The riots in France
relate to this post on Europe's ghettos.

Today's story, Ghettos shackle French Muslims is surprising, not for the details of the story, but because it mentions Muslims, a fact ignored by government-owned France2 news in its first three reports on the riots, which have taken place for four consecutive nights at the Clichy-sous-Bois housing projects, which the London Times calls suburban estates. RedNova (via ¡No Pasarán! has a video.

The article explains,

L'Ile St-Denis is among the "suburbs" around French cities where immigrants, notably from former North African colonies, have been housed since the 1960s.

Blighted by bad schools and endemic unemployment, the suburbs are hard to escape.

Ten years ago these youths were seen as French "Arabs".

Now most are commonly referred to, and define themselves, as "Muslims".

France's interior minister Nicholas Sarkozy visited the site of the riots Clichy mosque today (link in French).
(Note: I had erroneously written "visited the site of the riots", when it should have been "visited the Clichy mosque", hence the correction.)

Sarkozy supports giving immigrants a vote in city polls even if they are not full citizens,

Mr Sarkozy, an advocate of positive discrimination as well as a strict quota system for immigrants, sparked controversy last week when he suggested he would be in favour of giving immigrants the right to vote in city polls. Some of his closest supporters in the UMP have criticised his proposal, arguing that any right to vote should be given only to those who choose to take full French citizenship.

Additonally, via Dhimmi watch, Sarkozy named a panel to look into whether to change to a century-old French law to allow the state to fund new mosques, as a means of bringing the Muslim community into the mainstream.

Will this stop the rioting? Don't expect it to.

Does it position Sarkozy apart from Chirac and Villepin? That it does.

MoDo's in the Sunday Mag
with her article, What's a Modern Girl to Do? (Note to MoDo: You're a woman, not a girl.) Anne Althouse and Roger L. Simon have plenty of people commenting. The Anchoress replies to MoDo's question.
Drudge has a captions contest.

I'd suggest a slight makeover. The photo shows MoDo wearing black, except for some Really Big Shoews (as Ed Sullivan would say), on a Red Shoe Diaries mode. I don't know what The Manolo would say, but a softer blouse, sheer Ann Taylor hose in natural, and less clunky shoes would make her look better.

If she's seriously considering marriage, the first thing, however, would be to LEAVE THE BAR. One doesn't look for a husband in bars.

Back at the Sunday Mag, MoDo again bellyaches about why men don't want to marry her.

Last February the NYT published on the day-before-Valentine's Day a column (available here) listing the kinds of books she'd present a guy "that would help him better understand me", and listed some gems such as, "Be Honest - You're Not That Into Him Either", "Empty Promises,"

Zsa Zsa Gabor's seminal treatise: "How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, How to Get Rid of a Man"

(which is certainly one that'd get the average Joe to think about marriage, only not in a positive way) and, most unforgiveable of all, Deepak Chopra's cookbook.

The one book that got mentioned in both articles was her Mom's recommendation, "365 Ways to Cook Hamburger and Other Ground Meats". One can surmise that this particular tome is something of an issue in that mother-daughter relationship.

My advice last February was,

1. Any guy that reads your column will get a really good idea of what you're like. Any guy who doesn't want to read it doesn't deserve you.
2. Any reading list that includes Deepak Chopra's cookbook says "S-T-A-Y A-W-A-Y F-R-O-M M-E".

I stand by my words.

I know, more flattering clothes and staying away from telling men what to read won't get her a husband IF she won't drop the sarcasm, but it'd be a start.

Update: SC&A explain, That in fact, is the greatest of destinies- to transform and make better, those around you.

------------------------------
Effective July 11, 2006, Fausta's blog moved to http://faustasblog.com. Please update your bookmark and your blogroll.
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The ultimate Shakespeare site,
here, and Chaucer, too, via Kesher Talk

Happy Halloween!
Mister Snitch! rounds up his favorites.

One hand washes the other: Venezuela, France, and Iran
The French press was nearly orgasmic over the lovebirds:

Thursday last week, Oct. 20 at Le Figaro:

Jacques Chirac shows support for Hugo Chavez
It is the big love affair. Jacques Chirac holds Hugo Chavez in affection and makes no secret of it. And too bad if, for Washington, the Venezuelan leader smacks of heresy.

Jacques thinks he's got a friend,

Jacques Chirac's support is due to a shared desire to combat the negative effects of globalization. However, while the French president approves of the Venezuelan project for an international humanitarian fund, he above all requested Hugo Chavez once again yesterday to back his idea for the aeroplane ticket tax that France is putting into place together with Chile and Brazil to combat world hunger.

But there is no love story without some token of the affection, and Jacques Chirac was waiting for precisely that yesterday on behalf of Total [French oil company]. Following Hugo Chavez's visit to France in March, the French oil company thought it had won the big prize in the form of a new oil drilling contract following the "Sincor I" already signed.

but wait,

But it became disillusioned during subsequent weeks when Total was accused by the Venezuelan government of violating its commitments. "Total thought it could clinch Sincor II but now they are fighting just to keep Sincor I-II," said one oil director in Caracas.

Of course, Hugo had nothing to do with this total "misunderstanding", as Le Figaro calls it:

Jacques Chirac's associates said that the "misunderstanding" was caused by the Venezuelan energy minister and not by Hugo Chavez. Following the ceremony in homage to the victims of the Machiques air disaster, the latter said that his teams had perhaps been a "little hard" on Total and would soon be meeting its president, Thierry Desmarest.

I posted last week the result of this lovefest here. Too bad Jacques missed the September UN Summit because of his stroke, or we would have really seen a honeymoon. Let's hope for Jacques's sake that Hugo doesn't change his mind and seize Total's assets the way he's seized the mines.

Jacques has been saying that Iran must halt nuclear activities, so he's probably turning a blind eye to Hugo's nuclear ambitions.

Buried in this morning's news is this item, Iran counts Venezuela as ally amid Israel row

CARACAS, Venezuela: Iran is counting Venezuela as a friend and ally, an Iranian government official said, amid a diplomatic storm set off by comments from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week that Israel should be ''wiped off the map.'' ''We are two friendly countries, Iran and Venezuela ... When one is in need the other supports,'' Saeed Jalili, Iran's Vice Minister of Foreign Relations for Europe and America, said during a visit to Caracas.

Readers of TBHB might remember that last June I was posting about how Hugo wants to go nuclear, with Iranian help.

As mentioned here at TBHB, Venezuela's part of Iran's Axis of Good, along with Russia, China, Algeria, the South African Republic, Mexico, Tunisia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Yemen, Brazil, Sri-Lanka and Vietnam, while Iran finds the UN criticism unacceptable over the Iranian president's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map".

Terror cell 'smuggled missiles into Europe'
at The Telegraph

French and Algerian extremists with links to al-Qa'eda bought the Russian SA-18 Grouse missiles from Chechens in 2002 and smuggled them via Georgia and Turkey, according to French anti-terror sources quoted in Le Figaro.

Both missiles and several of the extremists are reportedly still at large.

Last night's France2 broadcast stated that the investigating judge would neither deny nor confirm the story.

And after your science project is graded, you can wear it over your coat
A Knitted Digestive System.

Another science project: the feets of the Sasquatch.

Hey, it worked for Hillary!
Libby Lawyer Plans Lack-of-Memory Defense.

A different view at the WSJ.

New state slogan competition
Mr. Snitch! has the Top ten rejected Jersey state slogans.

He also has positive Proof that Warren Buffet is the smartest life form on the planet.

If you thought it was only the Iranian president
watch this MEMRI video of a sermon.

Marc Rich at The Bad Hair Blog, slightly ahead of . . . Paul Volker?
Here at TBHB, Maria and I have found articles on subjects that surface several months later. Take, for instance, Marc Rich. Last December I did these three posts on Rich's involvement in the Oil-For-Food UNScam.

Now the last installment of the Volker report spells it out for us:

The report said Marc Rich & Co. financed 4 million barrels of oil under a 9.5-million-barrel contract awarded to the European Oil and Trading Co., a French-based shell company.

"Surcharges were imposed on the oil," the report said, and "Marc Rich & Co. directed BNP Paris not to disclose its identity to BNP NY in connection with its financing of the U.N. contract."

It added, "According to an individual familiar with the companies, EOTC and Marc Rich & Co. agreed that the premium paid to EOTC would cover a commission and a surcharge. The premium paid by Marc Rich & Co. of 30-40 cents per barrel was sufficiently high to cover both."

The company responded that it "continues to dispute vigorously" the report's conclusion.

Via Barcepundit, here's the actual report. See Chapter 2, Oil Transactions and Illicit Payments, pages 61-67, D.Claude Kaspereit, E.T.O.C, and Marc Rich + Co. for the rich details.

The dealings were done through French bank BNP, and as The Telegraph points, out,

France's relationship with Saddam dated back to the mid-1970s when Jacques Chirac, the then prime minister, visited Baghdad. Between 1974 and 1990, more than 20 French ministers from all the main parties travelled to Iraq to expand France's commercial interests, which ranged from construction to armaments and a nuclear reactor that the Israelis promptly bombed.

But I digress.

The NYT titles its article The Many Streams That Fed the River of Graft to Hussein, or as I said last December, Rich flows the Don. Carmelo Jordá (in Spanish) has a better title: Encontradas las Armas de Corrupción Masiva (Weapons of Mass Corruption Found).

Last December Captain's Quarters was asking,

At the time of the pardon, many people puzzled over why Bill Clinton would pardon a man who fled the country and whose status as a fugitive had been under negotiation with the FBI just prior to Clinton's action. Instead of cutting a deal with Rich to get him back to the US to face charges, Clinton pulled the rug out from under the FBI. Without the leverage of the charges, Rich had no further motivation to cooperate with the DoJ on any outstanding investigations.

At the time, the presumption was that Rich's wife had donated enough money to buy the pardon. Now, however, the question may be whether Clinton knew about the corruption and feared that an aggressive Bush administration policy would uncover Rich's participation in undermining Iraqi sanctions while Rich raised funds for both his presidential library and Hillary's election. Or maybe the issue runs even deeper than that?

Marc Rich has a history of prominent DC lawyers, and at the time of the infamous pardon was represented by former Clinton White House Counsel and Gore Chief of Staff Jack Quinn. Prior to that, Nixon White House Counsel to the President Leonard Garment represented Marc Rich for eight years.

As if all these news items weren't enough for subjects that surface months later, one of Rich's former lawyers is presently very much in the news today. ..
Update . . . and is now unemployed

(technorati Marc Rich Oil-For-Food)

For the first time in 46 years
Cuba accepts US hurricane offer

Cuba has accepted a US offer to send a disaster team to help with Hurricane Wilma - the first time in decades that Cuba has said yes to such an offer.

The Beeb fails to mention that prescription medications and food are not included in the embargo, but never mind that.

I'm not alone in finding this to be a very interesting development.

Iran's long-term policy comes to the fore
(note: all bold print and caps were used exactly as in the original articles)
Iran leader defends Israel remark
Iran defends its president's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map", saying this has long been official policy

Iran's president has defended his widely criticised call for Israel to be "wiped off the map".

While the Beeb's article says

Egypt said they showed "the weakness of the Iranian government". A Palestinian official also rejected the remarks.

Al-Jazeera's got a different story,

Iran's anti-Israel remarks: Arabs mum
Arab governments have maintained silence over the call by Iran's new president for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Newspapers across the Middle East reported Wednesday's speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without comment, many of them on their front pages.

Egyptian Foreign Ministry and cabinet officials said Cairo would have nothing to say on the address.
. . .
With so many conflicts in the Middle East, "the region is in a mess. We really don't need one more", said one official on condition of anonymity, hoping the issue would go away.

Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher also declined comment, apparently to avoid further aggravating relations with Iran, which the kingdom has accused of interfering in Iraq to strengthen Shia influence in the Middle East.

It's not the only instance where the Arabs are staying mum (link in Spanish, via Hispalibertas).

The WaPo editorial states,

The Europeans still cling to their hopes for negotiations, though last month they finally joined the Bush administration's long-standing -- and equally futile -- attempt to refer Iran's violations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to the U.N. Security Council. But the crudeness of Mr. Ahmadinejad, and his already evident failure to deliver on his populist promises to raise Iranian living standards, ought to open the way to a different approach. Unlike their president, most young Iranians would like to live in a prosperous and democratic society that enjoys good relations with the West. The West should stand up for that Iran; it can do so by rejecting and isolating the hateful ideologue who would drag the country in the opposite direction.

Via Gail, Tony Blair was emphatic, Blair in threat to Iran

FURIOUS Tony Blair last night warned Britain and America are ready to take military action to stop Iran getting nukes.
He expressed “revulsion” over Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s threat to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and branded Tehran a “real threat to world security and stability”.

The PM was visibly angry as he warned the ayatollahs not to assume the world is too tied up in Iraq to deal with Iran.

“This is a disgrace,” he said after a one-day EU summit in London’s Hampton Court Palace.

“I am aware that I have not said what we are going to do. This is a discussion we will be having with our allies over the next few days.”

But the PM warned the issue now facing the West is no longer IF but WHEN to strike.

More at The Independent Blair considers UN sanctions as he speaks of 'revulsion' at Iranian President's speech

Just last month The Economist was asking, WHY is the pressure suddenly seeming to leak out of the diplomacy to persuade Iran to end its nuclear dabbling—just when the regime is flaunting its defiance?

Why, indeed?

Update Captain Marlow appraises the situation.
Update 2 "Westerners are free to comment, but their reactions are invalid."

(technorati tags Iran Tony Blair)

Is the Anchoress right?
US top court nominee steps down
Miers Withdraws Under Mounting Criticism

On October 3, The Anchoress posted,

I knew Bush would pick Miers because he is the master of the rope-a-dope. AND…(and here I know I am going to be very unpopular) I disagree with the hysterics coming from the right, today. But I understand that they are a necessary part of his roping and doping.

People who think they know how W plays assumed that Miers’ name was thrown out there as a bit of misdirection, to keep folks from figuring out if Janice Rogers Brown and Alberto Gonzales were actually duking it out in the WH garage.

But anyone who really watches W knew that he put Miers name out there because despite all of the nonsense in the press about how unforthcoming, sneaky, underhanded and skullduggerish the Bushies are, he actually - quite frequently - hides in plain sight.
. . .
My own prediction: She may not make it to the Supreme Court. Bush may not even intend for her to get there. She may be, rather than the “misdirection,” many expected, an out-and-out decoy, floated to allow both the liberals and the conservatives to blast her out of the water so that Bush can then put up another candidate that both left and right - after having behaved very badly over Miers - will not dare to behave badly over, again.

So far, The Anchoress is right.

Update
Confirm them suggests Judge William H. Pryor, Jr., of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Stop The ACLU, Michelle Malkin have round-ups.
SC&A: Harriet Miers Bows Out And Gaza Comes To Washington
More at Volokh's.

Oil-For-Food fifth installment of the Volker report
Roger L. Simon and Barcepundit post on the story, U.N. to Detail Kickbacks Paid for Iraq's Oil

More than 4,500 companies took part in the United Nations oil-for-food program and more than half of them paid illegal surcharges and kickbacks to Saddam Hussein, according to the independent committee investigating the program.

The country with the most companies involved in the program was Russia, followed by France, the committee says in a report to be released Thursday.

Claudia Rosett writes on IHC

What next might turn up in the IHC saga depends on a number of investigations. But in an era when many authorities are worried about the transit of millions across borders and the enforcement of good governance, it appears the U.N. has been serving as a bazaar in which corruption, conflicts of interest and shadowy financial networks have found ways to set up shop. Behind the maze, who was the real owner of IHC during its nine years of doing big business with the U.N.? The U.N. won't say, and quite possibly does not even know. Its policy, in fact, was not even to ask.

Talking to Miami, while listening to CNN
I was listening to CNN yesterday afternoon and became rather alarmed. After Wilma, wait frustrates Floridians. Residents line up for supplies; U.S. death toll doubles to 10

Meanwhile, residents in several cities again formed long lines Wednesday to get basic necessities, such as gasoline, water, ice and food. In some sites, supplies ran out.
. . .
Many of those in line still had about half a tank of gas but were determined to fill up in case of fuel shortages.

I checked on some of the Florida bloggers: at Babalu, Val's running out of gas for his generator, George needs a new roof, but Robert already has electricity. Steve doesn't have electricity, but has beer.

I turned down the volume on the TV and called the Florida relatives.

The relatives weren't home so I tried their work numbers, and yes, they're are back at work -- their buildings have generators. The temps have been mild, so they're not complaining. They had filled the cars' gas tanks and bought gas for the grill well before the storm hit. Schools are closed but they got together so their kids are staying with a supervising grown-up. Their houses had minimal damage. They have running water (not heated, obviously). There was no flooding where they live.

Called other friends in FL. Situation same as the relatives'. One has electricity at home already.

Then I called Mom. I had already talked to her on Tuesday, but called yesterday anyway. Mom's doing great, has no electricity at her house, but is comfortable without air-conditioning and was just about to call for takeout when I rang.

I turned off the TV.

Update Mom just called saying the electricity's been restored.

Ladies in White win Sakharov Prize
Babalu and Free Thoughts have the news: Cuban activists celebrate Sakharov award

The Ladies in White are the wives and supporters of 75 political prisoners held by Fidel Castro's government. The detainees are serving prison terms ranging from six to 28 years. The European Union says the dissidents must be freed if Cuba is to have better relations with Europe. Among those held are journalists, intellectuals, religious activists and members of dissident political groups.

The European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought yesterday:

The prize committee recognized two organizations for their work: Reporters Without Borders, an international non-government organization defending journalists and the freedom of the press, and Cuba's Women in White movement, which comprises wives and family members of dissidents imprisoned under Fidel Castro. In addition, Nigerian lawyer Hauwa Ibrahim, who came to the world's attention for defending local women sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery, was also honored.

The Ladies in White have been holding a weekly march the last two years to protest the Cuban government's jailing of their activist husbands.

Their husbands are still imprisoned.

"For Canadians, Cuba is a tourist paradise. But for Cubans, it is like a big jail".

It's book day at TBHB!

In the sprit of enlightment and capitalism, I'm featuring a book on each post. You can order the books through my Amazon Associates program.

I'm opening with Do As I Say (Not As I Do), by Peter Schweizer, who was interviewed by Kathryn Jean Lopez yesterday. Among the juicy bits, the book reveals that Michael Moore is a Haliburton stockholder. Yes, that Haliburton. Barbra Streisand's lawn watering bill is $22,000/year. And on and on. But the message of the book is serious,

the ideas the left want to impose on the rest of us are so fundamentally bad that they don't even try to live by them. At the end of the day, when all the fun is done, I hope people view this as a book about ideas and the failure of liberal/Left ideas. They don't work for the leading lights of the Left. How could they possibly work for our country?

Or for any country, at that?

Hurricane damage in Cuba

The city of Havana has had a sea wall for several centuries now, and hurricane Wilma's force breached the sea wall for the first time in decades. Flooding swamps Havana, where scores are rescued

Giant waves crashed onto Havana's sweeping seaside boulevard, the Malecon, inundating hotels, apartment buildings, neo-colonial-style homes and the U.S. diplomatic mission with water as deep as 6 feet.

The problem is, due to lack of maintenance to the infrastructure, the waves ripped off chunks of the famous Malecón seawall and caused extensive flooding, as you can observe in this picture.

Castro's oppresive regime is destroying Cuba's cultural heritage:

Coyula said three studies showed Cuba needs underwater breakers to soften the waves' blow, but cost estimates in the millions make the project prohibitive.

But while the images of waves thrashing against the Cuban Foreign Ministry were dramatic, Coyula said storm surge is just one part of an ongoing problem.

''The waves were more spectacular, but it's the daily problem of sea salt that damages the brick, steel and paint,'' Coyula said. ``It's a very serious price for the privilege of living by the sea. The flood just aggravates the situation.''

He said heavy rainfall is actually much worse for the buildings, but the older ones tend to stand up to it more than those built between 1910 and 1940. A survey of the damages will be done today, now that the water has receded, he said.

Quintana said 70 percent of Havana's housing stock is in precarious condition, meaning in the United States, they would be condemned.

He said almost all the buildings are in urgent need of repair, and the regular onslaught of storms doesn't help. The 500-year-old Cuban capital holds the world's largest collection of Spanish colonial buildings, but many are so deteriorated that they regularly crumble under heavy rainfall.

About 1,400 buildings must be abandoned each year for fear of collapsing.

The Cuban government said Wilma damaged 2,000 homes.

Take a look inside the book Cuba: 400 Years of Architectural Heritage so you can see what massive damage looks like. Then see how The Real Cuba desintegrates.

Blame the embargo? As I posted previously, no embargo kept that $3,900,000,000 from enriching fidel during the period of 1996 and 2003. A portion of those billions might have saved the Malecón.

Update, October 27 Storm damage photos
Peter Krupa with yet another instance of Associated Press Deficit Disorder.

Hitchens on Galloway
No scare quotes here, Calling Galloway's Bluff: The Senate uncovers a smoking gun

Yet this is the man who received wall-to-wall good press for insulting the Senate subcommittee in May, and who was later the subject of a fawning puff piece in the New York Times, and who was lionized by the anti-war movement when he came on a mendacious and demagogic tour of the country last month. I wonder if any of those who furnished him a platform will now have the grace to admit that they were hosting a man who is not just a pimp for fascism but one of its prostitutes as well.

I wouldn't count on it.

I highly recommend Hitchen's Love, Poverty, and War

(yesterday's post here)

(technorati tags George Galloway, Oil-For-Food)

Don't miss La Shawn Barber's round-up on Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks, 1913-2005. La Shawn links to nearly a hundred posts on Mrs. Parks, a great woman of honor and courage.

A few years ago The Economist carried a book review of Douglas Brinkley's biography of Mrs. Parks, explaining how her faith inspired her actions,

Mrs Parks was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) who had helped lead black voter-registration drives in Alabama, then a white-supremacist southern state. Her act of defiance on the bus was spontaneous, but, as Douglas Brinkley shows, she had been coached to play a significant part in the civil-rights struggle. Sponsored by a liberal white couple, she had enrolled in a training workshop on “radical desegregation” at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, where former pupils included Martin Luther King. Its founder and head, Myles Horton, had studied under one of America’s most influential Christian thinkers, Reinhold Niebuhr, and was a promoter of the “social gospel”. It was Horton’s wife, Zilphia, who, along with two troubadours, Guy Carawan and Pete Seeger, made the hymn “We Shall Overcome” the anthem of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Mrs Parks was in her element at Highlander, for religion was, and remains, just as central to her life as it was to Simone Weil’s, though she comes out of a different tradition. She is a steadfast member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a radical denomination which became known as “the Freedom Church” during the pre-civil war campaign to abolish slavery.

The book, part of the excellent Penguin Lives series, is available at Amazon.

Shelby Steele's article, Witness: Blacks, whites, and the politics of shame in America
in the WSJ, is a must read:

No doubt it is easier to overcome racism than an inferiority of development grounded in centuries of racial persecution. Nevertheless, if New Orleans is a wake-up call to government, it is also a wake-up call to black America. If we want to finally erase the inferiority that oppression left us with, we have to first of all acknowledge it to ourselves, as whites did with their racism. Our scrupulous witness of whites helped them become more and more responsible for resisting the shame of racism.

Read it all.

Maria sent the link. For some reason, the WSJ page doesn't show Mr. Steele's full name.

I highly recommend Shelby Steele's book The Content of Our Character. I'm pre-ordering his upcoming White Guilt right now.

Yes
Draft Constitution Adopted by Iraq Voters
Iraq's voters have approved the new constitution, according to official results from the nationwide referendum held earlier this month.

Mr. Galloway went to Washington so he could lie, and later left daughter behind so he could run
Galloway lied over Iraqi oil payments, says Congress report

George Galloway, the British MP, was last night accused of lying by a US Congressional committee when he testified earlier this year that he had not received any United Nation food-for-oil allocations from the deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

In a report issued here, Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman and his colleagues on the Senate Subcommittee for Investigations claim to have evidence showing that Mr Galloway's political organisation and his wife received vouchers worth almost $600,000 (£338,000) from the then Iraqi government.

The Beeb has the charges in scare quotes, Galloway accused of Senate 'lies'. While this BBC article states GG's assertion that

"They have been cavalier with any idea of process and justice so far, but I am still willing to go to the US and I am still willing to face any charge of perjury before the senate committee."

another Beeb story repeats it, just so you get it, I guess.

Hard to argue those charges, though, when Ex Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq Tariq Aziz himself is the one that made the accusations.

GG's been having a rather rough two months. First Hitchens resoundedly kicked his butt at the debate, someone set up an adopt a sniper auction on ebay, and later on Jane cancelled the bus tour on him. Then there ws the time last April when, in a moment of panic, he forgot his daughter Lucy (h/t to Militant Islam Monitor):

A mob of young Islamist extremists allegedly threatened to hang anti-war campaigner George Galloway last night as as the country's most bitter election battle spilled into violence on the streets of the East End.

The Respect candidate, who is fighting Labour’s Oona King for the Bethnal Green and Bow seat in East London, was meeting locals in a tenant association’s room last night with his daughter, Lucy, when a 40-strong group of militants burst in, his spokesman said today.
. . .
He said that there were no Respect supporters at the meeting except for Mr Galloway and Lucy, 23. When the two policemen arrived, they asked Mr Galloway if he wanted to leave the meeting, and escorted him to the car outside.

He said: "One cop took him out to Jay's car, put him in and told him to get out of there as quickly as possible. The other policeman rather bravely put himself between George and the mob.

Locking the door behind them, the mob allegedly held Mr Galloway and his daughter captive for a few minutes and made threats.

"The police said to us: 'You shouldn't stay where you were going to stay tonight because they know where you live.' So we stayed somewhere else."

As Mr Galloway left in his son-in-law's car, his distraught daughter was temporarily left at the scene. She was escorted to safety on the top floor of the property on Globe Road by officers.

A fracas then broke out outside, and three men were arrested, Scotland Yard said. They were detained for alleged possession of an offensive weapon, public order offences and actual bodily harm. One person was treated in hospital for a minor head injury and later discharged.

TBHB has not been able to contact Lucy for comment.

Mrs. Galloway, a.k.a. The Palestinian scientist who fell for a 'hero MP', is divorcing him "because she could no longer tolerate her husband's behaviour". No, not his Oil-For-Food behavior, from which she's allegedly received £100,000, but because she had received calls from women claiming to have had romantic links with him. Considering Galloway had been married before, and that the current Mrs. states she had received calls from women (in plural), that means there's been at least four women interested in GG, a fact that totally mystifies me.

In more Oil-For-Food news, the BBCA TV news broadcast had the phrase new evidence in scare quotes when saying that George will have to face new evidence. The Beeb's fondness for quotation marks carries on to this story from last August: Oil-for-food chief 'took bribes', not only in the headline, but in the two subheadings:

'Money from aunt' claim

'Sacrificed'

But they're improving, after all, only two out of three subheadings in the Galloway story had scare quotes, namely

'Smoking gun'

and

'Cavalier' attitude

How fitting.

No scare quotes were used by the Beeb in this story, UN resists Hariri probe extension. Resists is one way of saying it. Doctoring is more like it.

Update: Scott points out that Galloway was thrown out of the Labor Party not merely

in response to mere "anti-war comments", but expelled Mr. Galloway when he suggested that British soldiers disobey orders, a very different thing.

While you're at Scott's blog, send him a contribution.

Update 2 Independent Sources points out that George Never Said Anything About Options To Purchase Oil

Update 3 Via Tigerhawk, Hitchens has the goods on George (pdf file)

Update 4 Seixon has Every Penny In, Every Penny Out of the evidence.

Update 5, Wednesday, October 25 Hitchens on Galloway

(technorati tags George Galloway, Oil-For-Food)

Che Guevara: Anatomy of a Myth (film in Spanish)
If you have the stomach for the truth on the icon of the Left, the racist bood thirsty sociopath that fidel used to inagurate the terrorizing of the Cuban people, here's the film Che, anatomía de un mito, from Desde el exilio

I'm sorry I can't translate, due to time constraints. Once the film is dubbed into English, I'll link to it.

Cotillion day!
Girl on the Right has it.

New blog in The Principality
The Untouchables Group.

Don't miss the other Princeton bloggers, which now have their own section on the

sidebar.

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Apologist for a monster
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF reviews 'Mao': The Real Mao

Roger L. Simon and BizzyBlog rip Kristof's review apart.

As for Mao emancipating women, read Forty Million Missing Girls.

Good news from Bolivia, of all places
at Publius Pundit

Now let's face facts: Bolivians do not want communism. Most Bolivians do not want Evo Morales as their next president. Bolivians especially do not want Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez running their country as their newest satellite. Bolivia’s a nation in distress and they want to work their way out of it through free trade. Go see the local sentiment of Bolivians on Jim Schultz’s site - the tongue-lashing these local Bolivians give to the well-meaning left-leaning Berkeley gringo about his misreading of what’s going on in their country is unbelievable. Except when you realize that Bolivians also are marching in their thousands in the streets for free trade. The U.S.’s number one priority right now must be to extend a hand of equality, of better-living-through-free-trade to these gutsy Bolivians. There can’t be any more goofing off.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela, Hugo's making the Beeb interviewer spit his coffee.

Also at the Beeb, Brazilians reject gun sales ban. If I lived in Brazil, I would have, too.

NJ Carnival
KateSpot

Morality pays off
I was at the PU campus the other day and picked up a copy of the Princeton Alumni Weekly. In it was an article, Encouraging two-parent households that says (emphasis mine)

Noting that marriage correlates with higher earnings for each parent, Brookings fellow Isabel Sawhill said, "If we could get back to where our society was 25 years ago, the child poverty rate would drop by 3 or 4 percentage points."

Many misguided government interventions over the past 40 years have led to the current state of things, as you can see from Kay S. Hymowitz's City Journal article on Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s Department of Labor report warning that the ghetto family was in disarray, from 40 years ago

More than most social scientists, Moynihan, steeped in history and anthropology, understood what families do. They “shape their children’s character and ability,” he wrote. “By and large, adult conduct in society is learned as a child.” What children learned in the “disorganized home[s]” of the ghetto, as he described through his forest of graphs, was that adults do not finish school, get jobs, or, in the case of men, take care of their children or obey the law. Marriage, on the other hand, provides a “stable home” for children to learn common virtues. Implicit in Moynihan’s analysis was that marriage orients men and women toward the future, asking them not just to commit to each other but to plan, to earn, to save, and to devote themselves to advancing their children’s prospects. Single mothers in the ghetto, on the other hand, tended to drift into pregnancy, often more than once and by more than one man, and to float through the chaos around them. Such mothers are unlikely to “shape their children’s character and ability” in ways that lead to upward mobility. Separate and unequal families, in other words, meant that blacks would have their liberty, but that they would be strangers to equality. Hence Moynihan’s conclusion: “a national effort towards the problems of Negro Americans must be directed towards the question of family structure.”

The PU article talked about the second issue of The Future of Children report of the Brookings Institution and the Woodrow Wilson School titled, Marriage and Child Well-Being. Just as Sen. Moynihan predicted, the report states,

The decline in two-parent families since 1960 has been closely linked with a rise in child poverty, primarily because poverty rates are far higher in single-mother families than in two-parent families. The post-1960 changes in marriage and family formation also appear to be depriving children of such documented benefits of marriage as better physical and emotional health and greater socioeconomic attainment.

All this converges with what John at Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred and The Anchoress have been posting on prudery and morality.

As SC&A point out,

The issues our kids face today aren't only about sex, AIDS, or other STD's -- there are issues of and about morality, family, and values

In another post, Mamacita explains what she had to deal with when she was teaching middle school:

Unpopular girls became suddenly popular. Early-developing boys were chased down the halls and solicited. It was sick. A time or two someone was actually caught in the act, but our principal had a hard time believing such things could happen at that age, and we had a really difficult time convincing her that yes, it was happening two or three dozen times a day. Nothing was ever done, because 'the teacher must have just misinterpreted the situation and assumed the worst.'
Yes, it happened like that over and over. The parents were our worst problem, because they simply refused to believe their innocent child could possibly do that, and they became furious at the implication.

And the middle school kids were giving, and getting, blowjobs all day.

When something like that becomes 'cool,', the 'thing to do,' because 'everybody's doing it,' then it's hard to explain to a kid that blowjobs are not the way to go at age thirteen. At thirteen, fourteen, hormones are overflowing and overwhelming, and there are no legitimate outlets. And then suddenly, there is one. And nobody gets pregnant, either. STD's? VD? Not taught. Against community standards.

Schools often do not have any kind of sex talk for kids this age. Parents refuse to believe it could ever be true. Communities are up in arms at the very thought. Teachers are helpless. And the students are giving and getting blowjobs in the bathrooms all day.

What is the solution? I don't know. Parents have to work. Kids are going to watch whatever they can get by with. We did. They do.

As The Anchoress points out,

All of it comes back to the recurring theme of what the “enlightened” generation is all about - the utter devaluation of anything that has formerly been deemed as “sacred,” including human life, itself. And the strange mindset that suggests that a child’s reasoning is more credible than an adult’s.

The same strange mindset, as The Anchoress calls it, ignores the legal implications of teen sex. As you can read in in this chart, except for Hawaii and South Carolina, sex with a person under the age of 16 is considered statutory rape anywhere in this country; in many states the age of consent is 17 or 18, and often same-sex sex is illegal. In a legal sense, non-abstinence among minors is against the law.

The reason why The Boy Scouts of America has a no-homosexual policy is that the Scouts is an organization that recognizes the fact that many, many teens are not ready for sex, and aims to provide opprotunities for young men to enjoy activities that promote their individual growth and development outside a sexual context.

Read Heather Mac Donald's article,

The Times notes nonchalantly that the gay cruisers ogle the male softball players who change their shirts outside their cars. Neanderthal readers may ask: And what about the boy ballplayers? Are they ogled, too? And if so, tell me again why we should risk gay Boy Scout leaders? But such benighted readers—if one can even imagine such thinking—are not worth the Times’s worrying about.

Considering that the latest nationwide sex survey found that only 2 percent of men self-identify as homosexual, the Scouts are right to stay within their no-sex policy. I have known adult gay men in loving, committed, exclusive relationships that would make good Scout leaders, but the question remains: Children as young as 11 can join the BSA. As a parent, would you expect chastity and restraint from gay teen Scouts, considering that our entire society doesn't expect chastity and restraint from anyone of any age?

It behooves us as parents to closely watch what activities our children are involved with. It is up to us not to abrogate out our obligations. Otherwise, there's hell to pay.

And it all comes down to morality.

Movie time: two reviews
Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit,
Good Night, and Good Luck

The Curse of the Were-Rabbit starring Wallace & Gromit

As a long-time fan of Wallace and Gromit (especially a fan of the resourceful, strong, silent Gromit), I highly recommend TCotW-R.

TCotW-R is jam-packed with everything Wallace and Gromit fans enjoy: claymation, toothyness, and English people gardening their little hearts out (I briefly enjoyed Rosemary and Thyme a murder-mystery series highlighting some of the most lovingly-tended English gardens ever seen on TV, but the Philadelphia PBS station only played 5 episodes before cancelling without notice). TCotW-R has all that, plus non-stop action, comedy, adventure, romance, and fun.

My love of puns, double entendres, and sight-gags was more than indulged: When Wallace can’t go down the chute because of his avoirdupois, Gromit, who’s bringing him breakfast, goes right past a jar of marmite that reads “middle age spread”; the Reverend (who has a more-than-passing resemblance to Squidward) sings to his plants "We plow the field and scatter . . .” in his greenhouse, while the figures in the leaded glass cover their ears; the only figure left on the window after it's destroyed is that of Saint George, and on and on.

There’s homage to many old films, such as Harvey, Young Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, the Indiana Jones series, and even a touch of Star Wars (mercifully, no one said, “Gromit, I’m your father”). Early on there’s a tip of the hat to Harry Potter with a photo of Gromit graduating from Dogwarts University.

Leave the kids at home so you don’t miss any of the many details and jokes, and you’ll want to stop for some nice cheese after viewing the film. You can come back later on Halloween with the kids. The movie is safe for all ages.

One brief warning, after we went to W&G I rented Beyond Borders (as part of a Clive Owen movie festival – will post on that later), and Angelina Jolie’s lips have an uncanny resemblance to those of Lady Tottington in TCotW-R. I won’t be able to watch Angelina in anything else without thinking of Tottie from now on.

Good Night, and Good Luck is in a whole different world, where everything is black and white and smoke-filled. There’s even a full ad for Kent cigarettes. The Anchoress’s brother noticed, too:

People who are getting their skirts in a knot over the political shadings of the movie are missing the movie’s real point. It’s really about integrity, and credibility, and seriousness of thought. It’s about how the media explodes and distorts — and how television corrupts. The most consistent and insistent image in the movie is cigarette smoke — people are wreathed in haze, and constantly lighting and puffing. The only ad that is shown in its entirety in the movie is for Kent cigarettes. And yet cigarette smoking is what killed Murrow, and eviscerated a generation who bought into its shallow satisfactions, peddled on the tube. These people will eventually be destroyed by the very thing that supported them and made them rich. It’s really a scathing indictment of the culture that created today’s television news business — and a bittersweet glance at what it once was, and promised to be, and isn’t anymore.

Politically, the greatest failing of this film is that the movie simply forgets to mention the fact that the character that commits suicide, Edward R. Murrow’s friend and mentor Laurence Duggan, really was a soviet spy

code-named "19," then "Frank" and finally "Prince."

He was, moreover, one of many Soviet spies embedded in the U.S. government at the time.

Interestingly, the speaking parts of “good guys” (which means non-Republicans) are played by intense, tense-looking actors, while the Republicans are simply stock-film figures from old newsreels. This has the effect, as Steven Hunter points out, that

. . . the movie fails to apprehend the true enormity of McCarthy's crime. Not that he hounded a few lefties out of government or made a stink about the odd Red dentist who got a promotion at Fort Dix, but that he forever tarnished by association the reputations of the security services charged with keeping us safe from the actual -- yes, Virginia, there was such a thing -- Red menace. That probably did more to help the Soviet espionage initiative than any State Department document that was ever filched for them.

All the same, GN,aGL failed to engage my emotions, and, at times, my interest. It is endlessly wordy, to the point that when there’s one moment of silence I heard myself go “whew!”. Edward R. Murrow repeats the near-mantra "Good night, and good luck" enough times that once the DVD is released someone might develop a drinking game -- one shot for each "gn,agl". Nearly all the scenes are close-ups, giving it an in-your-face feel that denies the viewer the opportunity to maintain a respectful distance. The claustrophobic atmosphere is intensified by all of the action taking place indoors, and nearly all of that is at CBS headquarters, especially in cramped offices and small studios. You almost wish that the characters would step outdoors for a breath of fresh Manhattan smog.

I’ve mentioned before that I'm a fan of black and white cinematography. Good Night, and Good Luck is in B&W, but it is TV-like B&W, not classic B&W cinematography (and early, old-old TV at that). In this, it is hardly unique: about the only film made in the last 25 years that does a really good job of capturing true B&W art is the Steve Martin comedy Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid in which the new scenes re-created exactly the original B&W cinematographic detail and atmosphere.

Sharp focus is a salient feature in classic B&W cinematography. For example, in the B&W masterpiece The Picture of Dorian Grey, each shot is in perfect focus. You can watch every detail of each scene; when Dorian Grey leaves his coach on the street, you can count each cobblestone, savor each shadow moving through the night. In GN,aGL half the screen is always off-focus. This lack of sharp focus for all on the scene is rather telling: it's as if director George Clooney didn’t trust you to pay attention to the actor speaking while others were in the frame, hence the other guy's totally off-focus.

I did enjoy the tenor saxophone music played by Matt Catingub, and Dianne Reeves's singing, both for their interpretations, and for being the only respite in the smokin’, too-tense, claustrophobic doings.

In all, GN,aGL is interesting for what it chooses to omit rather than for what it presents.

Extermination talk
from the tolerant side:

Dr. Kamau Kambon

And then finally I want to say that we need one idea, and we're not thinking about a solution to the problem. We're thinking about all these other things, but we're not dealing with a solution to the problem. And we have to start to think about a solution to the problem so that these young brothers and sisters who are here now, who are 15, 16, or 17, are not here 25 years later talking about these same problems.

Now how do I know that the white people know that we are going to come up with a solution to the problem? I know it because they have retina scans, they have what they call racial profiling, DNA banks, and they’re monitoring our people to try to prevent the one person from coming up with the one idea. And the one idea is, how we are going to exterminate white people because that in my estimation is the only conclusion I have come to. We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve this problem. Now I don’t care whether you clap or not, but I’m saying to you that we need to solve this problem because they are going to kill us. And I will leave on that. So we just have to just set up our own system and stop playing and get very serious and not be diverted from coming up with a solution to the problem and the problem on the planet is white people.

We need to solve this problem because they are going to kill us. Not that he's delusional, paranoid, or racist.

In other news, On Letterman, Al Franken Jokes About Execution for Treason of Rove, Libby and Bush.

European ghettos
are the subject of the International Herald Tribune's In egalitarian Europe, a not-so-hidden world of squalor (via ¡No Pasarán!)

Across a Continent that prides itself on egalitarian values and generous welfare outlays, the poorest in society, many of them immigrants, live in conditions that a large swath of the population finds hard to imagine until fatal accidents catapult them into the headlines.
. . .
In the burned-out Parisian stairwells, Dutch squats, Italian camps and Portuguese slums, some of Europe's greatest challenges have converged: the integration of a growing number of immigrants, rising housing prices and high unemployment.

The net inflow of legal immigrants into the 25 countries that make up the European Union today has more than doubled over the last decade, rising from 826,000 in 1993 to 2.1 million in 2003, according to the latest Eurostat figures. The desperate ambition of those in poverty-stricken developing countries to come to Europe has been powerfully illustrated in recent weeks when hundreds of Africans tried to climb razor-wire fences separating Morocco from two Spanish enclaves, and more than a dozen were killed in the process.

Meanwhile, European housing prices have risen by an average annual rate of 7 percent over the past five years, bolstering speculation, and joblessness hovers around the 9 percent mark in the EU as a whole.

Where all three factors come together, as in France or Italy, housing conditions of the poorest seem to be worst. Elsewhere, mitigating factors, like lower unemployment, as in Britain, or slack in the housing market, as in Germany, have limited the misery.

Read it all.

No, no, 'e's ah... he's resting
UK tests parrot for 'lethal' flu, which is, of course, a serious issue. Thank goodness it didn't make it to the pet shop.

'Ello. I wish to register a complaint.

On a more serious note, but still in a parrot theme

(hat tip: The Anchoress.)

Flood of spoofs
at NewsBusters, with Gaggle, and earlier on with South Park

Last tango in Paris?

Chavez and Chirac affirm 'common vision', deeper ties,

"They decided to set up an organised mechanism for dialogue to further develop economic and industrial cooperation between the two countries," he added.

It was the third time the two had met this year.

French oil giant Total has a strong presence in Venezuela and could double its output from 200,000 to 400,000 barrels a day after several billion dollars were invested, Chavez said in Paris in March.

TBHB readers who've been following the Oil-For-Food UNScam might note that Total's name has come up before

The French Economic Crime Squad has been investigating claims of pay-offs to prominent French officials and business figures, as part of a wider probe into the activities of the French oil giant, Total. Apart from Merimee, those under scrutiny include Patrick Maugein, a businessman close to President Jacques Chirac; former head of the Foreign Ministry Serge Boidevaix; former interior minister Charles Pasqua; and head of the Franco-Iraqi Friendship Association, Gilles Munier.
. . .
Quite apart from allegations of illicit backroom dealings, France accounted for approximately 25 per cent of all UN-approved trade with Saddam's Iraq. Moreover, as early as 1993, Total had secured exploration rights over southern Iraq, including the vast wetlands drained by Saddam in his vicious campaign against the Marsh Arabs. Even at prewar oil prices of $US25 a barrel, these contracts might ultimately have been worth a massive $US650 billion. The deal was approved by Saddam.

I guess this time Jacques skipped a middleman.

Update, via ¡No Pasarán!, "Donnez-nous la recette pour gagner sept fois de suite les élections", which means, Give us the recipe for winning elections seven times in a row.
For that, they're going to need Jimmy Carter's help.

Good news from a soldier in Iraq
This was emailed by Will Andrews, who's serving in Iraq

From: Will D. Andrews
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005
RE: Update

Family and Friends,

I pray that this email finds you in the amazing and unending love that comes
from our wonderful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This will be the last email that you get from me from this part of the
world. Soon we will be headed back your way and eventually we'll get off a
plane that has landed in Boise, ID. I know that there has been many things
said about the exact time we will be home, but as of right now there is no
definite answer to anything so I ask that you be cautious of what the news
says so as to not set yourselves up for disappointment. God will finish the
good work He has been performing through us and He will ensure that we get
home.

The other day I was performing guard duty when I was given a blessed
reminder of what we have done and why we are here. I spoke with an
interpreter, who is a resident of Kirkuk, for about 30 minutes. He was a
remarkable man and he spoke 7 different languages plus 5 different dialects
of Kurdish. His English was great so we were able to communicate very
effectively. I asked him what he thought of us being here and he kind of
looked at me like I was insane. With a big smile on his face he said, "We
are very grateful to you our American brothers; you gave us help and now we
have our country." It was extremely comforting to hear those words spoken
from an Iraqi citizen with such passion and conviction. We then went on to
talk about the many things that he has had the opportunity to do because of
us being here and what needed to happen for the country to continue
improving.

I then asked him what he did for fun and we found that we have something in
common. He said that all of his free time is spent with his family and that
he loves to spend time with them. Then of course I had to tell him about my
little princess Kierra and how she was the greatest baby ever. We continued
in our conversation and it was a refreshing experience to see first hand
what he have done throughout our deployment here. Here we were, two ordinary
people from completely different backgrounds, cultures, and religions and
yet we were both sincerely enjoying learning about each other. Despite what
the news says, despite what the time away has done to dampen our enthusiasm,
and despite all of the trials we have endured the truth of this situation is
that we have had an impact and a positive one indeed. We ended our
conversation with talk about the referendum on the Constitution. He was very
excited for it and he said that just being able to vote meant something to
him.

I'm not sure how much you have "heard" from the news, but the referendum
process went extremely well. The majority of Iraqi's went and voted and that
in itself is a victory for all of us. I think our province was somewhere
around the 80-85% range. The successful completion of this mission meant a
lot to our Brigade as we now have been here for the first two free elections
in Iraq. Both of them were successful as Iraqi's were given the opportunity
to vote as free citizens are supposed to.

As my days in Iraq come closer and closer to being over, I am reminded of
the many blessings I have experienced throughout this deployment. I was able
to serve my country in combat, which is something that I have always wanted
to do. I have witnessed first hand the beginning of a new democratic nation,
something I won't ever forget. I have met many new people through emails,
letters, and just by being here. My abilities as both a leader and as a
Soldier have improved and the experience I have gained from a professional
stand point is invaluable. Above all of these great things what stands out
most in my mind as being the greatest lesson that I have learned from this
entire experience is my new understanding of the importance of relying
solely upon the Lord in all things. God has been by my side throughout every
trial, on every convoy, and in everything that I have done while deployed.
In addition, He has been with all of you as my concerns usually drift your
way. He has been with my beautiful wife and with my adorable daughter,
keeping them safe and well-provided for.

So this will be the last "from the ground" information I will be able to
send you regarding this place. I have been very blessed to be given the
opportunity to know the truth and to experience first hand. I have enjoyed
sending you all the "ground truth" that I know about and I have also really
enjoyed getting to know some of you better than I did before. Because this
will be the last first-hand experience truth I will be able to provide you,
I encourage all of you to do what I am going to do when I get homeŠand that
is to turn the TV off when they talk about this place and instead remember
to pray for the safety of our Soldiers and for God's will to be done in this
place.

Speaking of getting home, man I can't wait for that day to come. I will
probably be at Ft. Lewis for 4-6 weeks, so that day is still a little ways
off, but it is definitely in sight.

So with that I'll say "see ya later" and leave you with these final words
that come from my heart in regards to being away from my family and being
here:

"If you want to see what dramatic, emotional image of horror the media
thinks will make the most money, turn on CNN, but if you want to know the
truth about this place, ask a Soldier."

"Freedom comes at a price; unfortunately there are very few who are willing
to pay that price, so those that are willing are worthy of our prayers, our
time and our efforts."

"Circumstances do not change who God is, but God will use your circumstances
to change you if you trust Him to do so."

"The Lord is always there; whenever you get tired of trying it your way,
look up and see for yourself."


A Soldier for Christ

Will D. Andrews (Preach)

My heartfelt thanks to Will, and to the men and women serving our country.

Click on the above photo for CENTCOM's photo album on the referendum. CENTCOM also has a page on the Pakistan earthquake relief effort.

Dr. Sanity channels Liza Doolittle
THE NAME OF PLAME MAKES EVERYONE INSANE

I always knew she had a career in front of 'er.

Hariri killing called terrorist act
by the UN. More at Jawa Report.

I agree with Roger,

This will be an interesting test for the Security Council in the epoch of putative UN reform. If Bashar Assad remains in office, they will have disgraced themselves.

Prior posts here and here.

Claudia Rosset on poverty relief:
at the WSJ

What jumps out here is that such policies as debt relief may sound good, but in practice they can prove far from simple. And our global aid institutions--the U.N., the IMF, the World Bank--however eager to celebrate Poverty Eradication Day, Week, Month or Decade, are in no way equipped to cope with, or even care about, some of the more complex realities and byways of modern global trade and finance. Somewhere between the heartfelt impulse to help the poor and the complexities of tracking the actual money, there has to be a better distinction made between dollars for dictators, and policies that actually help the poor.

Human Rights, Revisited
by Alvaro Vargas Llosa:

The discussion about human rights, therefore, is a discussion between those, on the left and the right, for whom the end justifies the means and therefore legitimizes the use of state force against peaceful individuals, and those for whom the rights of an individual take precedence over the government’s aims and interests. If you think individual liberty is paramount, you do not justify Castro’s human rights violations on the grounds that U.S. foreign policy against Havana is unjust, and you do not justify Pinochet’s elimination of 3,000 Chileans on the grounds that his free market policies were ultimately beneficial for the country.

One essential problem with the issue of human rights has been the difficulty, on the part of the left, to understand that property rights are at the core of that very notion. Ultimately, the “right” a person has not to be violated is the property he or she exercises over his or her body (by extension, a person should enjoy the “right” not to have his or her possessions expropriated through outright violence or distributive compulsion). And the right has had a hard time understanding that notions such as “free markets” and “free enterprise” are meaningless if the government concentrates power around it to such an extent that society is no longer a “spontaneous order” (in Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek’s famous phrase) but an autocratic command system in which human rights are conditional on the government’s plans.

Sadly, Ibero American leaders at the summit seemed quite unconcerned with these important truths.

The leaders at the summit issued an official statement condemning the U.S. “blockade” of Cuba. All the embargo does is serve as a propaganda instrument at fidel's service.

Propaganda toys
Via Babalu Blog, the Hugo Chavez doll is now available. As the Edmonton Sun said, We're assuming the "Jungle Re-Education Camp" playset is extra, but I'm wondering if it'll be displayed on the same shelf as the Hijab Barbie.

Hugo's having more success in his whirlwind tour of Europe than he had in in New York last month, when Kofi Annan sent him to a corner and put him on a time-out, causing Hugo to miss his appointment at Columbia U.

Hugo's been praising and hugging Mugabe, at the 60th anniversary celebrations of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome. It just had to be a UN celebration. As readers of this blog know, I have predicted that Mugabe, who said he'll be retiring in 2008, will be moving to either Cuba or Venezuela. After Rome, it's Paris for Hugo, where the BBC healines him as Hugo Chavez: Charming provocateur, praising him since

He first won election in 1998 and has since spent countless millions of dollars on developing social welfare programmes to bring clinics and schools to where before there were none.

The Beeb has no mention of how he's been driving his own country to ruin. Here's a table from a prior post that bears repeating:

Before Chávez Now People below poverty level 43% 54% Unemployement 11% 16% Income per capita $4,650 $4,190 Number of industries 11,000 5,000 Foreign investment $2 billion $1 billion Inflation 11% 17% Public debt $27.5 billion $44.8 billion Source: Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas de Venezuela, and The Economist Intelligence Unit.

Of course, the BBC isn't paying much attention to the food crisis in Zimbabwe, since Mugabe was cheered by the U.N. delegates but Hugo, all the same, is telling the press that the African leader had been “demonized” and that Venezuela was enacting similar reforms to undo “the unfair structures of colonialism.”

Hugo go ended the interview by saying "he must go to pay his respects to President Chirac."

It figures.

Too bad fidel wasn't there to join in the dance,


Speaking of castro, (via Hispalibertas), apparently gas station attendants were cheating El Comandante out of gas by stealing gasoline and selling it on the black market, so he's replaced them with volunteer social workers that keep written records of how much each car purchases, and the car's license plate.
(No, I don't know why social workers. Maybe they're just workers that are sociable.)
The volunteers wear t-shirts that read "Más humanos, más cubanos" ("more humans, more Cubans", catchy, isn't it?). As the headline of El País explains,

Castro pone a voluntarios a despachar para acabar con la corrupción
Castro places volunteers to dispense [gasoline] to end corruption

I believe it'll take more than that to end corruption.

In a rare fit of generosity, fidel raised the minimum salary from $5 to $10 A MONTH just this year. You could say the whole country's "volunteering". Except for one.