Fausta's blog

Faustam fortuna adiuvat
The official blog of Fausta's Blog Talk Radio show.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Now at http://faustasblog.com

Just a quick reminder that you're visiting the back-up blog for http://faustasblog.com.

To read all new posts, please go to Fausta's blog.

The new RSS feed is http://faustasblog.com/?feed=rss2.

Thank you for your support!

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Monday, July 28, 2008

The "kiss & make up" edition of the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

Welcome to this week's Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. If you would like your posts included in the Carnival, please email me your links: faustaw2 "at" gmail "dot" com.

The big story? Hugo and King Juan Carlos of Spain patched their differences. After the King told Hugo to shut up last November, it took 10,000 barrels of oil/day at $100 for things to go back to chummy.

I'll be talking about this in my morning video podcast at Now Live at 11AM today. I'll be doing a video podcast at Now Live on Mondays, Wednesdays at Thursdays, and a regular podcast at Blog Talk Radio on Tuesdays and Fridays at 11AM Eastern.

ARGENTINA
Argentine Democrats Strike Back

Et tu, Julio? The president suffers a heavy defeat at the hands of her number two

BOLIVIA
Where is the outrage?

BRAZIL
Brazil news photographers threatened by drug gangs in Rio, forced to erase images

CAYMAN ISLANDS
News item: Cayman Islands under US Senate scrutiny. Blog commentary: Blood and manure.

CHILE
Los costos de una proclamacion
La irreflexiva proclamación de Ingrid Betancourt como candidata al Nobel de la Paz realizada por la Presidenta Michelle Bachelet evidencia tanto injustificada improvisación en las iniciativas internacionales de La Moneda como preocupante irrespeto por los mecanismos y procesos que requiere la diplomacia para sumar aliados y consolidar amistades en el mundo.
COLOMBIA
Winning the counterinsurgency battle in Colombia

FARC ‘co-ordinator’ held in Spain

Mossad Helped in FARC Hostage Rescue?

Suc kashs Euro-peace

CUBA
Parrot diplomacy: Having rescued Cuba with cheap oil, Venezuela is to be paid back in zebras

Bombers In Cuba, Bases In Venezuela

Cuban Bomber Crisis?

News item: Cuban leader warns of austerity Blog reaction: When the going gets tough…

ECUADOR
Highlights from Ecuador's draft constitution

Sensing a Negative Tide in DC, Ecuador Hires a DC Lobbyist

Ilegal Operations in Existence by and From Colombia's "Neighbors"

Ecuador Could Give Same-Sex Unions Parity With Marriage

MEXICO
Crude and oily: A controversial referendum and the future of the state oil company

This Time, It's Different
Global Pressures Have Converged to Forge a New Oil Reality
Early this month, Valero Energy in Texas got the unwelcome news that Mexico would be cutting supplies to one of the company's Gulf Coast refineries by up to 15 percent. Mexico's state-owned oil enterprise is one of Valero's main sources of crude, but oil output from Mexican fields, including the giant Cantarell field, is drying up. Mexican sales of crude oil to the United States have plunged to their lowest level in more than a dozen years.
Ted Kennedy's most recent award

NICARAGUA
El juego de Daniel Ortega

Nicaragua looks more and more like Venezuela each day

PERU
Where rebuilding is therapy

PUERTO RICO/VIRGIN ISLANDS
Virgin Islands weighs gas pipeline to Puerto Rico

SURINAM
STC plans to acquire land in Surinam, Indonesia
To tap the potential of jatropha bio-fuel for expanding product portfolio, STC plans to acquire vast tracts of land in Surinam and Indonesia to grow the plant and market the oil to end users.
URUGUAY
Uruguay Land Prices Double as Farm Policies Lure Soros, Marfrig
A third of Uruguay's agricultural property may now be owned by foreigners, according to Uruguay's Rural Association. They include farm companies PGG Wrightson Ltd. of New Zealand and Buenos Aires-based Adecoagro, which is backed by billionaire investor George Soros.

International buyers, seeking to take advantage of rising global food prices, are attracted by the South American country's relatively cheap land, policies that encourage foreign investment, and no tariffs on farm exports, said Roberto Vazquez Platero, a former agriculture minister. As a result, farm prices have more than doubled in three years.

In Uruguay, Argentine farmers don't face the same taxes and price controls as they do at home. After four months of protests, Argentina's producers forced President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to cancel a March 11 increase in oilseed export taxes to more than 45 percent from 35 percent. The scrapped tax would have made it unprofitable for many farmers, already stretched by the 35 percent levy, to grow soybeans, said Eduardo Buzzi, head of the Argentine Agrarian Federation.

By contrast, Uruguay, whose population of 3.3 million is less than a tenth of Argentina's, charges farmers a flat 25 percent tax on their income.

'Investment Was Welcomed'
"What Uruguay did was simply not to interfere,'' Eduardo Blasina, an agriculture analyst, said in an interview in Montevideo. "Investment was welcomed.''
VENEZUELA
Hugo Chavez’s Jewish Problem

I feel safe, the Russians may be coming to Venezuela and other nutty revolutionary stories

Chavez eyes Moscow alliance to guard against U.S. - by Mansur Mirovalev

Hugo and Juan Carlos kiss and make up; bump included?

Denuncian que Chávez financia a terroristas de ETA, FARC, Hamas y Hezbola

Venezuela, Belarus tighten oil ties

Chavez spent $33 billion to influence neighbors

IMMIGRATION
Sanctuary For Citizens

AMERICAN POLITICS
Cuba, Sharpton and the Huffington Post

Obama Caught Stealing Ideas From Cuban Communist Regime

Barry O’s CDRs

HUMOR
In Spanish,

Special thanks to the Baron, Eneas, Larwyn, Maggie, and Siggy.

Crossposted

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Thursday, July 24, 2008

Chavez and Ceresole, and Hugo goes to Russia

Today's WSJ has an article by Travis Pantin, Hugo Chávez's Jewish Problem, which highlights the ideological connection between Hugo Chavez and Norberto Ceresole.

Norberto who, you ask?

Norberto Ceresole. Pantin explains,
As an alleged oppressor of the Palestinian Arabs, Israel has its own place of special infamy in Mr. Chávez's worldview. This latter theme has served him particularly well in his efforts to mobilize the sentiments of his rural constituents. Thus, during a 2005 speech marking Columbus's discovery of the Americas, Mr. Chávez likened the plight of Venezuela's Indians to that of Palestinians. Reminding his listeners of how their ancestors had been "murdered in their land" by "governments, economic sectors and great land estates," he thundered: "You were expelled from your homeland, like the heroic Palestinian people."

All of these elements seem entirely derivative of Marxist-Leninist theorizing, with a strong admixture of postcolonialism à la Franz Fanon and Fidel Castro. But Mr. Chávez is not just another Latin American leftist on the Castro model. While the Cuban dictator may be his most important political influence, his greatest intellectual debt is to the Argentinian writer and thinker Norberto Ceresole: a man not of the left but of the populist right, a Holocaust denier and a sworn enemy of Israel and the Jews.

Born in 1943, Ceresole was one of the leading spokesmen for the radical populist government of the Argentine president Juan Perón. Later, in the guise of a political theorist, he argued that the only appropriate leaders for Latin American nations were caudillos: nationalist, militarist and charismatic strongmen capable of ushering in a "postdemocratic" age in which the region's people would become effortlessly at one with the generals who would direct every aspect of society. Led by a group of such caudillos, a confederation of Latin American fascist states would then be in a position to beat back American global hegemony.

Ceresole reportedly traveled with Mr. Chávez during his initial bid for power. After the latter's 1998 victory, he published a celebratory volume, "Caudillo, Army, People: The Venezuela of President Chávez." The second chapter is entitled "The Jewish Question and the State of Israel." In it, Ceresole espoused a "new revisionism" that defined the Holocaust as a "myth" and Israel as a global menace:

The existence of this political enterprise—Israel: a power concentrated in the monopoly of monotheism and implemented through an army, police forces, jails, tortures, assassinations, etc.—seeks to consolidate itself through a series of ideological manipulations in the bosom of the hegemonic power of the United States, which seeks to be accepted as the ruler of the world by any means, even generalized terror, and dissuasive and persuasive practices.

It was for this reason, according to Ceresole, that one of the greatest threats to the Chávez regime lay in Venezuela's "Jewish financial mafia." Indeed, the Venezuelan Jewish community as a whole was to be considered guilty of race-based hostility to Chávez's redemptive nationalist movement.

* * *

The ingeniousness of Ceserole's doctrine, as filtered through the sensibility of Hugo Chávez, resides in its blending of Marxist economics with two venerable anti-Semitic traditions. The first, still powerful in South America, derives from Catholic teachings about the historic Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus. The second, encapsulated most notoriously in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," has flourished in both rightist and leftist variations throughout modern European history, resurfacing in our own time in the fulminations of extreme anti-Zionists.
This is an ominous sign, and yet one more symptom of the illness that is Chavez's regime.

But caudillismo itself is nothing new: Latin America has suffered immensely by holding on to their tradition of caudillismo, and by staying away from true democratic institutions.

Will they ever change?

Hugo and Mendevev
Hugo and Medvedev

In other Chavez news, he's talking big in Russia, pushing for a natural gas OPEC-like cartel and mutual investment protection.

Hugo was also saying that
if Russian military forces ever visited Venezuelan territory, they would be greeted "by flying colors, drum beats and songs, as this means the arrival of our allies with whom we share the same view on the world."
Worried that this might imply that Russia's welcome to build a military-technical base on its territory, the Venezuelan government was quick to correct that, saying that it only means that the Russian Navy would be welcome to dock at a Venezuelan port.

It's all so redolent of the Cold War it makes one want to send The Hunt for Red October's Jack Ryan to Caracas.

Crossposted

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Back from the Zephyr

I made it home last night.

The only problem were the train delays. As I mentioned earlier, passenger trains must wait for freight trains and there is only one track in each direction (for brief parts of the trip there is only one track), so you must expect delays. There was one delay I didn't expect, however. Yesterday afternoon the train left Philadelphia during a huge rainstorm, and then the train stopped somewhere between Philadelphia and Trenton for over an hour. I was glad I wasn't in an airplane trying to land in Philadelphia or Newark.

What we didn't know was that the storm had knocked out power for central New Jersey, which affected the train lines. Trains were backed up in both directions of the Eastern Corridor. When we finally got to Trenton at 6:45 I waited for the 4:45 train to Princeton Junction. You know it must have been something when a guy from the NJ PBS affiliate, NJN news, was walking down the platform getting soundbites.

Will I do it again? Absolutely, yes. I'll probably fly to either Chicago or Colorado and then ride the Zephyr. It is an extraordinary experience. I just got this comment from Melissa, who I met in the train,
Fausta,
My husband Tim and I had the pleasure of dining with you on the zephyr this week and we wanted to tell all of the cynics out there that a trainride should be experienced by everyone at least once in your life. I don’t even consider myself an outdoor person, but when you see the sights on the train, the only word that can describe it is majestic. We live in the city and usually drive from california to denver but, on the train, you get to see the "Real America" that we tend to forget about. It's also a very nostalgic experience that my husband and i will have for the rest of our lives. Who's waxing nostalgic in an overcrowded airplane or when fueling at the pump. Who I ask you? WHO?
It was a wonderful journey.

Crossposted

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Monday, July 21, 2008

The third Monday in July Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean


I'm still on the road but the Carnival goes on! Welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. If you would like your posts included in next week’s carnival please email me: faustaw2 “at” gmail “dot” com.

LATIN AMERICA
The New Battlefield in Latin America

La Raza to the bottom

ARGENTINA
Argentina blocks farm export tax

BRAZIL
Mending an icon: How Rio’s first good governor in decades is starting to renew Brazil’s most famous city

COLOMBIA
SWISS HELP FARC COVER UP ITS OWN BLUNDER

FARC, Chavez y Correa: el trio del terror

Love fest: Presidents Chávez and Uribe agree to bury the hatchet—for now

Hard Reality Of 'Soft Power' In Colombia

CUBA
Cuba to Allow Private Farming: Land Will Remain in Government Hands, However

The elephant in the room

ECUADOR
Ecuador assembly approves Constitution

New Ecuadorian Constitution has 494 Articles

Freedom of Speech Killed by Euthanasia in Ecuador

EL SALVADOR
Documentary on Hugo Chavez aired on Salvadoran TV (in Spanish). You can watch it in full at Fuerza Solidaria
Here’s the first part on YouTube


MEXICO
Sicarios mexicanos reciben formacion de extremistas en Iran - Terra Top-ranking Mexican criminals with military background travel to Iran via Venezuela for terrorist training.

VENEZUELA
Chavez pleads for investment as falling output fuels inflation
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wore a suit for the occasion, and, grinning at about 300 business leaders he usually calls "oligarchs,'' asked for help relieving a drought in investment.
Chavez minister anti inflation plan: Haggle!

Deadly massage : How not to tackle a soaring murder rate

Venezuela: Looking ahead

Galp to Receive 1 Million Barrels of Oil From Venezuela Hugo Chavez keeps giving away Venezuela's wealth at our expense

AMERICAN POLITICS
In South Florida Congressional Race, Incumbent and Challenger Have the Ethnic Bases Covered

Special thanks to Maria, Eneas, Siggy, Larwyn, Pat Patterson and Judith

Crossposted.
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Sunday, July 20, 2008

I'm riding the Zephyr for the trip back from BlogHer08 and have been reading an article Maria sent by Ben Jervey of the NY Post, RUN OUT ON A RAIL

THIS WOULD BE THE TIME FOR TRAINS, IF TRAINS RAN ON TIME


Ask around onboard almost any Amtrak train, and you’ll get a pretty short list of reasons why people ride the rails. In the café car, chugging along one of the country’s oldest routes, I counted four types of passengers. There are thrifty ones looking to save a few bucks on plane tickets. There are those who are scared of flying, a group that has no doubt grown in recent years. There are the zealots - without exception, older men - who describe themselves with charming lack of inhibition as "rail junkies," "railroad nuts," "train buffs," or, my personal favorite, "railfans." The rest - indeed the majority - say they"re here for "the experience." Good thing for Amtrak, that romantic notion of the rails is alive and well. Naturally, it’s something the beleaguered rail company promotes to death. The experience is an important sell; nobody ever mentions reliability or practicality.

Jervey is right about riding the Zephyr for the experience: the views have a spectacul beauty of almost mystical quality, and the Zephyr is the way to enjoy them, much more so than driving through the same part of the country. I have driven trough much of the area and one gets to enjoy the views much better in the train.


You might save money over plane fare if you ride in a seat, not in a sleeping compartment. For a two-and-a-half day trip you will need a bed to sleep, so there is no saving.


As for the three other kinds of passengers, the "experience" ones outnumber all the others. While most of them are Americans, you will also find a good number of Brits, several South Americans, and an Australian couple or two.


While Jervey makes a long list of Amtrak grievances, the main problem is that freight trains have priority over passenger trains. That is the main cause of delays in all the routes Amtrak serves, and, as I mentioned on this post, the logistics for passenger rail travel in America are much different than for rail travel in Europe .


That said, I recommend that everyone take the Zephyr from San Francisco to Denver. It is a journey of wonderous beauty.



Here's a photo I took right now, just outside of Reno,

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Last evening at BlogHer08

Last night BlogHer08 rounded up with a huge party at Macy's, where we all had a great time. It was a great conference, and a lot of fun. There's a video interview of me at the shoe department (imagine that!) which will be up on YouTube (or maybe not). When it turns up I'll link to it.

I have to thank the fabulous Jane Goowdwin for her wonderful support and her friendship, which made the past four days a very happy experience.

Special thanks also to Morra Aarons-Mele, Lisa Stone and Elisa Camahort Page for inviting me.

Moving the blog has had a lot of bumps and now http://faustasblog.com appears to be down. For the time being, here's a photo of San Francisco at 6AM today.


The train ride home starts in California right now:


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Friday, July 18, 2008

BlogHer time!

I've been in San Francisco since Wednesday evening and the city is as beautiful and lively as I remember it.

The BlogHer Conference starts today. You can follow the blogs posting on the conference through this widget:


I had the pleasure of meeting and having lunch with the brilliant and beautiful Jane Goodwin of Weekly Scheiss who's been indulging in some on-line haiku. Jane was in Tuesday's podcast, and she's a panelist in Introversion, Blogging and BlogHer 10:30 this morning.

There are plenty of parties to attend, and so far I've managed to go to four. Here's a picture of me at the Experience Project's party, which was held at Rye, a local club. Here's their photo album.


It's 4:19AM here in San Francisco but my body still thinks it's on the East Coast. More blogging later.

crossposted
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Liveblogging: From Trenton to San Francisco by train - now in Reno Nevada

11:45AM PDT
Yesterday we were enjoying the spectacular views in the Rockies, which meant that we had no internet connection through dialup. Several times during the trip we were at higher altitudes than the cell phone towers, for instance, once we left Denver.

I'll post some pictures later. We're in California at last!

Monday, July 14, 2008

The "On my way to San Francisco by train" Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean

I'm on my way to San Francisco but there's always the Monday Carnival, so, welcome to the Carnival of Latin America and the Caribbean. If you would like your post included, please email me, faustaw2 "at" gmail "dot" com.

LATIN AMERICA
"UNASUR - A South American EU?"

The ghost at the till: Bitter experience has made Latin Americans intolerant of inflation. But have their policymakers banished this spectre?

How Hostages, And Nations, Get Liberated

ARGENTINA
Opera buffa A landmark theatre’s years of darkness

BOLIVIA
Exilium (in Spanish)

BRAZIL
Brazil sees rise in bulletproof cars

Video

COLOMBIA
"Warrantless Domestic Spying" Results in 15 Innocent Civilians Being Forced By Government Thugs into Helicopters and Spirited Away

"Domestic" spying

South Colombia, the musical

The Ingrid Betancourt rescue

FARC Communists Lying About Colombian Rescue Operation

An Iconoclastic Icon Ingrid Betancourt said no to slavery, even at the risk of death.

Sustaining the Medellin Miracle Colombia Struggles to Hold On To Gains From Globalization

Why Europeans Doubt Colombia’s Hostage Rescue

FARC lives down to expectations

Celebrating Ingrid Former hostage, once and future politician

Via Counterterrorism blog, Force vs. FARC: Israel’s contribution

Don't copy plan Colombia, learn from it

Freed Colombian Grapples With Recalling and Releasing Pain, and Resuming Life

"Si las FARC no negocian, les vamos a dar garrote"

CUBA
Obama's anti-Cuban advisers and the lost cause


ECUADOR
Taking the headlines: An asset seizure raises questions

Ecuador seizes 195 properties

Ecuador seizes business group's assets
The government called the takeover a move that should have been taken against Grupo Isaíasa decade ago to settle debts from a banking collapse.


Ecuador Seizes TV Stations, Companies

JAMAICA
Is it all over for the corals?

MEXICO
Mexico Plan Adds Police To Take On Drug Cartels. Military's Role Lessened; Local Corruption Targeted

Free art on Mexico City metro

PERU
Angry Down South: Would-be populists everywhere

Former Spy Chief Says Peru's Fujimori Is Innocent

PUERTO RICO
Durmiendo en los laureles

VENEZUELA
VENEZUELAN BISHOPS DENOUNCE INCREASED INSECURITY; DENY SCHISM

The Super Racket (Guiso) by Teodoro Petkoff or revisiting the Robbery of the XXIst. Century

US freezes assets of Venezuelan businessmen

There is some justice in the world

Special thanks to Larwyn, Maggie and Eneas.

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Liveblogging: From Trenton to San Francisco by train, day two

UPDATE
please scroll down


After I signed off last evening the train arrived in Pittsburgh right on schedule, a few minutes before 8PM EDT.

Pittsburgh train station has no amenities at all and resembles the old NJ Department of Motor Vehicles office in Morristown from back in the early 1980s. They have a couple of vending machines that are probably worth something at the Antiques Roadshow, and their contents are worthy subjects for an anthropological essay on ancient foodstuffs.


I've had a salad in the train from Trenton and needed a hot meal, so I went out to explore.

The streets were empty - emptier than Wall Street in NYC on a Sunday morning. Another guy from the train was walking ahead of me probably also looking for a place to eat. I walked to the Westin Convention Center and went inside since the only person out on the street who didn't just get off the train looked like a male street hustler.

The restaurant at the Westin, The Original Fishmarket Restaurant, was open and lots of the hotel guests were eating there (they probably noticed the guy at the corner across the street, too). I considered whether to order some merlot but decided against it - I had to stay awake until at least midnight, way past my usual bedtime.

I ordered grilled tilapia and green beans with almonds, both of which were very good. On second thought - since it was getting dark outdoors and the neighborhood didn't look very pleasant - I asked the waitress that she box it.

I returned to the station, finished my dinner and waited for the train while the TV played Law and Order Criminal Intent. Donofrio wasn't in it, so I worked on my outlines for the BlogHer panels.

The train to Chicago left late and, like the train from Trenton, appeared to be booked to near-capacity. It was a double-decker train with tiny sleep compartments.

The sleep compartment was so small (how small was it?) that the (hard) cot was approx. 6' long and the width of a first-class airline seat. I was glad to be traveling alone. If a thought had entered my mind I would have had to leave the compartment. Several elderly couples were also in the same car, and one of them must have had a heck of time clambering up to the upper berth.
("Come on, Madge, let me give you a hand up!"
"Hand up my a** Burt, YOU take the upper one")

Cary Grant would have never been able to hide in one.


The train bumped, ground, throttled, jumped, and honked its way at full speed over hundreds of track switches while us passengers lying on the tough cots held on for dear life as the jumps ground our bones into their sockets. It was
SHAKE
RATTLE
AND ROLL
all the way trough Indiana. At 5:30AM CDT I gave up on any hope of fitful sleep, washed, and got dressed. The train was shaking so hard there was no chance of reading anything.

Had breakfast at the dining room where I was seated with a retired math teacher from Chicago who was back from vacationing in Washington, DC. She told me that she thought "all bloggers were narcissists who think so much of their own opinions that they believe the whole world wants to hear about them." I heartily agreed with her and handed her my business (blog) card. She was a very nice lady and of course she's right.

After breakfast the train slowed to a crawl since many freight trains had priority and I had a chance to nap. We were 1:15 minutes late in arriving in Chicago.

This stretch of the trip illustrates why it'd be so difficult to have an American rail system comparable to Europe's:
The distances in the US are vastly larger than Europe's. In Europe you ride a train for 9 hours and have traveled through three countries. In the US, you're barely making it across Pennsylvania and Oregon.
The passenger trains share the tracks with the freight trains. In Europe, fast-speed passenger trains have exclusive use of their tracks. Fast-speed train tracks have to be meticulously inspected before and after each train, and must be impeccably maintained.
The US is much more sparsely populated than Europe. Higher population density brings about the higher volume necessary to sustain a train line.
Whoever tells you that long-distance rail travel will be practical for travel across the USA better come up with a solution to all these issues at the same time. Until they do, air and car travel are they way to go.

I am now enjoying some peace and quiet at the Amtrak Lounge in Chicago, praying that there is much less bounce to tonight's journey. The lounge is comfortable, well lit, air conditioned and has electrical sockets for laptops.

The train station is the locale for The Untouchables's baby carriage scene (which Brian de Palma borrowed from Battleship Potenkim). You can see part of it in this trailer:


4PM CDT
There is no place like home:

Princeton Illinois.

The landscape has changed to rolling hills of farmland, most of it planted in corn.

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Sunday, July 13, 2008

LIVEBLOGGING: From Trenton to San Francisco by train

UPDATED
scroll down for updates

After I received the invitation to BlogHer in San Francisco I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to indulge in one of my greater eccentricities: my inordinate fondness for long-distance train travel, which even exceeds my dislike for air travel.

I have crossed the USA by train from Trenton to Seattle once, and from Newark to Miami. I have crossed Great Britain by rail. I have traveled from Amsterdam, Holland to Merida Spain.

I love trains.

When you tell people that it takes from Sunday to Wednesday to cross the country by train, six out of seven will tell you you're crazy for taking that trip. The seventh one is probably as crazy as you, and will immediately start a conversation about the last time they went from New York City to Vancouver by train.

If you're really lucky they might have taken the Trans-Siberian, the mother of all long-distance trains. You know you have a friend for life when you find a railway-travel enthusiast who actually volunteered, paid for and endured the whole Trans-Siberian enchilada.

My friend - who loves doing the NYC-Vancouver ride in early Fall - took me to the train station this morning, and now I'm on the train from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, which is clean, comfortable, and running on time. The dialup card is working, and will liveblog.

It feels like Christmas day!
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Trenton station:


Bruce, who's in charge of the cafe in the train. He commutes to work from Long Island.

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

2:35PM EDT:
The landscape through Pennsylvania is mostly industrial, as the tracks follow the steel and coal routes. We just pulled out of Harrisburg PA.

The train continues to be on its Sunday schedule. It'll be interesting to see on the return trip how the schedule works, since freight trains get priority over passenger trains.

As expected, most of the passengers in business class are women traveling alone or elderly. The kind of folks who don't want to be doing long trips by car.

A friend had suggested that I drive to San Francisco. I don't enjoy long trips by car even when I'm in the company of good friends and/or family because of an old back injury which healed but which causes my back to go into muscle spasms after seating in the same position for more than four hours (yet another reason I dislike long flights). It takes nearly two days to recover from a 10-hr drive.

I don't like driving alone, either. The idea of driving alone cross-country reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode where a young blonde woman set out to drive across the USA and had an accident in Pennsylvania. She gets back in her car and keeps driving, but there is this weird-looking man in her car. He doesn't speak. He just stares at her from the rearview mirror. I'd rather take the train, thanks.

To each their twilight zone.



Susquehanna river, between Harrisburg and Johnstown:

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

5PM EDT
Tyrone PA: The internet connection from the dialup card doesn't work too well now that the tracks are between mountains. The wooded landscape is punctuated with small towns, coal depots and commercial buildings. When we left Trenton it was 85F, dry and sunny. Now it's in the 80s and raining. The clouds are starting to break over the horizon.

I'm reading "Se acabo lo que se daba", by Luis Davila Colon, a political novel about Puerto Rico that my brother sent me last week.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

6:40PM EDT
The landscape through the mountains resembles at times that of western North Carolina, lush and green and chock-full of trees crowding one another while a river winds through it at times in shades of orange that changes into a silvery grey. They must have had a lot of rain. The cloudy sky changes from dark clouds to white clouds.

Every so often a cargo train comes by on the opposite track.

We're somewhere between Johnstown and Pittsburgh.

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Dr Andrew Boston on CSpan2 right now

As previously announced, Dr Andrew Bostom is appearing on Book TV right now and Monday, July 14, at 1:00 AM Eastern to talk about his new book, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History.

Dr. Bostom was my podcast guest last May, when we also talked about his book.

The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History is an anthology of unaltered and complete historical accounts on the subject from primary sources, and a must-read.

More exciting blogging news later today. Stay tuned!

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Saturday, July 12, 2008

Nojoud talks to CNN

Brave little Nojoud Muhammed Nasser talked to CNN about her divorce.

Jawa
And the husband was not prosecuted for this? Under Islamic Sharia law she had to pay him $200 to compensate him for the loss of his bride.
You can watch the interview here.

Crossposted

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Tom & Bryn

It's a nice summer day and I've been listening to Bryn CDs while doing various chores indoors and out, so here's a nice YouTube with Bryn Terfel and Tom Jones singing together.


Yummy men, both of them, each in his own way.
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Tony Snow



Former newsman and White House press secretary Tony Snow died this morning of complications from colon cancer. He was 53 years old. Fox News is breaking the story right now.

UPDATE
Huge roundup at Memeorandum

Welcome, Instapundit readers.
Please note that this is my backup blog since my Fausta's blog, http://faustasblog.com is moving to a bigger new location. Please visit often.

Cancer's unexpected blessing, by Tony Snow, via Juliette.

Crossposted

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Friday, July 11, 2008

Support Harry’s Place Blogburst

Support Harry’s Place Blogburst
Harry’s Place, a UK blog dedicated to promoting the ideals of freedom and democracy, is being sued by Mohammed Sawalha, the President of the British Muslim Initiative, which has been linked to Hamas and the Islamic Brotherhood, both terrorist organizations. The blog reports that Mr. Sawalha, according to the BBC…


"master minded much of Hamas' political and military strategy" and in London “is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas' armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah”.


In their revelation of the impending lawsuit against them leveled by Mohammed Sawalha, they write:


Mr Sawalha claims that we have “chosen a malevolent interpretation of a meaningless word”. In fact, we did no more than translate a phrase which appeared in an Al Jazeera report of Mr Sawalha's speech. When Al Jazeera changed that phrase from "Evil Jew" to "Jewish Lobby", we reported that fact, along with the statement that it had been a typographical error.


Mr Sawalha has been the prime mover in a number of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood associated projects. He is President of the British Muslim Initiative. He is the past President of the Muslim Association of Britain. He was the founder of IslamExpo, and is registered as the holder of the IslamExpo domain name. He is also a trustee of the Finsbury Park Mosque….


…Mr Sawalha says that the attribution of the phrase "Evil Jew" to him implies that he is "anti-semitic and hateful". Notably, he does not take issue with our reporting of the revelation, made in a Panorama documentary in 2006, that he is a senior activist in the clerical fascist terrorist organisation, Hamas.


It looks like Harry’s Place is going up against some pretty top-notch lawyers on this one, and they’ve got guts, but as the post goes on to say:


If Mr Sawalha persists in attempting to silence us with this desperate legal suit, we will need your help.


We won"t be able to stand up to them alone.


This is why we've started this blogburst, to get the word out that we won't let members of Hamas or any radical terrorist group censor us or any of our fellow bloggers.


If you’d like to add your site to the blogroll, simply email us at admin@neoconstant.com, and include your site’s URL.


Then copy and paste this entry into one of your posts. Future posts will be emailed to you. Thanks, and don’t forget to head over to Harry's Place to show your support of their freedom of speech!


WE SUPPORT HARRY’S PLACE


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Crime pays: Getting away with terror at British taxpayers' expense

Pictured: Smiling preacher of hate Abu Qatada enjoying an £800,000 home and a life of benefits


The Daily Mail refers to Abu Qatada, the "preacher", as Al-Qaeda's "ambassador to Europe." As if al-Qaeda was a diplomatic service. You're looking at Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe.

Of course he's smiling. Look at what he's getting:
1. He can't be extradited to Jordan "because his human rights would have been breached."
2. He lives in a $1.6 million house.
3. He receives $100,000 in (British) government benefits.
4. He's under house arrest but meanders freely.
5. Supposedly he's on disability receiving $300/week for a back injury but can carry a knapsack in public. He's not worried that anyone would jail him for fraud.
6. His "45-year-old wife is said to be entitled to child benefits, income support, housing and council tax credits which exceed £800 each week." (that would be approx. $1600.) Plus, "The family is also said to pick up around £210 in income support."
7. AND he gets a tax break: "the couple is exempt from paying the £2,283 yearly council tax bill on their home."

This photograph of the smiling al-Qaeda operative telescopes to the rest of the world the message that the UK officially has signed a suicide pact.

Via Memeorandum: Terrorist Dream Job: Al Qaeda Ambassador to Europe
Not a single international terrorist has been forcibly removed from Britain since the 7/7 terror attacks, for the simple reason that their quisling allies run the country.
This really is the end of Britain.

Crossposted

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Today at 10AM Eastern: Second Draft's Dr Richard Landes and Yaacov Ben Moshe

UPDATE
You can listen to the podcast here

Today at 10AM Eastern (special time) we continue our series on Israel, the Middle East, and media propaganda with Dr Richard Landes and Yaacov Ben Moshe of Second Draft.

Chat's open at 9:45AM and the call-in number is 646 652-2539. Join us!

Listen to Faustas blog on internet talk radio

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Thursday, July 10, 2008

How beer saved civilization


George Will explains the Survival of the Sudsiest
The development of civilization depended on urbanization, which depended on beer. To understand why, consult Steven Johnson's marvelous 2006 book, "The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic -- and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World." It is a great scientific detective story about how a horrific cholera outbreak was traced to a particular neighborhood pump for drinking water. And Johnson begins a mind-opening excursion into a related topic this way:

"The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization itself. As soon as there were mass human settlements, waterborne diseases like dysentery became a crucial population bottleneck. For much of human history, the solution to this chronic public-health issue was not purifying the water supply. The solution was to drink alcohol."

Often the most pure fluid available was alcohol -- in beer and, later, wine -- which has antibacterial properties. Sure, alcohol has its hazards, but as Johnson breezily observes, "Dying of cirrhosis of the liver in your forties was better than dying of dysentery in your twenties." Besides, alcohol, although it is a poison, and an addictive one, became, especially in beer, a driver of a species-strengthening selection process.

Johnson notes that historians interested in genetics believe that the roughly simultaneous emergence of urban living and the manufacturing of alcohol set the stage for a survival-of-the-fittest sorting-out among the people who abandoned the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and, literally and figuratively speaking, went to town.

To avoid dangerous water, people had to drink large quantities of, say, beer. But to digest that beer, individuals needed a genetic advantage that not everyone had -- what Johnson describes as the body's ability to respond to the intake of alcohol by increasing the production of particular enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenases. This ability is controlled by certain genes on chromosome four in human DNA, genes not evenly distributed to everyone. Those who lacked this trait could not, as the saying goes, "hold their liquor." So, many died early and childless, either of alcohol's toxicity or from waterborne diseases.

The gene pools of human settlements became progressively dominated by the survivors -- by those genetically disposed to, well, drink beer. "Most of the world's population today," Johnson writes, "is made up of descendants of those early beer drinkers, and we have largely inherited their genetic tolerance for alcohol."
Dave Schuler adds to James Joyner's post by saying,
The connection between civilization and beer is even stronger than George Will alleges. Nomads can do a lot of things but it’s darned hard to brew mead or beer unless you adopt a sedentary habit. There are anthropologists who believe that human beings founded the first permanent settlements in order to brew mead or beer. Beer-drinking anthropologists, naturally.
I've had the pleasure of enjoying a beer in Joyner's company and have seen George Will drink a beer too, so we can all drink to that.

Beer continues to refect man's history: Last year The Incontiguous Brick posted on how Biofuels cause higher beer prices when German farmers switch to those crops instead of growing barley. And of course, in the presidential campaign this year, Cindy McCain is an executive at an Anheuser-Busch distributor in Phoenix. Stephen Bainbridge explains why beer stocks are a good place to park your money during a downturn.

The perfect topics for a hot Summer afternoon: beer and books.

UPDATE
How to Win Your Wife's Weight in Beer

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Upcoming: Dr Andrew Bostom on Book TV

Dr Andrew Bostom is going to appear on Book TV next Sunday July 13, at 7:00 AM and Monday, July 14, at 1:00 AM Eastern to talk about his new book, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History.

Dr. Bostom was my podcast guest last May, when we also talked about his book.

The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History is an anthology of unaltered and complete historical accounts on the subject from primary sources, and a must-read.

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France24 video: Colombia's elite troops fighting the FARC

Via A Colombo-Americana's Perspective video report Colombia's elite troops fighting the FARC
Alavaro Uribe made the fight against the FARC the cornerstone of his presidency. Colombia's elite troops are in charge of defeating the guerrillas in the heart of the jungle.

In March reporters Ibar Aibar and Sebastian Dufour followed the Colombian military’s special armed forces, forces responsible for carrying out President Alvaro Uribe fight againt the FARC. They were also the ones who liberated Ingrid Betancourt.


These hand-picked men were trained by the U.S. military and are well-equipped. They track FARC leaders across the thick Colombian jungle. For days on end they hike across mountain passes that are 3, 000 metres high carrying 50 kilogramme-backpacks, braving rain and mud, eating monkey meat and remaining primed for battle at all times. But those times of battle are becoming increasingly rare.

"We control the areas where the guerillas have gathered their weapon reserves, their food and their medical supplies," says Colonel Luis Gomez, adding that the FARC is pulling back as more and more people defect from their ranks.

The Colombian army extracts information from these defectors. Military forces would be useless without this in a zone where thermal cameras alone cannot track rebels.

Ibar Aibar has seen a "Colombian army which is extremely hardened." Four months after filming he is not surprised by the army's latest exploit: the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages.

Click on the video above to watch this special edition of "Reporters"
This is a must-watch.

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And now for somethng completely different: The Lupa Capitolina's not ancient, just really old.

Any of you who have been to Rome surely remember the statue of the she-wolf nursing Romulus and Remus, the founders of ancient Rome according to legend. The statue is a symbol of Rome.

The statue, known as the Lupa Capitolina, supposedly was 2,500 years old and Etruscan. Only it's not:
A statue symbolising the mythical origins and power of Rome, long thought to have been made around 500BC, has been found to date from the 1300s.

The statue depicts a she-wolf suckling Remus and his twin brother Romulus - who is said to have founded Rome.

The statue of the wolf was carbon-dated last year, but the test results have only now been made public.

The figures of Romulus and Remus have already been shown to be 15th Century additions to the statue.

In a front page article in the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, Rome's former top heritage official, Professor Adriano La Regina, said about 20 tests were carried out on the she-wolf at the University of Salerno.

He said the results of the tests gave a very precise indication that the statue was manufactured in the 13th century.
Elsewhere in Europe, the Manekin Piss remains a fitting symbol of Brussels, home base of the EU which continues to attempt to shove a constitution on countries which don't want it.

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Oh look, Obama changed his mind... on Spanish

Via Babalu:
First Obama said immigrants should learn English:

Transcript:
"We'll have to finally bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadoes. It is time we did that. Now, let's acknowledge, yes, they broke the law. They should have to pay a fine, they should have to learn English, they should go to the back of the line, they should not get citizenship ahead of those who have been waiting patiently, but we also have to put them on a pathway to citizenship."
Then he changed his mind:

Transcript:
You know, I don't understand when people are going around worrying about, "We need to have English - only." They want to pass a law, "We want English-only."

Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But understand this. Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English -- they'll learn English -- you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.

You know, it's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say [is], "Merci beaucoup." Right?
Via Memeorandum, American Voters Reject Obama's call for Bilingualism:
A national telephone survey conducted last month by Rasmussen Reports found that U.S. voters overwhelmingly disagree with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. (see video)

Eighty-three percent (83%) place a higher priority on encouraging immigrants to speak English as their primary language. Just 13% take the opposite view and say it is more important for Americans to learn other languages.

In his comments, Obama emphasized the economic benefits of learning a second language: "If you have a foreign language, that is a powerful tool to get a job." Data suggests that most voters see the issue in a broader context.

A separate survey found that one factor fueling the anger over immigration is the belief that most government officials encourage immigrants to retain the culture of their home country. This helps explain why voters who are angry about immigration are primarily angry at the government, not immigrants. Among those angry about immigration, 59% believe most government officials encourage immigrants to retain their home country culture.

Last fall, a Rasmussen Reports survey found that 77% of Americans believed that employers should be allowed to require employees to speak English while on the job. With the Supreme Court recently upholding tougher standards for voter identification at the polls, 65% of voters now believe election ballots should only be printed in English. Thirty-two percent (32%) say they should be printed in both English and Spanish.

The importance of assimilation into the culture is highlighted in another recent survey: 54% of voters say it is more important to encourage all immigrants to embrace American culture than it is to reduce the number of immigrants. Just 36% take the opposite view and say reducing immigration is a higher priority. That survey, as with many others, also found a strong preference for ballots and other government documents to be printed in English only.
Even when bilingualism is not assimilation, the fact is that you can not assimilate into a culture without a good working knowledge of its language. All immigrants should learn English, and to learn English, you have to be taught.

In a lighter vein, A different look at the race

Prior post: Bilingualism and Obama.

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Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Tell us what you really feel, Jesse...

Drudge:
Jackson Statement: For any harm or hurt that this hot mic private conversation may have caused, I apologize. My support for Senator Obama_s campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal. I cherish this redemptive and historical moment.

_My appeal was for the moral content of his message to not only deal with the personal and moral responsibility of black males, but to deal with the collective moral responsibility of government and the public policy which would be a corrective action for the lack of good choices that often led to their irresponsibility.

_That was the context of my private conversation and it does not reflect any disparagement on my part for the historic event in which we are involved or my pride in Senator Barack Obama, who is leading it, whom I have supported by crisscrossing this nation in every level of media and audience from the beginning in absolute terms
Via Macsmind, O'Relly has the video of what Jackson said:


Now call me a cynic, but with the amount of media experience Jackson has, you would think that by now he'd know better than to expect the microphones were turned off.

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"UNASUR - A South American EU?"

One of the pleasures of blogging is that it gives me the opportunity to come in contact with very interesting websites. A couple of hours ago I received an email from Adam Kott of the International Affairs Forum, which has recently completed a roundtable on UNASUR that explores the organization's potential to become a strong political and economic bloc similar to the European Union.

The forum participants are:
Sarah Anderson, Institute for Policy Studies,
Laura Carlsen, Center for International Policy
Juan Carlos Hidalgo, Cato Institute
Francisco Panizza, London School of Economics
and Michael Shifter, Inter-American Dialogue

You can read their responses here: "UNASUR - A South American EU?". Each response is well thought-out and interesting.

I look forward to more of these forums. The website itself is an excellent resource on foreign affairs, too.

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Oh look, Obama changed his mind... on FISA

"Today, Barack Obama is going to vote for the FISA bill he swore to filibuster when he needed the support of the far left.
The Senate is finally expected to wrap up the bill updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act today, which includes the controversial provision of retroactive immunity for telecom companies facing lawsuit. While the bill splits Democrats, it's expected to pass with united Republican support.

Obama will be back for today's vote and has said he'll support final passage."
More at LGF.

Change? You betcha!

UPDATE
FISA Reform Passes; Obama Votes "Yes," Breaking His Promise

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Bilingualism and Obama

Obama was saying,
You know, I don't understand when people are going around worrying about, "We need to have English - only." They want to pass a law, "We want English-only."

Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But understand this. Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English -- they'll learn English -- you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.

You know, it's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say [is], "Merci beaucoup." Right?

You know, no, I'm serious about this. We should understand that our young people, if you have a foreign language, that is a powerful tool to get ajob. You are so much more employable. You can be part of international business. So we should be emphasizing foreign languages in our schools from an early age, because children will actually learn a foreign language easier when they're 5, or 6, or 7 than when they're 46, like me.
Obama does pronounce Spanish very clearly when he does his political ads. He also does it for a political purpose. His thought that Americans should make their children bilingual in Spanish panders to "Hispanics" who are not interested in assimilating, but makes no sense vis-a-vis the argument that doing so would keep Americans from embarrassment when traveling in Europe: only a small number of Europeans speak Castillian (including, increasingly, non-Castillians born and raised in Spain). May I remind Obama that what we call Spanish in the USA is Castillian in Spain?

Andrew Leonard thinks that
There's nothing particularly exceptional about Obama's position, unless you are an English-only partisan cowering in fear of your cultural identity being swamped by funny-looking people from strange lands. Or one of the similarly insecure patriots who believe any criticism of the U.S. is a sign of "blame-America-first" treachery. And I suppose the whole comment about "going to Europe" opens Obama up to more charges of elitism, and disconnection from the lives of those who, right now, can't afford to even think about going to Europe.
Leonard clearly ignored people like myself, who are fully bilingual in Spanish, and who also can read French and a little Portuguese. Some of us are "Hispanic" (which, as I've said before is a term I use for expediency), many of us are not. I have met thousands of Americans born and raised in the USA who are multilingual.

People like myself are not "cowering in fear of your cultural identity being swamped by funny-looking people from strange lands." For starters, even when we come from "strange lands", we are not "funny-looking people". Indeed, people like me are fully integrated Americans and look like everyone else, i.e., unfunny.

What we fear is not that our "cultural identity" may or may not be "swamped", because we are secure in our cultural identity; What we worry about is that new immigrants (documented or not) who hadn't had a quality education in their countries of origin would deny themselves the opportunities our great country offers by not wanting to learn English and limit themselves to regions of the country where only their native tongue is spoken. The best paid professions in the world rely on English as their common language. India has become a dynamic economy because English-speaking jobs get outsourced to India. People how aren't willing to learn English (and I mean standard, proper, grammatically correct English) are sentencing themselves to a lifetime of poorly-paid jobs and missed opportunities.

Additionally, every country with an official second language is permanently divided. While the teaching of foreign languages (in plural - considering China's ascendancy in the global scene, Mandarin comes in handy) should be compulsory in every school in our country, English is and should remain America's language. All the original documents that created this nation should be read in the original English to be fully understood.

Which brings me to Victor Davis Hanson: his experience mirrors mine when it comes to multi-lingual America,
I was watching Obama complain that we don't speak European languages while Europeans speak English fluently. Fair enough—though the vast size of the US, the presence of two oceans on our borders, the ubiquity of Spanish here, the knowledge of other languages by millions of Americans, both explain a lot, and belie the notion that we are all English-only speakers, while the multitude of nations in close proximity has historically made Europeans by necessity multi-lingual.
Hanson, a university professor, adds the educational angle:
But that said, Obama's previous idealization of minority-theme charter schools and the need for more "oppression studies" are precisely the sorts of therapeutic curricula that ensure Americans are not getting classical instruction in languages and literatures. We still await his visit to an inner-city school where he might lecture the student body and faculty that more Latin, French, math, and Shakespeare would do more to make students competitive in an increasingly tough, global job market than thousands of hours of oppression studies and victimization classes.
Obama is wrong in believing that "Immigrants will learn English" on their own well enough to meet the challenges of any well-paid profession. Immigrants need to learn the structure, grammar, syntax and pronunciation of proper English. I know this from my own personal experience. Additionally, when it comes to the instruction of foreign languages in schools, the more classroom hours you dedicate to "self-esteem" oriented or victimization studies, the fewer hours you'll have for rigorous academic curricula of any kind, foreign languages included.

And that's not the way to favorably impress the Europeans, or anyone. TigerHawk has more on that.

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