Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
by John Cole| 5 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
A remarkably balanced article on Iraq in the NY Times:
In his news conference, Mr. Bremer listed what he called America’s achievements (although many of his comparisons were from immediately after the war, when services were far worse than before it began): 40,000 police officers on the streets; 13,000 new reconstruction projects; more electricity generated now than before the war; 1,500 schools renovated; 22 million vaccinations; 4,900 Internet connections
This post is in: Foreign Affairs
By all accounts, Shirin Ebadi is an inspired choice for the Nobel Peace Prize:
Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize Friday for her work defending human rights in an award aimed at inspiring democratic reform across the Muslim world.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Ebadi, one of Iran’s first woman judges before the Islamic revolution forced her to step down, for work focused on the rights of women and children.
Here is an old Christian Science Monitor article about Ebadi, and it appears that the Nobel committee used this selection to send a message to the Middle East:
“In my country, Iran, there is still a continued struggle for democracy and human rights,” she wrote this year.
“Iranian people want to reform their political and legal system,” she said. “They are protesting against the few people who have power.”
Nobel watchers say that the committee, which includes three women, probably chose Ebadi as a way of promoting change, rather than rewarding the ailing pope or to Havel for a lifetime of peace work.
They say the committee has been seeking to promote moderates in the Muslim world since the September 11 attacks on the United States to avoid stoking conflicts between religions after U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Nobel Committee’s own write-up is here. Seems to be a pretty decent choice.
by John Cole| 10 Comments
This post is in: Democratic Stupidity
The folks at Tapped, having recently dropped their anonymity, appear in a rush to associate buffoonery with their actual names. Their most recent scandal involves charges of racism against Hillsdale College, penned by Richard Just:
THE GOOD OLD DAYS. One page of National Review’s new special supplement on higher education is, I think, worthy of special recognition. The supplement is filled with ads for various schools — mostly obscure religious institutions such as Christendom College in Front Royal, Va., and Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. But on page 18, there is an ad for Hillsdale Academy, a kindergarten-through-12th-grade school located in Michigan. The top of the ad reads, “Want to Bring Back ‘The Good Old Days’?” and beneath it is a photo of six white kids.
You can look at the ad and decide for yourself exactly what kind of good old days the folks at Hillsdale Academy are seeking to bring back. I didn’t think the message was too thinly veiled.
Outraged by the slander against Hillsdale and National review, Jonah Goldberg unloaded in the Corner:
I did look at the ad myself and I drew one inescapable conclusion: I think Richard Just is a bigot. Time and again the bloggers at The American Prospect have simply asserted that conservatives are motivated by cartoonishly villainous motives. Remember their nonsense about how liberals oppose a military draft for high-minded reasons, but conservatives oppose the idea because it would make America a better and more just society? But this is just appalling. So unless he ate some bad clams, he has no excuse. And he should certainly apologize…
Whatever the reason, Mr. Just sees no need to inquire because he already knows
by John Cole| 13 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
I have no patience for zero tolerance rules, so this story has me reeling:
Boyfriend and girlfriend, 15-year-olds Brandon Kizi and Andra Ferguson are both asthma sufferers and both students at Caney Creek High School. At least, they were, until Andra began suffering an asthma attack at school.
“I couldn’t breathe, and I was just very short of breath,” recalled Andra. “My chest was tightened up and it was hurting.”
Brandon described the incident. “Her face was turning a little reddish-pink and she looked pale, as far as I could see. I loaned her my inhaler. I walked her to the nurse’s office and loaned her my inhaler.”
That’s when the trouble started. The school nurse called the school police, who arrested Brandon. They charged him with a felony, namely distributing a dangerous drug for loaning out his prescription inhaler. Andra’s mother thinks that’s wrong. “His (inhaler) is the very same thing. And he has had my permission to give her that medication any time she forgets it,” said Sandra Ferguson.
Is our children learning? Yes- they are learning we are not serious at all. For a whole lot of fun with zero tolerance idiocy, check out this website: Losing My Tolerance for Zero Tolerance.
Full disclosure- I carried a pocket knife and aspirin in school. Lots of my friends even had *GASP* shotguns and rifles and compound bows and hunting knives in their trunks. Crazy, aren’t I?
(via TalkLeft)
by John Cole| 14 Comments
This post is in: Politics
This, hands down, is the best piece about the recall yet:
Yet, by election eve, liberals had worked themselves into quite a self-deluding and frenzied lather. The same apologists for Clinton
by John Cole| 10 Comments
This post is in: Democratic Stupidity
The reason I am not watching the Democrat debates is because I can not stand that much idiocy in such a condensed format. I prefer sound bites, where I can hear the stupids at brief intervals. At any rate, I accidentally flipped through CNN and heard Dick Gephardt condemn Bush for not having “an energy plan that makes us no longer dependent on Middle Eastern oil.”
Take a moment, think of the immensity of the stupidity in the statement by itself, then think about the Democrat unwillingness to drill domestically or use nuclear power, and then talk amongst yourselves.
by John Cole| 8 Comments
This post is in: Democratic Stupidity
Taranto said the dumbest thing this week, but here is a close second:
“That same kind of anger and frustration can happen across the country if the economy doesn’t improve, if the job situation doesn’t improve, if gridlock in Washington continues on major issues,” said Leon E. Panetta, a former U.S. House member representing California and White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration. “If I were an incumbent in any office, I would be a lot more nervous today.”
Gray Davis’s Approval Rating: 27%
George Bush’s Approval Rating: 56%
OK, math majors, take a whack at Leon Panetta.
Just as I think it is stupid to say that the recall election now puts California into play for Bush (it might help, a little), it is exceptionally stupid to say that because a very unpopular DEMOCRAT governor is voted out of office it is a sign that Bush is in trouble. How do these people say these things with a straight face?
At any rate, this race was not anti-incumbent- using the word incumbent in the general sense. This race was anti-incumbent in the sense that people were saying “I can not stand the damned scum-sucking car tax raising, lying incumbent Gray Davis.” Besides, this wasn’t a regular election, and I didn’t really view him as an incumbent, per se. The whole election was to recall the bastard outside the general election, so of course there was an ANTI-INCUMBENT sentiment. Jeebus, people.
*** Update ***
It was mentioned in the comments that the press frequently referred to he 1994 Congressional elections (Contract with America elections) as ‘anti-incumbent,’ even though NOT ONE Republican incumbent lost his/her seat. That is not anti-incumbent, that is anti-Democrat.
Even sillier is the assertion that the only reason the republicans won is because the elections were “anti-Clinton; Gingrich successfully rode a wave of antigay, antitax, and anti-single-payer hysteria into the Speakership.” Yes, they were a referendum on Clinton, but it is widely accepted that there was a dramatic re-alignment in the south, the Democrats were in dis-array, we just had Somalia and the Haiti debacles, and Hillary was trying to nationalize Health Care. Gays in the military was a non-issue, and the main reason taxes were an issue (other than always being a staple of a conservative platform) was the outrage over Clinton promising middle class tax cuts in 1992, then promptly beginning to back away from that promise after he secured the election, and then saying he just couldn’t figure out how to do it once he took office. In other words, he lied- at the very least according to the lax standards that Democrats are now holding Bush.
The commenter fails to mention the Contract because he may have disliked the policies, but many people didn’t, and the GOP did a good job of trying to follow through on their promises, that is why they were not thrown out in 1996. Just because you may dislike history, Democrats, does not mean you can re-write it.