Fewer Abortions?

I'm watching the 506th Democratic debate of 2007. Kucinich (and the others by implication) says he'll work for fewer abortions through birth control, etc.

But if there's nothing wrong with abortions, why work for fewer of them?

New Series: Recycled News

This is my first entry in an attempt to see if I can document a pattern I've noticed in news coverage.

Here's a story that was first reported on a few weeks ago, but is re-reported today (14 Nov) by AP as "news":

Pet massacres carried out in Puerto Rico

TRUJILLO ALTO, Puerto Rico - Back roads, gorges and garbage dumps on this
tropical island are littered with the decaying carcasses of dogs and cats. An
Associated Press investigation reveals why: possibly thousands of unwanted
animals have been tossed off bridges, buried alive and otherwise inhumanely
disposed of by taxpayer-financed animal control programs.

Hmmm, sounds familiar. Oh, wait, here's it is in this Reuters story:

Hundreds protest Puerto Rican "pet
massacre"
Sun Oct 21, 2007 11:50pm EDT

By John Marino

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - Hundreds of people, angered over an
alleged "pet massacre" in Puerto Rico's northwest town of Barceloneta, joined in
a protest march on Sunday from the island's Supreme Court to its
Capitol.

Many in the crowd of about 500 brought dogs and wore T-shirts reading, "I'm a animal lover" or "I love mutts." Others held signs with slogans like "stop animal abuse" and "justice for the pets of Barceloneta."

The October 8 and October 10 raids, in which authorities seized around 80 pets from their owners at three public housing projects in Barceloneta, stirred widespread anger.

There's no news like old news. Or in this case, recycled news. The stories aren't exactly the same: later in today's story it does mention the October story. But there's a pattern here. I've seen it happen with other stories. They resurface after failing to get much traction. That's not earthshaking but I wonder why it happens at certain times.

There seems to be a pattern. So, I'll try to document it here.

The CDC: Spending = American Health

I've just read an article in which the CDC reports that efforts to reduce smoking have "stalled." Why? Because we're not spending enough!

So typical of the CDC. I know. I'm a former employee.

Nearly 21 percent of Americans smoke, a number that has been stalled since 2004, federal researchers reported on Thursday in a study they said means governments must spend more to persuade people to kick the habit. Must-spend-more. Can't-think-beyond-liberal-cliches.

And later in the article, Dr. Matt McKenna, CDC employee, offers this brilliant analysis:

"It is completely commensurate with the stall in resources that have
been going into tobacco control," Dr. Matt McKenna, who directs CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, said in a telephone interview.

What a wholly cynical response. He's complaining about funding for his own program from the federal government. He's aggrandizing the importance of his own program. And he thinks you won't see through that. He thinks you're stupid.

This is so typical of the mindset at CDC, a place enmeshed with self-importance. The only way to save America's health, they suppose, is for the CDC to educate people about the dangers of their health-related behaviors. They think the rest of us are morons. If you read between the lines, it's the same line of argument any arrogant person gives:

If only you could understand what I do, or know what I know, you would agree with me (i.e., because my conclusion is inevitable).

I call that the intellectual fallacy. It's a logical fallacy the equal of any taught in college.

In the future, watch for alarmist stuff about the environment. CDC has officially purchased shares in the global climate change industry and now imagines that the only way forward is for CDC to protect the rest of the world from itself. And dissent is not allowed. Those who don't buy all the human responsibility aspect of it are ostracized, perhaps not officially but certainly as among coworkers.

Does that sound like scientific behavior?

A Problem of Definition

From Slow Deaf Child:

Despite conventional wisdom, Bush never thought nor said this war would be relatively easy. In contrast, he stated several times that the war on terror would NOT even be over in our lifetime and that it would be fought unlike any other war that we have ever fought. He was correct and wise in this prediction.

Conventional wisdom's problem here is one of definition. The War on Terror is not the same as the Iraq War. But the Iraq War IS a battle in the War on Terror.

History will show that the Iraq War WAS already won years ago by the U.S. Ask yourself, what war has ever been fought where the nation's civil and military leaders have been deposed, the army dismantled, yet victory was NOT claimed?

We are now in the midst of a new battle in the War on Terror that is NOT the Iraq War--it just so happens to be in the boundaries of the nation formerly known as Iraq. The enemy is now different and consists of guerilla invaders from throughout the Middle East. This has given us the ability to effectively fight our Great Enemy (Islamo-fascism) since their first attack on us back at our embassy in 1979 (They ran away and hid too quickly in Afghanistan).

The location of Iraq in the heart of the Muslim world, with a transitional government in place, has given us the opportunity to battle an elusive enemy who has not truly had a nation or army until now. Our enemy has been incarnated and can finally be engaged.

We will win this Great Conflict. But remember Bush's prediction, victory will most likely be generations away.

SLOW DEAF CHILD

Valerie Plame

I just watched Charlie Rose interview Valerie Plame. This woman is either a calculating liar or someone who is so enmeshed in the narrative she's developed that she doesn't even know she's lying anymore. Her mention of her twins and their reading about the war later in life was telling. She said she thought about them asking "if you knew the truth, why didn't you do anything," and that she and Wilson want to have a good answer. So they've got their story straight and are trying to make us all believe it.

She also repeated the "imminent danger" myth -- that the president said Iraq was posed an "imminent danger" via WMDs. I think she's stuck on this because that would be the one piece the CIA might have something to do with -- but it's not the only or even the most important piece in the buildup to the war. Neither President Bush, nor Colin Powell at the UN, ever said, as I recall, that Iraq posed an immediate danger to the US homeland. The point was that Saddam acted is if he might have WMDs by violating UN resolutions and defying the UN inspectors.

All along the buildup to the war was discussed as part of a global effort to eradicate terrorism. Admittedly, the Bush administration assumed the whole thing would be far, far easier than it has turned out. But that doesn't mean anyone knowingly lied going in.

Distortion?: Putin and International Herald Tribune

Andrew E. Kramer, reporter for the International Herald Tribune, writes that Sergei Markov, director of the Institute of Political Studies, sees an allusion to the United States in a speech by Putin:

Putin likens U.S. foreign policy to that of Third Reich
MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin of Russia obliquely compared the foreign policy of the United States to the Third Reich in a speech Wednesday commemorating the 62nd anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, in an apparent escalation of anti-American rhetoric within the Russian government.

WTH? Did Putin really say that? Let's see some more of the article:

Putin did not specifically name the United States or NATO but used phrasing similar to that which he has used previously to criticize American foreign policy while making an analogy to Nazi Germany.

Oh, I see -- the reporter bases his theory on bullet-proof literary analysis. Still, let's not be dismissive. Let's look at some more:

Speaking from a podium in front of Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square before troops mustered for a military parade, Putin called Victory Day a holiday of "huge moral importance and unifying power" for Russia and went on to enumerate the lessons of that conflict for the world today. "We do not have the right to forget the causes of any war, which must be sought in the mistakes and errors of peacetime," Putin said.

"Moreover, in our time, these threats are not diminishing," he said as he delved into what one expert said was clearly an allusion to U.S. foreign policy. "They are only transforming, changing their appearance. In these new threats - as during the time of the Third Reich - are the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality and diktat in the world."

[snip]

... Sergei Markov, director of the Institute of Political Studies, who works closely with the Kremlin, said in a telephone interview that Putin was referring to the United States and NATO. [snip]

The U.S. and NATO? Sounds to me like he meant Iran and Islamofascism. Where would he get the idea that Putin meant the U.S.?

Turns out, one place he could have gotten the idea is from the reporter. Perhaps it was a loaded question, something like, "Was President Putin referring to the U.S.?"

After all, only such a question would elicit Markov's response:

He intended to talk about the United States, but not only," Markov said in reference to the sentence mentioning the Third Reich. [emphasis added] "The speech said that the Second World War teaches lessons that can be applied in today's world."

Then the reporter details his bone-headed theory linking the World War II commemoration speech with other Putin's speeches:

The United States, Putin has maintained, is seeking to establish a unipolar world to replace the bipolar balance of power of the Cold War era.

In a speech in Munich on Feb. 10, he characterized the United States as
"one single center of power: One single center of force. One single center of
decision making. This is the world of one master, one sovereign" [....]

.
The analysis appears to rest entirely on the reporter's interpretation of the word diktat. Perhaps it has that power. But both "exceptionality" and diktat apply to Islamofascists at least as much as they do to the U.S., although with entirely different connotations. And given the context of Putin's reference to the "contempt for human life," Putin certainly was NOT referring to the U.S. (or NATO).

Kramer -- and perhaps Markov -- are at best being over-selective in their choice of evidence. At worst, they are intentionally misrepresenting Putin and the U.S.

The Case for the Strong Executive

From "The Case for the Strong Executive," published today:

The American Founders had the ambition to make America the model regime, taking over from England. This is why they showed surprising respect for English government, the regime they had just rebelled against. America would not only make a republic for itself, but teach the world how to make a successful republic and thus improve republicanism and save the reputation of republics. For previous republics had suffered disastrous failure, alternating between anarchy and tyranny, seeming to force the conclusion that orderly government could come only from monarchy, the enemy of republics. Previous republics had put their faith in the rule of law as the best way to foil one-man rule. The rule of law would keep power in the hands of many, or at least a few, which was safer than in the hands of one. As the way to ensure the rule of law, Locke and Montesquieu fixed on the separation of powers. They were too realistic to put their faith in any sort of higher law; the rule of law would be maintained by a legislative process of institutions that both cooperated and competed.

-- Harvey C. Mansfield

William R. Kenan Professor of Government at Harvard

Read the whole thing http://opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110010014).

Obama Promises Iraqi Heads In Exchange for Votes

This bit of Campaign 2007 Treachery from AP (4/21/07):

[Barack] Obama fielded questions about health care, gun control and energy during a midday appearance before some 200 people at a Nashua senior center. The residents politely applauded, and then Jean Serino of Hudson told the candidate her nephew was heading to Iraq to serve.

"I can't breathe," she said, her voice breaking with sobs. "I want to know, when am I going to be able to breathe? Are you going to get us the hell out of there? Promise us you will get us out of there. That's the most important thing."

"I can only imagine how you feel, as a father and as a parent," he said. "I don't go to a single town-hall meeting where I don't meet a mother or father who either is seeing a loved one go over there or has already lost someone, or has a loved one who has come back injured.

"So I make a solemn pledge to you, as president we will be out of Iraq," Obama said to loud applause. (Here's the whole article.)

What a pair of imbeciles. Obama's pandering, simpering vow to end the conflict -- as if our pulling out will end the conflict -- is pathetic. So is his reference to all the people he has spoken to. Hey, Mr. Obama, how about meeting with people who DON'T already agree with you? Not enough warm fuzzies?

This whole little exchange is the kind of emotionalism and pandering that will propel Democrats to promise defeat as an election platform in 2008. Once again, they show that they are not grown up enough to be in charge of national security or foreign affairs.

We should be wary of Obama and those who think the same way. Although Obama is transparent in his defeatism (for defeat is what he advocates, make no mistake), many others try to dress up withdrawl as shrewd foreign policy.

But here's the real problem. Promises of withdrawl and defeat are band-aids, and they attempt to compartmentalize the issue so that we won't think about what's over the horizon. As if withdrawing means there's nothing over that horizon. But withdrawl will have its consequences, so a commitment to withdraw American forces before the war is also a commitment to those consequences.

In other words, Obama's promise promises of a lot more, and a lot worse, than withdrawal alone. So some warnings:

Hey, Iraqi moderates, beware: Obama and Democratic others are promising your severed heads in exchange for votes.

Hey, Iraqi soldiers: they are promising to abandon you. You and your families will be among the first targets.

Hey, American soldiers: they are pandering to voters with promises to make you lose and thus pile shame on you.

Hey, American young people: in exchange for votes, yours and your parents', Democrats like Obama and Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi are promising you a terrible inheritance: a generation without heroes, an ashamed nation, and a destroyed national confidence. And more and more years of "American is the bad guy" thinking.

That's what they did to my generation with Vietnam. They whined the U.S. into losing when victory was within grasp. Why? To make themselves feel better. It was all about feelings, not national interest.

My generation and yours are paying the price of that treachery. It's called terrorism.

Do not accept defeat. Reject it with all your heart. A nation willing to be defeated most certainly will be -- and probably deserves it.

Virginia Tech

I've had whack-jobs in my classes like that. I thought for sure they would bring a gun some day. Now that I think of it, there were kids at my undergrad college who were very, very disturbed. I remember a friend's roommate, Elena, who night after night slept in a cave of newspapers she made on her bed. Poor girl. There was just no reaching her.

At VT, I'm struck that the teacher who really was the hero of the moment (at least the one I've heard about) was a Holocaust survivor. Now that's someone who knows about fear and danger. A person from a totally different world than the students. I think it says a lot that it was only he who, instead of shrinking from it and trying to hide, stood up when he should have. (See Mark Steyn on this, too.)

A friend of mine said she feared that there is SO MUCH of this kind of stuff going on. She's right. I don't believe it personally, but I sympathize with my sister-in-law's rantings about this being "End Times." Of course, every generation in almost every age has had good reason to think the same (that's why I'm not especially worried now). But it troubles me nonetheless to think about sending little ones into the Madness.

My question when it comes to thinking about this isn't "why can't we all get along?" Rather, it's "where are the adults?" I think many individuals, and the culture as a whole, have abdicated the role they ought be playing: the role of the grown-up. This is the one who says, without apologizing, this is the ideal for behavior (even if most real people can't live up to it), even if it intrudes on your personal freedom. It's the one who says "hey, there are limits to your self-gratification." And "I'm sorry, but there are limits to what's "okay" in terms of behavior." The one who says, "It's not all about you."

Part of the trouble now is that one of the most childish, self-centered, self-gratified, boundary-defying, limit-vilifying generations ever is now in the role where the grown-ups are supposed to be. The defiance they've congratulated themselves for since they were teens, and the narcissism by which they justified it, are having serious consequences in the culture.

An example: Someone I work with at CDC seemed amused yesterday when she mentioned that the population segment with the fastest-rising incidence of new HIV infections is seniors. There were lots of suppressed giggles, and then someone summed it off by laughing (and I quote), "Ha ha! I guess they're not worried about getting pregnant, so they're just having fun!"

These are our rising seniors. Imagine what it will be like, just a few years hence, when the Me Generation goes to the home! It's all kind of humorous, I admit, but there's a reason it's funny: it's that we don't expect our seniors to act, well, like horny teenagers. We expect them to be upright and moral. In a very real but unacknowledged sense, we need them to set the moral boundaries for the rest of us. In other words, we expect them to be the guard rails at the cliff's edge. But if they don't fulfill that role, what then?

Here's the point -- the perceived culture (to the extent it's a coherent whole, and it isn't) may or may not have have needed some revision way back when, but it's equally true that the whole celebrated rebellion we grew up in the shadow of needed that solid civilization more than it would ever admit. It took what was good and real and benevolent about the culture it was rebelling against for granted, as if what was good in, say, deferring to one's elders couldn't be lost or didn't exist in the first place.

I call that the "Push-Off Principle" (not a perfect name -- I'm still looking for a better one). What it refers to is the phenomenon where one group or idea or ideology both "pushes off" from an existing standard while also, without realizing it, taking the indestructibility of the standard's benefits for granted. The upshot is like revising a good but imperfect manuscript by throwing out your whole computer -- you get rid of the bad all right, but you also lose the good as well as the hardware that made revising possible in the first place.

Washington Post's E.J. Dionne

See the WP story, below.

Unfortunately, Dionne doesn't understand why anyone would watch Fox (which he betrays by lumping Hannity, a hyper-con, with O'Reilly; I guess they all look alike to him). He also appears to be unaware that it may be the left-wing tilt of all other networks that makes Fox appear "right-wing," if only by comparison. My personal opinion is that Fox is perceived as conservative for two reasons: 1) the presence of Hannity (who is balanced by Alan Colmes, a liberal) and because it allows conservatives a non-defensive place at the table. The problems with Dionne's assumptions are a) "Hannity and Colmes" is just one show on the whole channel, and b) Hannity is just half of that show. I'll concede that O'Reilly takes conservative positions on some issues, but he regularly hammers Republicans, the oil companies, and people like Pat Buchanan. And guess what? Fox isn't the only news organization ever to have reported something that turned out to be inaccurate.

Dionne also seems oblivious to the fact that classic "liberalism" involved liberating individuals from the excesses of government. Today's "liberals" aren't in that vein at all, instead preferring to use the machinery of the State as a weapon against private interests in order to achieve equality of outcomes (which they equate with "justice"), at the expense of liberty and personal responsibility.

What saddens me is how little people like him think of others. It's not that he doesn't care, but intentions aren't everything. By definition, he thinks people are too stupid to think or do for themselves and need enlightened people like him (using the power of the government) to save them from their baser angels.

Original article:

Saying No to Fox News
By E. J. Dionne Jr.Friday, April 13, 2007; Page A17

I have this mischievous suspicion that Roger Ailes, the creator and chairman of Fox News, secretly admires the bloggers and other activists working to keep Democratic presidential candidates from debating on his cable network.
To be sure, Ailes will never say this. On the contrary, he is furious that MoveOn.org and others have struck a chord in arguing that Democrats have no business creating any formal link with a network that so openly favors conservative and Republican causes.
"Pressure groups are forcing candidates to conclude that the best strategy for journalists is divide and conquer, to only appear on those networks and venues that give them favorable coverage," Ailes fumed earlier this year as Fox's effort to sponsor a Democratic presidential debate in Nevada was falling apart. "Any candidate for high office of either party who believes he can blacklist any news organization is making a terrible mistake." Using the incendiary word "blacklist" was a nice touch.
What Ailes knows is that the campaign to block Fox from sponsoring Democratic debates is the most effective liberal push-back against the network that stars Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity since its debut on Oct. 7, 1996.
Ailes has been brilliant at having it both ways, insisting that his network is "fair and balanced" even as its right-tilting programming built a devoted conservative following that helped it bury CNN and MSNBC in the ratings.
While Ailes knew precisely what he was doing, his competitors flailed. They dumped one format after another, sometimes trying to lure conservative viewers from Fox by offering their own right-leaning programs. Loyal conservatives preferred the real thing and stuck with Fox.
My hunch is that Ailes, one of the toughest and smartest in a generation of Republican political consultants, sees his adversaries as playing the kind of political hardball he respects. It's why he's angry. The anti-Fox squad won a second round on Monday when Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton joined John Edwards in announcing that they would not appear at a debate to be sponsored by Fox and the Congressional Black Caucus in September.
The Fox debate saga is amusing, but it's more than that. It marks a transformation on the left driven by the rise of Internet voices and the frustration of liberals at the success of conservatives in using a combination of talk radio, Fox and the Web to propagate anti-liberal, anti-Democratic messages.
From the late 1960s until the past few years, media criticism was dominated by conservatives railing against a supposedly "liberal media." Hearing mostly from this one side, editors, publishers and producers looked constantly over their right shoulders, rarely imagining they could be biased against the left or too accommodating to Republican presidents. This was a great conservative victory.
The Bush years have changed that. Aggressive media criticism is now the rule across the liberal blogs, and new monitoring organizations such as Media Matters for America police news reports for signs of Republican bias, often debunking charges against Democrats. When you combine liberal and conservative media criticism you get a result that is more or less fair and balanced. Score a net gain for liberals.
Fox provided the new liberal critics with a target-rich environment. This, after all, is the network that in January floated a false report that Obama had been educated at a madrassa. The nicely staccato Fox report said of Obama's alleged time in an Islamic school: "The first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father as a Muslim and was educated in a madrassa. . . . Financed by Saudis, they teach this Wahhabism, which pretty much hates us. The big question is, was that on the curriculum back then?" Talk about Innuendo City. Fox's competition, notably CNN, went after the story and proved it untrue. Obama, as he recounted in his own book, went to an Indonesian public school.
Tell me again: Why do Democrats have an obligation to participate in debates on Fox?
I am an avid reader of conservative magazines such as National Review and the Weekly Standard. But if these two publications teamed up to sponsor a Democratic debate, would anyone accuse Edwards, Obama and Clinton of "blacklisting" if the candidates said, "no, thanks"?
I admire Roger Ailes's genius in building Fox News. I wish liberals could create a comparably powerful network. If Fox and such a network co-sponsored debates, I'd love to watch the fireworks. In the meantime, Ailes should be thankful to the conservative stalwarts who made his network a success and not be disappointed if his political adversaries take their business elsewhere.

Fool of the Year: Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic "leadership" are fools. Look at this utter self-blindness, captured in an AP article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6521583,00.html

"Pelosi's spokesman Brendan Daly said the speaker was reluctant to weigh in on the incident... [snip]

"The leadership discussed it and agreed that inserting Congress into an international crisis while ongoing would not be helpful," Daly said.

Can someone please tell me, what is passing a resolution against involvement in Iraq but "inserting Congress into an international crisis while ongoing"?

Black and Right

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/p.swf?video_id=m9Yc3wYJOtI&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//sjc-static12.sjc.youtube.com/vi/m9Yc3wYJOtI/2.jpg&t=OEgsToPDskKC_jv5qAfB4q4MFC7rEIiB

Grumpy Old Men

Passage from an excellent article by Frank Furedi on the radicalness of being conservative (though he doesn't call it that) in Spiked! --

... There was a time when criticising the status quo was considered radical. Throughout history, refusing to accept the world as it existed has been looked upon as a form of rebellion. Those who did not ‘much care for contemporary life’ were very often inspired by the conviction that human life and culture could be – and must be – improved upon. Today, such an aspiring outlook is seen as a social faux pas, something that can earn you the label of grumpy old man or woman. This suggests that there is a fairly formidable mood of cultural conformism today. Labelling objections to today’s institutional practices as a ‘grumble’ or a ‘moan’ is not only a way of dismissing these objections; it is also a way of defending and even justifying the world as it exists against what is viewed as an army of bad-tempered, fussy, ill-natured, irritable emotional cripples.

Read the rest: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/2962/

Hating McCain

The Lucianne.com site has some great commentary on McCain's Roe v. Wade comment. Many don't trust him on anything. I liked him a lot in 2000, but he's so wrong on immigration and a couple of other things, I can't vote for him in the primary. In the general election, though -- well, here's what I said at Lucianne:

Those of us raging against McCain had best keep this argument inside the family. If he becomes the nominee, it will come down to this: John may be a two-faced egomaniac, but he's OUR two-faced egomaniac.

Some may be tempted to save their moral purity and stay home in '08, but that's nuts -- who wants HC or BO? Sometimes you have to prevent the other team from scoring to keep your own in the game. You get nothing from staying home.

DB
dangerbull.blogspot.com

No More Fox News?

Can we all agree? No more Fox News until the Anna Nicole coverage stops.

The Real Lessons of Vietnam

It may be a loooong TWO years for GW and for those of us who pay attention.

Let me confess up front that I am in general agreement with the need to fight and win the war. I also tend to give the President the benefit of the doubt, despite obvious faults in both the planning and execution of the war effort. But even if I didn't, I would still think the constant attack on him and our country in general has been terribly destructive to our country's psyche. I'm afraid we may fall (or have fallen) into the post-Watergate & Vietnam funk of national self-doubt, which really robbed our post-boomer generation (I don't know about you, but I don't identify as a "baby boomer") -- of heroes, a sense of genuine (& uncynical) patriotism, and more.

These valuables were taken from us by initially well-intended, politically expedient, but tragically short-sighted attempts to purify our own national "conscience." I would be the first to argue that our country, like individuals, should strive to act as virtuously as possible. To do so, we have to be honest about our faults and critically examine our motives. Yet many of us know that an individual, even in the pursuit of virtue, can do this to the point of self-hatred. We also know, usually from long and painful experience, that doing so can become a kind of sickness that paralyzes us. It makes us constantly compare ourselves with others and seek their approval. When we see differences, we automatically assume that the other's way is best and "normal" and that ours is contemptible. It makes us see faults that aren't even there. We are unable to trust ourselves -- after all, we're SO lame. Our striving for perfection becomes self destructive in the end.

Obviously, I'm drawing a parallel here. We are paralyzed in a big way. Example: we can't even plug up our own border -- an act of national sovereignty any country would claim -- without agonizing ourselves into paralysis over fears of "racism." We constantly compare ourselves to others -- and most often to one of the most dysfunctional, self-loathing places on Earth, Europe. If we see a difference, we interpret it as our failure to be as "sophisticated" and "mature" as they are. And we beat ourselves up because polls say that people in other countries don't have a favorable opinion of the US. Nations are not people, but they function organically in ways similar to the ways people do. They can, for instance, enjoy a collective confidence or suffer a shared loss. In other words, just like families and organizations, they have a kind of psychology which, I think, can be healthy or not.

So, back to GW and the war -- I agree with the need for diplomacy, the benefit of cooperation, and the good to be had from mutual accountability with other nations in forums like the UN. And I am well aware of the US's many mistakes to date (how could I not be?). But many people in power are openly flirting with failure now--some are even embracing it--as if we can right all wrongs by disempowering ourselves. As if we can just give up with no consequences. Or as if failing will harm only Bush. That's dangerous, not to mention weirdly self-destructive. I'd even call it dysfunctional.

The real lesson of Vietnam is that there are very real, long-lasting costs of beating and doubting and loathing ourselves into giving up which far exceed the costs of fighting to win. And I don't hear anyone talking about the impact these self-inflicted wounds will have on our national well-being. I don't want it for us, and I sure don't want to pass this dysfunctional, toxic, national self-contempt down to our children.

Chumps at NWF

A response to the folks at the Inconvenient Truth blog at the World Wildlife Fund site:

Sorry, friends, but what a bunch of chumps. More Kool Aid, anyone?News you can use: Lots of money, including multinational corporate money, is wrapped up in making you think we can do a lot about global warming. Why? So they can sell us stuff.

... more at Behind the Lines.

Bakersfield Man Accused Of Being Yemeni Agent

The stories are there, sometimes:

Bakersfield Man Accused Of Being Yemeni Agent

(AP) BAKERSFIELD, Calif. A Bakersfield man acted as a Yemeni spy when he shipped what he believed were secret U.S. military secrets and equipment to Yemen, an indictment filed by the United States Attorney's Office states.Amen Ahmed Ali, Bakersfield businessman, purchased what he believed were secret documents and military equipment and shipped them to Yemen from 2005 to 2006, according to the indictment filed Thursday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Carl Faller said Ali was charged previously with buying and transporting military secrets and documents to Yemen, but that the new charges state he was doing so on behalf of the Yemeni government.The new indictment charges Ali with conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, unlawful export of defense articles and possession of stolen government property, among other charges.Ali faces a possible 30 t0 45 years in prison if convicted of all counts. Ali's attorney, David Torres, disputed the new charges and said they were filed to block Ali's release from custody as he awaits trial.The U.S. Attorney's Office launched an investigation into Ali after a U.S. Customs officer discovered boxes addressed to Yemen full of bulletproof vests, chemical protective suits and U.S. military equipment in 2003.