Breaking news:
The runaway bride: Ga. Woman Found, Reportedly Got Cold Feet

Ask, and ye shall receive,
says the New Testament (actually, it's Ask, and it shall be given you), and I asked: I want my MTV filibuster!

Well, I got.

Not quite the filibuster I wanted, but filibuster it is: the students at PU held their own filibuster in front of the Frist (ah!) Campus Center. Tuesday I was on campus and almost joined in, but, not being a student, I had errands to attend.

Principled realism, and being disliked
are the themes discussed by Paul Johnson and Victor Davis Hanson.

The first one, Principled Realism: Good For Both Parties, by Paul Johnson, explains

Nobody in his right mind--certainly not a President who believes in democracy and is a man of high principles--wants to use force. Force is a dangerous, blunt instrument. It is a step into the dark, with often unpredictable results. It is a weapon of last resort. But if Mr. Bush hadn't been willing to use it, the Middle East would still be the same desolate, hopeless area it was at the time of 9/11--a region of cruel and irremovable dictatorship, where democracy had no charge and the people were resigned to perpetual oppression.

Bush's use of force has changed all that. Democracy now has a chance; and freedom, perhaps, has a future. We can't bank on anything, for the enemies of democracy and freedom are still powerful, heavily armed and totally ruthless. But hope is on the rise. The U.S. has planted the seeds of democracy, and its armed forces are in the area to ensure that those seeds are nurtured. That is progress.

I don't care whether the Republicans or the Democrats win the struggle to appropriate the slogan "principled realism." In fact, let them share it. What's important is that both should practice it. It is always an excellent moment in the life of a democratic nation when the main political parties come together in agreement on a fundamental way of doing things. If Mr. Bush's successful policy in the Middle East and its endorsement by American voters last November have achieved such a result--a coming together in principled realism--then America is in healthy shape

Johnson also has an article on the Five Marks of a Great Leader, namely,

• Moral courage
• Judgement
• A sense of priority
• The disposal of concentration and effort
• Humor

Johnson's article pertains leadership on a national level, but these traits apply to any situation.

Victor Davis Hanson's article On Being Disliked: The new not-so-unwelcome anti-Americanism, explains,

All that being said, the disdain that European utopians, Arab dictatorships, the United Nations, and Mexico exhibit toward the United States is not — as the Kerry campaign alleged in the last election — cause for tears, but often reason to be proud, since much of the invective arises from the growing American insistence on principles abroad.

America should not gratuitously welcome such dislike; but we should not apologize for it either. Sometimes the caliber of a nation is found not in why it is liked, but rather in why it is not. By January 1, 1941, I suppose a majority on the planet — the Soviet Union, all of Eastern Europe, France, Italy, Spain, and even many elsewhere in occupied Europe, most of Latin America, Japan and its Asian empire, the entire Arab world, many in India — would have professed a marked preference for Hitler's Germany over Churchill's England.

Think about it. When Europe orders all American troops out; when Japan claims our textbooks whitewash the Japanese forced internment or Hiroshima; when China cites unfair trade with the United States; when South Korea says get the hell off our DMZ; when India complains that we are dumping outsourced jobs on them; when Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians refuse cash aid; when Canada complains that we are not carrying our weight in collective North American defense; when the United Nations moves to Damascus; when the Arab Street seethes that we are pushing theocrats and autocrats down its throat; when Mexico builds a fence to keep us out; when Latin America proclaims a boycott of the culturally imperialistic Major Leagues; and when the world ignores American books, films, and popular culture, then perhaps we should be worried. But something tells me none of that is going to happen in this lifetime

I don't expect so, either. However, I do agree with Claudia Rosett, who said, "I will hazard the prediction that if we of the free world stick to our principles--and, where necessary, defend them with our guns--we stand on the verge of a global renaissance."

Our nutty professor beats theirs
and Paul Mulshine has the details:

Much has been made in the national media lately of a Colorado professor named Ward Churchill who made some loony remarks about the victims of the 9/11 attacks. But I am prepared to argue that we have here in our midst a professor who makes Churchill look sane by comparison. His name is Grover Furr and he teaches at Montclair State University.

Paul raises questions about academic freedom; read the rest.

French taxpayers pay for bears, taxpayer-subsidized farmers complain
BBC News this morning reported that the French government has paid for several Slovenian bears to be released in the Pyrenees, where native bears had been killed off years ago. Apparently the Slovenians were brought in to attract French tourists to the region, which tells me something about French tourism.

The reason the bears were killed off was because of sheep farming. Of course, now that the bears are back, the sheep farmers are ready to kill the bears again because the bears are killing sheep again, and the Beeb report (available as Barefaced cheek: French bears get backing) says about a local farmer: "he's prepared to shoot the bears". The Beeb also talks about the patou dogs (re-introduced, also at taxpayer's expense) that the bears don't dare tangle with. My question was, "nice, the French bears didn't, but do the Slovenian bears know that? How do the sheep feel about this? Are the dogs working 35-hr weeks?" After all, the Beeb has a report (at the same link) that shows an American psychiatrist who traveled all the way to New Zealand to visit farm animals (junket, anyone?) and concluded from his trip that animals have feelings.

Before my questions were answered, the Beeb concluded its report on bears by showing a guy dressed like one of the democratic peasants from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, complete with John Cleese's French accent.

For those who ask, "Does the bear sh** in the woods?", the Beeb also has a video on What bears really do in the woods, done with hidden, Candid-Camera equipment, this time paid by British taxpayers.

Update: Richard at EU Referendum sees the French all at sea

Big news
Being fat won't kill you: John Luik at TCS explains,

Despite the alarmist cries of declining life expectancies, the scientific evidence of the last half century does not support the claim that obesity will mean shorter lives for our children. As the Journal put it so well in 1998, "The data linking overweight and death, as well as the data showing the beneficial effects of weight loss, are limited, fragmentary and often ambiguous. Most of the evidence is either indirect or derived from observational epidemiologic studies, many of which have serious methodologic flaws."

And sometimes being real big might make your hunger strike all the more dramatic.

Columbian artist living in Paris Fernando Botero's showing in Rome some of his big fat paintings, now with a trendy Abu Ghraib theme. As TigerHawk points out, Botero conveniently sidesteps Columbia's own history of human rights abuses,

Or maybe Botero just assumed that Europeans would not flock to see depictions of brutality in Latin America, but that he could buy his way into massive publicity in Europe if he took on the big, bad United States.

On to the fattest airplane of all, which EU Referendum calls a flying black hole, and has managed to take off and land:

Speaking after he landed the plane, test pilot Claude Lelaie said the flight was a "milestone".

More like a millstone, since, as EU Referendum points out,

is set to make losses in excess of £4 billion over its commercial life. As a result, Airbus will never repay the £2 billion-plus state aid paid to help launch it.

I dread to think of the lines waiting to get through security, customs, boarding, and luggage retreival for one plane that carries 800 passengers (just imagine two or three at the same time in one terminal), all the while managing to loose that much money. The International Herald Tribune says "Now that the Airbus A380 has taken to the skies on its first test flight, this giant bird needs someplace to land."

Oh, that.

Much more aerodynamic is the recently sighted ivory-billed woodpecker, which is not only big (the largest woodpecker in North America and third-largest in the world), but was sighted at the Big Woods region of eastern Arkansas.

Back on land, the Big Board merge with Archipelago will apparently generate a $2.5 million bonus for NYSE seatholders. That would make them fat(ter) cats.

And it won't kill them, either.

The Venezuela, Cuba, and Qatar get-together in Havana
"Venezuela, Cuba Forge Anti - U.S. Alliance", says the NY Times this morning:

In the last five years, Venezuela has become a vital economic lifeline for Cuba's cash-starved government, partly filling the void left by the Soviet Union's collapse with vital supplies of oil on very favorable terms.
. . .
PDVSA will make Havana the headquarters for its Caribbean oil refining and distribution plans. It signed an agreement with the Cuban oil company Cupet to build a lubricants plant in Cuba.

The Venezuelan company is also looking at building a super-tanker shipping terminal and a storage facility with a 600,000 barrels a day capacity at Matanzas, east of Havana, and the completion of a Soviet-built oil refinery in Cienfuegos.

PDVSA will consider off-shore exploration in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico waters, where Spain's Repsol YPF last year discovered a noncommercial deposit of good quality oil.

The two countries further agreed to undertake joint nickel and cobalt mining projects, improve communications and step up air and shipping links.

Venezuela increased oil shipments to Cuba to 80,000-90,000 bpd, Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Wednesday.

Since 2000, Venezuela has officially supplied Cuba with 53,000 bpd [barrells per day] of crude and refined products, but exports have risen since Chavez's consolidation of power.

El Herald analyzes the situation (my translation):

La presencia de PDVSA en Cuba tiene una importancia estratégica para ambos países.

Venezuela pretende convertir la isla en su centro de operaciones para el Caribe y Cuba se ha beneficiado de un significativo aumento del suministro de petróleo venezolano pactado en el Convenio Integral de Cooperación suscrito en el 2000.

''Estamos poniendo una base de operaciones en Cuba'', dijo el ministro venezolano de Energía y Petróleo, Rafael Ramírez.
PDVSA's presence in Cuba is strategically important for both countries.
Venezuela aims to turn the island into its operations center for the Caribbean, and Cuba benefits from the significant increase in the Venezuelan oil that has been supplied since the 2000 Convenio Integral de Cooperación (Integral Cooperation Agreement).
"We are opening a base of operations in Cuba", said Rafael Ramírez, Venezuelan minister for Energy and Oil.

There's a lot of money involved: The Banco Industrial de Venezuela branch's initial funding amounts to $400 million, for commerce not related to oil. Additionally,

El presidente del Banco Industrial de Venezuela, Luis Quiaro, explicó que la nueva oficina operará bajo una licencia extraordinaria, la primera otorgada en Cuba a un banco extranjero, que le faculta a recibir y otorgar créditos o financiación.

Esta semana, adelantó, se realizarán reuniones de coordinación sobre la financiación de este nuevo esquema de comercio, que tiene como base la Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas.

El BIV cuenta con una aportación de $200 millones del BANDES, otros 81 millones a través de Bancoext (Banco Exterior) y $119 millones en créditos para impulsar esta relación comercial.
Luis Quiaro, president of [state-owned] Banco Industrial de Venezuela (BIV), explained that the new branch will operate through an extraordinary permit, the first one issued to a foreign bank in Cuba, which will allow it to receive and grant credit or financing.
This week, he stated, there will be meetings for coordinating the financing of this new commerce plan, which is based on the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas(Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas).
The BIV also has $200 million in funds from the BANDES bank, $81 million from Bancoext (Banco Exterior), and $119 in credits for starting this commercial relationship.

Chávez wore red and Castro wore olive green, which I'm sure added to the festiveness of the occassion, and walked together for four blocks in downtown Havana. Walking along with them was their very-well-heeled friend, Sheik Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, vice-president of Qatar, in charge of energy and industry.

The NY Times article doesn't mention the sheik's presence.

The article doesn't specify whether they held hands, or whether Al-Jazeera broadcast the celebrations live, but the boliburguesia will party hardy.

Domestically, Venezuela's Central Bank will set caps on interest rates, "increasing government control over an economy that already has state regulation of currency exchange, wages, and many prices".

Internationally, Chávez, just like Bolívar, has his eye on Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia:

In the meantime, the export of revolution continues with Venezuela using its oil revenues to arm subversive groups around the region. Bolivia's leading revolutionary, Evo Morales, is a Chávez disciple, coached and coddled from Caracas. Ecuador's former President Lucio Gutiérrez fell last week due to popular, and mostly peaceful, protests against his Chávez-like consolidation of power. But there is also reason to believe that Chávez actors created the violence in Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca in the hopes of further destabilizing the fragile situation to his advantage. My Venezuelan contact assured me that there is evidence of infiltration in the Ecuadoran armed forces.

He also told me that Chávez envisions an axis of power linking Brasilia, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. As it is, these populist governments aren't much for standing on principle and anything anti-Yanqui scores cheap domestic points; some may even aspire to Venezuelan-style authoritarianism. But it is also possible that cooperation with Chávez is part survival technique to ward off his use of bullying militants.

It's all part of the Bolivarian revolution, folks.

Also posted at Blogger News Network

Venezuela's oil monopoly will use Habana as its base of operations for the Caribbean
From Forbes

Venezuela's state-run company Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, will open an office in Cuba during a meeting aimed at boosting trade between the two Caribbean nations this week, the government news agency reported Tuesday.

El Herald has further details (my translation):

Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), que abrirá hoy una oficina en La Habana, planea utilizar a Cuba como centro para sus operaciones en el Caribe, dijo ayer el ministro venezolano de Energía y Petróleo, Rafael Ramírez.
Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), which is opening today its Habana office, plans to use Cuba as its center of operations for the Caribbean, stated Rafael Ramírez, Venezuela's minister for Energy and Oil.

Ramírez stated that Venezuela's sending Cuba over 50,000 barrells per day, and that the PDVSA office in Habana will be in charge of commerce, storage, and transport. Venezuela's also opening a branch of the state-owned Banco Industrial de Venezuela in Habana.

It doesn't really take a rocket scientist to realize that, since Venezuela's a Caribbean country and already has the necessary infrastructure to carry out all its commercial activity, opening this office and the bank in Havana is simply a means to further merge Venezuela's rapid descent into communism and finance Castro's goverment while avoiding those pesky investigations on corruption scandals and the subsequent calls for financial transparency at PDVSA.

As I mentioned before, Citgo, which has eight refineries and some 13,000 service stations across the U.S., is owned by Petróleos de Venezuela SA. What Venezuela does concerns us directly.

Additionally, Chávez has gone on the record saying that “oil is a geopolitical weapon”.

Carlos Alberto Montaner pointed out last week that,

when the Cuban army became the largest in Latin America it ended up invading Angola and Ethiopia with tens of thousands of soldiers, who -- from 1975 to 1989 -- fought in Africa the longest war ever waged by a foreign force: 14 years.

Cuba might not be at that stage again, and Chávez is certainly making headway in his arms race, but the USA's most immediate need is elsewhere: energy.

Yesterday President Bush started to address the subject:

President Bush called for construction of more nuclear power plants and urged Congress on Wednesday to give tax breaks for fuel-efficient hybrid and clean-diesel cars. He also said he was powerless to bring down high gasoline costs.

Calling the problem one of not having enough energy supplies to keep pace with demand, Bush said technology will provide the answer in the long run by allowing development of more domestic energy sources.

''Technology is the ticket,'' said Bush, calling today's tight energy markets ''a problem that has been years in the making'' and will take time to resolve. He said he was determined to spur development of more nuclear power, coal, oil and renewable energy and again called on Congress to provide him with a national energy agenda.

And not a minute too soon.

Also posted at Blogger News Network

Arthur writes on Putin's
ridiculous assertion that "the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century," and has this to say to Vlad,

No, Vladimir, the creation of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. It led to deaths of tens of millions, enslavement of hundreds of millions and half a century of Cold War with its simmering tensions, frequent violent outbursts, and the ever-present specter of nuclear annihilation. After all this, the collapse of the Soviet Empire was the greatest geopolitical blessing of recent times.

Today Arthur also posts on those who are Fondly remembering dinosaurs.

McGreevey resigns, this time from his job
at Lesniak's law office
Former N.J. Governor Resigns From Law Firm Amid Flap Over Work for Developers. The developers are involved with the "Xanadu" project in the Meadowlands, which is worth an estimated $1.3 billion.

DynamoBuzz explains,

Good to see that McGreevey has developed a respect for both the letter and spirit of the law, something he was lacking during his three years in office.

And then there's that "Xanadu" name for the Meadowlands project. . .
To those of us with literary inclinations, or minds for trivia, or both, the name Xanadu doesn't quite strike a good note when it comes to real estate development atop a swamp. (The Meadowlands are on a swamp, or, more nicely put, wetlands.) Look up the poem where Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote,

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea

So far so good, in keeping with the swampy theme. But scroll down a bit and you'll find something for a sequel of The Exorcist:

A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!

And further down,

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!

Caves of ice in the Meadowlands? No, thanks.

Kudlow on Social Security
Yesterday Larry Kudlow explained in his show why you cannot solve the pending financial storm in social security without personal savings accounts (emphasis mine):

The reason? The private account option would finance benefits through stock and bond market returns. Without private accounts, benefits will be funded only by higher tax payments from the government.

Higher taxes will stall the economy and benefits will suffer accordingly. But the thrift savings account model of benefits throws off a 6.7% yearly inflation-adjusted return, far superior to the 1.8% post-inflation estimate of future social security.

The market is more reliable over the long run than the government. As more and more people choose market benefits from private accounts, fewer and fewer will demand government benefits. Over 50 years, government benefits will shrink from lack of demand. And so will the unfunded future liabilities of the system.

Call it the substitution effect. Not until the White House or Congress moves to private accounts will social security insolvency ever be solved.

I would choose some combination of the Ryan-Sununu bill or the plan submitted by Senator Chuck Hagel. I would reject any and all benefit cuts or tax increases. And if we choose the private account path, the economy will prosper from a flood of new saving and investment, while people get more comfortable and safer retirement benefits.

In other words, choose economic freedom over government entitlement.

Kudlow's earned himself a warm spot in my heart.

Brunch at the Vatican?

Pope benedict, that's what!

I'm tending to other matters today. In the meantime, don't miss ¡Gringo Unleashed!'s interview with Sgt. (E5) Mike Cannon, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines, who just returned from Iraq.

One more step towards cloning Venezuela as Cuba: free copies of Don Quijote
Fidel has said that he's making sure Cubans are the most cultured people in the world.

Now Hispalibertas tells us that Hugo Chávez's lifting a page right off Fidel's book, and squandering his oil profits on a million abridged copies of Don Quijote that supposedly are to be distributed to the Venezuelan people. I say supposedly because 70,000 copies of the translated version are to be distributed in English-speaking Caribbean countries, and 7,000 in Haiti. An unspecified amount will be sent to, you guessed it, Cuba, and Cuba will be dedicating the 2006 International Book Fair to Venenzuela. I wonder if Hugo's sending Fidel oil, and Fidel's paying him with pamphlets, but that would be a question for another post.

Speaking of the Havana Book Fair, you can be sent to a concentration camp if you have a free lending library operating from your Cuban home. Make no mistake, any book circulated through official means in Cuba has the censors' stamp of approval.

But back to Chávez's abridged Don Q., The Scotsman sees this a positive light, and gives it a lovely headline:Quixotic president's novel way to inspire his people and claims that

Whether in praise or in criticism, Venezuelans universally describe Mr Chavez as an idealist. He has said he envisages a new world order in which developing countries are free from oppression, inequality, poverty and injustice.

I guess The Scotsman equates the terms "idealist" and petty tyrant", and quotes Hugo as saying

"Is Venezuela still poor? Yes, but now Venezuelans have better health care, now they have schools in which children receive a good lunch ... and programmes to teach the people how to read and write," he said.

In case you get a feeling of deja-vu, you've heard it from Fidel, who's spent the last 50 years talking of Cuba's healthcare system and literacy, but, after all, Hugo's Fidel's Mini-Me.

Why do I object to this free book?
1. True literacy programs take not only money, but time, commitment and dedication. I find none of that in this ridiculous gesture that would make it qualify as a literacy program. Chávez could spend the $350 million that he gave away on oil commissions on an effective literacy program, and have change to spare.
2. The book giveaway is a pure propagandistic move, aimed for foreign consumption. Paleoliberals will love it, since it's prefaced by Nobel Prize winner Saramago, who said that he doesn't believe in democracy, which needs to be reinvented. I hope Chávez sends Saramago a t-shirt.
3. The book is abridged. If you're going to give away a book, give away the entire text. Here it is, in Spanish, and in English. Anything else is bogus.

As a commenter in Hispalibertas said, los defendidos por don Quijote quedaban mas corridos que socorridos, "those who Don Quijoted defended ended up more run over than helped".

Let's wish the Venezuelan people better luck than that. They need it.

The UN, Venezuela, and the EU
are in the corruption game.

Possibly inspired by the shinning example of the UN and its Oil-For-Food shennanigans (where, as Mark Steyn puts it, "the sewer of the oil-for-food scandal and the attempts by Kofi Annan to castrate the investigation into it demonstrate yet again that there is no problem in the world today that can't be made worse by letting the U.N. have a hand in solving it"), Chávez has been working on the Venezuelan version, including his own internal investigation>

Confidential documents reveal that high-ranking officials of the state conglomerate Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (Pdvsa) are authorizing the payment of million-dollar commisions for the sale of its products in the international market, through a wide network of intermidiaries with banking connections in Caracas, Aruba, Panamá, Miami, New York, Madeira and Switzerland.

Now we have PDVSA hands corruption case files to Attorney General's Office

30 executives & managers working in PDVSA Western Division were dismissed a couple of months ago and further investigations in National Assembly (AN) have thrown up more cases of irregularities in granting contracts.
. . .
[(PDVSA) president Rafael] Ramirez Ramirez has been fighting off charges that the PDVSA has been afraid to handle the investigations internally.

VCrisis blog expands on the subject:

Of course, all this information will not come on a silver platter. Restoring controls over PdVSA is a job requiring the sum of wills and an intense political task. It resembles an impossible task for political parties which only think of surviving the next elections. It will not suffice just to be in agreement with the distorted version of the executive, unless they aspire to someday inherit absolute control over PdVSA, also without rendering accounts of any kind.

The credibility of these parliamentarians is sparse, parliamentarians who dedicate themselves to dusting off supposed documents over the television screens, with a menacing, defiant and personalized attitude, without the presence of a truly political platform which would allow them to have direct access to the PdVSA “Black Box”. The most grievous matter of this is the silence and inertia of most of the political parties concerning the management of the corporation which is the backbone of the national economy. Ignoring what is happening in PdVSA is not just a behavior of complicity and approbation, but also one of the most perverted forms of corruption.

The EU has become another focus of corruption. The latest on a rather long string of corruption-related news pertains commission president José Manuel Barroso, who's been spending quality time mellowing out on an old college friend's yatch (the friend is old, the yatch is new):

News is breaking of what may be a major scandal involving EU commission president, José Manuel Durao Barroso and Greek shipping, banking, construction and petroleum magnate, Spiros Latsis, after it emerged today that Barroso and his wife enjoyed a lavish free holiday last summer on Latsis's private yacht.

Can't a guy have friends, you ask? Well, look at the friend's motives:

However, it now emerges that Latsis, whose personal fortune is estimated at over $2.8 billion, has companies heavily involved in the construction and funding of the controversial Spata Airport complex, featured in the Booker column in March 2004, after millions in EU funding were unaccounted for.

The huge project, largely funded by EU grants and loans, opened four years ago at an alleged cost of €2.3 billion (£1.6 billion), which made it the third most expensive airport ever built. The project was undertaken by Hochtief, a German company which specialises in airport construction.

Although Hochtief only contributed €133 million to the project, it owns a 45 per cent share in the finished airport, and has a contract to run it through a subsidiary for 30 years, with the right to appoint its chief executive and five out of nine members of the board.

Of the claimed €2.3 billion cost, €250 million was contributed by EU taxpayers from the Cohesion Fund and €997 million was lent by the EU's European Investment Bank, backed by a Greek government guarantee. Much of the rest came from Greek taxpayers.

Further details can be seen from the link provided but it also emerges that Latsis-owned companies have considerable financial interests in the Spata Airport venture. Not least, his bank, EFG Eurobank is a "strategic partner" with the German Hochtief company, the prime contractor for the airport.

There have been many requests to Prodi's commission to investigate the dealings of Hochtief and the financial dealings relating to the airport constuction and management, but all of which have hit a stone wall of silence. Furthermore, the new Borroso commission has shown no inclination to follow up on what is clearly a major financial scandal, involving billions in EU funds.

Richard of EU Referendum says "Having friends is one thing – accepting lavish hospitality from them is quite another." Especially when it leads to building airports.

Jersey corruption scandals
never seem to stop. Roberto at DynamoByzz lists a few:

• the Norcross tapes
• NJ Secretary of State Regena Thomas's mismanagement, and her involvement in a political consulting firm that received almost a million dollars last fall from the Democratic National Committee

and several more down the list, which includes the Giants Stadium. I've been hearing about the deals on the stadium since I first moved to NJ a couple of Popes ago.

Roberto also posts on the New Jersey Colleges Under Investigation, first of which is UMDNJ (of which I wrote about yesterday), and summarizes the situation very aptly:

You and I look at colleges and universities and see institutions of higher learning. The state democrat party sees patronage mills and an extension of the government spoils system. If you remember, Codey and McGreevey were pushing really hard for Ramapo College to hire Bayonne mayor and state senator Joe Doria as university president. The selection committee showed a lot of backbone to deny the job to the politically connected democrat. And Democrat senator Wayne Bryant receives $35,000 a year from UMDNJ as a part-time employee, plus Rutgers pays him another $30,000 as a guest lecturer.

One thing about living in NJ is how much it reminds me of France (I'm Puerto Rican, not French, but have been to France and follow the French news). Just look at the story DynamoBuzz links to on the school construction scandal:

The out-of-power Republicans received only a fraction of the largesse from 2002 to 2004, getting $59,000 total - one-ninth what Democrats were given.

The Epic Management Group of Piscataway, which oversees projects in New Brunswick, Perth Amboy and Plainfield, gave half of the $519,000 donated to political causes.

It made more than 50 donations totaling $254,000 to Democrats, including a $15,000 donation to Middlesex County Democrats on Oct. 15 - the day before McGreevey's pay-to-play ban went into effect.

Compare that with The Telegraph article I linked to last month:

The trial centres on a system alleged to have been initiated by the RPR - the party founded by Mr Chirac - in which firms were promised generous contracts in a vast project to revamp school canteens, but only in exchange for hefty kickbacks.

Of course, when you look at the numbers involved in the French kickbacks you start to think the Jerseyans are mere beginners.

Which they are. France has had thousands of years to perfect its system.

Jersey City is happy,
according to this article, which shows Jersey City as the third-happiest city in America.

A few dozen miles down the road, Philadelphia tops the most depressed list.

Why one happy and one depressed? I don't know. As Yul Bryner said, "Tis a puzzlement!"

Time for Arthur's 25th installment of
Good news from Iraq.

May I beat up on the Beeb (again), which Arhtur quotes,Iraq struggles to educate children

Iraq used to have one of the highest levels of literacy in the Arab world and one of its best education systems, but two decades of war, sanctions and funding shortages under Saddam Hussein have turned it into one of the region's worst.

"Funding shortages", they say, not mentioning the largest fraud crime in the history of mankind . . . maybe it wasn't elegant enough?

Accounting in academia, version 1.2
Version 1.1 was Stevens Institute. Now we got version 1.2, UMDNJ, which has its UMDNJ surgery program in peril: Accreditation panel urges axing cardio-thoracic unit:

News about possible termination of the residency program comes at a time when UMDNJ is battling questions about its financial management. In addition, two more of the 49 residency and fellowship programs at UMDNJ's medical school are on probation or have been threatened with probation. Baker identified them as dermatologic pathology and allergy and immunology.

The financial management questions concern all NJ residents because UMDNJ is state-funded. The Star Ledger yesterday was saying, Executive bonuses top $3M at UMDNJ. Ex-president received $130,000 after he resigned,

Though New Jersey's other public research universities have instituted similar bonus programs in recent years, UMDNJ's program remains the largest, by far.

At Rutgers, the state's largest university, campus officials said the bonuses for all 21 of their top executives totaled $89,000 last year -- about the same as a bonus for a single senior vice president at UMDNJ.

But it's not only bonuses that are questioned:

UMDNJ has been under scrutiny in recent weeks for its financial practices, including the awarding of no-bid contracts and charitable donations. The sprawling 5,000-student university, which includes eight schools on five campuses, is run by a Newark-based president and board of trustees.

Over the past few weeks, school leaders have come under fire for awarding millions of dollars in no-bid contracts and donating $10,000 to an unregistered charity run by a local politician.

Last week, UMDNJ officials admitted the school needed tighter control on its spending, vowing to review the management of the school's $1.6 billion budget. The school's trustees also asked former State Supreme Court Justice James Coleman to do an independent audit of no-bid contracts awarded by the university.

While the state-funded school is spending money, people are asking why they school's making donations to charities, and spending freely on lobbyists, lawyers, and consultants:

Among other things, the 2002 records show: more than $1.1 million was spent on lobbyists and government affairs consultants even though the university has its own government-affairs office; more than $3.3 million was spent for collection agencies that were hired without competition; and $3.5 million was spent on outside attorneys whose names were not specified when the administration sought approval from the university's board.

One of the articles quotes Bernie Gerard, vice president of UMDNJ's nurses union: "The university is trying to come around and build more accountability".

That would be a good idea.

Sunday blogging: Small cars
Mary at Exit Zero's blogging about small cars:

My husband didn't like Le Car because it was small, he's tall and he kept bumping his head on the roof. But at least this car isn't French. American men bought the old-style VW bugs – didn’t they?

The Husband, who's 6'4", used to make deliveries for his father's business in a VW bug. The Husband managed to do that by holding the steering wheel with both hands, carefully, between his knees, something that usually only advanced yoga students can master. I'd love to have a Mini Cooper, but can drive it only with the seat pulled all the way to the back. Since The Husband doesn't fit in the Mini Cooper passenger seat, he'd have to follow in hot pursuit, in the mini-van.

Several months ago I was in my friend's Miata and we stopped at a traffic light, surrounded on all sides by SUVs. We were so far below their line of sight, it truly felt like we were riding on a skateboard with a roof. I'm a lot more comfortable in my mini-van.

I don't like SUVs at all, though. The only person I've known who had good reasons to own an SUV was a lady I used to work with, who was 6' tall, her husband and her daughters were taller than her, and each of the three daughers owned a cello. They all could ride together in her Chevy Suburban, which was about the size of a living room on wheels. If they packed the cellos carefully, they could even get their dog (a lab) in the car.

New Jersey and Mercer County wildlife watch
Roberto's posting on wild turkeys gone wild in Cranford (no, not that Wild Turkey).

I had to wait for much slower wild turkeys to finish crossing Herrontown Road the other day. ("Why did the turkeys cross the road?", you may ask).

Adding to the species sighted in Mercer County, a friend of The Husband who lived out West and knows a coyote from a dog sighted up-close a coyote at Mercer County Park. No road-runners were included.

The Husband claims there are foxes in the area, but that was right after I had come back from the hair salon.

Front page news at the Packet: "With defeat of budget, voters in Montgomery send a message
Second question on laptops defeated by overwhelming 6-1 margin".

And while some board members admitted their anxiety prior to the vote, the tremendous turnout didn't signal to them the resounding budget rejection that was under way.
"I did not expect this big of a margin," Wei-Ching Lin said. "I think it is a signal from the township people that there is some sort of affordable limit."

The Princeton voters apparently haven't reached the "affordable limit" point yet. They approved a nearly 8% increase over last year's budget, which includes "the added cost of new building space, as the district's $81.3 million, six-school renovation and expansion project heads to completion."

In related news, the middle school's Olympic quality swimming pool's ready. Call me a fuddy-duddy, but my (private) school never had a swimming pool, never mind an Olympic one, and my education didn't suffer.

I want my MTV filibuster!
Democrats are threatening a "filibuster" over nominees to judicial posts. By "filibuster" they basically imply shutting down the Senate. I for one don't worry much about when government offices are shut down, since every bureaucrat, deep in his/her heart loves a holiday and who are we not to oblige, but shutting down the Senate's the easy road.

Wimps.

What I want is the full filibuster treatment: the whole Mr. Smith Goes to Washington kit and caboodle treatment.

I want parliamentary procedures, Senate rules, and Robert's Rules of order, each and every one of them, invoked. I want hours, no, days, of good, old fashioned, mind-boggling, alternately sleep-inducing and brain-jolting, stomach-turning, nonsensical, illogical, emotion-laden political rhetoric. I want the democrats to yammer on for days at a stretch. I want senators grabbing at straws, or better yet, at crumpled papers strewn on the floor, à la Jimmy Stewart. I want suits crumpled and neckties undone. I want Hillary and Nancy sweaty and disheveled, Botox ineffective, chipped manicured fists banging on the podium, explaining why this woman and this woman are not qualified to hold the positions they're nominated for. I want Ted Kennedy, hoarse and bloated at 3AM trying to hold the Senate floor -- or at least to not collapse on the floor.

Best yet, I want every delicious moment of it broadcast on CSpan, or on any cable channel, for all the world to see and savor.

I sigh in anticipation of all the hours of blogosphere coverage -- the round-ups, the video clips, the blogbursts, the fiskings. I'd have days' worth of blogging material thrown right at my lap.

I want my MTV filibuster!

Also posted at Blogger News Network, my blogging home-away-from-home.

Update Kathy, who's more eloquent than I, asks, when was the last time anyone actually filibustered a bill?
Update 2 Turns out there's a spelling-impared Phil A. Buster flash cartoon which strikes the wrong notes by managing to rip off The Simpsons and Schoolhouse Rock's I'm Just A Bill. Phil A. Buster's friends are Checks and Balanz -- the site wants your checks, so at least they could spell-check that one. A dud.
More update Dan's wondering if I'm stooping or staggering. I say, both.

The USS Iowa Turret Two Virtual Memorial
honors the 47 people who died on April 19, 1989.

Ken Adams was there:

The bosun and I looked at each other and I said, "was that the 5-inch?" As soon the words came out of my mouth, the GQ alarm sounded and we knew that something had gone horribly wrong. The voice of boatswain's mate of the watch confirmed it as the bosun and I ran out the door and on our separate ways. "Explosion in Turret 2!"

I ran to the bridge through a fairly thick, but not overwhelming cloud of smoke. When I got there, it was chaotic. I was supposed to take the deck for GQ, but after about 5 seconds of consultation the port section OOD and I decided he should keep the deck and I should dive in and help pick up the slack.

I am thankful for people like Ken and his shipmates who serve our country.

Human rights and Cuba
U.N. agency condemns Cuban's human-rights record. Of course Venezuela raps UN for Cuban human rights vote, but at least Argentina and Brazil rap Cuba on human rights.

There's no human rights, no human dignity, in present-day Cuba.

Let's briefly review some facts on two aspects of Cuban society:

In economic terms, Cuban people live lives of penury:

• In a fit of unheard-of generosity, Castro More Than Doubles Minimum Wage to $10 a Month.
  Please. Don't tell me it's worth it "because Cubans have free education and healthcare, and pay no rent". You try getting along on $12/month anywhere in the world.
• Castro, who recently raised welfare payments to a magnanimous US$6 to US$12, is estimated to be worth $550,000,000. As Orwell once put it, "There was nothing there now except a single Commandment . It ran: ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS".
  
  Fidel, however, sees blue skies ahead

  Castro has recently expressed optimism on the state of the island's economy, which is based primarily on improved trade relations with Venezuela and China and the recent discovery of offshore oil deposits.

Political prisoners in Cuba are housed in latrine-like dungeons:
Babalu Blog has a video of the horrifying conditions in which political prisoner Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet was kept during the months of November and December 2004.

The video (also available here) is in Spanish, and not subtitled, but here's my translation. In the video, Dr. Biscet's wife, Elsa Morejón, explains (at great risk to herself) that this is a full-scale replica of the dungeon in which Dr. Biscet was imprisoned, "despite the fact that Cuba has signed international agreements and rules on prisoner treatment".

Ms Morejón points to a piece of paper with her husband's words on the front wall of the dungeon. Dr. Biscet spent the months of November and December, 2004, including New Year's Eve, in a dungeon like it. She points to the narrow slot on the door, for delivery of food, and in some dungeons the slots are positioned at different heights. "There are no windows, no lights since for a while he didn't have a light bulb, no ventilation, in Cuba, a country with very high temperatures".

Inside the dungeon she points to a pipe for water, a hole for latrine. She shows the actual shoes he owned during that period, and how the leather rotted. She lists the meager possessions a prisoner is allowed: underwear, a towel, a sheet, toothpaste, cup, toothbrush, soap, deodorant, sometimes prisoners are allowed to have their Bible with them. No bed is provided. The prisoner sleeps on the floor, and "sometimes they are brought a filthy mattress at 10PM".

The food they are given is unfit for human consumption.

Ms Morejón asks, "We ask the world to intercede and ask Cuba to set my husband free. He's a man who loves God and justice, who believes in non-violence, and shouldn't be there [in prison], because all he's asked for is to live in democracy in his own country".

Also posted at Blogger News Network

France, China, and some inconveniently "unfair, outdated and discriminatory" documents
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin crowned the first day of his tour of China, with a huge $1.8 billion deal, when Three Chinese airlines order 30 Airbus aircraft, including 5 A380s.

Of course Raffarin's been having to do some serious brown-nosing by urging the EU to end its ban on weapons sales to China:

Mr Raffarin said he saw no reason for the EU to delay lifting the arms embargo imposed against China after Beijing's crackdown on pro-democracy rallies in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

He described the ban as "unfair, outdated and discriminatory".

You can be certain that Mr. Raffarin as a child in elementary school had to study and probably memorize the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was approved by the National Assembly of France on August 26, 1789 (the Constitution of the USA was drafted on 17 September 1787, and became effective on 4 March 1789, in case you wonder), and whose first article reads, "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights." Articles 10 and 11 of the Declaration read

10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.
11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.

Either Mr. Raffarin loosely interprets the meaning of the Declaration -- with relativism coming into play for "shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law", perhaps -- or believes such notions have become "unfair, outdated and discriminatory". After all, none other than the BBC (hardly a branch of the vast right-wing conspiracy) states that in China there's No room for dissent

. . . any dissenting voices are dealt with most swiftly and more harshly than ever before.

A BBC report on How China is ruled starts with: "The Communist Party has ruled China since 1949, tolerating no opposition and often dealing brutally with dissent".

State-owned France2's evening broadcast (23 minutes into the broadcast) showed Raffarin in glowing terms, with the Chinese literally rolling out the red carpet at his feet, and making a speech about the historic importance of "this day, today, April 21, 2005". They forgot to mention this (emphasis mine):

He also said France had no objection to China's anti-secession law, authorising the use of force against Taiwan should it move to declare independence.

Mr. Raffarin might do well to review the Declaration. The very same evening newscast showed that 58% of likely voters will vote "Non" against the EU Constitution in the upcoming referendum. The EU Constitution would effectively negate article 3 of the Declaration: "The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation".

Maybe some voters are remembering their Declaration.

The UN resignations have caused a stir
among other members of the Volker Committee, and it has Roger L. Simon, who has actually been carrying his own investigation, commenting on them the Pinocchios of the Volcker Committee

I have known personally about Parton's disaffection from the committee for over a month - that is long before the committee made its interim report and therefore long before Parton, Duncan or anyone else had "completed their work."

As Claudia Rosett points out,

But the U.N.-authorized inquiry into oil-for-food, led by a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul Volcker, has so far provided no illumination as to the mystery officials named in the indictments. The Volcker commission's interim report, issued March 29, was devoted chiefly to Kojo Annan's business connections. It made no mention, either, of Air Harbour Technologies, where Kojo Annan rubbed elbows for a time with his father's special adviser to the United Nations, Mr. Strong, and then with Cotecna's Mr. Wilson.

In the meantime, the UN calls for self-reform. Yeah, right:

Since the U.N.'s self-described dawn of integrity three years ago (one of several such sunrises since Mr. Annan became secretary-general in 1997), we have seen the sex-for-food scandal in the Congo, featuring the rape of minors by U.N. peacekeepers, which continued well after press disclosures last year prompted a U.N. internal investigation. We have seen theft at the World Meteorological Association, scandal in the U.N. audit department, the resignation over sexual harassment charges of the refugee high commissioner Ruud Lubbers, turmoil within the Electoral Assistance Division, and allegations of corruption involving the U.N.'s Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization. We have seen rebellion by the U.N. Staff Union against "senior management, and a raft of resignations by senior U.N. officials who nonetheless linger on the premises on official salaries of a dollar a year, plus the various perquisites and connections the place affords.

Biggest of all, we have seen the former Oil for Food relief program for Iraq blow like Krakatoa. The program's executive director, Benon Sevan, has been accused by the U.N.-authorized inquiry, led by Paul Volcker, of engaging in a severe conflict of interest. Among other items, Mr. Sevan was found to have been receiving large mysterious payments from his pensioner aunt in Cyprus. The U.N. Secretariat sent out secret hush letters to major U.N. Oil for Food contractors, Saybolt and Cotecna, hired by the U.N. to inspect Saddam's oil and food deals. Congressional investigators and Mr. Volcker's team have since discovered that not only was there far too little inspecting required by the U.N., but that the awarding of U.N. contracts to both parties was done in violation of the U.N.'s own procedures.

As I've stated before, the U.N.'s incapable of reform.

Ecuadorians oust their president
Ecuador's Congress votes out president

The change in power occurred after street protests that began several months ago, when Gutierrez sacked most of the Supreme Court judges and hand-picked their replacements. The move provoked a tremendous public outcry, with escalating protests in recent weeks raising fears of violence between supporters and critics of Gutierrez.

Gutierrez contended that he made the move in order to create a more independent court system, but much of the public believed it to be an attempt by the left-of-center government to consolidate power.

According to CBC News, the president of Ecuador sought political asylum in Brazil's embassy overnight Wednesday, hours after the nation's Congress removed him from office.

The 100 members of Congress used a clause in the constitution allowing legislators to remove a president for "abandonment of the position," arguing that Gutierrez had not faithfully carried out the responsibilities of the presidency.

Venezuela News and Views analyzes the situation:

But his undoing seems to have been the High Court manipulations which resulted in the surprise return from exile of ex-prez Bucaram, the joker of the Americas. That apparently was too much for the congress already embroiled in a bitter battle for the future of the high court. Now Gutierrez is asking for political asylum in the Brazilian embassy. It is strange that a ruler who from outside seems to have managed his country better than expected is ousted in such an unceremonious way. While the disaster we have in Venezuela keeps strengthening his power with money and repression.

Tonight many people must be thoughtful in Venezuela. Definitely, only constant street pressure will offer us some hope of change. Even some chavista groups understand that as a violent chavista mob was harassing Caracas mayor Bernal yesterday, complaining of electoral fraud in the recent internal election of Chavez party. Imagine that!

But one thing seems certain, as in April 11 2002, the Venezuelan Army, for better or for worse, will be the one who decides who stays and who goes. We are quite far from true democracy, in Ecuador or in Venezuela...

Let's hope Ecuador, and Venezuela, too, will find a democratic and responsible president that would bring his country to stability and prosperity.

Introducing the new Magneto: King Juan Carlos??
Straight from The Spain Herald,

Marvel Comics, the most famous American comics publisher, announced that next summer it will introduce a new saga titled "House of M", a collection recalling and uniting the stories of such superheroes as Spiderman, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four. Marvel chose a photograph of Spain's King, Juan Carlos, as the model for Magneto, an arch-villain in the X-Men comic. The amazing similarity between Magneto and the King of Spain will be seen this summer on the cover of one of the volumes of the collection "The Pulse", drawn by Mike Mayhem. Magneto, one of the X-Men's classic enemies, can be seen dressed as the King, with a red band crossing his bemedalled chest, as in the official photographs of Juan Carlos. The drawing is so detailed that it can be seen that the two are wearing the same ring. The Zarzuela Palace has not released a statement in response.

The Spanish royals have not made an official statement on the subject.

The Bad Hair Blog has been unable to reach Ian McKellen for comment on the challenges this new development may bring him, since Mr. McK doesn't look at all like the king, but we speculate that Prince Charles might be sending Mr. Mayhem a few 8x10 glossies.

Also posted at Blogger News Network

"Universal laws no longer exist in the Arab world"
state Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred (via The Anchoress

The civilized world understands the rule of law. The ideals of human rights are meant for all, rights that include free speech, a free press, and the need for rules that cross borders and languages.

The fact of the matter is that today, we face an enemy that that uses hospitals and schools to shield terrorists, and Houses of Worship are used as armories. Children become a means, used human fodder, to throw in front of an enemy, as they are in Israel for propaganda purposes as they shield gunmen, or they become disposable chattel, as they were in Beslan.

Read their post, and then read Pope Benedict XVI: Enemy of Jihad by Robert Spencer.

Tyranny is the most unstable form of government
and Michael Ledeen's article The Revolution Continues: It’s a different world than we’ve known explores how the great paradigm shift on the survival of repressive regimes is affecting China, Iran, and North Korea.

It has long been assumed that a repressive regime could survive as long as it had the will to crush any opposition, and that clever tyrants could deflect hatred of their regime by conjuring up an external enemy. There is still a tendency, particularly among intellectuals, to assume that these principles apply to contemporary dictatorships like those in China, Iran, and North Korea. Yet recent events suggest that these three countries, which are united by common interests and which help one another with advanced military technology, from missiles to WMDs, are losing control despite their fierce determination to cling to power and eventually fight and win a great war against the West. All three have nearby examples of new democracies, and their peoples are asking, with increasing intensity, why they are not permitted to govern themselves.

Considering the totalitarian trends in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Mexico, and Bolivia, and the ever-encopassing Cuban-Venezuelan Bolivarian revolution, let's hope Mr. Ledeen is right.

Chávez, his arms race, and his t-shirt allies
are the subject of Carlos Alberto Montaner's article The Chávez- 'banana left' alliance (emphasis mine)

Military leaders in Brazil are uneasy about Hugo Chávez. It is not comfortable to coexist with a neighbor intent on creating a militia with a million armed men.

The most benign hypothesis is that the militia is actually an occupation force devoted only to throttling the Venezuelans and controlling and patrolling a national dictatorship more or less patterned after the Cuban model.

The most worrisome theory believes that, in addition to oppressing the Venezuelans, a military apparatus of that size will end up developing international operations against the neighboring countries.

Brazilians are not unaware that when the Cuban army became the largest in Latin America it ended up invading Angola and Ethiopia with tens of thousands of soldiers, who -- from 1975 to 1989 -- fought in Africa the longest war ever waged by a foreign force: 14 years.

Chávez will be visiting Cuba again next week, purportedly for preparation of the second meeting of Cuban-Venezuelan business leaders of April 27 to April 30, which 200 Venezuelan businessmen are scheduled to attend.

Not one to miss a propaganda opportunity, Chávez explained that

visitará a Cuba para impulsar la integración comercial entre los dos países y fortalecer la creación de la Alternativa Bolivariana para América (ALBA).
El ALBA es una iniciativa promovida por Chávez como opción al Acuerdo de Libre Comercio de las Américas (ALCA).
El gobernante reiteró sus críticas contra el ALCA. "Esa es una de las razones por las cuales 'mister danger' (en alusión al presidente estadounidense George W. Bush) nos tiene las vista puesta a nosotros", agregó.
"Deben estar preocupados porque le vamos a vender sardinas a Cuba y ellos no quieren que los cubanos coman, pero como comen los cubanos, y como se visten, y como luchan", declaró Chávez al responder a las críticas que ha realizado Estados Unidos por los estrechos vínculos que mantiene su gobierno con Castro

(my translation) will be visiting Cuba to energize the commercial integration between the two countries and to strengthen the creation of the Bolivarian Alternative for America (Alternativa Bolivariana para América - ALBA). The ALBA is Chávez's alternative to the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (ALCA).
The head of state reiterated his criticism of ALCA. "This is one of the reasons why "Mr. Danger" (referring to President George W. Bush) keeps an eye on us", he added. "They must be worried because we'll be selling Cuba sardines, and they don't want Cubans to eat, but Cubans do eat, and dress, and struggle", Chávez declared in response to US criticism of his goverment's close ties to Castro.

I wonder if Chávez will be charging Cuba $52.29 per barrel of sardines. After all, sardines are not oil, which, under an agreement signed in 2000, Venezuela sends energy-short Cuba 53,000 barrels a day of oil on exceptionally favourable terms.

In oil news, Two of eight Citgo refineries in U.S. up for sale. Citgo, which has eight refineries and some 13,000 service stations across the U.S., is owned by Petróleos de Venezuela SA. Ponder that when you're at the pump. At the same time, Venezuela's tax rate, which was raised Sunday from 34 percent to 50 percent, may hurt investments as the nation seeks to double oil production.

In internal news, Venezuela News and Views Blog explains The Tascon list: modern political apartheid in Venezuela.

Back to the topic of Chávez's trip to Havana, I don't think he'll be touring the ruins of Havana (via Babalu blog). The Venezuelan "businessmen" scheduled to attend the April 27 conference won't be lingering on them, either. It might give them second thoughts on the long-term effects of the ongoing Bolivarian revolution.

Women's clothing
I'm as likely as the next guy or gal to poke fun at anything -- as a former Catholic, I assure you I have poked fun at the Church -- but this is beyond parody,

"What our viewers will notice is that, among these 115 cardinals, who are wearing what looks like women’s garb, that there are no women. That is something the next pope is going to have to address."

The Independent Women's Forum says

the ABC commentator in question wasn’t just any old staff newsie but the Rev. Richard McBrien, Catholic priest and famously "progressive" (i.e. anti-papal) theology professor at the University of Notre Dame. McBrien’s written an entire encyclopedia about Catholicism

You'd think Rev. O'Brien would have had time enough to find a better argument for gender equality than feeble comments about men in drag. Which men were not in female drag, any more than women are in male drag when wearing capri pants.

Pope Benedict XVI has been elected
Germany's Cardinal Ratzinger Elected Pope

News round-up on China
China hails Pakistan-India peace process, but China-Japan Talks Yield Little. New Sisyphus remarks,

In reality, the age-old nationalisms continue to be more powerful than the pull of WTO treaties and the fact that both nation’s people’s lunch at McDonald’s.

Arthur poses some China questions:

Where will it all lead? To the eventual de-escalation. No one wants war, but China certainly intends to make a point and make it strong. However, Beijing's grandstanding is unlikely to have a desired effect on Japan; probably quite the opposite - the more assertive China becomes, the more Japan will want to ensure that it's capable of responding.

Longer term, all we have are questions: how long can China maintain its current economic and political course? When will the Chinese middle class reach the critical mass to demand more than just economic freedom? Can China survive as a unitary state? What role will the rapidly increasing Christian population play? Most importantly: can East Asia last without war until China - eventually and hopefully - makes the transition to a reasonably free and reasonably democratic modern state?

This US State Department document lists China as a major drug-transit or major illicit drug-producing country, and one of the major sources of "precursor or essential chemicals used in the production of illicit narcotics."

China has huge systemic problems: the most worrysome, to me, is the weakness of its banking system. China supports North Korea's opressive regime's nuclear program. Additionally, this 1997 article from The Economist says "China gives its critics ample reason to attack it. It does persecute Christians, dissidents and free thinkers. It does export goods made by prison labourers." None of these have improved noticeably in the past eight years.

Yesterday a talk radio show was saying that China aims to kick the USA out of Asia, which is not a far-fetched notion, when one reads about China's military buildup. The UN is unlikely to put much pressure on China, and China isn't very likely to help in pressuring countries like Sudan, where it has extensive oil interests. At the same time, China's expanding its economic interests in South America, particularly with Venezuela, Mexico, and Brazil

While economic news are optimistic, with extreme poverty in developing countries falling 25% since 1990 "thanks to strong economic growth in China, India, and other countries in Asia," and might be further improved were that growth to continue, the question remains, where is China heading? As The Economist says this week, "The nationalist genie, once unbottled, could prove hard for China to restrain."

More on the Rickman play on Corrie
Roger L. Simon

If the facts of the Rachel Corrie story prove to be as "accurate" as those of the notorious Mohammed al-Dura case, as some are now suggesting they are, Mr. Rickman deserves to be taken behind the woodshed for a good old-fashioned public school caning.

Some Rickman fans might even be game for that.

Melanie Phillips writes My name is wrongful quarry:

to eulogise Rachel Corrie is the theatre of moral dementia.

I only hope the play doesn't move to Broadway.

“The future of industrial society, and in particular of English society . . . is a future in which subsistence and security shall be guaranteed for the Proletariat, but shall be guaranteed . . . by the establishment of that Proletariat in a status really, though not nominally, servile.”

Theodore Dalrymple quotes Hilaire Belloc's The Servile State and Hayek's The Road to Serfdom as he explores collectivism's infantilizing effect on the British soul.

A must-read.

Revolt brews in France
as this story in today's NY Sun states. The story also explains the revolt's ramifications.

Normally Americans would be tempted to treat all this with indifference, if we were to treat it at all, but it seems that the approaching referendum is not unrelated to America. According to the Economist magazine, the Socialist Party in France selected the following billboard slogan: "Yes to a strong Europe facing the USA," and the magazine quotes a deputy from Monsieur Chirac's own party as quipping that a good yes line might be, "A no vote to Europe is a yes to Bush." It has more than a little element of truth, owing to overlap between the factions pushing for the European Constitution and the factions opposing Mr. Bush's strategy in the war on terror, including the liberator of Iraq.
. . .
We say that well aware of the history of barbarism among the Europeans, whose lands are dotted with graveyards to those who died for the monarchies and bigotries that have gone on the march every few decades. We understand that the idea of a European union was animated partly by the hope of, finally, conquering the savage strain among the Europeans from which so many here in America barely escaped. But plowing through the nearly 200 pages of the European Constitution, one can't help but sense that the whole enterprise has become a contraption much like the United Nations, one that is, in the end, going to be a disappointment and a cover for a new round of mischief. If the French vote "non" the bet here is that it won't be only the French people who will sigh with relief.

Last Friday The Economist was saying,

The members of the constitutional convention, after some debate, omitted any reference to God in the preamble. They might now be regretting that decision, as it looks like the constitution may need a miracle.

EU Referendum predicts "that a referendum in the UK of the EU constitution is highly unlikely if the French vote "no" on 29 May."

Is J-Lo pregnant?
The interesting thing, if you want to call it interesting, about a question like that, which speculates about something that will be easily verifiable in the future is that sooner or later you will be able to verify the outcome. The question doesn't get asked only when speculating about the possibility of the starlet-du-jour's pregnancy, it's also asked by economists.

Krugman smells A Whiff of Stagflation. Considering his economic analysis/prognostication in the Times for the past two years, one can say he's optimistic. He defines stagflation as "rising inflation in an economy still well short of full employment", which brings back memories of the many hours I spent in economics classes back in the days (and those days weren't so far ago) when full employment was anything below 6%, and considered a pie-in-the-sky ideal.

Kudlow sees the Recovery Intact. His analysis is more detailed and cogent, and states a stronger case than Krugman's unseen/uncounted "unemployed who aren't looking". Kudlow has repeatedly stated, "To maintain economic growth, and preserve lower tax rates, there's no time like the present to pull out a budget knife and start carving down overspending." That would really bring growth and prosperity to our country.

So far the record shows that Kudlow's been right more often than Krugman. Let's hope he continues. Don't miss also Kudlow's take on The Perils of Protectionism, from RealClearPolitics

Meanwhile, Lech Walesa asks, Was the Pope Polish?. The Pope wasn't the only one going against what so-called experts believed. Victor Davis Hanson examines a litany of past failure from Our Not-So-Wise Experts

As for J-Lo's life, whatever.

Alan Rickman's directing My Name is Rachel Corrie
at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Steven Plaut wants to know who will honor the other Rachels, the ones who died from terrorist attacks. Plaut explains,

Rachel Corrie, the clueless campus radical who
commmitted suicide while trying to prevent Israeli bulldozers from
destroying a smuggling tunnel used by the Palestinians in Gaza to smuggle
in explosives, weapons, and missiles.

and asks,

It would be interesting knowing how many of THESE Rachels were murdered
with explosives smuggled in through the same tunnels that Rachel Corrie
and her ISM pro-terrorist friends were "defending"!

TigerHawk states,

The Palestinian Arabs have been the enemies of the United States since at least World War I. They sided with the Turks against our allies in that war. Their leadership supported the Germans during World War II. Long before the United States supported Israel, the Palestinian Arabs cozied up to the Soviet Union, and they rallied to Iraq's side when it invaded Kuwait. While it is not nice to say so in polite politically-correct company, the Palestinian Arabs have acted as enemies of the United States for almost a century, starting long before Israel existed or any American official expressed enthusiasm for Zionism. Never mind what you think about Israel's treatment of Palestinian Arabs, Rachel Corrie was a traitor to the United States.

Rickman can direct and co-write whatever he wants; this play was produced by his own Theatre Upstairs, with the cooperation of Corie's family. His career hit a zenith with Sense and Sensibility, and after that, his choice of film work has been disastrous. He's gone from portraying malevolent heroes to becoming a Harry Potter character and a voice-over in The Hitchhiker's Guide.

Too bad he had to side with Corrie, and not with the other Rachels.

Sunday blogging: Make your own
South Park character (via Juliette).
Behold, the South Park Fausta,

Like the sands through the hourglass,
so are the Days Of Our Lamps

Bad reviews
of Jacques's televised attempt to make the EU constitution more palatable:
Roger L. Simon"The world's most tiresome pol is evidently no Clinton on TV."

Libération (article in French): "Chirac played deaf".

NY Times Chirac "struggled to make the 850-plus-page constitution and its annexes relevant to his audience". "There was an error in the casting," said a critic.

France2 newscast: The audience was made up of bo carefully-selected 18-30 yr-olds, not one of which was a politician with different point(s) of view, and it definitely wasn't a debate. The reporter said: "Not all went as planned". Chirac was "irritated" . . . "23-yr-old made Chirac uncomfortable" . . . "the message didn't get across". One of his critics said, "The President seemed like a European by necessity", while Nicholas Sarkozy remarked that if people are "turning away from their leaders, it's because they don't believe what they see on TV".

Erik of ¡No Pasarán!: "what the president really fears should the French electorate reject the Constitution: a "boomerang" effect of insignificance (however temporary), along with the attendant "black sheep" status, that Chirac would much prefer be reserved for countries such as Britain or Poland." EU Referendum points out that the Netherlands will vote on the EU constitution on 1 June, even if the French reject it three days earlier. Jacques is on the hot seat either way, and his TV show didn't help things.

Commented Ben Gun gave The Bad Hair Blog a comprehensive review in yesterday's comments:

What a charade the staged teen-meet was - Chirac trying to cloak himself in the old pope's aura > be not afraid.
- Chirac bullying and blustering > I'm older than you.
- Chirac avoiding the problem questions > he may talk about Chinese textiles (what has *that* to do with the EU 'constitution'?) but the young 'uns may not talk on the environment, employment ... it's off-topic of the 'constitution'.

Oh and if there is a no result, it doesn't matter, the EU will go on regardless - remember Denmark and Maastrict, Ireland and Nice? So why bother with the referendum?

And it is not a plebicite > unlike de Gaulle, Chirac will not resign if the referendum goes against him. But then he cannot, or the juges d'instruction will be after him. Chirac's only hope is to stay in power until he dies, or else hoodwink enough pols into giving him an immediate pardon/continued immunity.

The France2 newscast showed Chirac actually saying that France must vote Yes because 24 countries will vote Yes and if France doesn't it'll lose credibility.

Back when I was a teen, it never worked when I told my parents they should let me do something "because everybody else is doing it". It doesn't sound like the teens in the audience bought that argument, either.

There's Fox News, there's the BBC
and the twain shall not meet.

Right after Kofi said that America and Britain were the most responsible for the Oil-For-Food program's "shortcomings", the Beeb's evening TV news report was exactly echoing his words: America and Britain are to blame. The BBC interviewed at their studio Britain's former representative to the UN who essentially said that after the UN sanctions were enacted, and the UN was unable to enforce them, it was up to the USA and the UK, not up to the UN, to stop the whole thing.

Which I ask, does that mean that it's OK for the US and UK to act unilaterally? Because that's what that gentleman was proposing: the UN messed up, and it's up to the US and UK to clean up the UN's messes. If it is, then let's have the BBC spell it out. Of course they won't, and of course they interviewed no one (in-studio or anywhere else) who would question Kofi's motives.

Kofi had said that

He insisted that most of the illicit gains Saddam made under oil for food were not the fault of the United Nations but the result of oil smuggling that happened outside the program.

Deftly pre-emptying any complaints from Syria or Turkey, Kofi clarified that

Mr Annan partly excused the smuggling to Jordan and Turkey, accepting that countries not under sanctions had a right to be compensated for any loss of trading income.

The Beeb just took it one step further and had the US and UK responsible for the whole thing. It's just a matter of reinforcing the double standard. Hardly surprising, since the Beeb has Annan cleared over oil-for-food. It must be official, then.

While the Beeb was shinning its own light on things, Fox News Channel had a report that emphasized the point made in yesterday's NY Sun article, 2 U.N. Officials Alleged to Be Bribe Targets:

Turtle Bay officials, reporters, and observers scrambled to learn the identity of two U.N. officials and the son of one of them who were mentioned in a criminal complaint yesterday as part of an ongoing series of federal prosecutions related to the oil-for-food program

It's possible that former U.N. secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali is involved in wrongdoing under the program. Additionally,

Mr. Vincent, according to the indictment, was the Iraqi liaison to former American officials who could help the Iraqi regime politically, and Mr. Park was the middleman responsible for relations with U.N. officials who began setting up the oil-for-food program.

The two, who had received millions of dollars from Iraq, including bags of cash delivered in diplomatic pouches, met in February 1993 with "U.N. Official #1" in that official's Manhattan apartment, according to the complaint against Mr. Park. The complaint said Mr. Park suggested to the Iraqis that the figure of $10 million should "take care" of the U.N official.

"U.N. Official #2" was contacted at a Manhattan restaurant in 1997, at a meeting with Mr. Park, Mr. Vincent, and an unnamed Iraqi official. The U.N. official left the meeting early, and, afterward, Mr. Park told his Iraqi handlers that he had used $5 million to fund dealing with the U.N. official.

In 1997 or 1998,the complaint further alleges, Mr. Park told Mr. Vincent that on one of his trips to Baghdad, he had received $1 million for a Canadian company established by the son of "U.N. Official #2." The money, he said, was later lost because the company failed.

The Fox newscast asked, Was the entire program created as a result of huge bribes going to U.N. officials? And, who are the unnamed high-ranking U.N. officials who may have taken those bribes?

In June 1993, Park, along with Samir Vincent (search), the Iraqi-American now co-operating with authorities, allegedly arranged a meeting in Geneva involving two Iraqi officials and a man identified in the federal complaint as "U.N. Official No. 1" to discuss the proposed oil sale program.

That meeting happened in the same month that then-U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali (search) was in Geneva, meeting Saddam's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz (search), to discuss Iraqi oil sales. The timing of those meetings is something investigators are looking at very closely.

Park was accused of telling a cooperating government witness in 1995 that he needed $10 million from Iraq to "take care" of his expenses and his people, which the witness believed meant "U.N. Official 1."

In 1996, another high-ranking U.N. official attended a restaurant meeting with Park, an Iraqi official and the government witness. After "U.N. Official 2" left, Park claimed that he had used a $5 million guarantee from the Iraqi government to fund business dealings with the "U.N. Official 2," court papers said.

Apparently Park's in South Korea right now, but

"The Government of Iraq agreed to pay $5 million to the bank account designated by Park upon an agreement between Baghdad and the United Nations regarding Resolution 986, the resolution that set up Oil-for-Food," reads the complaint.

"Under the second agreement drafted by CW-1, Samir Vincent, at the direction of Iraqi officials, the Government of Iraq agreed to pay $10 million into a bank account in the Channel Islands."

When the full amounts weren't paid, according to the complaint, Park complained to the Iraqi officials that, "he [Park] had used the $5 million guarantee from the Government of Iraq to fund business dealings with U.N. official No. 2."

On Jan. 18, Vincent, 64, admitted to being an illegal agent of Saddam's government.

The Oil-For-Food program ran from 1996 to 2003, giving bribery, sanctions busting, money laundering and fraud time to flourish.