Geographical feature hit in war

I just read that the Russians, deep into invading Georgia, have bombed the Port of Poti.

If nothing else, that should raise a stink.

Radioactive question

It says in the newsy media that China has "contained sources of radiation" in the rubble of quake-damaged areas. The first graf indicates containment of 15, but further down, it says:

He [Wu Xiaoqing, China's vice minister for environmental protection] said 50 sources of radiation were buried by debris from the massive earthquake in central China, 35 of which had been secured. The rest lay buried or located but unreachable under collapsed buildings. He gave no specifics about the radiation sources.

Why hasn't anybody else asked precisely what were those "sources"? What the heck was going on, there? They seem to be awfully vague in their explanations ("they" being both the Chinese and the media).

I pray as much as the next agnostic for a speedy recovery from this disaster, for the people of China to rise from the ruins well and with minimal pain. I just worry what their government isn't telling them (and us) about what's under their feet and potentially in their water and air... and how & why it got there.

Again, with the "Springtime for Hitler"?!

I just watched the cutest little dance number over at little green footballs. There they were, all goose-stepping as a swastika, just like in The Producers, with the bad music and everything... I kept waiting for Dick Shawn to burst from the crowd, shouting, "Nein nein nein!"

Funny how these dancers at parade are calling somebody else Nazis, while it's their boys doing living in fear of their government, and their boys stiffly marching with their toes barely missing the tushies of the boys a'front of them.

Iranian leader visits NYC

There is already quite a bit of noise going on, about Ahmadinejad's proposed visit to the UN, his speech at Columbia U, and his proposed tour (now canceled -- and yet, he still threatens to visit there without permission from the city) of Ground Zero.

Personally, I would encourage the city to allow him a visit to the site of the destroyed WTC. Not only should they allow him to visit, they should require that, out of respect for all the victims of terrorism, he stay a while at the site -- at least 444 days.

Malaysia moving toward sharia

Mark Steyn at NRO brings to attention this Telegraph report:

Hardline Islamic law could be introduced across Malaysia under reforms proposed by the country's chief justice.

The article continues:

Ahmad Fairuz, the chief justice, told an Islamic conference in Kuala Lumpur that 50 years of independence had failed to free Malaysia from the "clutches of colonialism". Sharia law should be "infused" into the gaps created by abolishing common law, he said.

Malaysia's non-Muslim Chinese and Indian communities, who form 40 per cent of the population, are alarmed at creeping Islamisation.

They're not the only ones alarmed. I'm downright worried. My old flame, ratfink (who still refers to me as his first wife), and his entire family live as Christians (Catholics) in Malaysia. Will he -- will they -- be safe living where they are?

I think I'd better start cleaning up the extra rooms in my house and making ready for their long-term occupancy. It may not come to that, but it can't hurt to be prepared.

Threat to freedom of speech: Yahoo, Google, Microsoft

Well, really the threat comes from the government of China, but the three major internet companies have signed contracts with China which have the potential for serious damage. They've agreed to provide that government with the personal information on bloggers who post "offensive" material -- including any statements made against the government, and the hard-line government of China gets to decide what qualifies as "offensive".

Yahoo has already buckled under the intense pressure of hearing "pretty please or we'll stop all your business connections in your second-largest market". As a result of surrendering just such information, one blogger was carted away to prison in China. As Roger L. Simon put it,

In the case of Yahoo, their cooperation in providing an IP address to Chinese authorities led to a ten-year sentence for journalist Shi Tao for “divulging state secrets abroad”.

In his September 2005 report, Simon quoted Reporters Without Borders this way:

"Information supplied by Yahoo ! led to the conviction of a good journalist who has paid dearly for trying to get the news out. It is one thing to turn a blind eye to the Chinese government's abuses and it is quite another thing to collaborate."

Roger Simon has a suggestion for dealing with this threat to liberty, and it sounds like a good tool, to me.

From this moment on, I will not write about the Beijing Olympics unless the subject at hand is censorship and repression in China. And – unless the Chinese government changes its policies – when the Olympics do come, I will not blog about them at all. I will take the opportunity to write as often as I can about the lack of Freedom of Speech on the Chinese Internet and on the suppression of bloggers and journalists in that country.

Read the rest of it. Then consider the potential if we all follow his lead.


(HT: God's right-hand keyboard enthusiast ;-) )

RAF jets scrambled to intercept Russian bombers

According to the Telegraph, two RAF jets Tuesday were sent post-haste to meet some oncoming Russian Tu95 "Bear" bombers on their way toward the UK from the arctic circle. Putin's people said the flight was part of a training flight, and this incursion into the queen's air space is not at all related to heightened tensions arising from the Russian assassination attempts on British soil....

And people say we Americans are clumsy, crude and rough! Howzabout that Vlad "Tony Soprano" Putin? Where's his nuance?

US spy squirrels captured in Iran

At least, the Iranian government says that they've caught the little critters red-pawed. Some are skeptical that we would wire these rodents to listen in on Iran. I say, who better to check on the real nuts?

What's so funny about peace through strength?

Rand Simberg has a follow-up post to his earlier analysis of why we shouldn't be surprised doctors wage jihad against us -- and, precisely, what is behind this jihad in the first place. The follow-up gives background on why they attack us, here in the good old U. S. of A., and it isn't strictly because we're big and mean and have evil intentions...

There are (at least) two categories of error in foreign policy. One is to commit egregious acts against a people such that they rise up against you.

The other is to show weakness, such that they think that if they can hurt you badly enough, you'll give up, and give in to their demands, no matter how outrageous and unreasonable they may be.

While we've done more than we should have of both over the last...well...half century, if not longer, the latter is the major reason that we are currently under siege (at least metaphorically, if not literally).

Yes, bin Laden whined about the "occupation of Arabia" during and after the first Gulf War. And the Arabs continually whine about the oppression of the "Palestinians" by the "Zionists" (see, I can use scare quotes just as well as Reuters, except...well, mine are actually accurate).

But the real reason for the war we're in can be found in the part of bin Laden's speech about the "weak horse" and the "strong horse."

His argument is, Bin Laden has assumed that, because we backed down, we were weak and would remain so. There is more to it than that, of course. But the perception of our weakness -- valid or not, is a large part of our problem since even before Vietnam. It certainly does go back more thana half-century. To wit, Bill Mauldin's 1961 cartoon and comment from What's Got Your Back Up?


More to the point is the comment Mauldin includes beneath the image:

Totalitarian leaders do their worrying in private and always show a resolute face to the world. It is hard for them to understand societies which struggle openly with decisions, and it must be very easy for dictators to make the dangerous mistake of confusing soul-searching with flabbiness.

By and large, since the 1970s, we have been a flabby nation -- especially during terms when military-loathing Democrats have had greater power in Washington. Nevertheless, historically and currently, this nation does not tolerate that sort of self-destructive behavior too often or for too long. Elections come, truth about real threats is recognized, and would-be Jimmy Carters fail swiftly.

I hope I'm not mistaken about my fellow countrymen (not to mention other free peoples). I would hate to see Robert Heinlein proven wrong on his 100th birthday.

"Terror suspects" not terrorists, just stupid

According to the Times Online (UK), the two men picked up on suspicion of terrorism for having ordered and received large quantities of petroleum-based fuel were not, after all, buying the gasoline for explosives. If I read this correctly, the "two Asian men" had been picking up the gas to run generators, so their electrical energy usage wouldn't raise flags with the authorities. They were using it to run a very large marijuana-growing operation.

It was a case of gas for grass, and no skin off anybody innocent's a$$. But I guess they did get to ride for free... all the way to the police station.

California & Bolivia: Separated at Birth?

Or on the same downward spiral?

As I wandered through the closely-groomed pathways that are Instapundit posts, I tripped over this piece by Christian Probasco, at New West, on the disturbing trend California has, of exporting their nanny-state assaults on liberty:

Hollywood has molded the image and the myths of the Rocky Mountain West for the entire world. Much of the technology that went into the computer on which you’re reading this article was developed in Silicon Valley. Much of the food in your refrigerator probably comes from the Central Valley. Much of the new population of the interior West’s cities emigrated from California.

California is a trendsetter state. Much like the weather, every Californian fad eventually makes its way over the Sierras and diffuses into the intermountain West. That’s wonderful, and it’s frightening, because there are some pretty disturbing things going on in the Golden State right now.

And, via Gateway Pundit, José Brechner has this to say about Bolivia:

For unknown reasons, this Andean country has a disproportionate influence on its neighbors' political conduct. Indeed even though it behaves in a totally unhinged manner, its geographical location in the center of the continent irradiates its energy to its surrounding nations. When it comes to liberty – or libertinism, which is more common in South America – Bolivia is number one. Everyone does what they want, when and where they want. But liberty is like water. If you do not put it into a vessel, it slips through your fingers until it is gone.

Either way, the tendency of each -- away from freedom and individual responsibility -- is troublesome, especially for the influence they seem to have on their neighbors and friends.

The threat from (or to) China

Via Instapundit: More really bad news about Chinese import items -- several people in Chicago became ill after eating "monkfish" from China.

This on top of the news of the toxic toothpaste in Australia and Panama and the pet food terror.

It's hard to keep myself from seeing a conspiracy in the recent spate of woes -- please, somebody show me this isn't some sort of internal sabotage to screw up the capitalist, internationalist bent developing in this newcomer to industrialization. It would be so very simple for a handful of "true believers" to completely undo any modernization and outreach, simply by making international trade impossible and forcing them inward, to become a militaristic slave society again.

I genuinely hope it's just half-assedness, and not malice. At least dipsticks who can't tell the difference between glycerin and diethylene glycol can be replaced fairly easily in a growing economy. Scary would-be international and political murderers are tougher to clean out, especially if they're super-scary and in positions of power.

Free speech threatened in Finland

Finland has long had a reputation as one of the freest states in Europe. That's why it comes as a surprise to many of us that some long-standing codes codes against "hate speech" are being used to prosecute one citizen-blogger this week. Gates of Vienna has the whole story, and will continue to update everybody. Keep checking back with them.

So, a free nation is threatening to jail a blogger for speaking his politically incorrect mind. There seems to be no indication that he has incited people to go out and riot, or attack and kill anybody... there seems to be nothing more than a sense of his telling his readers "dude, these people are dangerous, and here's why." And, yet, the government is working against his free speech. How come this sounds so familiar?

I can't read Finnish, so I can't be certain Mikko Ellilä is genuinely "merely... point[ing] out that Islam is a fascist ideology that advocates killing Jews, atheists, homosexuals etc." or using stronger terms. Nevertheless, Finland just got over investigating with initial intent to prosecute a publisher who made available in print the "dread cartoons of Muhammad." The Finnish government, like the Danes only a few weeks earlier, were a hair's breadth away from fining, jailing, silencing people for printing news. They're still only that distance from it, in Finland, it seems.

This is one of the reasons I've long mistrusted speech codes. Seldom (never?) are they applied in a balanced and just fashion, for the good of all. Far too often, they're used to silence -- instead of protect -- the public.

Resisting Falsehood: a reply to "Resisting Apartheid"

Hooray! John Palmer has, as promised, posted Menachem Kellner's Resisting Falsehood and Protecting Integrity, in its entirety, at EclectEcon! It's a rather lengthy post, but well worth the attention. The essay is a response to Omar Barghouti's "Resisting Israeli Apartheid: Why the Academic and Cultural Boycott?", a call for just such a boycott. Kellner responds:

Mr. Barghouti seeks to convince his readers that Israeli Jews are inveterate racists, and that Israel is an apartheid state. In the space allotted to me, I cannot possibly correct all of the deceptive falsehoods he uses — as the Hebrew expression has it, it is easier to throw mud than clean it up. By characterizing more accurately than Mr.
Barghouti the true nature and history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and then addressing his two main charges, racism and apartheid, I will undermine his call for a boycott.

Central, of course, to the cries for boycott, are the arguments that Israel is racist, cruel and inhumane toward the Palestinians... putting up a wall, and all that, so that suicide bombers just can't get in to play. The double standard is blatant and lethal. As Kellner points out

Israel is held to standards of behavior to which no other country in the world is held, and when it fails to live up to those standards, it is condemned in absolutist, Manichean terms as thoroughly depraved and corrupted. In the eyes of its enemies,[xi] the Israeli cup must be brimming over with goodness; otherwise it is empty of all redeeming value. Palestinians, on the other hand, are consistently forgiven their excesses. Often this forgiveness is on the grounds that the Palestinians, being militarily inferior, have no choice but to use means which, if used by any other group in the world, would be condemned (and rightly so) as uncivilized war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Kellner's essay continues to quite effectively shoot down the primary "logic" behind the current propositions for boycott. (I had a sneak peek at Kellner's piece, when John e-mailed it to me several days ago, & I'd been waiting for him to post it so we could share it around). Please, go read the whole thing. Share it with friends. It's worth it.

EclectEcon: on academic freedom

John Palmer at EclectEcon has linked to a terrific article by Michael Yudkin, explaining why this recent trend in academia to call for boycotting Israel is a demonstration of willful ignorance (a common problem, but not exactly something one wants to see in college professors).

Since my earliest days, I've been a part of the collegiate world (first, as a child of a student, and then as the professor's daughter -- a "faculty brat"). In the intervening years, I've seen professors go from isolated, ivory tower, "there is no room for politics in the classroom or on campus" conservatives to ideologues selling every leftist fantasy, even in hard-science lectures. Both sides, in my view, have incredibly destructive powers as it comes to their own credibility with students and in town-and-gown relations.

I do worry about the value of an advanced education, in this day and age. At least when the old geezers tried to stay out of politics, the effect on the outside world was that the students came out of the school having been left to think for themselves in order to come to any political decision. The modern trend seems to be more dangerous, for the fact that its leftist sanctimony is an activist position, and brooks no argument. Their aim seems to be simple political indoctrination, and that is no education.

Worse, the direction this indoctrination takes is problematic. It can affect the lives of people outside the narrow confines of the campus, and affect them in ugly ways -- as the Yudkin article demonstrates. But Yudkin's conclusion, I think, says it very nicely:

It is a good deal easier to make grand gestures than to engage with the complexities of so intractable a problem as the conflict between Israel and her neighbours.

The university experience is supposed to prepare one for eschewing grand gestures, for learning how to face intractable problems. Too many of today's students are being cheated. Therefore, tomorrow's society is, as well.

Dangerous rise of unrest in China

Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit has the news that there has been a massive riot in China, complete with torched police cars and injured citizens and police. The official excuse for the unrest is the "rising public transport costs", but commenter Jacksonian has a bit more background on the troubles:

The official corruption is, I believe, the cronyism being shown for handing out loans by the Beijing government, which has caused the rate of non-payment on those loans to skyrocket. Estimates place between 30-60% of China's GDP to be grounded on bad loans. If you start to foreclose on the loans people go out of work, if you don't foreclose the infrastructure collapses under debt load as investment dries up and the production capabilities are seen as unsustainable. Which they are. The rapid 'modernization' and 'capitalism' introduced in the 1980's has been funneled to those that are well connected with the Communist regime.

The surface affluence still does not address the vast number of rural poor, poor living conditions even in cities, the rapid overpopulation of cities, no pressure to repay on loans, no market pressure to use work-efficient equipment as there are so many unemployed as to make labor cheap, and a slow liquidation of civil society as the information revolution puts cheap, modern telecom and storage into the hands of the unemployed. This is a confluence of crony capitalism, at best, and State directed capitalism at worse, rapid decay of family structure, large movements of populations to anywhere good jobs might become available and the slow undermining of the agricultural base of China by that rapid movement of mostly young and educated Chinese to the cities.

Please, read the whole thing.


Of course, similar problems plague the state of IL, on a smaller, nonlethal scale (one hopes it will stay that way). Cronyism, corruption, half-a$$ed financial management, the collapse of family structure and values... who'd a thunk they might bring about chaos? Is there some way our own small problems can be solved? If so, could the solution for us be applied to China? or is it too late for both?

It does grow harder to remain optimistic about anything.

Saddam dead: cars, press and leftists explode

It's a natural result. Put a murderous thug to death, and some folks feel the need to go ballistic.

Saddam Hussein was hanged by the neck until dead, yesterday, and The MSM showed their undying devotion. This is what al-Reuters had to say about the event, too: Saddam hanged at dawn as bombs kill more than 60

Sure, there's a causal relationship there. If he hadn't been executed, there would never have been a car bomb, right? They never occurred anywhere in the world, or even in Iraq, until this morning. Uh huh. But it gets even more entertaining, as the article states:

A triple car bombing killed 25 in a Shi'ite district of the capital -- the sort of attacks that have pitched Iraq toward sectarian war since U.S. troops broke Saddam's iron rule.

So this violence is whose fault, again? Apparently, it's all because of one man:

President Bush, who called Saddam a threat though alleged nuclear and other weapons were never found, said:

"Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself."

Of course, the requisite reference to the "grim milestone" made its way into the article supposedly on the death of a dictator:

The deaths of five troops pushed the American death toll to just a few short of the emotive 3,000 mark. Bush already faces mounting public dismay at the war as Iraq slides toward all-out civil war between Saddam's fellow Sunnis and majority Shi'ites.

You'd think their teeth would be worn down by their constant gnawing on that stone.

So how, then, does the left react to the reports? Not well.

Pitiful.

Handing the turkey to the Bumpuses' dogs

At Jihad Watch, Marisol shows that Ehud Olmert has a self-destructive streak in him, as he is now allowing Egypt to ship heap plenty arms to the Palestinians.

So, I was reading the article and thinking to myself, maybe Olmert is just giving the Palestinians and their supporters a little more rope with which to hang themselves.

After all, if they get all the financial and military support they want, then they can't blame Israel for their problems, right? Then the world will understand exactly how foamingly fanatically hate-filled these people of Gaza (and points south, east, and north of Israel) really are.... When those weapons get turned on innocent Israelis, the world will rally around them, and this whole savage scene will cease.

And in the real world, there's nobody left in Israel to bury the dead.

(HT: FrontPageMag.com)

Update: It occurs to me that not everybody will know the title reference. It comes from the penultimate scene of Jean Shepherd's "A Christmas Story," when the dogs owned by the neigbors (the Bumpuses) broke through the kitchen door and... well, Ralphie's family had Peking duck for Christmas dinner, that year.

Belarus lobs extortion grenade back at Putin

Putin tried to blackmail Belarus into paying half its energy revenues, and Lukaschenko has replied, "Nice pipeline you have running through our yard, Vlad... be a shame if somebody were to shut it down..."

I'm beginning to seriously like Belarus, these days.

Ethiopian/Somalian army besieges Mogadishu

Dear Mister Clinton,

This is how it's done. It's called finishing what you started.

Sincerely,
rk


Updated link: 15:41 hrs CST
Updated update: Friday. Second link fixed. I am so ashamed.