UNScam today
Friends of Saddam's Oil for Food Lives.

Alhamedi's blg
The Religious Policeman is observing.

I am affronted
I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, therefore I am an American citizen by birth. I am American by choice: I live here because I truly believe this is the best country in the world. I also place high value on character, and on people like Pat Tillman who lived by their convictions. It is therefore twice as offensive to read diatribes such as this, and to hear the "writer" talk of "my neighborhood in Puerto Rico", and watch him gasbag his way through some sort of tripe about "those living outside the (sic) American borders".

I am insulted, and angry to a point beyond words, to see the man who wrote this refer to Pat Tillman as a pendejo. While the "writer" says it means "idiot", the word originally meant pubic hair, and its equivalent in English slang is a**h*le.

I am appalled that a college newspaper would not check the meaning of the word, and publish a disgusting, arrogant and intellectually immature attack on a human being who died in service to his country.

I am disgusted that people like the "writer" can lead parasitic lives in freedom, benefiting from the guarantees of the American Constitution to free speech, simply because throughout our history heroes like Pat Tillman have died for the cause of liberty. I am so disgusted that even when I'm aware that bringing to anyone's attention this "writer" glorifies him, I must comment on it.

Samizdata's Johnathan Pearce says, [Note: Johnathan initially thought the writer was a woman]

I will not bother to fisk the piece. The illogicality of it is so glaring, its vile intent so obvious, that a line by line response would merely insult the intelligence of this blog's readership. Suffice to say that a man gave up the promise of a fat paycheck and the comforts of a loving family to go and join the army, knowing that in so doing he might be called upon to fight in situations those moral perfectionists in our academic world would find abhorrent.
. . . This sorry excuse for a human being has not just traduced the memory of a very brave and good man; she (sic) has done so against all those who believed they were fighting to defend the freedoms we enjoy.

I am angry.


Update: As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher's Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around... per the Watcher's instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

Property rights: Highlands version
Paul's on the money, again,

And if the state wants to preserve water, Gagne notes, it's not development in the Highlands that should be curtailed. It's development in the lowlands. The typical Highlands homeowner uses a septic system that returns about 80 percent of the water to the aquifer. But 100 percent of the water used in the cities is pumped out to the ocean and lost forever.

An excellent point. If we're truly concerned with "the water supply for more than half the state's population," we should stop pumping it out of the Highlands in the first place. Let's halt growth in all of those lowlands areas. That would make more sense than stopping growth in the Highlands, at least from a water conservation standpoint.

But let's not pretend that water is the real issue here. The real issue is that the state wants to turn the Highlands into a park. But state officials don't want to pay for the parkland. It's nice to think that you can legitimately acquire some of the most beautiful property on the Eastern Seaboard for a mere $2,069 an acre. But if you believe that, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I can let you have real cheap.

And again, the owners of the land are the ones stuck.

UNScam today
¡No Pasarán! has The UN's Oil-for-Terror Program (and the World's True Oil-Hungry Nations) entry. Koffi coughs.
Samizdata tells us about how the EU's flirting with another dictator.

Fearlessness
Comedienne maddens Mullah.

Sarkozy goes to it
All of the sudden, the French newscasts are interesting:
Even when my French is not-good-at-all, I watch the France 2 news every evening when possible, and am fascinated by Nicholas Sarkozy. Sarkozy is a rarity: a fearless, confrontational politician (he reminds me of the pre-mayoral Rudolph Giuliani -- if my French and my memory serve me right -- NS was also a prosecutor) with a lot of spine.

Sarkozy had a fall-out with Chirac and actually challenged him publicly in the UMP party, so, after the latest cabinet shuffle (caused by the Socialists winning a lot of seats formerly held by the UMP), Chirac named NS as Minister for the Economy, which is, in view of the state of the French economy, possiby the most difficult job in the cabinet. NS however, has ventured on in his inimitable style and, while vigorously attending to his cabinet work, has
1. visited the USA last week to attend a benefit in his honor held by the Jewish Council in DC
2. while here, visited Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, for a little networking, bien sur.
This week he's criticized the Jospin (Socialist) government's slack attitude towards anti-Semitism on the floor of the National Assembly. All heck broke loose.

Chirac might have placed Sarkozy in the hot seat, but NS's feeling right at home in it.

UNScam, in a chart
. . . brought to you by The Spoons Experience!

Headline: School Budget of $62.3 Million Passes Amid Low Voter Turnout at Area Polls
Only in The Principality does one read that only 6% of Borough and 7% of Township voters eligible to vote approve a school budget, which causes the School Board President to be "very pleased", as "this was a great indicator of the confidence the community has in its School Board".

Am I the only one reading irony in this?

Indicator of the confidence the community has, yeah, right.

El demócrata liberal y el conservador republicano
Eduardo Estrada escribe sobre la diferencia que existe hoy entre los dos partidos:

Los republicanos, en cambio, favorecen el concepto de trabajar duro, estudiar y sacrificarse por muchos años para llegar a tener éxito en la vida y poder ofrecerle todo lo necesario a la familia. Esta independencia y afán de superación personal crea hombres libres, sin el derrotismo de aquéllos que piensan que nada pueden hacer sin la ayuda del gobierno, idea instilada por esos mismos liberales que enmascaran así su racismo contra los hispanos, las mujeres y otras minorías. Este es uno de los motivos por el cual esos demócratas han logrado por mucho tiempo controlar el voto latino y negro.
Es importante que todos los que tenemos fe en este país, aunque no seamos religiosos, nos preparemos para defender estos sagrados principios que heredamos de los padres fundadores y que ahora corren un serio peligro

Great reading, this morning
FrancoAleman's Cuando "cumplir con la palabra dada" no basta, in English & Spanish; Friends of Saddam on UNScam. Rafael Fermoselle escribe sobre el Terrorismo contemporáneo y sus raíces.
Michael (who was on TV last night) has the ultimate on blaming the other guy, NYT owner blames readers for Jayson Blair scandal. Scott's commenting on the art scene.
Thomas is not too excited about joining the EU.

Godot's library opened, but not his parking-building-built-on-the-stream
Dead tree press headlines: Celebration greets opening of [The Principality] library, garage, but wait! After hoopla dies down, the headaches resume. So here's the skinny: the library opened on an "abbreviated schedule" until next week, when it's expected to go on full schedule. The parking-building-built-on-the-stream, however, opened only on Saturday for Communiversity (I'm glad they didn't miss the opportunity to charge $5/car, to start to defray the exorbitant expense) but closed after that, "and the reopening date will be decided on a day-to-day basis".

Meanwhile, Actor objects to beer binge in his 'honor': Paul Newman and his attorney contacted the University last week, urging the University to put an end to a "tradition" of drinking 24 beers in 24 hours on April 24, which apparently got started over some absurd quote attributed to PN. As a result, a number of the University's eating clubs decided to close on Saturday, since they expected a "barrage of media attention". Thankfully, the media had other business to attend to.

Bad Manners:
On page 2 an article starts with "What in the name of Chr*st ".
I object to that.
Granted, in Spanish culture people use the Lord's name freely, and yes, I'm by no means a fundamentalist, but from the point of view of good manners, there are much better ways to start a sentence, or an article. As a result, I didn't read the rest of the article -- not worth my time.

What WMDs?
These
(link via PoliPundit)

Never forget
(note: This is a very graphic article I'm linking to) A friend who prefers to remain anonymous sent this link Pearl 2001

Simply Sleep
Amidst all the rumors of his sleeping around, The National Portrait Gallery in London succumbs to all the David Beckham hype. Accompanying the installation, there's much high-fallutin' soundbite on being inspired by Michaelangelo's David (other than the shared first name, are they daft?), and how the footage is a "reverential and vulnerable image". No one dared call it boring. And in this case, the emperor's not wearing clothes, either.

If April showers bring May flowers . . .
We're going to be up to our necks in daisies in a month. So far we've had 6" of rain this month.

UNScam
Food For Dictators

Happiness makes a heart beat longer
I've always felt that keeping a positive outlook is the best thing you can do for yourself. Now there's scientific evidence to that effect, according to the London Times.

Why do they hate us?
From David Brooks's op-ed today,

But it could be that whatever causes they support or ideologies they subscribe to, the one thing that the killers have in common is a feeling of immense superiority. It could be that they want to exterminate us because they regard us as spiritually deformed and unfit to live, at least in their world. After all, it is hard to pull up to a curb, look a group of people in the eye and know that in a few seconds you will shred them to pieces unless you regard other people's deaths as trivialities.

If today's suicide bombers are victims of oppression, then the solution is to lessen our dominance, and so assuage their resentments. But if they are vicious people driven by an insatiable urge to dominate, then our only option is to fight them to the death.

Shame on the press for not checking their sources
From NASA: An initial review of the images featured on the Internet site www.thememoryhole.org shows that more than 18 rows of images from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware are actually photographs of honors rendered to Columbia's seven astronauts
(via Samizdata)

Tear-down crocodile tears
On Wednesday, March 24 I wrote about Housing Restrictions: the planning board's looking at limiting the ability of homeowners to sell for knockdown and rebuild. They're still at it.

The joint Zoning Amendment Review Committee and The Principality's Regional Planning Board. Yesterday's article in the Packet states

On Tuesday, the committee began its review for the township by flagging several neighborhoods for planning staff to take a closer look at, including Littlebrook Road, Southern Way, Cedar Lane and the area around Lake Carnegie, which committee member Wanda Gunning called "prime tear-down territory."
. . . "Once one of those houses has taken that leap it starts the trend," Ms. Moore noted. "Once it gets rolling, every little house near a big house is at risk."
[The Principality's] Planning Director Lee Solow observed that a big, million-dollar house is not necessarily a negative for the township, which he said can benefit from the property-tax revenues.
Member Philip Feig said stricter zoning shouldn't undermine homeowners' rights to profit from their property holdings if they wish.
Member William Enslin asked, "Do people have unlimited rights to build a house totally out of proportion to the rest of the neighborhood?" Mr. Enslin said community diversity must be safeguarded with moderately priced housing.
Member Victoria Bergman said affordability can be attained through housing density, but Planning Board Attorney Allen Porter said density alone will not do it.
"The control on what they can sell for is what they can sell for," Mr. Porter said. "In [The Principality], you're up against the market."

Let's face it: real-estate "market forces" are not dictated from bureaucrats above high; market forces are determined in deed (in every sense of the word) and in fact by people wanting to buy houses and people willing to sell houses coming together at a mutually agreeable price.

We're not talking about a contagious virus, and not "every little house near a big house is at risk". Even if the owners want to sell it (for a lot of money) to someone who wants to tear down and build big, so what? A house's aesthetic value, its practicality for contemporary life, and its optimal use are not determined by its size.

Property rights are the touchstone of democracy, and the main reason our country has prospered throughout its history. Touting someone's idea of "diversity" and "affordability" as reasons for restricting property rights and not addressing high taxes -- the reason why people with lower incomes who already own here are selling -- is mere window-dressing.

Relativism's empty premise

if what relativists claim holds for all beliefs, then it holds for relativism as well. It, too, is a cultural artifact and it does not conform to objective facts. Relativism, then, tells us nothing about the truth; it tells us merely what relativists have been culturally conditioned to believe about the truth. People who believe that relativism is false because some beliefs do conform to objective facts are also culturally conditioned. In that case, however, there is no more reason to be a relativist than to be an anti-relativist, since neither is a matter of reason at all. Both depend on the cultural conditioning to which people have been subject. It would, then, be just as wrong for relativists to try to impose their views on defenders of "Western civ," the canon, the classics, the objectivity of science, and the authority of teachers over students as relativists say it is wrong for anti-relativists to impose their views. If relativists attempt to defend their position by claiming that it is not culturally conditioned but actually true, then they cannot consistently maintain their central claim that the truth does not exist. It must exist if they have found it.

Read the rest here

Don Quijote's 4th
. . . fourth centennial, that is, since the novel was published in 1605. A Miami Herald-El Nuevo Herald op-ed article (in Spanish) with a Buenos Aires tag, on the celebrations for the fourhundredth anniversary of the best-selling Spanish novel of all times, posted by a Puerto Rican blogger.
Only in America, thank G-d.

UNScam today
Washington Times/London Daily Telegraph World leaders on list of oil recipients.
Scott does a wordcount watch on the subject: the Guardian had -0- words, but now Le Monde's reporting on it.
One note: I also recommend frequenting Zeyad's Healing Iraq blog, who called this "the Mother of all scandals" back in January.
Update: John Podhoretz in today's NY Post discusses the Post's suggestion for US Ambassador to the UN.

The "Not A Good Idea" that's still going
On Sunday I posted about what happened when Kerry's campaign offered free web pages to his supporters, and now a friend tells me they're at it again. Let's hope they exert some control over the contents, unlike the last time.

UNScam links update:
Scott's Daily Ablution has the UK Media Roundup, including this from the The Telegraph's editor:

These are devastating criticisms of a body already held in low esteem by Iraqis. Yet the occupying powers have agreed that the UN should appoint the members of a transitional government that will succeed the American-nominated Iraqi Governing Council after the transfer of executive power on June 30. The world body is being given a leading role in Iraq just as the scandal over its administration of the oil-for-food programme is gathering momentum. In the run-up to June 30, five separate investigations will look into claims that 270 individuals, companies and institutions were bribed by Saddam. Two have been mounted by the American House of Representatives and one by the Senate. In addition, the Iraqi Governing Council has commissioned a report from the auditors KPMG, and Mr Annan has asked Paul Volcker, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, to head a UN inquiry.

There are enough problems attendant on the birth of democracy in Iraq without burdening the country with an organisation that proved so inadequate in confronting the previous dictatorship, whether over oil for food or defiance of Security Council resolutions. George W Bush and Tony Blair may welcome shedding the odious status of occupiers. But they should be under no illusions that the UN will prove an adequate substitute. Given its record in the Balkans and the Middle East, their continuing faith in that body as providing a unique cloak of legitimacy is astonishing.

Russia has dropped its objection to a proposed investigation, according to the NY Times.
The story's now being featured in the TV networks' news.
Update on the update: WHOA!, or as Roger puts it, "Something must be going on when even the BBC puts the Oil-for-Food Scandal at the top of its website"!

Why I blog
Just yesterday I talked about The Religious Policeman. Wretchard from Belmont Club does, too, and hits it on the nail as to why blogers blog:

The most dangerous thing about the Internet from the point of view of those who would create a totalitarian or theocratic state is that it allows people to see others as men -- who may disagree, or who on reflection decide to fight -- but men nonetheless. The average person is never wholly unaware, as some academics are, of the humanity of other people. Nor is the average person wholly indifferent to concrete evil and imminent danger. Both are real and ancient things, ignored by those who live in a bubble of artificial laughter and contrived wit, but alive to those who meet them in the everyday. The Los Angeles Times article on Marine Corps snipers drives home how these marksmen, who live closer to the enemy than the ethereal postmodernist beings who jeer them, can never seek solace in abstractions. They must glimpse the faces of those they are about to shoot, the horror and necessity of the act combining in the single pull of the trigger, doomed to live in a world of specifics: fighting identifiable evils and performing individual acts of kindness. In this strange universe an Italian rips off a hood and with a final shout proclaims himself undefeated. Todd Beamer crashes an aircraft that others might live. Chief Wiggles raises money for children whose names he knows. And somewhere in a Riyadh a Saudi makes excuses to his mother.
Only the Grand Inquisitors stand apart, disdainful alike of both kindness and human weakness, full of schemes and plots. And of their false truces and cunning offers we should have no part except to answer it with silence (as in Dostoeveky's parable) and to go get a beer

Humanity, viewing each other's humanity.

Waiting for Godot's Library
The dead tree press headline today: Library, Garage Openings Still Indefinite.

The $13.7 million garage and $18 million library were originally scheduled for completion last December

Oh well.

UNScam update
An ABC News insvestigation implicates Benon Sevan, the U.N. undersecretary general who ran the Iraq Oil for Food program for six years (via Roger and No Pasaran).
Reuters is reporting on it.
O'Reilly's talking about it.
Maybe the mainstream media's looking into it!
Update: New blog, Friends of Saddam, keeping track of all the news.

Baffling IN THE KITCHEN
Here I am, checking out the cooking page of the Packet, titled IN THE KITCHEN, (caps and all), only to find a political commentary, Who knew that Earth Day has a dark side?, supplemented by two recipes featuring sorrel, one for soup, one for sauce.

The article is not on line, alas, but starts by saying

You would think that Earth Day, which is celebrated each April 22, would qualify as the most benign of annual rites. Who could possibly object to people pitching in to clean up school grounds, parks, and other nature areas in their communities?

Who? I would. I'd rather people clean up after themselves instead of leaving a mess behind, and I pay someone an honest salary for the honest job of gardening and outdoor maintenance. It's good for the economy and good for my yard. IN THE KITCHEN presses on,

Well, FrontPageMag.com begs to differ, noting that each year schoolchildren everywhere are duped into being made part of a Marxist plot. It turns out that April 22 is Lenin's birthday. "The sad fact is", its columnist writes,that by participating in forced labor, "our children in public schools and colleges probably are directed to celebrate Lenin's birthday and his values, whether they know it or not".

So I went to FrontPageMag.com and searched for that article, but couldn't find it, either with a regular Google search or Google/FPMag. The newspaper didn't offer a link. Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if Earth Day has a connection (other than the date) with Lenin. The pledge of allegiance has socialist roots (mentioned on my April 5 links to the Mulshine and Wood articles), for example. James Burke has found connections on all sorts of other things.

Boy Scouts troops across the country (both here in The Principality and in Miami where my sister lives) are able to raise funds by getting paid for cleaning up private land where slobs have left their trash. The kids get paid, and also avoid having to pester their parents and other adults by having to sell gift wrap, candy, and other useless stuff. So maybe the unnamed FrontPageMag article might have a point there on "Lenin's values"; maybe it doesn't. Not having the FPM.com article to view, who knows.

The article then goes on to plug a book on global climate hazards by a faculty member of The University. It's not until the fourth paragraph that one gets to read about anything that might possibly have anything to do with cooking.

Ah, for the olden days of Martha, Julia, and Jacques, when women and men were cooks and cooks didn't lecture us with politics when we were looking for soup.

Let's hope Mario doesn't start preaching on FoodTV. I'd be heartbroken.

Claudia Rosett on UNSCAM
Commentary magazine (via Roger) and NRO have two Rosett articles that describe aspects of the story the dead tree press refuses to investigate. As early as June last year Marc Perelman was writing about Oil for Food Sales Seen As Iraq Tie To Al Qaeda. Rosett explains,

In brief (hang on for the ride): One link ran from a U.N.-approved buyer of Saddam's oil, Galp International Trading Corp., involved near the very start of the program, to a shell company called ASAT Trust in Liechtenstein, linked to a bank in the Bahamas, Bank Al Taqwa. Both ASAT Trust and Bank Al Taqwa were designated on the U.N.'s own terror-watch list, shortly after 9/11, as entities "belonging to or affiliated with Al Qaeda." This Liechtenstein trust and Bahamian bank were linked to two closely connected terrorist financiers, Youssef Nada and Idris Ahmed Nasreddin — both of whom were described in 2002 by Treasury as "part of an extensive financial network providing support to Al Qaeda and other terrorist related organizations," and both of whom appear on the U.N.'s list of individuals belonging to or affiliated with al Qaeda.

The other tie between Oil-for-Food and al Qaeda, noted by Perelman, ran through another of Saddam's handpicked, Oil-for-Food oil buyers, Swiss-based Delta Services — which bought oil from Saddam in 2000 and 2001, at the height of Saddam's scam for grafting money out of Oil-for-Food by way of under-priced oil contracts. Now shut down, Delta Services was a subsidiary of a Saudi Arabian firm, Delta Oil, which had close ties to the Taliban during Osama bin Laden's heyday in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. In discussions of graft via Oil-for-Food, it has been assumed that the windfall profits were largely kicked back to Saddam, or perhaps used to sway prominent politicians and buy commercial lobbying clout. But that begs further inquiry. There was every opportunity here for Saddam not solely to pocket the plunder, but to send it along to whomever he chose — once he had tapped into the appropriate networks.

Are there other terrorist links? Did Saddam actually send money for terrorist uses through those named by the Forward? Given the more than $100 billion that coursed through Oil-for-Food, it would seem a very good idea to at least try to find out.

As Rosett herself says, "what is clear is that no one has so far sat down with access to the full records and begun piecing together the labyrinth of Saddam's financing with an eye, specifically, to potential terrorist ties".

In the meantime, one's hearing presidential candidates claim "Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda". Let the UN records be open to scrutiny before we make up our minds.

Hitchens, the great
Aside from reading The Moon and Sixpence and Of Human Bondage, I know almost nothing about their author, W. Somerset Maugham. I did, however, had great fun reading Hitchens's review, Poor Old Willie, of Somerset Maugham: A Life by Jeffrey Meyers. Maugham's conversations among his characters never sound the way people actually talk (nothing wrong with that -- Don DeLillo does the same but with much better results), and Hitchens, after quoting The Razor's Edge states,

So that was a waste of dialogue, wasn't it? A little further on we learn of Gray Maturin that "though built on so large a scale he was finely proportioned, and stripped he must have been a fine figure of a man." Presumably this would also be true of him when unstripped.

---------------------------------------------------------

A great man once said, "That to expect bad men not to do wrong is madness, for he who expects this desires an impossibility. But to allow men to behave so to others, and to expect them not to do thee any wrong, is irrational and tyrannical". I thought of this after reading What I got wrong about Iraq. As Hitchens puts it,

It's only a pity that the decision to intervene was left until so many years had been consumed by the locust.

Read Hitchens and ponder.

New (to me) blog
Via Hispalibertas, The Religious Policeman, "A Saudi man's diary of life in the "Magic Kingdom", where the Religious Police ensure that everything remains as it was in the Middle Ages.
"In Memory of the lives of 15 Makkah Schoolgirls, lost when their school burnt down on Monday, 11th March, 2002. The Religious Police would not allow them to leave the building, nor allow the Firemen to enter".

Safire on UNSCAM
How fares the multination cover-up of the richest rip-off in world history?

US News has an editorial about it.

Update: Roger has more about it,

Meanwhile, something of true significance--the internal investigation of the 'UNSCUM' Scandal aka the UN Iraq Oil-for-Food Program--is in jeopardy. (Why is this one more important? Simple. It is about the allegation of actual crimes on a grand scale committed under the name of our most important international organization. It's not about alleged blunders and screw ups that are subject to more interpretations than the Babylonian Talmud.) I had been heartened when I learned that the respected Paul Volcker had been appointed to head the UN commission looking into this scandal. So it with some dismay I read in a Wall Street Journal editorial this morning that he may not get a full Security Council backing for his work

It's the crime, it's the cover-up. It's going to keep happening, for as long as the dead tree press and others ignore it.

Linked, too!
My thanks to suburban blight for the link! Please visit them.

Freebie reads
I'm opening a new category of links, Freebie reads, where you can find classic literature at no cost. I've read a wide range of books, from The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius to Sense and Sensibility, all for free. Here are a few sources:
Bartleby.com, "the Preeminent Internet publisher of literature, reference and verse providing students, researchers and the intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information on the web, free of charge".
Project Gutenberg, the Internet's oldest producer of FREE electronic books (eBooks or eTexts).
TEAMS Middle English Texts
Jane Austen Electronic Texts
Anthony Trollope's texts.

Bits and bytes
Hispalibertas has a wanted ad

Joven desencantado de su nacionalidad española la ofrece en venta o traspaso. Acepto cambio por nacionalidad estadounidense, británica o incluso italiana. Abstenerse franceses, alemanes y belgas.

Charles Aznavour celebrates his 80th birthday with a series of 24 concerts.

It's all our fault
Normblog has The Incredible [Famous Radical Name] Algorithm For Generating Correct Political Positions

The Citizens Foundation
Six Pakistani businessmen have started a network of "well-managed, purpose-built schools in urban slums and rural areas across Pakistan and serves all persons and communities on a completely non-discriminatory basis". (link via Samizdata)

Today is Holocaust Rememberance Day
The Museum of Tolerance and United States Holocaust Musem commemorate Yom Hashoah from April 18 to April 25.

File this one in the "Not A Good Idea" drawer
John Kerry's campaign offered free web pages to Kerry's supporters, so guess what happened, again and again and again?
Must be Allah's people at work.

Paul's articles
Paul Mulshine, Star-Ledger columnist, this week touched on two very important New Jersey topics:
1. In Highlands bill doesn't hold water Hunterdon county farmers talk against a bill that would give the state $2,000/acre to "buy" development rights of land that would either be used to build million-dollar homes or to provide cheap water for golf courses.
2. In Governor's blarney taxes our patience, Paul points out the absurdity of the governor's stance that a state income tax hike "would not be a violation of that promise because the money would go to fund increased property tax rebates".
Paul once kissed the Blarney Stone:

I was hitchhiking around Ireland. When I got to Cork, I made the obligatory stop at Blarney Castle and was lowered into the crevice where that famed stone sits. I gave it a solid smooch. A year later, I began making my living in journalism.

So it worked for me. As for the governor, he certainly seems to be a smooth-tongued sort as well. But then, of course, he's been to law school, which is the equivalent not just of kissing the Blarney stone but of taking it to one of those motels that rent by the hour and offer a Jacuzzi in every room.

In view of the prospective state tax increases, Paul asked the governor's spokeman if McGreevey had kissed the Blarney stone. The spokeman said no, to which Paul comments,

Could have fooled me. By then, I had come across a Web site that offered this etymology for the term: "The word 'Blarney,' meaning to placate with soft talk or to deceive without offending, probably derives from the stream of unfulfilled promises of Cormac MacDermot MacCarthy to the Lord President of Munster in the late sixteenth century."

Sound familiar? He may not be much of a governor, but no one can say James E. McGreevey is not a good Irishman.

Either way, the taxpayer's left holding the bag.

Linked, again!
My thanks to Possumblog for the link. Please visit them!

The unethical ethicist
For a few years now I've been questioning the ethical judgement of the New York Times's ethicist, Rady Cohen. It turns out Jacob Levy of Reason did, years ago.

If Cohen were right about the radical injustice of American society, there would be no point in being an ethicist--and no point in publishing a column about the moral decisions of "day-to-day living." By his own lights, he should quit bothering with the irrelevant decisions individuals make and start writing op-eds about collective political decisions.

(link via Volokh).

BBC in the art world
The Daily Ablution shares my opinion of "metaphors for sound and communication". Go read the Ode to the BBC Brigade in the Ablution's comments section.

in a lighter vein . . .

:: how jedi are you? ::

Oliver Stoned
Even in the olden days I never understood the left's romance with Fidel. Maybe it was due to having grown up with people who knew Fidel well. In any case, I was just reading a really good fisking of Ollie's asinine remarks to Ann Louise Bardach, of Slate. In the Oliver Stoned program,

Castro turned to the prisoners' defense lawyers, who just happened to be there, and he says, "I urge you to do your best to reduce the sentences"

The despot saying the lawyers have power to reduce the sentences: a scene out of Ubu Rex, indeed.

update Frank Calzon's article on Cuba's children (in Spanish). (note: After the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva decided by a single vote to censure the communist regime for its human rights record, Calzon was knocked unconscious by a Cuban delegate who in turn had to be subdued with Mace.)

Elvis, in a cave
In response to Aljazeera's latest installment of their ongoing telenovela, Dead Man Talking, this popped in my mind:

There once was a boy named Osama
who never respected his mamma.
He blew up the World Trade
and is now in a cave,
hiding away, like Saddam-a

Ah, the benefits of a classical education . . .

Iraqi Nuclear Gear Found in Europe
Mohammed couldn't find the mountain in Iraq, he found it in Europe:
"Large amounts of nuclear-related equipment, some of it contaminated, and a small number of missile engines have been smuggled out of Iraq", and "ElBaradei voiced concern that the loss of the materials could pose a proliferation threat and could complicate efforts to reach a conclusive assessment of the history of Iraq's nuclear program".

I didn't make this one up

EU employs popular mascot to promote itself in Japan, that is, the Hello Kitty mascot.

Not only that, Kitty's getting a makeover to better promote the EU and the euro.

Catching up on the reading
Nelson Ascher wrote about The Test
Roger's on top of the Oil-For-UN-Corruption scandal, along with Rand Simberg, who commented on this article. Update: Franco Aleman's also writing about it.
Livejournal's take on France, its Muslims, and the Future, via Volokh

Marine TV
"US Marines seek to equip seven (7) television stations serving local communities within Al Anbar Province, Iraq. The Province includes the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. These stations will offer information that is more accurate and balanced than existing alternatives. The goal is to improve understanding between Americans and Iraqis, build trust and reduce tensions". Read about it here

Update: Opinion Journal's writing about it!

Spring's a one way street . . .
. . . at least for now, since the Borough Delays Switch On Spring Street Traffic, according to today's paper. Along with the parking-building-built-on-the-stream, the Planning board had approved a plan suggested by a consultant to change Spring Street to a two-way road, even when doing so would eliminate eight parking spaces and a loading zone, and would cause more traffic problems, as the Borough's Traffic and Transportation Committee concluded. A member of the Committee said, "I think it would be a hardship for businesses on Spring", due to the lack of space for loading, and "[This plan] doesn't seem to function on a logical level".

The Borough Council said it'll wait six weeks after the parking-building-built-on-the-stream opens before making a final decision.

Why affirmative action doesn't work
I'm greatly opposed to affirmative action and in my experience those who have most defended it to me are also the most bigoted ("but you don't look Hispanic!"). Years ago I discovered Dr. Thomas Sowell's work from reading Forbes Magazine, and greatly admire him and his writing. His latest book, Affirmative Action Around the World, explores the effect of affirmative action in India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and the U.S. In a review from Commentary Magazine, Carl Cohen observes that "each nation’s experience offers a powerful lesson with respect to one particular aspect of the results produced:

• "Race preference does not wind down; it winds up. Proliferation is the rule.
  
• "The inferior performance of some ethnic groups is not always a consequence of discrimination against them
  
• "Deliberately exacerbating racial tensions for the sake of political gain—we learn from the case of Sri Lanka—promotes hatred of a kind and of a degree almost impossible to reverse
  
• "When racial balance is advanced by granting preferences that are deeply resented, diversity produces not greater racial harmony but greater racial conflict"
  

Read the review, read the book.

Assigned reading
Hitchens on Iraq, Theodore Dalrymple on Islam

Endorsement time
Evan Baehr, president of College Republicans at The University, is running for Borough Council. The Packet article states "Mr Baehr said he hopes to bring a fresh perspective to long-unresolved issues, such as the university's annual contributions to the borough".

I've met Mr. Baehr, and he's a bright young man with a future in politics. You heard it here first: in a decade or so I'm sure he'll be in the Senate. Vote for him now.

Budget bugs
Today's Packet tells us Library now set to open next week, but only if weather cooperates, while the Editor, rather prematurely, exhorts us to Come back to [The Principality's] new downtown: "It'll be the dawn of a bright new day in [The Principality's] downtown . . . the perfect time to put a new spin on an old slogan: Think Globally - Shop Locally", but hold off until you can find parking.

Not as brightly, Township introduces $30.2 million budget, an 8.7% increase from last year. The total municipal tax bill for a house at the average assessment come to $3, 310. Last May the Township Committee approved a 10% increase. These increases are nowhere near declining, since "The money that goes to repay the township's debts will increase by at least $1.8 million this year", and the Township continues to dig itself deeper into debt.

In my March 30 entry title Just how short do you want your haircut?, I noted that school taxes in the Township would average $5,600.
$5,600 + $3,310 = $8,910 in local taxes sounds like a lot of money to me.

Fashion statements
I was reading an article by Mark Steyn on Iraq, and, Iraq aside (if you can, for a moment, at least), he said something that resonated with me,

I strongly dislike that veteran-foreign-correspondent look where you wander around like you've been sleeping round the back of the souk for a week. So I was wearing the same suit I'd wear in Washington or New York, from the Western Imperialist Aggressor line at Brooks Brothers. I had a sharp necktie I'd bought in London the week before. My cuff links were the most stylish in the room, and also the only ones in the room. I'm not a Sunni Triangulator, so there's no point pretending to be one. If you're an infidel and agent of colonialist decadence, you might as well dress the part.

Back in the late 1970s my husband worked for a few months for an Italian company in a small town in northern Italy that tourists never see, and of course I tagged along. The first thing I learned about the Italian north in the Fall is that it is not sunny. Rain poured from the skies with enough energy that Noah would have been drafting blueprints and interviewing contractors. Luckily I was prepared, and had brought my trusty red trenchcoat with zip-out liner.

I stood out like the proverbial sore thumb.

My grandparents came from Spain, so I expected Italians to be of the same approximate size as Spaniards. They weren't. At least the northern Italians weren't. Northern Spaniards tend to be tall -- my mother's father was 6'2" or so. I'm 5'9"+ and the average local Italian man was at least 6" shorter, the women nearly a foot shorter. Often I stood out a full head above the crowd. There was also the matter of clothing. The locals wore high heels all the time. Intent on sightseeing, I wore comfortable sensible shoes, which luckily I had brought with me since back then Clarks of England hadn't made it to that area of Lombardia. The locals also wore black. Black or charcoal gray clothes were the uniform, topped by black wool coats or black raincoats.

I would stand tall in my red coat and flat shoes at the train station and people would circle around me and stare. The first day or two I wondered if there was anything "off", such as stains, nasal matter, dandruff. After that I decided that they felt I had landed from another world, so I brought something to read while waiting for the always-on-strike trains. The staring continued but I had better things to think about.

As a tourist, I did go to the local clothing stores and took a look at the clothes. Unfortunately they didn't have anything in my size, and even if they had had it, the prices were astronomical. Another visitor, Marisa, a Mexican woman that was working at the same company as my husband, was not tall but was in a better financial situation, and propelled by the shopping bug got herself a full-Italian black outfit, trying to blend in. She didn't blend in, but her black clothes looked nice. She was stared at all the same.

Once I decided people were going to stare anyway, the red raincoat became my insignia from then on. Years later when I replaced it I invested in a red Burberry trench that really catches your eye in any crowd. It nurtures my inner Western Imperialist Aggressor, as Steyn put it.

Just the facts. m'am:
Global warming? ECOLOGÍA: MITOS Y FRAUDES in Spanish (via El Principe), and Lomborg's book, in English. Don't throw away your coat yet.
Taxes? Distribution of Federal Taxes and Income, 1979-2000 in English. The rich are paying more than their share.

Good Deeds
Starting today, I'm adding a Good Deeds section to the links: This section will feature grassroots efforts to improve our world. The first one is IraqiSchools.com, a grassroots volunteer effort to help the children of Iraq.

If you'd like to have the website to your volunteer organization listed, please email me at faustaw-at-yahoo.com. (change that -at- for @, please, I'm trying to avoid spam)

The March 11 attack was planned in late 2002-early 2003
Spanish article in Libertad Digital.

La investigación sobre los atentados del 11-M sigue avanzado y ya ha permitido establecer que fue a finales de 2002 y comienzos de 2003 cuando comenzó a planearse la masacre. Aunque los terroristas y sectores interesados han tratado de vincular los atentados con el apoyo de España a la guerra Irak, "El Tunecino" ya contactó con el jefe operativo de Al-Qaeda en Europa mucho antes de "la reunión de las Azores".

For translation, go to my Babel Fish link.

Roger's Blog
Roger L. Simon's blog always has something interesting. We are in a war on terror, a war we didn't start. Roger's phrase "The Politics of the Last Five Minutes" best describes the attitude of the mainstream media and the democrat campaign. Yesterday's It's Iran, Stupid! - A Message to the Blogosphere and the comments section is particularly worth reading.
Roger 's also keeping track of stories on the UN Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal, which seems to be blissfully ignored by the mainstream media.
Thank you Roger!

Tony Blair in The Observer
Op-ed by the British PM
Update: Ledeen has more on the subject.

There's no business like show business
It's sweeps time.
Today's NYTimes: Next week CBS's 60 Minutes will interview Bob Woodward,

"whose soon-to-be-released book, "Plan of Attack," reportedly will contain important new details about the administration's decision to go to war against Iraq."
"The Woodward interview, already taped, follows a similar interview with Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism official whose book, "Against All Enemies," described the administration as ill-prepared for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Both books happen to be published by units of Simon & Schuster Inc., a company that is owned by the Viacom Corporation — which also happens to be the parent of CBS."

Clarke's showbiz career is now well-established. ABC News hired him as a "news analyst".

I, and thousands of others, place no credibility on the networks, for good reason.

New site
After Dr. Rice's televised job interview this week, there's a new website to visit.

Fab5 Spin-Off
I'm a huge fan of decorating shows, and the Fab5 have the best decorator on TV, Thom Filicia. The other 4 fabs are nice and funny but the advice they give (aside from the free clothing) doesn't look very practical. A couple of weeks ago they wanted a young guy to give his girlfriend a massage (the girlfriend was not happy, as I would have been, this being on TV) and make a complicated dessert. Another time they had some poor man's entire back's hair completely waxed, an obviously painful process, the results of which made him remark that he looked "like a frosted mini-wheat: shiny on one side, fuzzy on the other". Never mind that the average straight guy I've come across is not interested in skin care products, much less waxing. For instance, The Husband would never consent to waxing (not that I would suggest it!). The average (straight) Joe is more inclined to behave more like the Flab Four, and would only go through the Fab5 schemes to please the women.

So it seems to me that women would certainly welcome the Fab5 makeovers more than the men would. Sure enough, I was just visiting Michael's blog, and waddaya know, Queer Eye for the Straight Girl's next. The goal is rather ambitious, though

a makeover sure to impress and inspire a complete lifestyle change in the subject, as well as the viewers

This viewer will be happy with just a little advice on paint colors for the living room, thanks.

Still delayed
Today the newspaper tells us, "complications over electrical service may cause the opening of the downtown garage" parking-building-built-on-the-stream "to be pushed back a week to 10 days, possibly as late as April 24 . . . The new delay for the garage is largely because of electrical service. Public Service Electric & Gas Co. must set up the garage's power supply".

This delay means that the upcoming Communiversity, scheduled to take place on April 24, will attract hundreds of cars milling around looking for non-existent places to park. There's also the question of the new 55,000sq-ft-library opening: "With the strong possibility the garage will open after the library, the borough is exploring temporary parking solutions including allocating the Tulane Street lot for library use". One question, how do you "allocate" an existing lot that's already crowded?

Meanwhile, The Principality "Borough Council considered -- and rejected -- a proposal Wednesday that could have delayed the opening of the garage by several more weeks. That proposal would have added 17 trees along Spring Street between Witherspoon and South Tulane streets at a cost of $83,000", and would have required widening the sidewalks by 4 feet. The borough engineer "said the 11th-hour suggestion for trees would throw a huge snag into the [parking-building-built-on-the-stream] completion plans. The concrete walkways, ramps and sidewalks along the Spring Street side were slated to be poured today and Monday". With such delays are budgets busted. Never mind that Spring Street, a narrow street, doesn't look like it could stand having 4 feet taken off the roadway. Spring Street, once all the proposed construction is finished, will be shaded throughout the day. What kind of tree survives on a wet, dark, heavily used street?

The proposal was rejected . . . for now. "At the conclusion of the construction of Building C, the 5-story, mixed use building slated for the Tulane Street parking lot" the Borough council will "reconsider the proposal to plant trees along Spring Street".

Update: Narrow, damp Sping Street will be a two-way street. More street parking spaces will be removed. Delivery ramps for the existing businesses will be closed.
"Ain't that precious!"

'Tis a puzzlement!
I borrow the line from The King And I after reading this story: someone's stealing Hondas and Saturns from the Junction train station parking lot and returning them a few days later, in still useable condition (if you don't mind a few cigarette butts).
Which reminds me, one of the things I learned during my years of commuting to the WTC was: don't leave a brand-new car at the train station parking lot.

It's Peeps time!
Slate has the scoop.

Unpredictable weather
Just when some were convinced about impending global warming, there's a chilling theory to dispute it. They must have spent last winter in NJ -- it was brutally cold. (I got the link at Dean's World, one of the Blog Ads)

2 must-reads
A Battle Plan Against Radical Islam, via Dhimmi Watch
John Parker's book review of Jean-Francois Revel's Anti-Americanism

'Taxation With Misrepresentation'
Yesterday the Packet had an article, Community's Compromise: Arts Council neighbors offer scaled-back plan. The requests from the Witherspoon-Jackson Neighborhood Association include "reducing the expansion by at least 25%, and maintaining existing setbacks". Today's Town Topics, in the article Bunn Drive Senior Housing Is Explored, states that "The housing would be, in part, a move to halt the trend toward a shrinking senior community" in The Principality. "Many seniors are no longer able to live in town due to high property taxes". Still, seniors that purchase those apartments would be paying taxes for one-bedroom apartments that cost $300,000+.

The shrinking senior community is behaving in an economically rational way: seniors move away because the taxes and the rate of tax increases make it prohibitive to live here. The neighbors from the Witherspoon-Jackson Neighborhood Association are trying to make their voices heard. These are issues of representation. A letter to the editor Proposed Tax Increase in Borough: 'Taxation With Misrepresentation'? links "the tax increase to the undemocratic and uneconomic downtown project rammed through by the Council", and proposes that voters be allowed referendum, initiative, and recall,

"Under these powers we could veto an enacted tax ordinance, such as the one proposed by the Council, or limit tax increases to the inflation rate, or require the Council to submit any tax increase by the voters. Under these powers we could remove an official who said we could have a referendum on the redevelopment bond when the official had used a redevelopment designation to remove our right of referendum."

The council members of both Borough and the Township have felt that, as representatives of the voters, they could do what they best pleased with ever-increasing spending because they had a "mandate" merely from being elected. One can only speculate whether they could handle real representation.

A Request
Black and white cinematography is mostly a lost art, to be found only in a few TV commercials. No longer do we have new films where the audience is compelled to see what is not there, like Jezebel’s red gown (the gown was there, but we saw it as red even when it was filmed in b&w), or where Technicolor is only used twice for sharp emphasis while the black and white scenes are in complete full focus, like in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Even in the days before digitalizing, the film was so well photographed you could count the cobblestones that Dorian stepped on. Today only a few directors understand how to direct in black and white, and in color. Roman Polanski, for example, directed the b&w classic Knife In the Water, and the stunning The Pianist. In The Pianist, (wonderfully played by the beautiful Adrien Brody) Wladyslaw Szpilman’s darkest hours took place in stark daylight.

An essential element of good b&w cinematography is lighting. Lighting has to be placed in crucial places, and it has to be clear. Broadway plays that have used b&w stage design, such as City of Angels and Dracula, used lighting in the most effective way.

Nowadays what we find instead is a lot of films diving into the lurch when the plot’s supposedly turning darker. Back in the 1980s the action in Die Hard took place entirely at night but the movie was clearly lit, and McClane and Hans could really see the whites of each other’s eyes. So could the grateful audience. Now, the X-Men, the Star Treks, the Harry Potters, and dozens of other action movies leave us, the middle-aged public, literally squinting trying to find Wolverine in the pitch black.

On TV things don’t look any clearer. For instance, the various CSI series also take place in the dark, only that instead of total darkness we have near-total darkness (even in the daylight of the desert or the beach) punctuated with pigment-saturated color. I wouldn’t mind it much if it weren’t that the laboratories are the darkest of all, which leaves me wondering whether a good lawyer would be able to get the judge to throw the case out of court because, “your honor, the investigators couldn’t see in that room”.

My plea, then, to all filmmakers, is please, turn on the lights.

Nice that someone thinks so, but make that a goddess

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!
If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!
How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Aside from getting addicted to Quizilla, I also signed up for BlogSnob.

Mob stories
I don't have HBO and The Sopranos' is back on again, so all I've been able to do is read Slate's Mob Experts discuss Tony & the guys. Can't wait for the DVD.

Ya que varios han escrito diciendo que no encuentran el articulo de Reporteros sin fronteras, aqui lo copio:

Reporteros sin Fronteras concede sus trofeos de la represión en el Net

Francia y algunos países francófonos -Bélgica, Burkina-Faso, Senegal, Madagascar y Canadá (Québec)- van a celebrar, del 29 de marzo al 4 de abril de 2004, la Fiesta de Internet. Reporteros sin Fronteras aprovecha el acontecimiento para conceder sus trofeos de la represión en Internet. Este año, la Palma de Oro le ha sido concedida a China. Igualmente se ha recompensado a otros ocho países.

Lista de galardonados :

Palma de Oro : China, con el premio al mejor actor a Hu Jintao. Con 60 ciberdisidentes encarcelados, cientos de miles de sitios de Internet filtrados y una vigilancia implacable sobre los correos electrónicos, China se alza este año con la distinción más alta. El jurado ha concedido el premio al mejor actor al presidente chino Hu Jintao, por sus frecuentes declaraciones sobre los progresos de su país en materia de derechos humanos.

Primer Premio de censura : Arabia Saudí Con más de 400.000 publicaciones digitales oficialmente censuradas, que van desde sitios políticos a los de movimientos islamistas no reconocidos, pasando naturalmente por cualquier publicación que trate, de cerca o de lejos, la sexualidad, el reino saudí ha merecido ampliamente esta recompensa.

Premio al carcelero : Vietnam Con siete internautas encarcelados, Vietnam es la segunda cárcel del mundo para los ciberdisidentes, detrás de su vecino chino.

Premio al (sector) público. Cuba Al gobierno cubano se le recompensa por su dominio sobre la Red, a través de la empresa pública ETECSA, y por su control absoluto de la información.

Premio al mejor decorado : las Maldivas Tres ciberdisidentes se encuentran encarcelados en el país, más conocido por sus playas paradisíacas. Dos de ellos están condenados a cadena perpetua.

Premio de la crítica : Siria Las autoridades mantienen detenidos en secreto a dos internautas, por difundir en el Net algunas informaciones críticas con el régimen.

Premio especial de los medios de comunicación : al presidente de Zimbabue, Robert Mugabe Este premio corona el conjunto de la carrera de ese predador de la libertad de prensa y recompensa su creciente saña con Internet.

Gran Premio de la hipocresía : la ONU y su Cumbre Mundial de la Sociedad de la Información Por el lugar de excepción concedido por la organización, en su gran cumbre de Internet, a los países que más reprimen este medio de comunicación, como China y Cuba.

Premio especial del Jurado : Nicole Fontaine, Ministra de Industria francesa Por su propuesta sobre la economía digital (LEN), un peligroso texto para la libertad de expresión de los internautas.

Finalmente, Reporteros sin fronteras saluda la apertura de esta Fiesta, recordando que 72 ciberdisidentes van a pasar este 29 de marzo tras las rejas, por publicar en la Red algunos textos críticos sobre sus gobiernos

My apologies for not being able to locate the article in English.

Buckley has a nice story in The Atlantic, Royal Pain (with links to Scrutiny on the Bounty and We Have A Pope). Which reminds me, Buckingham Palace posted a help-wanted ad for Assistant Private Secretary to The Queen in the April 3rd Economist, in case you're looking.

Asturias Liberal nos cuenta que Reporteros sin Fronteras concede sus trofeos de la represión en el Net. El website de RSF explica,

Francia y algunos países francófonos -Bélgica, Burkina-Faso, Senegal, Madagascar y Canadá (Québec)- van a celebrar, del 29 de marzo al 4 de abril de 2004, la Fiesta de Internet. Reporteros sin Fronteras aprovecha el acontecimiento para conceder sus trofeos de la represión en Internet. Este año, la Palma de Oro le ha sido concedida a China. Igualmente se ha recompensado a otros ocho países

Lea la lista de galardonados, bajo "Francía - fiesta de Internet 27.03.2004". Site also available in French and English.

Paul Mulshine has researched (along with Fran Wood the origins of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Economist and property rights activist Hernando de Soto won the Friedman Prize for Liberty, to be presented on May 6.

Stephen Pollard can only speak ill of Sir Peter, to counter the March 29th obit.

Opinion Journal has a great Best of the web today.

Meanwhile, at The Principality . . .
You gotta love the Friday paper. There are articles on everything, from the headline Developer submits plan for age-restricted housing in township, (for 140 apartment units, at $300,000-375,000 each) which is to take place in a site with "steep slopes, woodlands of 1,700 trees" and transco gas pipelines, to University unveils new master plan for the Dinky rail corridor so the new buildings are within a 10-minute walk from the Frist Campus Center (heavens forbid students might have to take a shuttle to class!). We learn that the 7th person to hold the school Superintendent job since the early 1990s accepts Massachusetts position (and takes a $29,000 pay cut), and that Tempers flare up at joint budget session over library parking, and you haven't even opened the paper yet. It's all on the first page.

I wrote about the flaring tempers last Wednesday (see Centerpiece Theater), but there's one interesting point in the Friday article I didn't mention. The 29% Borough/71% Township budget split is "derived from a formula for joint services that determines fair share based on total property-tax rateables in the two towns, of which 69 percent is in the township". The Borough's two square miles, of which the University occupies one half of the land. The Borough's aggressively developing more buildings that don't pay taxes, and clearly there's every incentive for them to continue since The Township is subsidizing it.

On page 3, 3 teaching positions axed as school board adopts budget, because school enrollment's expected to drop due to the "expansion of" The Principality "Charter School and an economy that is keeping people from moving into" The Principality. One hopes the buyers for the proposed age-restricted housing aren't affected by that same economy.

Rick, the clueless-but-hopefully-well-meaning editor of the newspaper titled his editorial Hate taxes? Wait till we pay off bonds, saying "Like homeowners who keep building up the unpaid balance on their credit cards -- all the while assuring themselves that a better paying job, a long-awaited inheritance or a winning lottery ticket is just around the corner -- the federal and state governments just keep issuing bonds and building up debt, confident that the economy will soon turn around, revenues will start pouring in and everything will be rosy. Eventually someone will have to pay for the burgeoning debt -- both economically and politically -- but that appears to be of little concern to today's office holder". Well, I got news for you, Rick. You have the same situation right here in the redundant local goverments, and for as long as you've been editor you've supported every single astronomical bond issue and high-priced public building.

Right in the middle of the Borough's downtown, the Arts Council building (not a rateable) expansion is a given. They even have the drawing of the expanded building (with an ugly high-diving platform thing over the entrance) as the site map, instead of a photo of the existing building. It simply doesn't matter that the residents of that neighborhood -- who are already overburdened with the Council's parking -- are asking,

The Arts Council, [the Principality] High School, [Principality] Medical Center. The common thread is an actively growing community facility located in a residential neighborhood. Why are we always giving away additional public benefits to a tax-exempt regional institution, while causing permanent detrimental effects to the many taxpaying residential neighborhoods? Who compensates the homeowner for the loss in value of their properties?

Who indeed?

Vargas Llosa in The Guardian
Several years ago I was able to attend Dr. Vargas Llosa's lectures at The University, which were wonderful. In my opinion, he's the greatest writer the Spanish language has ever had. He's also an insightful political observer:

The killers were not mistaken in their target: today's Madrid represents precisely the negation of the radical inhumanities of the obtuse, exclusive tribal spirit of fundamentalism, religious or political, which hates mixture, diversity and tolerance and, above all, liberty. This is the first European battle in a savage war that began exactly two years ago with the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York, and whose inroads will probably fill with blood and horror a good part of this new century. It is a war to the death, of course, and owing to the present fantastic development of the technology of destruction and the fanatic, suicidal zeal that inspires the international movement of terror, it is perhaps a trial even more difficult than those represented by fascism and communism for the culture of liberty.

Read the article here
Then read about a shameful cover-up. Historically, appeasement hasn't worked.