10:00

3,438 killed in July alone. So the tragedy that Iraq has represented for America over the last three and a half years (2,607 soldiers killed) is repeated every month in Iraq. Except with women and children. In their own homes.

Bush vs the Law

2006-08-20T08:46:00.000+10:00

Couldn't put it any better than Glenn Greenwald does here. Just read his post.

"There are no hereditary kings in America"

2006-08-18T11:19:00.000+10:00

Round One of ACLU vs the National Security Agency goes to the ACLU. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor:

We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no power not created by the Constitution. So all "inherent power" must derive from that Constitution.

For more on the Bush administration's latest set-back, we cross now to Jack Cafferty:

UK surveillance required warrants

2006-08-13T10:10:00.002+10:00

One of the big topics on the talk shows right now is: does this foiled terrorist plot in the UK suggest that Democrats are wrong to oppose the President's illegal warrantless wiretap program?

What you don't hear on the chat shows is that the Brits themselves were required to get warrants.

Tesla Roadster electric car

2006-08-13T06:48:00.000+10:00

This electric car goes from 0 to 60mph in 4 seconds and has a range of 250 mi. There are already some tax breaks if you buy one, but I think state and local governments everywhere should be doing much more to subsidize every aspect of this emerging industry. Ideally, you'd do it in a revenue-neutral way: tax the polluting cars more, and send the money straight over to the non-polluting alternative. That way, you're just helping to include the real costs of pollution, climate change and oil extraction in the price we pay for cars.

Foreign policy and terrorism

2006-08-13T03:41:00.000+10:00

Headline from today's Washington Post: UK rejects foreign policy link to attack threat.

Of course foreign policy is linked to the threat of terrorist attacks. Surely even the most hawkish fanatic couldn't deny that must be some level of violence you could inflict on a civilian population that would guarantee a large part of them would support terrorist attacks on us.

It's rare to see this issue even being discussed though. Sean Hannity likes to call this the "please Mr Terrorist don't hurt us" position. The analysis doesn't get much deeper than that.

War Crimes Act to be gutted, for some reason

2006-08-11T11:39:00.000+10:00

From the Washington Post:

The Bush administration has drafted amendments to a war crimes law that would eliminate the risk of prosecution for political appointees, CIA officers and former military personnel for humiliating or degrading war prisoners, according to U.S. officials and a copy of the amendments.

"People have gotten worried, thinking that it's quite likely they might be under a microscope," said a U.S. official. Foreigners are using accusations of unlawful U.S. behavior as a way to rein in American power, the official said, and the amendments are partly meant to fend this off.

It's considered shrill to discuss war crimes in the context of the actions of U.S. officials, so let's just say the administration is certainly showing a lot of awareness of wrongdoing.

Gonzo blogging from CT

2006-08-11T05:04:00.000+10:00

Hunter S. Thompson is alive. Only this time he's funnier.

Israel to bomb all moving vehicles

2006-08-10T01:55:00.000+10:00

Israel has just unilaterally declared southern Lebanon a "no drive zone". So if you're a civilian driving a relief vehicle, or taking your family members to hospital, or if you just don't get cable news because half your country has been being bombed for four weeks, the Israeli Defence Force intends to kill you. Those intentions are explicit, public and on the record.

Gotta stop those terrorists though.

Update:
Apparently the entire population of Southern Lebanon are to be considered terrorists, according to Israel's minister of Justice. Why? Because they haven't heeded the IDF's warnings to leave the area... uh, using roads that have been destroyed, in vehicles that the IDF says they will bomb on sight.

Lamont wins by 4 points

2006-08-10T01:51:00.000+10:00

These are some of the great quotes of the campaign.

A recent poll from Quinnipiac put Sen. Joe Lieberman ahead of his super-liberal primary challenger, Ned Lamont, by some 40 points. A new Rasmussen poll says that Lieberman's lead is 20 points. Here comes the good news. Yesterday Moulitsas [Kos] eagerly told his readers that Lamont is "within striking distance."
If the Democrats keep up that kind of wishful thinking, maybe they will find a way to lose what should be a big electoral victory for them in November.

-Weekly Standard

Terrorism

2006-08-05T13:53:00.004+10:00

Ian Williams from The Nation was just on the O'Reilly Factor. One of the first times I've ever heard a commentator in the US making the simple point that terrorism, if you define it in any objective way, is something our side has done quite a bit of over the years -- not just Hezbollah et al.

Switch over to ABC World News and here's David Wright reporting from Beirut:

Israeli officials have made it clear that any attack on Tel Aviv will provoke more intensive strikes against Lebanon's infrastructure and population.

Deliberate acts of deadly violence against a civilian population? I'm sure there's a word for that...

Some cute Mac software

2006-08-03T08:44:00.000+10:00

This is such a useful replacement for a million little notes, and so much better than "stickies" or whatever: VoodooPad.

It's a little desktop wiki, but totally useable unlike the one that was released a while ago as a widget. Organizing all your little notes hierarchically means you can put down as much detail as you like without cluttering things up... like copying and pasting whole e-mails etc. Plus it's free unless you want the fancy version with a bunch of features you probably don't need.

NYT endorses Ned Lamont for CT Senator

2006-07-31T04:25:00.001+10:00

This is a great story in the making, something very good for the Democratic party -- taking down one of their elder statesmen for his excessive "bipartisanship" on foreign policy. This country has more than enough bipartisanship on foreign policy. If all the candidates agree on an issue, it effectively gets removed from the democratic process. And there are a lot of things this country does overseas that could benefit from a little democratic scrutiny.

A senate race in Connecticut

US resisting Israel/Lebanon ceasefire

2006-07-31T03:47:00.000+10:00

At an emergency session, Annan emplores the UN security council to condemn the Israeli attack on Qana (over 50 dead) and demand an immediate ceasefire. Almost everyone agrees... but not the US.

Meanwhile, as Josh Marshall notices, the US suggests "why not attack Syria too?"

[Israeli]Defense officials told the Post last week that they were receiving indications from the United States that the US would be interested in seeing Israel attack Syria.

Antony Loewenstein

2006-07-30T01:15:00.000+10:00

Antony Loewenstein gets a write-up in the Herald...

Looking forward to reading his upcoming book My Israel Question.

Democracy TV

2006-07-29T10:39:00.000+10:00

Could this be the non-commercial Internet/Tivo missing link we've been waiting for?

Beholden to the IDF generals

2006-07-29T09:15:00.000+10:00

Very interesting article by one of the staff writers in Ha'aretz today:

...To this day, two weeks after the outbreak of the second Lebanon war, the Knesset has not held even one session on the conflict, its objectives, and the IDF operations.

Israel's foreign policies have come to be based on an essentially belligerent perception that favors military considerations over diplomatic ones. Violence is seen not only as a legitimate instrument in international affairs, but almost as the only means that can bring positive results.

I guess this is the reason that liberal democracies are supposed to subordinate military power to the civilian leadership. When the generals are in charge, you don't tend to get very good results.

Global Warming

2006-04-08T04:05:00.000+10:00

Latest update from the White House West.

Chomsky talk

2006-03-10T06:33:00.000+11:00

Just went and saw Noam Chomsky speak in Binghampton. The guy draws capacity crowds everywhere he travels to, and has the most well documented critique of US foreign policy of anyone I've ever read.

So why do we on the respectable left have to ignore him, and not even read him or make reference to him? Because the Right claims that he "hates America" (by criticizing its foreign policy)? If we're too scared to mention Chomsky on this stuff -- and at least read the guy -- how are we any better than the kinds of pro-war Democrats who decide their policy positions in large part to avoid being called "unpatriotic" and "soft on defense" by the right? In both cases, baseless name calling ends up trumping any kind of reasoned deliberation.

And of all the criticisms you can make of the guy, saying he's an idiot is about the most absurd. There is no question the guy would have a Nobel prize if they awarded them for linguistics. He founded the field of modern linguistics... as a grad student. He wrote a serious treatise on the Spanish civil war at age 12. Etc etc. Calling him an idiot is a bit rich.

Palestinian elections

2004-11-28T09:35:00.000+11:00

From Gush Shalom, Tel-Aviv:

FUTURE LEADERS
Yitzhak Rabin - was, under the British Mandate, the leader of the prisoners in Rafah prison camp.
Yitzhak Shamir - was arrested as a terrorist and exiled to a prison camp in Eritrea.
Menachem Begin - was branded as a terrorist with a big prize on his head and blood on his hands, after he blew up the King David hotel in Jerusalem with a hundred civilians dead.
All three became later Prime Ministers of Israel and were ceremoniously received by Britain, their former enemy. Among the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons are the future leaders of the Palestinian nation. Marwan Barghouti is only the most famous of them. It is in Israel’s interest to release and allow them to take part in the Palestinian elections.

Multiple Choice

2004-11-26T05:53:00.000+11:00

Is this:
(a) a politician acting as head of government in a democracy, or
(b) a king and quasi-deity from an authoritarian regime?

[Billboard erected in honor of the president by ClearChannel Communications]

[AP photo, front page of CNN.com website, 11/3/04]

[Reuters]

Follow-up quiz, for those who got that one right

Is this:
(a) a pulpit at a church service, or
(b) the podium at the convention held by the ruling party in a democratic, secular country?

Falwell's thanksgiving message

2004-11-26T05:09:00.000+11:00

From Falwell's November 21 televised sermon, broadcast from his Thomas Road Baptist Church:

Let me talk to you about five good things of late ... for which this week I hope you and your family around your Thanksgiving table will praise the Lord. ... No. 5: America has alternative news media and is no longer held hostage by the major print and broadcast media. I remember a day when ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN and the major print media controlled all the news flow to the American people and we found ourselves getting warped and distorted news. I thank God now in the 21st century for talk radio, that three hours a day people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and hundreds of others are telling the truth of what really is going on. I thank God for FOX News Channel [applause]. I thank God for the Internet bloggers and the news producers like NewsMax.com, WorldNetDaily.com, even The Drudge Report.

Breath of fresh air

2004-11-09T06:54:00.000+11:00

This is a breath of fresh air. Apparently discussion of Israel's nuclear arsenal is now on the agenda. It seems like a safe bet that Iran's activities put it there. The level of hypocrisy over this issue was hard to bear.

If Israel just behaved itself, the world would be a much more peaceful, cooperative place. I don't think that French ambassador was ever too far off the mark with his now infamous comments.

Values vs ignorance: competing punditry

2004-11-09T06:45:00.000+11:00

Bob Herbert gets it spot-on:

I think a case could be made that ignorance played at least as big a role in the election's outcome as values. A recent survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that nearly 70 percent of President Bush's supporters believe the U.S. has come up with "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda. A third of the president's supporters believe weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. And more than a third believe that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion.

...A more practical approach might be for Democrats to add teach-ins to their outreach efforts. Anything that shrinks the ranks of the clueless would be helpful. [NYT 11/8/04]

Precision bombing

2004-09-29T07:23:00.000+10:00

This is how the civilian body count gets into the five figure range: utter disregard for innocent lives. If this was a street in New York it would be called either terrorism or mass murder. (Video from a US fighter jet.)

Iraq

2004-09-25T04:31:00.000+10:00

Two great posts on Iraq from Kevin Drum:

www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004766.php

www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_09/004763.php

Bush's friendship with Ken Lay

2004-09-22T12:22:00.000+10:00

Read the chummy letter from W to the now indicted former CEO of Enron — Bush's largest campaign contributor:

www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0708042lay1.html

Good article

2004-09-21T06:36:00.000+10:00

The Resort to Force [Z Magazine]

Gallop polls systematically inflate Bush vote

2004-09-18T10:36:00.000+10:00

Worth reading to help explain the currently huge disparity between different polls: www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/002806.html.

Anyone saying Bush has a massive margin right now is not telling the truth. He's ahead, but not by double digits.

US Media: Our country right or wrong

2004-09-17T07:13:00.000+10:00

The United States media are amazing.

Here is the scene. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, the chief official of the organization that defines international law, yesterday condemns the United States' invasion of Iraq as illegal. That crime has now cost well over 10,000 innocent Iraqi lives, and means that the leadership of the United States is guilty of one of the most serious violations of international law possible: the crime of launching an illegal invasion.

The details are all over the UK and Australian media. The governments of most major powers have now issued official responses to Annan's statement. Yet there is utter silence - a complete cable media blackout - from the TV news networks.

Here are some of the headlines CNN feels are more newsworthy:

Top story: Ivan downgraded, storm treks through South
'Goofy' accused of shoving 2 at Disney
Football player dies after lightning strikes team
Peterson testimony focuses on fetus
CNN/Money: New nickels unveiled

But not: "'Leader of free world' declared war criminal by highest UN official".

FOX news even mentions Kofi Annan, but only in the context of his plea for help to end the genocide in Sudan.The New York Times is not much better. Nothing on their website front page. By searching for "Annan" you can pull up an AP wire story headlined "U.S. Allies Reject Annan's Iraq Claim" - putting the focus on the laughably implausible denials of such credible legal luminaries as John Howard and Tony Blair. UPDATE: They have now posted an original article headlined "Annan Says Iraq War Was 'Illegal'".

Upwards redistribution, part 2

2004-09-17T03:10:00.001+10:00

From today's New York Times editorial:

In the past nearly three years of economic recovery, the distribution of economic growth has become more skewed than at any other time in modern memory. Currently, 47 percent of growth is flowing to corporate profits, by far the largest share than that in any of the other eight post-World War II recoveries. Fifteen percent goes to wages and salaries, the smallest share of economic growth in more than 50 years. To make matters worse, the share of compensation that is devoted to health and pension benefits is far larger during this recovery than in any other, representing a further squeeze on the wages and salaries of ordinary Americans. In 2004, take-home pay as a share of the economy dropped to its lowest level since 1929, when the government started keeping records.

The bleeding obvious: Iraq invasion was illegal

2004-09-16T12:33:00.000+10:00

Kofi Annan today, speaking to the BBC:

The US-led invasion ... was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, and from the charter point of view, it was illegal.

For some reason, it has been controversial to say "the invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law" up to now. It's not like the UN Charter is particularly ambiguous. Article 2 states:

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations...

Pretty Well Confirmed

2004-09-15T12:15:00.000+10:00

Sometimes it's easy to get tripped up when your strategy is to make everyone think something false without actually saying it. Here, Dick Cheney insists he never made a claim about a disproven "tie" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Then, in earlier footage, he says exactly what he denied ever saying, word for word: It is a crucial point about this election that one of the biggest predictors of how you will vote is whether or not you know that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Whenever you can split the population between knowing something and not knowing something, the more informed half always opposes the Republicans. Do you have a college education? You probably won't vote for Bush. Have you ever been to another country? You are very unlikely to vote for Bush. Are you a librarian, an academic, or a journalist? Do you live in a city where you are likely to meet people from different backgrounds than yourself? Do you live in either of the urban areas that were attacked on 9/11? Answer yes to any of the above, and the statistics show that you are probably not a Bush supporter.

Score 1 to the other side

2004-09-11T10:29:00.000+10:00

I'm convinced that one of these new documents about Bush's absense from his National Guard duty are in fact pretty crude forgeries: printed on Word and then photocopied successively a few times. Why would anyone do that?

UPDATE (9/13): I'm not convinced they're forgeries any more. Although they look very similar to documents produced with Word, that's likely to be because the fonts and character spacing used on today's computers were deliberately designed to match the existing typefaces like the ones installed on proportional-spacing typewriters. And on close inspection, there are actually differences in some of the characters and their positioning.

Scare out the vote

2004-09-08T09:44:00.000+10:00

It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States. [Vice President Dick Cheney, Iowa, today]

In other words, the Vice President says that a vote for Kerry is a vote for terrorist attacks on America.

Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency? [Joseph Welch, 1954]

1000 US combat deaths in Iraq

2004-09-08T07:47:00.000+10:00

We are living in an alternate reality. On the one hand, we have this administration's policies and their results. Any awareness or understanding of them leads to the conclusion that they should be voted out - at the very least (some people have more morally consistent ideas). On the other hand, we have the nationalism and hysteria produced by "war" that leads people to support whoever's in charge, regardless of merit. As far as I see it, those are the two major opposing forces right now.

We apologize for this interruption

2004-09-04T05:46:00.000+10:00

Please stand by while security removes anyone who disagrees with me:

[Courtesy of Just Sayin']

UPDATE: Delegates selflessly carry out extra-judicial corporal punishment, then modestly refuse to take the credit.

FOX: Convention Coverage

2004-09-04T03:58:00.000+10:00

Who woulda thought? Despite their insistence that there would be equal coverage of the Democratic and Republican national conventions, here's FOX's breakdown, courtesy of Media Matters for America:

FOX: The Economy

2004-09-03T09:55:00.000+10:00

Just now on the headline news on fox:

Employment growth is looking like being five times what it was last month!

Last month, according to the Government's own Bureau of Labor Statistics, "the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged." Just 32,000 new jobs were added – 0.01% above zero, as a proportion of the population. But it sure sounds like great news when you hear FOX tell it.

And this was immediately after the "news" that some hi-tech factory (involved with military contracts, I think) was expanding.

GOP Convention Video: Daily Show Version

2004-09-03T07:34:00.000+10:00

I think it's fair to say that Jon Stewart on Comedy Central provides more responsible coverage of the election than any of other the cable networks:

The upwards redistribution continues

2004-09-03T05:32:00.000+10:00

Even the facts on the ground are starting make it obvious how much wealth is being transferred from the majority to a small minority at the top:

"Productivity Growth Falls to 18-Month Low"
... Discounters and wholesale club operators such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. were especially hard-hit. Other stores, including Limited Brands and Talbots Inc., also struggled. But Neiman Marcus Group and similar high-end stores fared well. [NYT 9/2/04]

Screaming terror headlines, quiet retractions

2004-09-02T02:47:00.000+10:00

Turns out that in this high profile prosection of scary terrorist cases, the only bad behavior we know about is a pattern of misconduct and deception by the prosecution: soliticing misleading testimony, hiding exculpatory evidence from the defence, and generally rigging the trial. Or as they politely put it, "a pattern of mistakes and oversights". The government now admits they're actually not terrorists after all.

This is just like the late-2002 articles about Iraq: screaming headlines about finding weapons of mass destruction, followed by sheepish, buried follow-up stories that refute them. But the ordinary guy on the street who only has time to catch the headline news gets the message: scary terrorists are poised to kill us at any time, and only our leader and chief protector can save us.

Giuliani at the GOP Convention

2004-09-01T04:10:00.000+10:00

Rudy Giuliani's speech at the Republican Convention last night was sickening, and not just because of the shameless exploitation of 9/11 for political gain. Here are some of the highlights:

He directly implied that Iraq was responsible for 9/11:

And it was here in 2001, in the same lower Manhattan, that President George W. Bush stood amid the fallen towers of the World Trade Center, and he said to the barbaric terrorists who attacked us, "They will hear from us." Well, they heard from us. They heard from us in Afghanistan and we removed the Taliban. They heard from us in Iraq, and we ended Saddam Hussein's reign of terror.

He implied that we owe it to the victims of 9/11 to re-elect George Bush:

So long as George Bush is our president, is there any doubt they will continue to hear from us until we defeat global terrorism? We owe that much and more to the loved ones and heroes that we lost on September 11.

He shamelessly exploited the tragedy of people jumping from the World Trade Center towers - described in explicit, emotive detail - to channel that into gratitude to God for George Bush:
At the time, we believed that we would be attacked many more times that day and in the days that followed. Without really thinking, based on just emotion, spontaneous, I grabbed the arm of then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, and I said to him, "Bernie, thank God George Bush is our president." I say it again tonight. I say it again tonight: Thank God that George Bush is our president, and thank God that Dick Cheney, a man with his experience and his knowledge and his strength and his background, is our vice president.
He claimed that the crisis of 9/11 was "the worst crisis in our history" - apparently worse than the Civil War or World War II. This discarding of perspective is a major plank of the campaign against civil liberties: we've never faced this level of threat before, therefore, the freedoms we've enjoyed in the past need to be curtailed.

He quoted selectively from history - going as far back as 1972 - to support the idea that our side is exclusively the victim of terrorism. This is the classic narrative of demagogues the world over, when drumming up support for violent aggression: They keep hitting us, we keep doing nothing. It's long overdue for us to hit them back harder (...and I get to choose who "they" are). By leaving out all the terrible things done by one side, it is not possible to form rational conclusions about a conflict.

He continued the myth that President Bush gets credit for "keeping us unified" in response to 9/11 - as if by unique force of character, he did something that other leaders would not have been able to do. In fact, the unity after 9/11 arose spontaneously, and would have arisen naturally under any President. What President Bush did was to exploit that tragedy, starting on the very day of the attacks, for the invasion of Iraq - something that has left the country with a virtually unprecendented partisan divide.

He ran the mindless rhetorical, GOP talking-points line that the invasion of Iraq was "playing offense" rather than "defense". That line would be equally valid if the President had bombed Canada rather than Iraq. "Playing offense" is not a justification for an unprovoked attack against a non-threatening country.

According to Giuliani, it is Yasser Arafat who is undermining "any chance of peace in the Middle East".

He said that Europe appeases and accomodates terrorists, in particular Germany, and in particular when the victims are Jews.

He claims that Bush is an optimist (with the vision of Winston Churchill), despite running an election campaign, and indeed an administration, based on fear.

John Kerry does not "see world terrorism for the evil that it is".

He gave his "opinion" (carefully stated as such) that the Secret Service was worried when Bush bravely disregarded his own safety to pose for a photo op at ground zero three days after the 9/11 attacks - because there were "fires raging below ground of 2000 degrees or more". And his personal safety was again imperiled by the forceful hugs of adoring firefighters.

Just a day after Bush makes the obvious point - in a moment of unintended honesty - that a war on "terrorism" can never really be won, Giuliani says the opposite.

Putting AK-47s back on the street

2004-08-25T06:43:00.000+10:00

From Stop the NRA just now:

In less than 30 days assault weapons will be back in this country unless President Bush keeps his promise to renew the ban.

The showdown is coming. At midnight, September 13 -- the landmark federal Assault Weapons Ban will expire. That means Uzis and AK-47s will be legal again and back in our neighborhoods and in the hands of nearly anyone who wants to get them.

Playing politics with the Assault Weapons Ban is completely reckless. But President Bush and the Republican Congressional Leadership have so far decided to listen to the NRA, not to the 80% of Americans who want the Assault Weapons Ban renewed and not to every major police group in the country.

Of course, these days a "well regulated Militia" is not particularly "necessary to the security of a free State".

Swift Boat Attack Dogs

2004-08-21T11:22:00.000+10:00

This is at least the third time this week that FOX's Hannity & Colmes have had the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on. Yesterday evening the entire show was dedicated to their despicable mud slinging. They should just rename the show the Swift Boat Free Air Time Hour.

Actually Hannity just said it himself right now: "Soros and those guys gave millions of dollars to MoveOn and all those liberal groups, and they didn't get anywhere near as much publicity than these Swift Boat Vets with a few hundred thousand!" I guess you don't need much money when FOX plays your ad in prime time night after night for free.

NY Times letter

2004-07-20T06:02:00.000+10:00

To the Editor:

That Iraq was not concealing weapons of mass destruction is now an unavoidable fact. But holding to the "almost universally accepted" theory (Editorial, July 16) that Saddam’s attitude to inspections was best explained by the existence of W.M.D. at the time requires a continuing refusal to listen to the same people who have been right all along.

Weapons inspections were presented to Iraq as an opportunity to end a debilitating sanctions regime. Once the United States and Britain made clear in the late 1990s that the goal was regime change, not disarmament - a message amplified by President Bush in 2001 - any incentive for cooperation was removed.

Meantime, the coalition was illegally bombing the country almost daily, and had been using past inspection missions as cover for hostile intelligence operations. Iraq's unenthusiastic approach to the inspections was exactly what the administration wanted. Uncritical reporting allowed them to successfully portray it as full blown obstructionism, which it never was.

July 16, 2004

Of course, it's too long to be printed. That's the beauty of short letters and 5 second sound bites. They're long enough to mouth accepted beliefs and conventional wisdoms, but if you want to address underlying assumptions or challenge the overall perception of an issue, you either run out of time or say something counterintuitive without substantiating it.

Democracy, defined by Fox News Channel

2004-06-06T08:57:00.000+10:00

From Fox's The Beltway Boys, just a moment ago:

Reagan believed that any country could become a democracy … After the communists won an election in Nicaragua, he funded the contras to fight against them, and … uh … eventually they became … uh … a democracy.

Brilliant.

Good review piece

2004-06-02T05:54:00.000+10:00

This piece in the NY Review of Books is one of the better pieces on the torture scandal.

The important point it makes is that what went on was official policy, and, in general terms, was publicly known before some of the photographs were leaked. Of course, officals used euphemisms to describe their policies, but they didn't disguise what was going on.

Interview with Noam Chomsky

2004-05-25T05:49:00.000+10:00

This is a short, interesting interview. The interviewer is clearly not sympathetic to Chomsky, which makes it all the more interesting.

Up is down, black is white ... sun is rain?

2004-05-25T05:43:00.000+10:00

This is hilarious.

And number 11 ...

2004-05-25T05:39:00.000+10:00

This is a good summary of 10 of the top mistakes in Iraq.

Of course, number 11 is the one we're not supposed to be concerned about: violating international law (specifically, the UN charter) by invading a country that hasn't attacked us.

Either you care about international law, or you don't. I think that most people do.

Problem solved

2004-05-25T05:38:00.000+10:00

Well, they've finally solved the problem of graphic images of abuse and torture coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan: Rumsfeld bans camera phones in Iraq.

If I remember rightly, they had a similar solution to the problem of alarming Red Cross reports earlier.

Russia to ratify, Kyoto to become law

2004-05-25T05:37:00.000+10:00

This is huge news if it happens. Contrary to everything we've been hearing, Russia is apparently going to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which means it will become international law.

The treaty, signed by 134 countries (including the United States and Australia), comes into effect when the number of countries ratifying it represents over 55% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. With the United States refusing to ratify, the arithmetic means that Russia's participation makes or breaks the deal.

(International treaties are a two step process. First you sign the treaty, commiting your country to follow it. Then you ratify, which means you pass laws domestically to bring your country into compliance with whatever the treaty requires.)

[ Thank you to Atrios and Kevin Grose in Bonn for correcting an earlier misconception on this post ]

Lies and deliberate deception

2004-05-23T10:30:00.001+10:00

One of the biggest gaps between the worldviews of the left and right is the perception of the trustworthiness of our most powerful institutions: the military, the government and corporations. There is a lot of evidence that these institutions act consistently to deceive the public whenever it furthers their goals, and that this can happen despite the many good people who work in them. That's why people on the left support regulating industries, regulating nations (through international law) and more oversight by watchdog groups — things that the current administration is generally against.

A few examples just from this week:

Official line: The Pentagon, top military officials and the President continue to insist that the prisoner abuse scandal was the work of a few low-ranking soldiers.

What we know: The admininstration, as a matter of official policy, refuses to comply with the Geneva Conventions — not just in Guantanamo Bay, but also in Iraq. For over a year, military officials have made clear that "stress and duress" and supposedly "light" forms of torture have been routine for prisoners in US custody. Worse, "extraordinary renditions" — taking prisoners to countries like Egypt that specialize in torture — have been commonplace. Even an innocent Canadian (Muslim, of course) was picked up in New York and sent to Syria to be tortured for 8 months. (The Syrians weren't even interested in him, but they say they "interrogated" him as a show of goodwill to the Bush Administration.)
Official line: They also claim that if they'd known about the abuse, they would have acted.

What we know: The Red Cross repeatedly informed top American officials both in Baghdad and Washington about the abuse as early as last November. Their response was to curtail Red Cross inspections.
Official line: The detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan are terrorists, so their rights are less important than the rights of our combatants.

What we know: First, it is not generally accepted that "terrorism" covers acts of war against the troops of an invading or occupying army, however legitimate or illigitimate. Second, the human rights of all combatants need to be protected as a matter of principle, not least of all because we expect the rights of our troops to be respected. Third, some of those sitting in jails like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are likely to be innocent people picked up in broad sweeps. Others, like the former head of the Iraq Air Force — who, judging from the military's own statements, was almost certainly tortured to death — were clearly prisoners of war, not "terrorists", under any definition. (In the case of the head of the Iraqi Air Force, the Pentagon's official statement originally "said he didn't feel well and subsequently lost consciousness." Later they admitted that US troops had stuffed him "headfirst into a sleeping bag, sitting on his chest and covering his mouth".)
Official line: The crimes committed were "abuses", and were limited.

What we know: The Pentagon is investigating 33 cases where prisoners were killed while being interrogated in Iraq, and 5 in Afghanistan. Of the Iraqi cases, many occured in other jails that we haven't even heard about yet. It is hard to see how so many people could have been killed in interrogation rooms and cells without the appropriate terms being "torture" and "murder", rather than "abuse". Some Republican congressmen even insist on calling it "hazing."

There are equally eye opening examples from Israel this week — officials making categorical denials that are contradicted the next day by other officials. I'll try to post some of them later.

Rafah withdrawal

2004-05-22T05:26:00.000+10:00

The official IDF mission in Rafah was to "uncover hidden tunnels" and arrest weapons smugglers. They've killed over 40 people in a couple of days - mostly civilians - and demolished entire neighbourhoods with bulldozers. Now they're starting to withdraw.

Results of the mission: One arrest made, zero tunnels uncovered.

There's certainly a lot of support for the Palestinian position that these attacks are simply "collective punishment" of the entire population. The way Israeli officials talk, it definitely appears that way. They seem to regard the entire Palestinian population as somehow guilty.

Only good guys get "killed"

2004-05-21T05:13:00.000+10:00

Turns out there are just more and more prisoners who happened to "die" while being interrogated. Three are mentioned in this CNN piece.

I guess they must have all had high cholesterol or something.

Gaza Ostrich

2004-05-21T05:10:00.000+10:00

This is sad, especially the bit about the zebra later on.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Palestinian boys chased a limping ostrich through a Gaza refugee camp Thursday after an Israeli raid spelled disaster for a zoo that was a rare amusement spot for local children.

Gaza attack

2004-05-21T04:25:00.000+10:00

Ariel Sharon's spokesman just spoke to CNN's Aaron Brown. He suggested that the attack might have been "staged" somehow by Palestinians. He said the missile strikes from the helicopter and tank were aimed near - not at - the crowd, in order to "disperse them".

Even the former Iraqi information minister was more credible than this. But then again, his government had more respect for international law.

Meanwhile, AP footage clearly shows:

An IDF helicopter and tank firing missiles in the area of a peaceful protest in Gaza
An explosion occuring
Wounded people being evacuated

But rest assured - the IDF are conducting a full investigation.

Prisoner abuse and killings

2004-05-20T11:29:00.000+10:00

Here is a good summary of the current state of the prisoner abuse scandal. The administration's priority at this point still seems to be to cover it up, rather than to correct it.

The deaths include the killing in November of a high-level Iraqi general who was shoved into a sleeping bag and suffocated, according to the Pentagon report. The documents contradict an earlier Defense Department statement that said the general died "of natural causes" during an interrogation. Pentagon officials declined to comment on the new disclosure. [Denver Post]

I remember reading this Defense Department statement at the time and thinking "who ever dies of natural causes during an interrogation?" The Defense Department and its statements are just not credible sources. Still, they continue to be regarded as trustworthy by mainstream media.

IDF helicopter and tank fire into crowd of protesters

2004-05-20T08:38:00.000+10:00

An Israeli helicopter and tank fire missiles, killing nine or ten unarmed protesters, including several children, and critically injuring scores in a territory they have occupied illegally for 37 years.

NY Times: "Israeli Shells Hit Crowd of Palestinians, Killing at Least 9"

LA Times: "Israelis Fire Missile into Gaza Demonstrators"

Reuters : "Israeli Forces Fire on Crowd in Gaza, Killing 10"

Al Jazeera: "Israeli forces massacre protesters in Rafah"

But ...

CNN : "Explosion at Gaza demonstration kills 18"

CNN's coverage of this says a lot about the unwarranted respect they give to the US government and its close friends, in this case Israel. When a helicopter fires into a crowd, this is not just an unexplained "explosion".

The subheading of CNN's piece is: "Palestinians say Israeli helicopter fired on crowd; Israel denies it". This raises an important question: how many eye witness reports and how much evidence do they need before they treat these denials as unconvincing? By giving the Israeli military a degree of credibility they don't deserve, they hand them the power to turn anything they do into a he-said-she-said issue.

Update
Reuters' spin is now closer to CNN's. Palestinians are no longer being killed, they're just "dying":

Reuters : "Israel Vows No Let-Up in Gaza, 33 Palestinians Die"

Bush's approval hits the 40s

2004-05-19T03:23:00.000+10:00

They won't want to capture Bin Laden too early if they're planning on riding that wave home in November.

[ Graph taken from here ]

Innocent people are executed - but not too many, so it's okay.

2003-08-14T01:33:00.000+10:00

These are the first four paragraphs of a news piece by Adam Liptak in today's New York Times:

A federal judge in Boston voiced alarm today that imposing the death penalty "will inevitably result in the execution of innocent people." But he declined to rule that that the death penalty is unconstitutional.

"In the past decade," the judge, Mark L. Wolf, wrote, "substantial evidence has emerged to demonstrate that innocent individuals are sentenced to death, and undoubtedly executed, much more often that previously understood."

He cited the exonerations of more than 100 people on death row based on DNA and other evidence.

"The day may come," Judge Wolf continued, "when a court properly can and should declare the ultimate sanction to be unconstitutional in all cases. However, that day has not yet come." [NYT 8/11/03, my emphasis]

Apparently "contemporary standards of decency" allow some (but not too many) innocent people to be killed by the state. Then again, plenty of innocent people are killed all the time overseas, so at least our decency has the virtue of consistency.