Saturday, June 18, 2005

 

If you missed Jon Stewart's riff asking people to please stop comparing anyone they have a "mild disagreement" with to Hitler, here is the link. He is absolutely right. I hope everyone is paying attention and will realize how they foolish they look when they trot out their obligatory Nazi reference. As Stewart says, it demeans them and their opponents. Why would you want to say something that just makes reasonable people assume you're a jerk. Or maybe reasonable people aren't your target audience.... Anyways, check out Stewart; he's very funny and spot on.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:55 PM 0 comments

 

Winfield Myers reports on the efforts that the White House is making to get Jewish organizations to support John Bolton because of his exhaustive efforts to get the UN resolution equating Zionism with racism repealed in 1991.

It's for that reason that, one would hope, Jewish groups would recognize that backing Bolton's nomination, even at the expense of disagreeing with some Jewish groups who'd rather not take a position on Bolton. For in Bolton, they'll find a proven ally who will stand up to the thugs at the UN, whatever their shortcomings, and defend American interests along with those of Israel.

This is all fine and good, but my question is why it took the White House so long to make this effort. They should have done it as soon as he was nominated. They should have been pressing this achievement as one of the main talking points for his defense. How this ever became of question of his demeanor to co-workers is really beyond me and shows how successful the Democrats have been in turning the discussion away from what needs to be done in the UN and Bolton's own personality.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:55 PM 0 comments

 

Patrick Ruffini takes on the Christopher Bowers provocative hypothesis that liberal bloggers are killing on the Internet because they have comments and communities and people can post their own entries on the big bloggers. Here is what Bowers stated:

I spent much of the morning looking at the Blogads traffic rankings. Adding up the 200 blogs that are concerned with politics and either identify or have been identified with Democrats / liberals or Republicans / conservatives, I found 87 blogs that general fit into the "liberal" category and 113 blogs that fit into the conservative category. However, despite the greater number of conservative blogs, the liberal blogs totaled nearly ten million page views per week, while the conservative blogs managed just over six million.

Ruffini responds making these points:

Conservative blogs may be smaller, but they are more densely interconnected. Conversation on conservative blogs is just as likely to happen between blogs as within them.

And

Bowers disparages the proliferation of large numbers of mid-tier conservative blogs, but in what way is this unhealthy? In fact, most of the cooperative, traffic-sharing arrangements in the blogosphere have emerged on the right.

I see a parallel among the blogs on the left and right with how fund raising has worked between Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats, before McCain-Feingold, always trailed the Republicans in hard money because they depended more on big money donors while the Republicans did better at getting many small donors. So, the liberal bloggers might have more of the big traffic blogs, but the conservative bloggers are doing better at having more bloggers at the mid-tier level. Sounds fine to me. And as Ruffini remarks in the comments section of his post, the conservative bloggers had a more powerful effect in the 2004 election. I'm with Patrick. I'll take success over traffic ratings anytime.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:42 PM 0 comments

 

Here's a sweet story about a grocer who became the Earl of Essex.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:24 PM 0 comments

 

Mark at Decision '08 fisks Howard Zinn's latest.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 4:19 PM 0 comments

 

Richard Baehr has an article at The American Thinker looking at a disctinctly ugly little monster that is appearing occasionally in the Democratic Party: anti-Semitism.

So the Democrats in Congress are now giving voice and credibility to the view that Israel was responsible for the Iraq war. And other Democrats, watching the hearing at the DNC, are hosting anti-Semites who argue that Israel had advance warning of the 9/11 attacks and is therefore responsible for allowing the attacks to occur. And even deeper into familiar anti-Semitic tropes: that Israelis withheld the information so as to benefit financially.

This sounds exactly like classic anti-Semitism. These messages were not being conveyed on anti-Semitic web sites, or on Palestinian TV and radio on Thursday, but at a Democratic function from a meeting room in Congress, with more than 10% of the Democrats in Congress in attendance, and at Democratic National Headquarters. . In all likelihood, these outrageous charges are now being communicated and rebroadcast throughout the Arab and Muslim world, with the imprimatur and legitimacy of the Democratic National Committee, and the US Congress as the reliable source.

Until late Friday, no Democratic Party official or Congressman, had expressed any discomfort with what happened. Now, we have a statement by Congressman Barney Frank, saying he was out of the conference room when the bad stuff happened in the mock impeachment trial, and that he thinks McGovern's view are noxious. So too, DNC Chairman Howard Dean released a statement saying the DNC rejects the hate literature that was being distributed in its own office.

In fact, the activist groups that watched the meeting at the DNC, and handed out the moonbat conspiracy literature blaming Israel for 9/11, were there as guests of the DNC. No one at the DNC can claim that they were surprised that the "hearing" in Congress or the advocacy in their office took on an anti-Semitic slant. McGovern's views are well known (that is why he was invited by Conyers, presumably), and the activists were handing out their anti-Semitic literature openly to everyone in sight in the DNC office.

On another note, on Fox News Grapevine last night, they reported that the House UN Reform Bill contained an amendment directing the next UN ambassador to oppose any anti-Semitic statements or resolutions at the UN. It passed 405-2. The two opposing: Texas Republican/Libertarian Ron Paul and Georgia Democrat Cynthia McKinney. Sorry, being a Libertarian doesn't absolve you from opposing such an amendment. And Cynthia McKinney has just confirmed all the evidence there has been that she is anti-Semitic. Remember how her dad blamed the J-E-W-S for her defeat in the 2002 congressional elections. Well, she's back. I'd like to see both party's leaders condemn Paul and McKinney.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:54 PM 0 comments

 

Lileks has a Star Trek solution for all the huffing and puffing about Guantanamo.

I have a solution. It’s time to institute Disintegration Chambers in our major America cities.

If you recall that episode of Star Trek – and I would be rather stunned if you did not – there were two warring planets that had long ago decided against waging physical war, and started to wage a virtual one. Computers fought the war, and if your planet’s computer somehow let the other guy’s virtual cobalt bomb in, it would calculate the death toll. Those people who lived in the area hit by the virtual bomb would walk into a Disintegration Chamber and poof! Very tidy, and the infrastructure was left standing. Kirk, naturally, put a stop to it by wrecking the mainframes and snarling “now you have a real war on your hands, Chancellor.” Supposedly the planets would be so frightened by the prospect of ruptured sewer lines they would immediately sue for peace. They never did go back to that system. I would have liked to have seen if the planets stopped warring, or got together and started invading others, or just blew each other up six times over. But that was Kirk: he got the ball rolling, and that was his job.

Anyway. Here’s the deal. We decide what constitutes torture, and identify it as the following: insufficient air conditioning, excess air conditioning, sleep deprivation, being chained to the floor, and other forms of psychological stress. The United States is free to use these techniques against hardened terrorists. Those who disagree with the techniques sign a register that records their complaints. When the terrorist finally spills the details of a forthcoming attack, on, say, Chicago, the people who signed the register and live in Chicago are required to report to the Disintegration Chamber. Very simple. Everyone’s happy.

Read the rest.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:11 AM 0 comments

 

Wow, what is getting into Martin Peretz of The New Republic? He has a whole column praising George Bush and even has this to say about John Bolton.

Which brings me to John Bolton. Whatever his would-be tormentors say, he is hardly being opposed because he's a nasty man or because he delivered a speech not vetted by the State Department or because he played rough with people lower on his totem pole or because he didn't believe some intelligence emanating from the CIA. (This last is actually a sign of his wisdom. The CIA has been peddling feeble and dangerous intelligence for decades.) Bolton's offense is to believe that American democracy has enemies; that words alone will not hinder their weapons; and that the United Nations is an alliance of those too weak-willed to stand up and fight for the good. Bolton believes in the sovereign power of democracies because they are responsive and responsible to their peoples. The United Nations cannot even pretend to embody such legitimacy.

Peretz better watch out or he won't be invited to all the cool parties for rich Democrats.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:13 AM 0 comments

Friday, June 17, 2005

 

Donald Sensing provides some pictures to provide a history lesson for Senator Durbin and all those on the left (just read his comments section) who seem in dire need of such instruction. (link via Red State)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:56 PM 0 comments

 

Robert Farley reports from his time spent grading the AP Government exams. Apparently some students get to take the exam for free and don't, shall we say, put all that much effort into their answers.

The best exams, the ones that lighten our day, are those of the students who just don't care. Some students get to take the exams for free. Many of these haven't the faintest about the topic at hand. A subset of these spend their 100 minute period writing about their lives. Writing for people you'll never meet seems to be liberating. I've read bitter tirades directed against the entire male gender. I've read multiple loss-of-virginity accounts. I've read about drug use, crushes, future plans, baseball, football, cats, parents and whatever else you can imagine seventeen year olds caring about. All of these get zero points, but I always read them with great care.

I'm sure that my students hope that there are lots of students taking the AP Government and History exams who were seized with such, er, creative impulses. The more the better. Lower that curve!

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:25 PM 0 comments

 

Head on over to Right Wing News to read a wonderful story about how a robber tried to hold up a beauty school in Shreveport and the women ended up attacking him with curling irons and chairs and just beat the bejeezus out of this guy so badly they he wished that was at Gitmo.

"An armed robber brandishing a revolver and some tough talk entered Blalock's Beauty College demanding money Tuesday afternoon.

He left crying, bleeding and under arrest, after Dianne Mitchell, her students and employees attacked the suspect, beating him into submission.

Mitchell tripped the robber as he tried to leave and cried aloud "get that sucker" as the group of about 20, nearly all women, some wielding curling irons, bludgeoned him until police arrived.

"You can tell the world don't mess with the women here," said the 53-year-old who manages the Shreveport beauty school in the 5400 block of Mansfield Road.

Go read the rest and you'll be smiling for the rest of the evening. I wish they'd had a video camera to capture this melee.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:05 PM 0 comments

 

Jay Nordlinger notes the cognitive dissonance he experienced hearing Amnesty International call Gitmo a modern gulag while reading about someone who was imprisoned in an actual gulag.

By the way, this Gitmo/Gulag stuff came at a particularly bad time for me, as I was reading — re-reading — Natan Sharansky’s very great memoir, Fear No Evil. (It first appeared in 1988.) Sharansky spent nine years in the Gulag — the real one — and over 400 of those days were in punishment cells. What he had to suffer was almost inconceivably depraved. To read Sharansky, while Amnesty International is squawking about Guantanamo, is enough to make you hate Amnesty for the rest of your life.

As I think I might have mentioned in a previous column, I talked with Sharansky when he was in New York, and have an interview-essay in the new NR. You may enjoy reading it, as he has many, many interesting things to say. And he gives the lie to the idea that no greatness can be found in a small, mean age.

Nordlinger's Impromptus columns are some of my real favorites to read every week. Be sure to check him out.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:43 PM 0 comments

 

Move America Forward has launched an "I love Gitmo: Lock the terrorists up" campaign. Go and buy your sticker.

Meanwhile, check out Donald Rumsfeld's defense of Gitmo in USA Today.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:17 PM 0 comments

 

Well, Durbin has come out with a non-apology statement.

“More than 1700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and our country’s standing in the world community has been badly damaged by the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this Administration which add to the risk our soldiers face.”

“I will continue to speak out when I disagree with this Administration.”

“I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support.”

So, the only thing he regrets is that someone misunderstands what he said, not what he said. He said earlier today on the radio that he had no regrets.

Q. No regrets on the statements you made?

Durbin: No, I don't, and I'll tell you why.

He then goes on to expand on his criticisms of Guantanamo. Let's be clear. The reason he doesn't regret his comparison is because deep down he despises Republicans and thinks that they're evil. Thus, any administration policy on detainees would be, by definition, evil because it comes from Bush and Rumsfeld.

And be sure to check out The Anchoress's explanation that "Words mean things. “Torture” means more than rap music."

And it means more than having to stand for a few hours, or a hot, stuffy room, or the air conditioner turned up too high, or a cold meal instead of three hot ones.

There is “information gathering” and there is torture. Information gathering is what we are supposed to do (what our intelligence people were supposed to be doing for years, remember, except they weren’t allowed to talk to “bad people” under Clinton?) in order to collect information which will help to prevent further attacks on our nation, our vessels, our interests around the world, our citizens and - hopefully - our troops.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:08 PM 0 comments

 

Charles Krauthammer talks today about the importance of assimilating immigrants to our country.

Being mankind's first-ever universal nation, to use Ben Wattenberg's felicitous phrase for our highly integrated polyglot country, carries enormous advantage. In the shrunken world of the information age, we have significant populations of every ethnicity capable of making instant and deep connections -- economic as well as diplomatic -- with just about every foreign trouble spot, hothouse and economic dynamo on the planet.

That is a priceless and unique asset. It is true that other countries, particularly in Europe, have in the past several decades opened themselves up to immigration. But the real problem is not immigration but assimilation. Anyone can do immigration. But if you don't assimilate the immigrants -- France, for example, has vast, isolated exurban immigrant slums with populations totally alienated from the polity and the general culture -- then immigration becomes not an asset but a liability.

America's genius has always been assimilation, taking immigrants and turning them into Americans. Yet our current debates on immigration focus on only one side of the issue -- the massive waves of illegal immigrants that we seem unable to stop.

He goes on to endorse English immersion courses for immigrant children rather than the ineffective, yet popular among PC activists, bilingual programs. I taught English as a Second Language in my earliest years as a teacher and I was always so impressed by the deep desire of my students to learn English. They drank in every word I said in an eager way that my American students just don't have. Krauthammer is exactly right that we are doing our country and the immigrants a huge disservice by not focusing on intensive English education for them.

I am always so saddened to see the focus in American education on celebrating diversity and all our students' various cultures. From the first days of American public education, the fundamental purpose has been to create virtuous citizens. Our founding fathers believed that our republic would survive and prosper only if the citizens were virtuous. As more immigrants came to the country, there was a conscious effort to mold children into American citizens. There was a belief that there was a common American culture that could be transferred to every new generation. I am old enough to remember my 6th grade text book that had a chapter on "America: The Melting Pot" with a very non-PC picture of a big soup pot that showed little people going into the pot. They wore the stereotypical clothes of various cultures such as the Irishman in a green suit and the women from India wearing a sari. Then it showed them coming out of the soup wearing red, white, and blue waving American flags. You would never, ever see such a picture in a textbook today. The preferred metaphor that teachers are taught to use is that America is not a melting pot, but a mixed salad: lots of different cultures that mix well together but maintain their individual cultures. Great.

I've studied enough history to know what happens to countries that are made up of people with different cultures who don't feel that they share anything in common. It is not a happy history. Examples abound from Yugoslavia, to Russia to Iraq. Or think of Canada and Quebec. We had enough problems in our own nation's history when the South and North in the 19th century saw themselves as truly different cultures. Let's do as Krauthammer advocates and return to focus on assimilating the immigrants who come to our country. I just wish that, in schools and elsewhere throughout our culture, we would see more celebration of what unites us and less trumpeting of what divides us. Forget Black History Month and Women's History Month and let's just study history.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:07 PM 0 comments

 

John Hawkins has up a list of some of the most embarrassing things said by members of the MSM. Check it out and remember why you love and admire the members of the elite media so very much.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:37 AM 0 comments

 

Friday marks the 19-year anniversary of Rehnquist being nominated for Chief Justice. In the Associated Press story on Rehnquist's anniversary, they point out that Rehnquist is looking healthier than he had before.

William H. Rehnquist was tapped to be chief justice 19 years ago Friday, and while conventional wisdom says his combination of age and cancer won't allow him to stay around for a 20th, some court watchers are not so sure.

They point out that he looks better than he had been, is keeping a regular schedule and, maybe most important of all, still loves his work. All that adds up to the possibility — still slim — that he'll confound everyone and stay put, perhaps for another full term.

Doctors, who haven't examined him, aren't as sure that he has the deadlier form of thyroid cancer.

The big question mark is the seriousness of Rehnquist's illness. Based on the treatment plan of chemotherapy and radiation, it was thought Rehnquist had anaplastic thyroid cancer, a fast-growing form that can kill within months.

Dr. Kenneth Burman, a thyroid specialist at Washington Hospital Center, now questions whether Rehnquist has that type of cancer.

Burman, who is not involved in Rehnquist's treatment, said the chief justice may have a less serious type of thyroid cancer, or he may be receiving experimental drugs. Rehnquist could have access to the those medicines through clinical trials in the Washington area.

Dr. Leonard Wartofsky, another thyroid cancer expert at Washington Hospital Center, said if Rehnquist has anaplastic thyroid cancer, "he's still on a downhill course with a very bleak prognosis." But if he has another type of cancer, like thyroid lymphoma, he could live for years, Wartofsky said.

I've thought for a while that there was a great possibility that Rehnquist would not step down this summer. He loves his job. If you've read his book on the Supreme Court, his love of the job and veneration for the Court as an institution comes through loud and clear. Since his wife died, I suspect that his entire life revolves around his work. If I were a friend of the Chief Justice, my fear would be that he would lose his reason for living if he stepped down from the Court. I would want my friend to stay on the Court as long as physically possible because I would consider that his job was keeping him alive. And he may consider that he has no obligation to resign and give Bush and the Senate a change for ugly nomination warfare. I may be totally wrong and wind up with scrambled egg all over my face two weeks from now, but I'm sticking by that prediction until proven otherwise.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:28 AM 0 comments

 

Captain Ed and John in Carolina point out some prisoner abuse that Senator Dick Durbin should be paying more attention to. Captain Ed asks this question: Is this Gitmo or Cook County Jail?

A] prisoner ... said he was beaten unconscious by guards who had wrapped handcuffs around their fists to make the beating worse. ... Several days later, the whites of his eyes were nearly obscured by the red from blood vessels that had ruptured during the beating, and deep lacerations were held together by staples that had been applied to his scalp. Late last year ... another prisoner ... told of being dragged by several guards through a fire of burning paper and debris that had been raging in the cellblock. His account of this abuse was substantiated by blisters and deep burn marks on his leg.

Yup, that happened in Cook County, Illinois. And the Sheriff of Cook County, Michael Sheahon, simply denied that such abuse had taken place while getting rid of the whistleblower.

The investigator who exposed the 1999 incident, Charles Holman, has been transferred from his job of investigating misconduct at the jail. Correctional officers Roger Fairley and Richard Gackowski have been forced to quit their jobs and have been unable to find new ones.

The second group of accountable officials is the Cook County Board of Commissioners. The board did not punish any of the medical personnel who the investigator had found to have falsified documents or then-Cook County Inspector General Timothy Flick, who had thumbed his nose at the jail investigation. (Flick left Cook County last year to join the Office of Homeland Security in Texas, but his name should ring a bell with the county commissioners. In January a federal jury in Chicago awarded one of Flick's employees $500,000 for the sexual harassment she had endured from Flick while he headed the inspector general's office; $100,000 of that award must be paid by Cook County.)

As Captain Ed concludes,

We'll start taking Durbin seriously when he calls for the National Guard in Illinois to take over the Cook County Jail and demands a federal investigation of his political ally Michael Sheahan, for years of allegations involving abuses much more profound than anything contained in that silly e-mail Durbin read on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday. Until then, chalk up Durbin's feigned moral outrage to the worst kind of political opportunism.

Exactly.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:13 AM 0 comments

 

I'm with David Gerlernter.

Not knowing history is worse than ignorance of math, literature or almost anything else. Ignorance of history is undermining Western society's ability to talk straight and think straight. Parents must attack the problem by teaching their own children the facts. Only fools would rely on the schools.

His point is that people can get away with these facile comparisons to gulags and Pol Pot because people just don't know the real history anymore.

Ignorance of history destroys our judgment. Consider Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill), who just compared the Guantanamo Bay detention center to Stalin's gulag and to the death camps of Hitler and Pol Pot — an astonishing, obscene piece of ignorance. Between 15 million and 30 million people died from 1918 through 1956 in the prisons and labor camps of the Soviet gulag. Historian Robert Conquest gives some facts. A prisoner at the Kholodnaya Gora prison had to stuff his ears with bread before sleeping on account of the shrieks of women being interrogated. At the Kolyma in Siberia, inmates labored through 12-hour days in cheap canvas shoes, on almost no food, in temperatures that could go to minus-58. At one camp, 1,300 of 3,000 inmates died in one year.

"Gulag" must not go the way of "Nazi" and become virtually meaningless. Europeans love calling Israelis "Nazis" — a transparent attempt to slough off their guilt like rattlesnakes shedding skin. ("See, the Jews are as bad as we were!") I'd like to ban the word "Nazi" except when applied to … Nazis. Lawbreakers would be ordered to learn what Nazi actually means.

Exactly. I was critical of Senator Santorum when he used an easy Hitler comparison, but at least he apologized the next day and didn't try to defend himself while sticking by the comparison.

The victims of the gulags and Pol Pot can't speak for themselves, so we need to speak up on their behalf. Ask yourself: if you were in the gulags or the killing fields, what would you have given to have been transferred to our detainment facilities at Gitmo?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:55 AM 0 comments

 

Michelle Malkin has a good roundup of the blogger reaction and the Democratic senatorial and MSM nonreaction to Dick Durbin's comparison of conditions at Gitmo to Nazi, Soviet, and Khmer Rouge genocide.

The MSM will cover this as a story about Republicans and bloggers being angry at Durbin. Therefore, it will basically be a story about conservatives instead of about Durbin's slander. The New York Times has a brief mention of the story and focuses the whole story around Republican criticism.

But the real kicker is how it is covered in the Chicago Tribune. Note the headline:

Dick Durbin's passion ignites foes' ire

The Illinois senator's charged attacks on Republicans inspire his party while firing up his critics--and he's not backing down

And get this treacly intro

With his unassuming Midwestern demeanor and genial bearing, Dick Durbin is no one's vision of a political street fighter.

Yet Illinois' senior senator--who is growing in stature as a national Democratic voice and a font of strategic and communications advice for a party eager to regain its footing--found himself on the receiving end of Republican outrage this week.

Then, after summarizing Durbin's outrageous remarks and GOP reaction, the article then goes on to praise Durbin as a Democratic Senate leader.

Though he lacks the celebrity status of his junior counterpart, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Durbin is far more potent in the Senate as the person Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) turns to first for advice.

Durbin, said Reid, "has all the talents I don't have."

Indeed, having Durbin by his side has been something of a relief to the press-shy Nevadan. "Dick Durbin is the best debater in the Senate," Reid said in an interview. "He's unquestionably the best. On the most difficult issues, you send Durbin to the floor."

Okay, so Durbin is the best, the one the Democrats want out there on the floor representing them. And he's not backing down. He stands by his comparison. Unbelievable. He claims that by comparing the treatment of prisoners to those maniacs, he's not actually making a comparison overall to Nazis, Soviets, or the Khmrer Rouge. This is the convoluted logic that his spokesman uses.

"He later added that Durbin's comments were meant to compare torture at Guantanamo Bay to torture during the Nazi regime, not equate Americans at the base to Nazis and similar groups."

Huh? You can compare behavior and think that is not comparing the groups themselves? I don't get this equation: You act like a Nazi, but I'm not comparing you to a Nazi.

Durbin is another one of the Democrats, like Howard Dean, who think that making outrageous statements will pump up the base enough to help them win electoral victories. But this isn't enough. They had the base as fired up as it could possibly be in 2004 and they lost seats. They need a positive message and Durbin's and Dean's rhetoric doesn't accomplish that for them, as this analyst notes.

Kenneth Warren, a political science professor at St. Louis University, called Durbin "articulate and impressive," but he questioned whether Democrats have a positive vision to communicate--and whether combat is a substitute for an agenda.

"What do the Democrats stand for? What direction should America go, specifically on things like Social Security?" Warren asked. "I just think the Democrats are in a leadership drought. You can't blame Durbin alone--they just can't seem to be able to get their act together and oppose a lot of the misdirection of the Republicans."

Durbin has embraced a policy of working to stop everything Bush and the GOP propose and doesn't have many friends across the aisle.

So he faces the dual challenge of stoking Democratic passions while at the same time nurturing relationships with Republicans to win GOP support on tough votes.

It's hardly an easy sell. Republicans view Durbin as being "to the left of left-of-center," as Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) put it.

When asked about Durbin's ability to work with Republicans, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) sniffed, "I make it a rule never to be too directly critical of leaders of either party, so I think I should leave it at that."

However, the Democratic Senators just love Durbin.

Although Durbin has held his new leadership post for only six months, he is drawing rave reviews from within his party.

"For me to have him as my partner is a dream come true," Reid said. "If I have a problem, he's the first person I call."

Rank-and-file senators similarly gush over his ability to explain things in easy-to-understand, persuasive terms.

"He puts issues we're dealing with in real American language," said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). "I think he's really a good face for our party."

Part of his strength is derived from his always-ready-for-sound-bite rhetorical skills.

"I think Social Security privatization is dead, but the president hasn't looked in the casket yet," he said recently as Democrats continued to hammer Bush's quest to overhaul the New Deal-era program.

I think every single Democratic Senator should be asked if they agree with their leader's remarks on Gitmo. Get them on the record. Do they agree that our treatment of prisoners at Gitmo is reminiscent of the worst murderers of our world's history. Don't let them get away with some weasly answer that they think the rhetoric is over the top but agree with his condemnation of our treatment. Ask them how they would deal with these people. Pin them down. How would they deal with the guy, Zarqawi's "aide" that we just picked up this week? Would they ask him name, rank, and serial number and then leave it at that or would they try to get any information out of him? What specific techniques would they approve? Which techniques do they disapprove. If they dislike putting the guy in a cold room, what do they recommend? Get these guys on the record?

UPDATE: Senator Durbin's home paper, the Chicago Tribue, doesn't play so lightly with him on its editorial page.

Here we thought Sen. Dick Durbin had a cushy job that he likes. Truth told, he's auditioning for the job of Speechwriter/Silly Similes at Amnesty International.

Their solution is simply to have people ignore him. Sorry, A Senator speaking on the Senate floor badmouthing Americans and American policy and giving ammunition to Al Jazeera and all those who want to whip up hatred for us around the world shouldn't be ignored at home. He should be called to account every time he opens his mouth and all his allies in Congress need to be asked where they stand.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:23 AM 0 comments

Thursday, June 16, 2005

 

We have captured another Zarqawi aide. How many aides does this guy have? And isn't "aide" a rather antiseptic word for a murderous thug like Zarqawi? It makes him sound like a high ranking politician. I think "henchman" would be a better word.

Now that we've captured this new guy what would Dick Durbin want to do with the guy? I guess stripping him and throwing him into an air conditioned room is out. So is playing Christine Aguilera music? They want us to treat these guys like legitimate POW's. POW's can only be asked name, rank, and serial number. Well, we already know this guy's name and they don't have ranks and serial numbers. They don't wear uniforms and aren't members of an army of a recognized nation. They are terrorists who blow up people at the market or trying to get a job at a police station. They kill Americans, and they kill Iraqis. Would Senator Durbin rule out asking this guy any question about his murderous pals? If you're going to give them POW status, we can't ask them questions. We only found this guy because we caught some other henchmen at the end of May and interrogated them. Would Senator Durbin prefer that we had not done so?

Have these guys calling for giving enemy combatants the status of POWs thought at all what that would mean? We wouldn't be able to interrogate anyone we picked up about imminent plans to kill more Iraqis or Americans. We wouldn't be able to try to get information to find any more of these henchmen. Think of how much worse the security situation would be in Iraq if we treated these guys under the same rules meant for soldiers who wear a uniform and fight for a nation that recognizes the Geneva Convention. There is a reason why we have such a convention. It protects civilians. It forces soldiers to wear uniforms so that we know who is and is not a civilian and don't have to fear that each person on the street has plans to kill our guys. Does Senator Durbin and all the rest of the people who think that the Genevea Convention should apply to people who aren't fighting under the rules of the Convention understand this basic fact? They would make warfare even more dangerous for civilians if we did away with that basic distinction.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:04 PM 0 comments

 

The Jawa Report has the photographic response to the reprehensible comment from Daily Kos saying that the torture under Saddam Hussein is equal to the treatment that detainees are getting from the US military at Guantanomo. Warning: the photos of those who were tortured under Saddam are quite upsetting and graphic. Take one look at them and ponder that there those who think that this is equivalent to putting a naked prisoner in a room with the air conditioner turned up. Maybe if we saw a few more pictures like this on the nightly news, people would just get over these phony charges about Gitmo.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:57 PM 0 comments

 

The Iranians are going to have what they choose to call an election tomorrow. Actually, it's a fraud where the mullahs have chosen the candidates and turned down any opposition candidate. The new guy about whom I'm starting to hear a lot is Mostafa Moin. The Associated Press refers to him as a "outspoken Iranian reformist." Michael Ledeen says, however, that we shouldn't be fooled by the descriptions of Moin as a "moderate."

Who's going to win, you ask? I don't know. For months I have assumed that Rafsanjani would walk away with it. But when Supreme Leader Khamenei ostentatiously overruled his henchmen, permitting a nasty pseudo reformer by the name of Moin to run, I have wondered if Khamenei knew something I didn't. Rafsanjani's sins — from gross corruption to mass murder — are fairly well known, and there are probably limits beyond which even a British foreign secretary or a French foreign minister will not go to make nice to the mullahs. President Rafsanjani would test those limits. Moin, on the other hand, isn't so well known, he's got that lean and hungry look instead of Rafsanjani's portliness, and he might be more convincing as he plays that most difficult role: the moderate face of islamofascism.

Remember, if he were truly a reformer, he either wouldn't be allowed to run or wouldn't be allowed to reform anything if he weren't elected.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:24 PM 0 comments

 

John Hawkins has a new motto for the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, he's spot on.

While you're there, scroll down and check out the chart he has up showing the number of Democratic senators from Johnson's administration to now. The trend is undeniable.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:16 PM 0 comments

 

Byron York looks at the New York Times and notes that they have not printed any of the crackpot things that Howard Dean has been saying about Republicans.

Suppose, for a moment, that you carefully read The New York Times, never missing a day, in the firm belief that the Paper of Record will tell you everything you need to know about the world.

Assume, further, that you are so satisfied with the Times that you do not read any other newspapers, magazines or Internet reports, listen to any news on the radio or watch any news programs on television. For you, the Times is it.

If you were such a person, you would have been surprised to learn recently that there was some sort of controversy surrounding Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean. It seems Dean has said a number of things that people considered controversial — so much so that some of his fellow Democrats became openly concerned.

Now, exactly what it was that Dean said, you don’t know. And, as a devout reader of the Times, you still don’t.

Hmmm. Why should this be? Remember that the New York Times has influence way beyond New York city. The rest of the media take cues on what stories to cover based on what the NYT writes about. Their stories are picked up and syndicated in hundreds of smaller newspapers throughout the country. For example, a story in the NYT about Dean would probably be repeated in my local paper, the Raleigh News and Observer which reprints many of the NYT's stories.

Dean's comments have been headline news. He's had to answer questions about what he's said and other Democrats have criticized what he's said. Yet the New York Times is keeping the lid on any reports on what a big mouth Dean is. That is rather remarkable and presents a question that the New York Times' editors should have to answer? Are they deliberately not statements of a prominent Democrat because his words make him look like an angry blowhard?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:57 PM 0 comments

 

Thomas Sowell uses the analogy of the complacency that people developed regarding polio to analyze how people are ready to water down the Patriot Act.

Let us go back to square one, to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which were the reason for passage of the Patriot Act.

Do you remember how long every major public event -- the World Series, Christmas celebrations, the Super Bowl -- was a time of fear of a new terrorist attack? Do you remember all the advice to stock up on medicines or food, so that we could ride out any new terrorist onslaught?

Do you remember all the places that terrorists were expected to strike? The different colors of national alerts being announced regularly?

Now, after years have passed without any of these feared disasters actually happening, the eroding of a sense of danger has led many to repeat the polio fallacy and act as if the dangers from which we have been protected did not exist -- and that the enhanced protection is therefore unnecessary.

The many crackdowns on domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act, as well as the ability to intercept and disrupt their communications under the powers of that Act, receive little or no credit for the fact that there has been no repetition of anything like 9/11.

Let us not let complacency lead us to let down our guard.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:35 PM 0 comments

 

Elizabeth Whelan explains the basic economics of why drug reimportation is such a terrible idea.

The United States, which does not currently have price controls, produces nearly 90 percent of the world's supply of new pharmaceuticals. Countries with price controls do not produce any significant supplies of new drugs — instead, the innovators have fled to the U.S., where they have the protection of the free-market system and protection for intellectual property they create. At least, today they come here.

Tomorrow, who knows.

If Congress approves and endorses importation of drugs from countries with price controls — and if the bill also requires U.S. companies to provide unlimited supplies of their products at the resulting reduced prices — the U.S. will have, in effect, imported price-control policies here under the guise of "drug importation." Most forms of the legislation likely to pass have these effects and will probably be passed without the serious consideration and debate that implementation deserves. Simply put, price controls will be tucked into a Trojan horse that appears to bring cheaper drugs.

There are decades of observations indicating that countries with pharmaceutical price controls do not produce new products. Indeed, here in the U.S. there are already virtual price controls on one segment of the pharmaceutical industry — vaccines — and we see one company after another abandoning this area of production. Given that governments purchase vaccines at discount prices, there are few incentives for companies to remain in the business. The disappearing vaccine industry is a harbinger of what will come if price controls are put in place on all drugs.

If you or anyone you care about suffers from any disease whatsoever, ask yourself. Do you want drug industries to stop researching new treatments for that disease? Are you willing to rely on the status quo in drug treatments for the rest of your lives? Because research and development will dry up if we import price controls. Why do so many people believe that companies will produce something for nothing and that they can just pass some law and poof! we can have low drug prices with no effect whatsoever on the pharmaceutical industry?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:15 PM 0 comments

 

How dreary to think of facing John Edwards' tiresome "two Americas" spiel again in 2008. He's making appearances in Iowa now and David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register thinks that Edwards will face a dilemma.

The former North Carolina senator and Democratic vice-presidential candidate has started an anti-poverty center and think tank. He's also running for president again in 2008.

The dilemma facing him is this: Can he stand up to Democratic constituency groups and tell them things they may not want to hear about fighting poverty while still courting them in another bid for the White House?

It could be difficult. If he speaks bluntly about how some anti-poverty efforts haven't worked, about how new approaches are needed or how poor people need to take more responsibility for their own conditions and actions, he could alienate the very left-of-center groups he needs to win a Democratic presidential nomination.

But if he just panders to them - as he was largely doing in a luncheon speech to the Iowa Coalition for Housing and the Homeless in Des Moines on Tuesday - then we can dismiss his center's work as just another effort to keep some politician in the limelight.

Oh, come on. You know that if it comes to blunt, unwelcome speaking and pandering, Edwards will pick pandering every time.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:09 PM 0 comments

 

Stephen Spruiell has a powerful letter from a soldier headed to Iraq. Here is the gist of his concern.

God forbid, if something happens to me over here, I do not want to be used by the likes of Phil Hansen in Seattle, Michael Moore, Gary Trudeau, or Ted Koppel, to make their political points against the war, the President, and finally the country, all the while saying "they support the troops".

He wants to know if there is some list he can sign so that, if he died, opponents of the war couldn't use his death as a weapon against the administration and the war. Sounds like someone needs to set up a website where GI's could sign up their wishes not to have their sacrifice be used for ulterior motives.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:06 PM 0 comments

 

Dick Durbin's infamous remarks comparing the treatment of prisoners at Gitmo show that the argument-by-metaphor approach to foreign policy that the Democrats have adopted has finally turned them loose from reality. Durbin wanted to get beyond the cliches of Nazis and Soviet gulags. That is so last week. He needed something new and had to stretch and compare our armed forces to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's genocide of 1.7 million Cambodians.

On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. ..... On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Just a reminder to Senator Dick. The millions and millions of victims of the Nazi concentration camps, Soviet gulags, and Cambodian killing fields were innocent men, women, and children killed because of their religion, political beliefs, or sheer inconvenience to the reigning tyrants. The people at Gitmo, who are not being killed or tortured, are terrorists who want to kill us.

I'm with Radioblogger on this: overuse of genocidal metaphors cheapens the tragedy of the victims of genocidal maniacs like Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot.

The bottom line is there is no comparison between these very low points in world history, and what's going on at Guantanemo. And those people who would try to make that comparison not only have no respect for the evil that did happen during those periods, but they cheapen the level of evil that occurred by making the comparison. Genocidal maniacs should remain examples of ultimate evil, not a convenient reference point to make whatever cause of the day important.

I wonder how many Jewish-Americans, many of whom still vote Democratic, appreciate the second-most senior Democrat in the United States Senate? Dick Durbin is a man who apparently sees no difference between any of the six million unarmed, innocent, and peaceful Jews that were slaughtered in Nazi Germany, and any of the armed jihadists that were captured during open warfare, willing to fight to the death in support of a leader who has declared war on this country, largely because of our country's long history of friendship and support with the state of Israel. It's so offensive on so many levels, that it literally boggles the mind that the Democrats have any support from the Jewish community anymore. The Democratic leadership has become so embittered towards George W. Bush that they have let their anger ruin the historic, moral high-ground their party enjoyed after World War II.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:24 AM 0 comments

 

Robert Novak reports on a visit that Mitt Romney made to Michigan to fundraise and sound out major political leaders in the state. His ambitions and aspirations were already clear when Romney echoed the Bruce Springsteen accomplishment of scoring covers of Time and Newsweek in the same week in 1974 by gracing the covers of the Weekly Standard and National Review in the same week. Both articles covered his political talents and advantages and then asked, as Novak does, whether the American people would elect a Mormon president.

I have had a vision of what would happen if Romney were the Republican candidate. No one would attack him explicitly on his religion. That would be too crass. Instead, the media would run human interest stories on the history of the Mormon church, warts and all. We'd read again about Joseph Smith getting the word from the Angel Moroni with the Book of Mormon on golden plates. We'd learn about the persecution suffered by the early Mormons and the assassination of Joseph Smith and how Brigham Young led the Mormons across the country to Utah. Vivid stories of the Mountain Meadow Massacre would appear on the History Channel. The history of Mormons and polygamy would be introduced in segments on the evening news as well as the fact that the Mormons allowed black ministers only in 1978 and women in 1984. Newsweek and Time would have cover stories looking at the tenets of the Mormon religion with special attention to baptism of dead ancestors, their lack of belief in the Trinity, their conviction that God has a physical body, and their condemnation of homosexuality. All this will be presented in the same self-satisfied anthropological tone that the MSM uses to talk about most religious people today. And then every time Romney goes on a Sunday talk show like Meet the Press, he'll get a series of questions asking him to defend the history of the Mormon Church and whether or not he believes in every controversial tenet of the religion. He'll get questions that no one would ever ask an Orthodox Jew like Joe Lieberman or a Catholic like John Kerry or a Protestant like Gore, Clinton, or Bush.

Then the media will have their own navel-gazing shows on CNN and Fox or in self-examining symposia on C-Span and ask if it's "really appropriate" for the media to be questioning a political candidate on his religious beliefs. They'll make disapproving noises, condemn themselves, but ultimately, they'll go on doing the same thing. Just like they tut-tut their coverage of the Michael Jackson trial, but just can't stop themselves from doing it night after night. Because, they'll say "you know, his religion really is a political issue." After all, if it weren't a political issue, the media wouldn't be talking about it, would they? The circularity of this argument will elude them.

Then they'll conduct polls and show that a certain percentage of the electorate is uncomfortable with the idea of a Mormon as president. This will necessitate another round of questions, articles, and media self-doubt. And another round of polls, of course. Pundits will pontificate on whether or not evangelicals would ever vote for a believing Mormon. Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich will tremble in fear about the new theocracy threatening their secularist utopia. And then there will be another round of polls and cover stories.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate, will say that she thinks it is totally inappropriate to question her opponent's religion and that her faith has always been very important to her and how it guides so much of what she believes because, miraculously, her faith is in perfect alignment with every political belief she has. Howard Dean will make a few remarks about Mormons being the religion of white men. The media will tut-tut and then have more articles explaining what Mormons believe. Then they'll take another round of polls and show that people have doubts about the thought of having a Mormon as president. The cycle of questions, polls, snide comments, long articles, and media self-flagellation will continue over and over again until it achieves its ultimate objective, the election of a Democrat over Romney, or until it fails and the days of the feared Mormon rule begins.

My vision of how a Romney candidacy would turn out is so very clear. Read me now and remember this prediction later when you're looking at the Newsweek cover that says "The Mormon Church: What Do They Believe?"

UPDATE: I've received a note indicating that it was the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that ordains women not the Church to which Mitt Romney belongs. Sorry for the confusion. So there would be even more questions that Romney would be asked about his opinion of women being ordained.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:49 AM 0 comments

 

How cool this finding of the oldest European civilization from about 4800 BC is.

Archaeologists have uncovered a network of 150 huge temples and buildings beneath the fields and cities of modern-day Germany, Austria and Slovakia.

They appear to have been built nearly 7,000 years ago, between 4,800BC and 4,600BC, and their discovery will radically change the understanding of civilisation in Europe, which is traditionally thought to have lagged far behind the development of urban life and culture in the Middle East.

The temples were built of earth and wood, and had ramparts and palisades that stretched for up to half a mile. They were built by a highly religious people who lived in communal dormitories up to 50 yards long, which were grouped around substantial villages.

It appears their economy and lifestyle were based around farming of cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. But puzzlingly, their civilisation - or at least the style of building and living in communal homes around the villages - seems to have died out after only about 200 years.

What a mystery. Maybe their civilization didn't die out but we just have not yet found evidence from them yet. Why assume that we know everything now.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:40 AM 0 comments

 

Clint Bolick writes in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required, sorry) about the case before the Florida State Supreme Court regarding the Florida school policy which gives students vouchers if they attend a failing public school. Those vouchers can be used at public or private schools. First, Bolick reports on the improvement that Florida schools have shown since the Florida law with strict testing requirements was passed. The ones who have benefited the most are those who were suffering the most in the prior system.

Six years later, only 750 children are attending private schools using opportunity scholarships. But their footsteps have reverberated across the state, prompting failing public schools to reform. Steps taken by failing schools have included spending more money in the classroom and less on administration, hiring tutors for poor performing teachers, and providing year-round instruction to pupils.

Defenders of the status quo insist that such reforms were already under way. But a freedom of information request by the Institute for Justice from school districts that lifted schools off the failing list revealed ubiquitous reference to the dreaded V-word: Without such measures, school officials warned, we wind up with vouchers. The rules of economics, it seems, do not stop at the schoolhouse doors.

The results have been stunning. Even with tougher state standards, nearly half of Florida's public schools now earn "A" grades, while a similar percentage scored "C's" when the program started. A 2003 study by Jay Greene found that gains were most concentrated among schools under threat of vouchers.

Most remarkable has been minority student progress. While the percentage of white third-graders reading at or above grade level has increased to 78% from 70% in 2001, the percentage among Hispanic third-graders has climbed from 46% to 61%, and among blacks from 36% to 52%. Graduation rates for Hispanic students have increased from 52.8% before the program started to 64% today; and for black students from 48.7% to 57.3%. Minority schoolchildren are not making such academic strides anywhere else.

You would think that results like these would be reasons to celebrate. Educators around the country should want to study what has been going on in Florida and determine if results like that could be achieved in their own states. Educators in Florida should be thrilled to see some success for minorities who hadn't had similary success prior to the program. I saw the exact same thing happen in North Carolina when I taught in a middle school with a population of about half minority students and about half suburban, academically gifted, mostly white students. The AG students did just fine and year and year the faculty fretted about minority test scores. But fretting seemed to be about it. Then North Carolina established testing and tied the test results to teacher bonuses as the carrot and state intervention as the stick. Boy, we suddenly found money for special reading classes and after-school reading programs. I became a believer in high stakes testing that first year when I saw a difference in the attitude of the administration and faculty. Since we were a magnet school, we were also facing the problem of fewer students choosing to go to our school once the test scores started being published in the newspaper. Competition spurred extra effort by everyone. And we are seeing this same result in Florida.

However, the unions, of course, oppose this Florida program and are targeting the vouchers. Clint Bolick reports on what the Florida Supreme Court focused on in oral arguments.

Most attention had focused on the challenge under the state's Blaine Amendment, a relic of a late-19th-century campaign against Catholic immigrants that sought to block the use of public funds for parochial schools. State supreme courts in Wisconsin and Arizona (and past decisions by the Florida Supreme Court relating to other social benefits) have found that general aid programs in which religious institutions provide services do not violate the Blaine amendments. Moreover, a decision singling out religious schools for exclusion from an otherwise applicable aid program could violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

But several of the Florida justices focused instead on the clause of the state constitution that establishes the "paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children," mandating that the state provide "a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools."

Although many states have similar provisions, no appellate court anywhere has ever held categorically that public funds cannot be used in private schools. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has held unanimously under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that where public schools fail to provide disabled children an "appropriate" education, they must do so in private schools at public expense. Students in every state receive public education in private schools.

Yet several Florida justices appeared open to such an unprecedented ruling. "Where does the Legislature . . . get the authority to, in fact, have other forms of education, other than public education?" asked one. Another wondered if allowing parents to use state funds in private schools "wouldn't completely undermine the system that has been provided in the Constitution for the free system of public schools?" Interesting question given that Florida's public schools are thriving like never before.

Courts in other states all have concluded that the requirement of a uniform system of public education is a floor, not a ceiling, for the provision of educational opportunities. So too would it seem in Florida: The same constitutional provision that mandates free public schools also decrees that they be high quality. What happens if they're not? The Opportunity Scholarship Program makes good on the fundamental right to education by providing an option for children who would otherwise be trapped in failing schools.

Should the Florida court strike down the program, it would spell a death sentence not only for opportunity scholarships, but for more than 10,000 scholarships used by disabled children to attend private schools, and for a host of other parental choice programs as well. Even more significant, it would doom the dramatic and unprecedented progress Florida has made in delivering high-quality educational opportunities.

What a shame that, in their unwavering opposition to vouchers, the teachers unions should harm so many children and deny them the opportunity to get out of failing schools and into schools that will give them that opportunity.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:22 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

 

Polski3 is a teacher in California and he reports on a new assessment that the California Teachers Association is placing on all members in order to have a fund to fight Governor Arnold.

The edu-unioncrats of CTA did not waste much time after school ended for many California teachers to stick their greedy little paws into the pocketbooks of the hardworking teachers of California. We can return to our classrooms in August knowing that we will again be teaching for less money. As per their "promises", the edu-unioncrats of CTA's polibureau-like Representitive Council "Approved" the dues assessment of $60 per teacher for up to three years. CTA says they will use this money for a $50 million dollar "warchest" against the Governator. With a membership of over 330,000 members, this amounts to an additional $19,800,000.00 dollars being taken from the teachers of California in the 2005-06 school year. According to my math, this adds up to a bit over $59 million dollars over three years. Can't CTA do the math or don't they care that saying they want/need $50 million to fight the Governator is a lie when they are planning to grab $59 million dollars from their members.

He reports that California teachers have to pay about $900 a year in dues to the union. Wow! Just cutting their mandatory membership dues in half would be a nice pay raise for California teachers. Polski also has a list of things he'd prefer the union to focus its attention on instead of sending out the worthless NEA today magazine.

Sounds like Polski should be investigating how to get his money back via The 1988 Supreme Court Beck decision. Many union workers don't even realize that they have the right to get a refund for the part of their dues that is spent in political activity that they disagree with. If more union members would exercise the rights that the Supreme Court has granted them, perhaps the unions might get back to working on the real issues that affect their working conditions rather than focusing on political campaigns. If you want to read more about how unions have been betraying their members in order to focus on a political agenda, read Linda Chavez's book, Betrayal. (Link via Carnival of Education)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:54 PM 0 comments

 

John Hawkins goes spelunking through the Democratic Underground. Ugh. There is some major hate going on over there.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:27 PM 0 comments

 

Oprah Winfrey reveals that she is descended from a Zulu. If this news makes her happy, that's fine with me. But this has to be one of the stupider comments by any American.

"I'm crazy about the South African accent," she said. "I wish I had been born here."

Oprah was born in 1954. The apartheid laws began in 1948 and continued through to the 1990s. Does Oprah really wish that she had spent the first 40 years of her life under apartheid talking with a cool South African accent instead of building a career that now has her on Discovery Channel's stupid list of 100 most important Americans?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:15 PM 0 comments

 

Talk about a bad job interview technique!

An executive tried to liven up a dull day at the office by stripping naked to interview a 25-year-old woman, a court heard yesterday.

Saeed Akbar, 35, said at first that it was part of his "tough interviewing technique" but later admitted that he was bored and wanted a "cheap thrill".

He asked the woman, who was applying for a translator's job, if she minded if they took their clothes off. When she refused, he left the room for a few minutes and returned naked, carrying only a clipboard.

He got dressed again when she objected to his behaviour and tried to resume the interview. But the woman fled the offices of Alpha Translating and Interpreting Services in Glasgow and reported him to the police.

Akbar, a father of one, escaped jail after the city's sheriff court heard that the incident had had a catastrophic effect on his life.

Sheriff Brian Lockhart said he had been sacked, his girlfriend had left him and his friends had deserted him.

So, if your friends and girlfriend drop you after you drop your pants in a job interview, that's enough to let you escape a jail sentence? The next pervert who gets picked up will be sure to tell all his friends to desert him, at least until sentencing is over. (link via James Taranto who has an idea where this guy learned his interviewing technique)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:54 PM 0 comments

 

Lileks imagines how various people reacted to the verdict in the Michael Jackson trial.

Amnesty International: While we cannot speculate on Mr. Jackson's guilt or innocence, we sympathize with his relief at avoiding America's GULAG. And by GULAG we mean the American prison system, which, like its Soviet counterpart, has walls, towers, bars, unreasonable dogs and meals that occasionally include members of the beet family. Did we mention that it's like the GULAG? Because we found some of our old credibility left, and believe us, it's harder to flush than a thick holy book. But we'll keep trying. GULAG! GULAG!

Howard Dean: Well I suppose the verdict angers Republicans because they don't like black people, frankly, unless they're standing on the lawn in a jockey uniform and made out of metal, but I suppose some Republicans are happy because you could, you know, look at Michael Jackson as just another rich white guy, and they're the party of the rich white guy. Except for me. And all you other rich white guys here in the audience. Now how about some money? Please? Aw, come on. OK, how about this: There's an interesting theory that the Saudis have film of Michael Jackson entertaining kids at President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Whateverland. And they're blackmailing Bush. I'm not saying it's true, I'm just saying it's out there. Can I have some money now? I'll do the YEAGH for your answering machine. Oh, come ON.

Joe Biden: What is unconscionable is that this administration puts forth judicial nominees who are not only anti-civil rights, anti-choice, anti-socialism and anti-matter but anti-trial itself, in that they want to return to the day when semi-minority defendants were dragged into the public square and stoned. I cannot allow that, and I will not allow that, and that is why I believe it's important to -- oh, the camera wasn't running? The camera is broken? Call my staff, they'll send a statement.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:43 PM 0 comments

 

One of the stupidest rules in the U.S. Senate is the practice of senators being allowed to put holds on presidential nominations for whatever reason they desire. One person can hold up a nominee forever just to get something out of the administration. This isn't even protecting the rights of the minority, but the rights of the 1% of the Senate. Both parties do it and all the senators go along so that they can preserve the right to a hold in case they want to do it themselves. Here is the latest example.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., temporarily blocked a promotion for a White House aide Wednesday in a dispute over whether a wealthy Democratic fundraiser would be reappointed to a government oversight board.

Biden asked that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee postpone a vote on whether Dina Habib Powell should become assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs. The State Department job would focus on ways to spread democracy in the Middle East.

Powell — no relation to former Secretary of State Colin Powell — is currently the White House personnel director, with responsibility for recommending candidates for posts such as the Broadcasting Board of Governors. That is the panel on which Norman Pattiz, billionaire founder of the radio network now known as Westwood One, now sits.

....Pattiz contributed $180,000 in unregulated "soft money" to political party committees in 2002. All but $10,000 went to Democrats. He recently hosted a fundraising event for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., that was expected to bring in about $450,000.

Even more than the filibuster, this practice should go the way of the dodo.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:10 PM 0 comments

 

Inside the Beltway reports on one example of how hard it is to get fired if you have a job in the federal government. Even crooks don't get fired.

These days it's almost impossible to be fired from the federal payroll.

Take a follow-up press release issued in recent days by the Republican Study Committee (RSC), plastered with a frightening mug shot of heavy-metal architect Ozzy Osbourne.

The appearance of the Prince of Darkness in this congressional report pertains to extensive internal credit card abuse at the Agriculture Department, where a previous investigation by the inspector general had determined that certain bureaucrats were using government-issued credit cards for personal purchases -- $7.7 million over the course of six months, all paid with taxpayer dollars.

Among the items purchased: Ozzy Osbourne concert tickets, tattoos, exotic attire, enrollment in bartending college, an automobile, cosmetics and cigarettes.

One person made 147 car payments totaling $11,444, another withdrew $17,000 from ATM machines, while a dozen persons spent $196,000 among them.

The USDA, reports the RSC, has since taken several measures to address the abuse, not the least being the deactivation of more than 10,000 credit cards, while instituting a "zero tolerance" policy for credit card misuse.

Which is a good thing, considering the person who pulled the 17-grand from the ATMs landed only a 30-day government suspension, reveals the RSC.

As for the Ozzy Osbourne fan, might we suggest the USDA force the employee to sit through an entire Celine Dion concert, singing along to "My Heart Will Go On."

Great. They lock the stable door after the horse escapes along with his cosmetics and cigarettes and Ozzy tix. But they keep the malefactors on the payroll.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:03 PM 0 comments

 

What a true shame that Bradley Smith is resigning from the FEC. He was the one person on there who seemed to truly understand what the First Amendment meant and all the problems with campaign finance reform. I don't know if there is someone out there with similarly rational views who can get approved through Congress. (Link via Michelle Malkin)

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 4:54 PM 0 comments

 

My husband links to the story of the newest wack-job to level accusations that the towers weren't brought down by an airplane and to an article that refutes some of the more common 9/11 conspiracy theories that are out there for people who somehow want to say it was the US itself which brought down the towers and not terrorists. It's amazing and eye-opening to see the sort of wierd conspiracy theories that there are out there. The Kennedy conspiracy-mongers have nothing on these people.

So, you see, there are those who will believe any crazy myth rather than the truth. They don't need bad PR about Gitmo around which to base their hatred of the United States. They have their own imaginations to do it for them. Any leader who wants to take action on our nation's security based on the supposed PR problems we're having betrays a naivete that should be an immediate disqualifier for a position of national leadership. I wasn't going to support Joe Biden or Chuck Hagel anyways, but they have failed my litmus test for leading this country in the age of terror.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 4:31 PM 0 comments

 

Mackubin Thomas Owens brings his background in the military and as a military historian to explain the military strategy in Iraq.

No force, conventional or guerrilla, can continue to fight if it is deprived of sanctuary and logistics support. Accordingly, the central goal of the U.S. strategy in Iraq is to destroy the insurgency by depriving it of its base in the Sunni Triangle and its "ratlines" — the infiltration routes that run from the Syrian border into the heart of Iraq.

One ratline follows the Euphrates River corridor — running from Syria to Husayba on the Syrian border and then through Qaim, Rawa, Haditha, Asad, Hit and Fallujah to Baghdad. The other follows the course of the Tigris — from the north through Mosul-Tel Afar to Tikrit and on to Baghdad. These two "river corridors" constitute the main spatial elements of a campaign to implement U.S. strategy.

This campaign began last November with the takedown of Fallujah.

Wresting Fallujah from the rebels was critically important: Control of the town had given them the infrastructure — human and physical — necessary to maintain a high tempo of attacks against the Iraqi government and coalition forces.

In and of itself, the loss of Fallujah didn't cause the insurgency to collapse, but it did deprive the rebels of an indispensable sanctuary. Absent such a sanctuary, large terrorist networks cannot easily survive, being reduced to small, hunted bands.

Read the rest. This is the sort of analysis we don't get enought of on TV and in the rest of the media.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:56 PM 0 comments

 

What is it with these women bigshots and breastfeeding? First Rose O'Donnell goes on the View and brags, yes brags, that she forced her partner Kelly to stop breastfeeding the baby that they had had. Her reason? She was jealous that she couldn't breastfeed herself and so thought it was the best thing to stop her baby from getting the extra nutrients and immunities that come from breastfeeding.

“Kelly [Rosie’s partner] only nursed for like about a month,” said Rosie at the time, “and then I was very angry, because as the other mommy…with the other babies nobody nursed because they were adopted. But with this baby it was like she was the only one getting to bond. So I was like the nursing is over! I cut her off. I’m like, you’ve had your limit honey. No more!”

One of Rosie’s fellow panel members interjected at this point, saying “But you know that’s an interesting conversation because in a certain way you’re doing a disservice to the baby aren’t you when you act like that?”

“No, because I got to bond and cuddle,” said Rosie.

How selfish can you get? It's good and healthy for the baby but Kelly has to stop because Rosie is jealous and orders her to cut it out. As if breastfeeding were a selfish activity that women indulge in just to annoy others.

Next, Barbara Walters is all upset because a woman had the temerity to breastfeed next to Walters on an airplane. Michelle Malkin has this story in selfishness.

After being forced to endure the insufferable sight of a woman providing nourishment to her child, the feminist icon Barbara Walters (winner of the International Women's Media Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Women's Project and Productions' Lifetime Achievement Award, and the NY Women in Film and Television's Muse Award) reportedly pronounced it "gross and disgusting."

Alert viewers of "The View" note that Walters' co-hosts have expressed similar disdain for nursing women on prior shows with Star Jones Reynolds making puerile faces when the subject arises.

As you may have heard, 200 women from across the country and from many different backgrounds held a highly-publicized "nurse-in" at "The View's" studios last week to protest Walters' breast-feeding bigotry. I'm not the biggest fan of the radical "lactivists" -- the whole La Leche scene is a bit too much for me -- but having breast-fed both my children (one for 13 months, the other for six), I completely sympathize with their outrage at Walters' remarks. Nursing a child takes time, dedication, and selflessness. No mother should be made to feel ashamed of that.

Which reminds me: When millions of parents complained about the outrageously inappropriate exposure of Janet Jackson's breast during a sexually explicit Super Bowl performance last year, they were immediately branded as "prudes" by elite liberals in the media. Why aren't those same supposedly progressive commentators bashing the ridiculously priggish Barbara Walters and company now?

Barbara Walters, naturally, cannot comprehend what all the fuss is about: "Nobody here is against breast-feeding," she says with condescending bewilderment. It's all a "misunderstanding." She is now reportedly blaming her hairdresser for the mess. And she has comforted herself by retreating into her sycophantic coven. New mother and "View" co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck was wildly applauded by Walters' coterie when she announced she was giving up nursing her newborn daughter and switching to bottle-feeding.

Maybe it's a class thing. Those of us of the middling sort who have breastfed or are breastfeeding our babies do it out of love and care for our babies. Sure, it was a hassle sometimes and I was remarkably inept at it and couldn't manage the surreptitious feed in public. I don't endorse women just popping out a breat and brazenly feeding in public, but it can be done with a lot of class and gentility. Sitting next to another woman seems the best you're going to get on an airplane. Would Barbara prefer that the woman sit in the loo for 20 minutes? It might have been slightly uncomfortable to see another woman's breast, but how this could be termed "gross and disgusting." That she would say something like this in public seems to portray a rather revealing attitude towards motherhood. And how typical that she is now blaming her hairdresser. Waa-waa, indeed.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin says that Barbara Walters did not use the words "gross and disgusting," but that came from a Canadian columnist. So, I take back my outrage at that quote. But the point still stands that she is dismayed and disturbed by another woman feeding her baby on a crowded airplane.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:35 PM 0 comments

 

I just don't get this sudden push to close Gitmo. Where do they think these guys should go? Rich Lowry sums it up just right.

Does Biden favor recapturing those ex-Gitmo detainees, and if so, where would we put them? Where is he suggesting we “keep” all the Gitmo detainees we have now? If there weren’t Gitmo, they would have to be held somewhere very like Gitmo — unless Biden wants to move them to a penitentiary in his home state of Delaware and afford them rights of American criminal defendants.

Which would effectively mean releasing them. Without Miranda warnings and all the rest of it, Gitmo defendants would very likely escape criminal charges on procedural grounds. Indeed, under our legal system, they would have reason to sue the U.S. government for unlawful imprisonment. In the Gitmo panic, the U.S. is taking a step toward becoming the first country in world history to prove itself incapable of the elemental act of self-defense of simply detaining its enemies.

The close-Gitmo crowd says Gitmo has bad p.r. “It’s become an icon for bad stories,” says Martinez. Of course it has — because people lie about it. Amnesty International calls it a “gulag.” The foreign press makes up lurid tales about it. Newsweek falsely reports that Gitmo guards flushed a Koran down a toilet. Martinez himself would be an icon for bad stories if international organizations and the press spread falsehoods about him.

Does anyone seriously believe that closing Gitmo would change opinions of the United States? Those that despise us from European intellectuals to Muslim extremists will make up stuff even if they don't have anything tangible to pin their complaints about. Don't these weak-kneed people like Chuck Hagel and Mel Martinez realize that yet? They believe that 9/11 was a fake or a plot by Jews. They make up stories about abuse of Korans. They ignore torture by Saddam Hussein and imprisonments of political prisoners in Iran, North Korea, and Syria and then get their panties all in a knot about some knuckleheads taking humiliating prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Well, we tried those knuckleheads and they're now going to serve sentences. But that didn't change anything. We're never going to earn these people's good will.

So, don't endanger our country by freeing terrorists who want to kill us simply to cater good will among people who will never, ever feel good will to us. Remember that the guys are Gitmo are not the ones picked up in Iraq. They're the ones picked up in Afghanistan, the war that everyone approved of. Well, we went into Afghanistan and caught a lot of bad guys. They're not legitimate POWs because they weren't fighting under the international rules of the Geneval Convention. They hid among civilians and didn't wear uniforms and weren't part of a state government. What do these critics think we're going to do with these guys? This is new territory we're exploring and we have to make up the rules as we go along and the government is trying to do it as justly as possible and still preserve our safety. All that this criticism by our own people in the Congress just gives incentives to terrorists to lie about "torture" if they ever get picked up.

Jonah Goldberg expresses this so much better than I can.

Of course, we could close Guantanamo, but if you actually support the war on terror you must recognize that we would still need someplace like it. A rose by any other name and all that. We can't summarily execute every al-Qaida member we capture. Not just because that would raise legitimate moral and legal problems, but because we can't win unless we interrogate these guys.

Senator Joe Biden said that while we should close Gitmo and release the occupants, we should also "keep those we have reason to keep." Huh? This is the logical equivalent of Solomon saying, "Hey, let's cut the baby in half after all." Imagine if, instead of Gitmo, the issue was the death penalty. "The death penalty should be abolished, but let's execute the folks there's a reason to execute."

If we kept the ones "we have reason to keep" - which would probably mean all 500 or so current detainees - but closed Gitmo, we could bring them to the United States. But this would be a legal quagmire, as it isn't clear what their rights would be on U.S. soil. And it would be a disaster to treat them like common criminals with all of the usual constitutional rights. Nobody read these murderers their rights when they were seized in Afghanistan, and it's not like the cast of "CSI: Kabul" or "Kandahar PD Blue" collected all the necessary forensic evidence to build a case against them. Does that mean we should just let them go? We certainly can't set them free on American soil. And if we send them back to Afghanistan or Pakistan, it would be like giving them a do-over.

Any new Gitmo would quickly gain the same reputation as the old one because a) al-Qaida is under strict orders to allege all manner of abuses for propaganda purposes, especially now that such tactics have proved so useful, and b) because the "international community" and other lovers of runny cheese desperately want such allegations to be true, regardless of the evidence. That the head of Amnesty International could call Gitmo, where we spend more money on the care and feeding of detainees than we do on our own troops, the "Gulag of our time" is all the evidence we need for that. Caving into such bullying would send the unmistakable message that American can be rolled.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:03 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

 

Julius Erving recalls one of the best NBA games ever and one that I remember well, game 6 of the NBA finals when the Lakers faced the Sixers. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had to sit the game out and Earvin Johnson, in his rookie year, showed why he was called Magic. As the doctor says,

Earvin turned in what many consider, myself included, the best performance ever in an NBA Finals game. While I obviously would've preferred winning that game and then the championship, at least I can look back 25 years later and say that I saw the legend of Magic Johnson born first-hand.

Ah, those were the days!

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 7:01 PM 0 comments

 

I've recently discovered the delightful blog, University Diaries, written by Margaret Soltan, a professor of English at my alma mater, George Washington University. She comments with wit and perception on the silliness that she finds in the hallowed halls of higher education. She must be a fun professor to have.

Although it shouldn't have, this story that Professor Soltan links to about a community college professor who stole his students' social security numbers to apply for credit cards in their names struck me as quite humorous. What a scam. And then I remembered all the student social security numbers of my students that I have access to and the teachers who have had access to my own daughters' social security numbers. Hmmmm. Perhaps, it is not such a good thing for these numbers to be used all the time as their i.d. numbers.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 5:51 PM 0 comments

 

Katie Newmark (yes, she's my daughter, but I'd recommend her blog regardless) is excited about an long article by Robert Gordon in The New Republic, "What Democrats Need to Say About Education." The article is available online only to subscribers, but my sneaky daughter provides links anyways to read the whole thing. As she writes,

I like that Gordon highlights the topsy-turvy rhetoric of education reform: conservatives talking about a new civil rights struggle, arguing for dramatic changes to help poor minorities, and liberals resisting change, wanting no more than tinkering around the edges. Education reform should be a natural issue for liberals, but under the sway of the unions, they've largely remained on the sidelines.

She then summarizes his main points and says that although, she has quibbles, she is excited about seeing a liberal engage on issues of education reform.

The whole article is interesting, I recommend it highly. And I hope that some Democrats take Gordon's advice; it would be so nice for the education reform debate to be about more than just how much money Bush is spending on NCLB.

Go and read the entire article. As Katie does, I'm not fully behind some of his suggested reforms, but it is indeed refreshing to see a Democrat who advised both John Kerry and John Edwards on education policy say that we need to get beyond bashing NCLB and look at reforming teacher hiring nd promotion, two taboo subjects usually in a Democratic Party subservient to the NEA.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 3:28 PM 0 comments

 

This is what you get when you honor Al Franken.

The talk-show host (WLIB/1190 AM) was forced off the stage after his award-acceptance speech became a nearly half-hour rant against TV commentator Bill O'Reilly and the war in Iraq.

"Al, hurry up," said Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, the convention sponsor.

"It's freedom of speech," replied Franken, referring to the Freedom of Speech Award he'd just been given by the magazine.

"It's not freedom to kill everybody's evening," Harrison shot back.

"I have about two pages left," Franken said.

"There are people walking out" Harrison noted.

Al Franken first hit the bestseller list with his rants against Rush Limbaugh. Now he's switched to Bill O'Reilly. Fine, they're big guys and can take care of themselves. However, Franken needs to be more than the most vocal opponent of conservative big mouths.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:54 AM 0 comments

 

A researcher finds a link between diet sodas and obesity.

A review of 26 years of patient data found that people who drink diet soft drinks were more likely to become overweight.

Not only that, but the more diet sodas they drank, the higher their risk of later becoming overweight or obese - 65 percent more likely for each diet drink per day.

Ack! Is there no hope for overweight people, such as myself? Actually, I think this is correlation without cause. I go with this researcher.

The researchers are quick to point out that their findings are not proof that drinking diet soft drinks causes people to become heavy. It could be that as they began gaining weight, they switched from regular to diet drinks.

"People who were normal weight, one out of four of them at the time of our study were drinking diet drinks," Fowler said. "People who were overweight but not obese, one out of three of them were drinking the diet drinks. Definitely they were voting with their feet. They were obviously trying to avoid gaining further weight or repeating a family history."

I bet that that is exactly what is happening: people start to get fat because of a variety of reasons and so they switch to drinking diet sodas and then, lo and behold, they get fat. Those people who are skinny or have no fears of getting fat such as teenagers are probably less likely to drink diet soda. No matter what the commercials say, it just doesn't taste as good. I have no data to back me up, but that's my hypothesis and I'm sticking with it until they find a more substantive link.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:40 AM 0 comments

 

It's Flag Day. Michelle Malkin has a round-up of links that pay tribute to Old Glory.

I've always thought that the story of Francis Scott Key's writing of the Star Spangled Banner is one of the most beautiful and inspirational stories in the American story. Imagine being held on an enemy ship as the enemy bombs your home and not knowing if your country will hold up. Remember that, at this point in the War of 1812, the Americans had suffered many defeats the humiliation of the British burning the capital after our men had run away at what became known as the Bladensburg Races. Our untrained troops were going up against the experienced British navy and army that had been fighting the French for about 20 years. Don't forget that we know how the story came out, but at the time, there were fears that our defeats would lead to the end of our experiment as an independent republic. So, Francis Scott Key had real reason to fear for his home.

And then, as the sun comes up, he peers through the morning mist and the smoke of the cannonfire desperately trying to see if his home, his countrymen and their defenses have withstood the barrage. And there, finally, there is enough light for him to see that huge flag still waving over the fort. It gives me chills and I get those chills every time I hear the national anthem.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:18 AM 0 comments

 

Nick Schulz of TechCentral Station has a great interview up with FEC Commissioner Brad Smith about the possibility of the FEC regulating blogs and the Internet. It is clear that Smith believes that such regulation would be contrary to the American tradition of not regulating political speech. But once the reform snowball started rolling it is just going to pick up more and more size as it attempts to shut down political speech.

SCHULZ: What do you think is the lightest approach that the FEC could take to the Internet within the scope of the court's decision?

SMITH: We have been forced into a position that there will be some regulation; and that alone will mark a substantial change in the whole disposition towards the Internet. I think that the commission can and should adopt a broad exemption for personal activity on the Internet and also for paid ads to be on the Internet.

We need to make clear that bloggers are press, these are periodicals and people update them regularly; that the first amendment does not only apply to people who are members of the National Press Club, that it is not limited to people who have a little press card in their hat band like some 1930s movie.

The press is everybody; every citizen has a right to publish his views and to promote his views and if the Internet is blurring a distinction between traditional media and just average citizens, I am not sure that's a bad thing. That's a good thing, a democratizing thing, it is exactly the type of thing that the reformers claimed for years to want. They ought to rejoice in it. That they don't is interesting in itself.

SCHULZ: Why is it that the reform advocates are pushing the Internet issue when it doesn't seem that a problem has arisen yet?

SMITH: I think because anything they can't control scares them. And I think that as they are zealots, they are perpetually afraid somebody, somewhere is going to spend some money to influence politics and they think that that is a bad thing. They don't say that, of course. They say they are still very concerned about First Amendment rights and citizens participating in politics and so on. But if you are really looking at what their record is, if you look at what they do, if you look at what they testify before the commission about, what they are afraid of is that people would be participating in politics and in ways that they cannot control. So while there is no demonstrative threat yet, it's just a possibility that this could be a threat that has led them to swing into action.

Read the rest.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:01 AM 0 comments

 

E.J. Dionne is a barometer. One can read him and know what the exact opposite of realistic political analysis is. When Dionne writes about the Republicans, you know how exactly clueless he is on how conservatives think.

Today's column posits that the Republicans will turn to McCain in 2008.

If the Republicans' ethics problems worsen, McCain's Mr. Clean image will look ever more attractive to Republican members of Congress desperate to hold power. If things get really bad, many Republicans will be happy to dump House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and embrace McCain.

The situation in Iraq shows no sign of turning around quickly. Who would be willing to stick with Bush's adventure? Bush would like to hand over power to a president committed to his Iraq policy. McCain — who is close to the party's neoconservative wing — has been steadfast in defending the president's decision to go to war despite doubts about prewar planning and mistakes early in the occupation.

And if middle-class income growth is sluggish, bread-and-butter discontent will benefit any Democrat running on a throw-the-bums-out platform. McCain could promise just enough change to win the election. He voted against Bush's tax policies, yet he is also among the most fiscally conservative members of the Senate.

For all these reasons, Bush and McCain could end up as each other's best friends. Bush has been battling, with Rove's help, for a long-term political realignment in favor of the Republicans. The president could well come to see McCain as the only Republican with a chance to push a Republican era forward. McCain, in turn, knows that his only way around the Republican right is to run with Bush's open blessing, if not his outright endorsement.

Oh, dear. Where to start? Does he really think that the GOP in the House who support DeLay are the same guys who would turn around and support McCain? First of all, there is an inherent jealousy between the two houses. Also, McCain opposes so many of the positions that conservatives in the House support such as tax cuts. All the times when McCain set himself up in opposition to Bush, he was also setting himself up in opposition to the GOP in the House? That's why he gets the name of a maverick. A maverick is someone who is apart from the rest of the herd. Sure, when push comes to shove, the GOP will rally around the candidate, especially if the alternative is Hillary Clinton. But why they would choose McCain as their sole choice of a squeaky clean candidate is beyond me. They would be much more likely to choose someone who is a real outsider and hasn't spent decades in Washington. If congressional corruption becomes an issue, look for a governor like Mitt Romney or Bill Owens to have much more traction.

Bush is not going to be able to hand over the nomination to his hand-picked successor. I would bet that he would take the same role that most former political leaders take in the primaries: he would, like Ronald Reagan, decline to endorse anyone until a nominee is chosen. Once the nominee is chosen, Bush would campaign wholeheartedly, if asked. But I don't see him giving him an endorsement to anyone, even his brother.

Yet, Dionne then goes on to propose that McCain would pick Jeb Bush as his vice presidential candidate. Come on. Why would McCain want as vice president someone so closely tied to his former rival? Someone who would constantly be held up as his future heir. Someone of McCain's age would face constant speculation about his successor. And with a big name like Jeb Bush, the speculation would be incredibly fierce. And if McCain's big advantage is that he could pull in moderate and Democratic votes, why would he want to cloud that image by having the brother of the left's deep hatred on the ticket. It would just be a distraction.

I don't see McCain getting the nomination, but if he did, he isn't going to pick Jeb Bush as his running mate. Feel free to continue to ignore E. J. Dionne.

UPDATE: Stan Brown at Two Minute Offense has a similar view of E.J. Dionne's ability as a pundit.

Has there ever been a pundit with a track record for being wrong as consistently as E. J. Dionne?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:31 AM 0 comments

 

James Lileks has the ultimate fisking of the Time Magazine story about the interrogation procedures approved at Guantanamo. Read the whole thing. It's Lilekserrific.

In fact, I think that the Pentagon would benefit from more of these stories. Aside from those in the media who have never left full hysteria mode since they got their paws on the Abu Ghraib photos, I would bet that the great majority of American people are not upset about any of these revelations. The more they read the more restrained and reasonable our methods seem. If anything, people are probably disappointed that harsher methods are not being used on some of these terrorists.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:17 AM 0 comments

 

Paul Johnson has a powerful essay in Commentary Magazine about the history of anti-Semitism and how it ends up destroying any nation which cultivates hatred of Jews.

What strikes the historian surveying anti-Semitism worldwide over more than two millennia is its fundamental irrationality. It seems to make no sense, any more than malaria or meningitis makes sense. In the whole of history, it is hard to point to a single occasion when a wave of anti-Semitism was provoked by a real Jewish threat (as opposed to an imaginary one). In Japan, anti-Semitism was and remains common even though there has never been a Jewish community there of any size.

Asked to explain why they hate Jews, anti-Semites contradict themselves. Jews are always showing off; they are hermetic and secretive. They will not assimilate; they assimilate only too well. They are too religious; they are too materialistic, and a threat to religion. They are uncultured; they have too much culture. They avoid manual work; they work too hard. They are miserly; they are ostentatious spenders. They are inveterate capitalists; they are born Communists. And so on. In all its myriad manifestations, the language of anti-Semitism through the ages is a dictionary of non-sequiturs and antonyms, a thesaurus of illogic and inconsistency.

Like many physical diseases, anti-Semitism is highly infectious, and can become endemic in certain localities and societies. Though a disease of the mind, it is by no means confined to weak, feeble, or commonplace intellects; as history sadly records, its carriers have included men and women of otherwise powerful and subtle thoughts. Like all mental diseases, it is damaging to reason, and sometimes fatal.

He gives examples from the Spanish Inquisition to the Russian Tsars to Nazi Germany to the Arab world today how virulent anti-Semitism retards the intellectual and economic growth of a society and ends up backfiring on that society. I would add in that any unreasoning hatred of another group does the same thing as we witness what tribabl hatreds are doing to some parts of Africa.

Johnson then argues that anti-Semitism today has joined with anti-Americanism to produce an irrational and damaging ideology that groups embrace to excuse their own problems.

That anti-Americanism shares many structural characteristics with anti-Semitism is plain enough. In France, as we read in a new study, intellectuals muster as many contradictory reasons for attacking the U.S. as for attacking Jews.2 Americans are excessively religious; they are excessively materialistic. They are vulgar money-grubbers; they are vulgar spenders. They hate culture; they are pushy in promoting their own culture. They are aggressive and reckless; they are cowardly. They are stupid; they are exceptionally cunning. They are uneducated; they subordinate everything in life to the goal of sending their children to universities. They build soulless megalopolises; they are rural imbeciles. As with anti-Semitism, this litany of contradictory complaints is fleshed out with demonic caricatures of particular individuals like George W. Bush. Just as 14th-century Christians once held the Jews responsible for the Black Death, Americans are blamed for all the ills of today’s world, starting with (real or imaginary) global warming. Particularly among French intellectuals, such demonization has become almost a culture, a way of life, in itself.

I remember that after September 11, there were some Israelis who wrote that now America would know what it was like to have innocents targeted by terrorists for no other reason than where they lived and who they were. Perhaps, we will now have to become used to being hated for no rational reason just as Jews have been for centuries. How discouraging.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:08 AM 0 comments

 

John Hinderaker exposes the deceptive statistics and analysis in Paul Krugman's diatribe about income stagnation under the Republicans.

Here is a more fundamental problem with Krugman's calculation. When we compare "family income" figures over time, the figures are distorted by the fact that over the past three decades, families have fragmented. There are far more single-parent families now than in the early 1970s. Single-parent families generally have lower incomes than two-parent families, so this trend has depressed family income. If we factor out this demographic change, we find strong and steady income growth. Thus, the Census Bureau data show that for the category "Married-Couple Families," median income went from $46,723 in 1973 to $62,281 in 2003. (All numbers are in constant 2003 dollars.) That's a hefty 33% increase in real income. Meanwhile, incomes of families headed by either a man or a woman increased by 23.4%. But since there was a considerably greater proportion of such families in 2003 than in 1973, the aggregate increase on a "per family" basis was dragged down to 22%. (If you don't think that's possible, do the math.)

I thought Krugman was an economist. These are elementary points of data analysis that any experienced economist knows. The fact that Krugman uses deceptive statistics is not an accident. Does he think that no one else will notice what he has done? Or does he figure that it doesn't matter since he has such a bigger megaphone on the NY Times editorial page than any blogger, no matter how eminent.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:06 AM 0 comments

 

If I were about 30 years younger, I'd like to be an intern at Heritage. They get paid to work on real research possibilities while spending the summer in Washington, D.C. at a dorm provided by Heritage. How smart of Heritage to have a program to start building up and supporting the next generation of conservative leaders. Forget the griping from some of the other organizations in the article. They're just jealous.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:53 AM 0 comments

Monday, June 13, 2005

 

Publius Pundit has up pictures from the protest yesterday of Iranian women demanding equal rights. The New York Times has the story.

The protest was the first public display of dissent by women since the 1979 revolution, when the new regime enforced obligatory veiling. "We are women, we are the children of this land, but we have no rights," they chanted. More than 250 marched outside Tehran University, and about 200 others demonstrated two blocks away after hundreds of riot police swarmed in and barred them from joining the main protest.

There were reports that the police clubbed several women, though there were no hospital reports of injuries. Demonstrators said they saw some women being detained and dragged away by officers. But the situation appeared to stabilize, and after about an hour of demonstrating, the women disbanded without further incident.

The women are tired of candidates who promise them reforms and ask for their votes but then do nothing and deny women the chance to run for public office.

At one of the meetings, Ms. Eshraghi [Ayatollah Khomenei's granddaughter] said that candidates who promised to improve women's status must clarify how they could bring any changes as long as the country was ruled by Islamic law, or Shariah. Iranian law stipulates that the value of a woman's life and her testimony in court are half those of men. Iranian men can marry up to four wives and have the right to divorce any of them at will. A woman inherits half of the share her brothers receive and needs her husband's permission to work outside the home or to leave the country. Women are rarely promoted to high positions, and despite their relatively high levels of education, they make up only 14 percent of the government employees.

Yet the politicians are cynically quite ready to use young women to campaign for them in the hopes of appealing to the younger voters who comprise the majority of Iran's electorate.

Yet, candidates are aware of the role women can play in their election and have employed young, liberal women to campaign for them in a gesture that suggests they favor more freedom for women. Many of them work at the headquarters of leading presidential candidates, like Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Muhammad Baqir Qalibaf, a former police chief.

One woman who introduced herself as Tahereh, 22, wore a narrow pink see-through material over her head and had a piercing in her nose. She said she received 300,000 Rials, $33, per day to drive in her car around Tehran with Mr. Rafsanjani's poster on the rear window, though she is cynical about the result. "I do it for the money," she said. "He is responsible for the situation. Why would he change it?"

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:48 AM 0 comments

 

Poor Bjorn Lomborg. He is engaged in what is probably a fruitless task - trying to use logic and a knowledge of tradeoffs to examine whether the Kyoto Treaty should be put into effect. First he looks at what scientists advocating action on Kyoto don't tell us.

They do not tell us that even if all the industrial nations agreed to the cuts (about 30pc from what would otherwise have been by 2010), and stuck to them all through the century, the impact would simply be to postpone warming by about six years beyond 2100. The unfortunate peasant in Bangladesh will find that his house floods in 2106 instead.

Moreover, they should also tell what they expect the cost of the Kyoto Protocol to be. That may not come easy to natural scientists, but there is plenty of literature on the subject, and the best guess is that the cost of doing a very little good for the third world 100 years from now would be $150 billion per year for the rest of this century.

Even after the Brown/Blair exertions to extract more aid for Africa, the West spends about $60 billion helping the third world. One has to consider whether the proportions are right here.

This brings us to the question of tradeoffs. My husband recently reviewed a book, Trade-Offs : An Introduction to Economic Reasoning and Social Issues which should be required reading for all politicians and scientists before they take a move on Kyoto. They would learn an essential lesson: we can't have everything in this world. If we spend $150 billion a year for the rest of the century, that is money that won't be spent on other projects. And Lomborg, along with many prestigious economists, tried to figure out what are the most crucial needs that the world is facing today. And global warming is at the bottom of the list.

This brings us to the strongest evidence that the national academies are acting in a political rather than scientific and informational manner. Why do they only talk about climate politics? Surely this is not the only important issue with a considerable science component? What about the challenge of HIV/Aids? What about malaria, malnutrition, agricultural research, water, sanitation, education, civil conflicts, financial instability, trade and subsidies? The list goes on.

Lomborg's group, the Copenhagen Consensus, recognize that the countries like the United States and Britain, which have the admirable desire to help the poor in the world, do not have unlimited means. They must make choices or trade-offs. And their list seeks to prioritize solutions for the needs facing the world. They rank the list of 17 possible projects from very good to bad. And fighting climate change ranks at the bottom. At the top are efforts to fight the spread of diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria, malnutrition, and to increase free trade. I really wish that more in the world of science, politics, and the media would pay attention to the Coopenhagen Consensus. Let's channel our limited resources into the solutions most likely to achieve favorable resources.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:11 AM 0 comments

 

Oh gosh, please let us not have to go through another tromp through the Clinton marriage again. Just when there was a light at the end of the tunnel that the Jackson trial would soon end and we could delete all thought of Jackson's sex life from our memories. Now, Drudge comes out with word of a new story in the anti-Hillary book, The Truth About Hillary, by former Newsweek writer, Edward Klein, that will allege that Chelsea's birth was the result of Bill raping Hillary.

First of all, I don't believe the allegation. What man seriously tells his friend, "I'm going back to my cottage to rape my wife?" If he did indeed say it, I would bet anything it was a poor joke rather than a serious assertion of his plan to indeed rape his wife. But, we're going into serious TMI territory here. If it was true, it's over 25 years ago and they clearly came to terms with whatever happened. And, whatever you think of Bill and Hillary, their daughter doesn't deserve to have these aspersions cast on her conception.

I agree with Lorie Byrd who agrees with Bulldog Pundit: Don't make Hillary a victim again. She got elected to the Senate based on her status as a victim of both her husband's philandering and the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy." Her popularity soars when others attack her marriage. Attack her on her policies and words and political record. Leave her marriage alone.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:42 AM 0 comments

 

Jim Geraghty has an idea for a secret motivation for Dick Cheney to attack Howard Dean. On the surface, it seems like an unnecessary move, contrary to the advice to get out of your opponents way when he's busy shooting himself in the foot. But, perhaps, the GOP wants to make sure that Dean doesn't completely self destruct.

On the other hand, if Republicans are enjoying Dean's reign, and they want to make sure he doesn't get replaced as DNC chair, is there a better way to make sure Democrats keep him than to have Cheney say Dean is "not the kind of individual you want to have representing your political party"?

If Democrats were to dismiss Dean as chairman of the DNC shortly after Cheney said he ought to go, the Deaniacs would explode with conspiracy theories that Karl Rove is secretly running the Democratic National Committee...

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:37 AM 0 comments

 

Russ Smith poses a quandary for the media. If the election in 2008 came down to a Clinton-McCain match up, whom would the media support?

Just imagine the tsouris at The New York Times alone: Maureen Dowd lines up with then-septuagenarian McCain, while Paul Krugman (on the assumption he's not fired by then for any number of actionable offenses, such as referring to "Indians" instead of "Native Americans" in a column) is certain to unzip for Hillary. David Brooks is already a McCain whore from 2000, so that's easy, and John Tierney, currently the only Times op-ed writer who seems to possess a conscience might be disgusted and ask for reassignment to the paper's Buffalo bureau.

Can Tim Russert abandon the Hanoi Hilton "maverick" for Clinton? And what about Chris Matthews, Dr. Phil, Warren Beatty and everyone else invited to Ariana Huffington's pad for cucumber sandwiches and stuffed grape leaves?

It's a hideous prospect and I don't buy his assertion that no one would be able to stop McCain in the Republican primaries. But, if McCain did get the nomination, I guess I would have to cast a clothespin vote for him against Hillary Clinton. And, I bet that Russ Smith is exactly right; the media would line up for their longtime favorite, McCain against Hillary who might have won their brains, but not their hearts as McCain has.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:26 AM 0 comments

 

Here's a list of the 103 law professors who are blogging. I bet this list will grow exponentially. I'd love to see other compilations of professors in various fields blogging.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 10:04 AM 0 comments

 

I expect that the next electoral reform pushed by Democrats will be to end equal representation by state in the Senate and abolishing the Electoral College. In Mother Jones, Steven Hill argues that the Constitutional provisions agreed to in 1787 now favor the Republicans and will continue to favor them for many years.

And note that this GOP advantage is not the result of partisan gerrymandering, a whole 'nother bit of shenanigans that is overlaid over top these regional partisan demographics. No, these dynamics are happening outside any redistricting distortions.

The disproportionality is even worse in the United States Senate. Bush carried 31 of 50 states in 2004, showing Democrats' near impossible battle to win a majority in the malapportioned Senate where each state, regardless of population size, has two U.S. Senators.

Yet the Democrats consistently win more votes for Senate than Republicans. The current 100 senators have been elected over the past three election cycles, dating back to the year 2000. According to Professor Matthew Shugart from University of California-San Diego, in those elections, over 200 million votes were cast in races choosing each of the fifty states' two senators. The Republicans won 46.8% of the votes in these elections -- not even close to a majority. The Democrats won 48.4% of the votes, more than the Republicans -- yet the GOP currently holds a lopsided 55 to 44 majority. In 2004, over 51% of votes cast were for Democratic senatorial candidates, yet Republicans elected 19 of the 34 contested seats.

That's a whomping, courtesy of nothing more than an 18th century structural bias that heavily favors Republicans. That bias has warped the Senate not only in the last two elections but for decades. The GOP has been over-represented in the Senate in nearly every election since 1958, primarily due to Republican success in low-population, conservative states in the West and South. Not surprisingly, the Senate is perhaps the most unrepresentative body in the world outside Britain's House of Lords, with not only Democrats under-represented but only five of 100 seats held by racial minorities and only fourteen held by women.

What about the presidency? Unfortunately our Electoral College method also gives an advantage to Republicans, largely for the same reason as the Senate -- low population states, which tend today to be conservative Red states, have more electoral votes per capita than the rest of the nation. That's why Al Gore could win a half million more votes for president in 2000 yet lose the presidency. George W. Bush won more of the low population states with 3, 4 or 5 electoral votes and benefited from their representation subsidy. In 2004, of the least populous 25 states, Bush won 17 and Kerry won 8. And these small states are so solidly Red that a Republican candidate does not need to make any effort to win, Kerry won 40% or less in 13 states, and less than 30% in Wyoming and Utah. So that freed Bush to concentrate on a handful of battleground states, much more so than Kerry.

Of course, if the system were different from the Electoral College, candidates would have campaigned differently. Bush could have campaigned strongly in Texas to pump up his overall total. And can you imagine the hellacious arguments we would get into nationwide over vote counting in every single precinct if the presidential election were determined by popular vote. If you thought the arguments over Washington's recent gubernatorial election or the recount in Florida in 2000 was a nightmare, multiply that by 50 states. It would be a nightmare every single election unless the election were a blowout.

Perhaps there are problems and unfair results in how representation is divided up in the Congress. But I would really prefer not to throw out the Great Compromise and substitute it by some replacement system that is motivated by partisan advantage. The system that seems to favor the Republicans today, favored the Democrats in the Senate in the 19th century. The wheel will turn. Let's not tinker with the Constitution just to address temporary partisan results.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:55 AM 0 comments

 

Michael Barone has some good news on health care spending. The increase in medical costs is down. Barone posits that a small increase in Health Savings Accounts is working just as economists have argued that they would - bring down costs by encouraging employees to search out the lowest costs in health care since they can keep money that they save.

One thing that HSAs and high-deductible health insurance help do is to make employees more cost-conscious when it comes to health care decisions. HSAs allow employees to keep money they don't spend on health care this year and to roll it over to next year, and on and on -- therefore, there is an incentive not to fritter it away. High-deductible health insurance operates the same way high-deductible auto insurance does: It does not pay for the equivalent of your oil change but does pay you when your car is totaled.

And HSA's might have an additional health benefit.

The other interesting development is the emergence of health insurance policies that encourage healthy behavior. Health care experts note that the increasing incidence of diabetes and other obesity-related diseases threatens to hugely increase health care costs in future years.

Old-style health insurance policies provide no incentive to behaviors that tend to reduce the incidence of such disease. In a previous column, I looked at one company that provides such policies, including health club membership for employees. These policies may provide a long-term answer to problems that health care analysts of all political stripes are concerned about.

I would like to see more study to see if there is indeed a connection between the HSAs and the lower increase in medical expenses. Barone is so right that HSAs are reasonable methods to lower expenses and should be expanded.

The overriding assumption in much commentary on health care finance is that individuals and companies are helpless automata waiting for government action before anything can be done anything about health care costs. But recent developments suggest that, in fact, employers and employees are active players, and that provisions of recent legislation that were not much noticed by the commentariat have enabled them to take action that reduces costs and provides increased benefits and incentives for healthier behavior.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:50 AM 0 comments

 

How do you make a mistake like this one at the Washington Times?

The Washington Times yesterday inadvertently published a photograph of D.C. City Administrator Robert C. Bobb misidentified as the late soul singer Marvin Gaye." -- Wednesday's Washington Times.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 9:43 AM 0 comments

Sunday, June 12, 2005

 

Michael Goodwin notes the similarities between what Hillary Clinton and what Howard Dean say about the Republicans. I think it's going to get harder and harder for Hillary to keep her two personas separate. She can't pretend to be a moderate, non-ideological politician and then also keep saying the red meat things that excite the extreme left base. Nothing that such a prominent politician says these days remains secret. Dean doesn't matter. He's party chairman and his job is to excite the base and get money. But, she hopes to get votes from the middle and independents one day. So, she can't come across as a hater. And that's what these statements portray. Someone who despises the other side. That's not an appealing persona for anyone, but especially not someone like Hillary who already has all sorts of negative images and years of Letterman and Leno jokes to overcome.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 1:10 PM 0 comments

 

Thomas Friedman writes about what seems like a beautiful program at Williams College. Every year they ask the graduating class to nominate the high school teacher who had the most impact on their lives. Then the college investigates and picks four high school teachers and gives them honorary degrees and $2000 as well as $1000 for the high school. What a nice idea. Selfishly, I immediately started hoping that some of my students would go to Williams. How heartening it would be to get such validation.

But, then I read this quote that my husband pointed out to me. One of the winning teachers is from posh Highland Park High School in Illinois (I can say it because I went to the equally posh New Trier High School, a competitor of HPHS).

I hurried to get my cap and gown off so I could interview Myra Loris, an international relations teacher at Highland Park High School, north of Chicago, who specializes in preparing kids to take part in the Model U.N. program. She was nominated by Alice Brown, a Williams senior who said in her nominating letter that Ms. Loris was a "very important teacher, role model and mentor. ... Myra has inspired many students, like me, to pursue careers in law, international relations and political advocacy."

When she got the call from Williams saying she had won, Ms. Loris recalled, "I just kept saying, 'Wow.' " A teacher for 23 years, now nearing retirement, she added, "I just found it very affirming in a Zenlike way," an acknowledgement "that my days have value, my life has had some worth. Public school teachers don't get that very often," especially with No Child Left Behind restrictions, which now require teachers to teach to the tests, and push out the window "all those things that really spark kids imaginations" - like art and music.

What a gratuitous slap for Ms. Loris and then for Thomas Friedman to include. Come on, teachers at Highland Park High School aren't losing their classes in art and music for NCLB preparation classes. If you check out HPHS's test scores, they're doing just fine for the great majority of their students. However, the groups that aren't passing Illinois's required 11th grade standardized test are the economically disadvantaged,disabled, and Hispanic students. Would Ms. Loris object to money spent to help those students achieve more in reading, writing, and math? The fact that this school has a teacher in international relations is some indication that NCLB has not forced this school to make draconian cutbacks. Plus, I object to the idea that art and music are the only things that "really spark kids imaginiations." I think that reading books can also spark those imaginations and, if kids have low reading skills, not only will they miss out on that spark to their imaginations, but they'll be held back in school and in work for the rest of their lives.

NCLB wasn't put into effect for rich suburban students whose parents have advanced degrees; it was designed for those students who were getting "left behind." Now, we might object on federalism grounds to a national law that tells the states to have everyone take these rather minimal tests. However, could you imagine the outrage if certain groups were exempted from the tests? Before NCLB, schools would be content with their score in aggregate and boast that they had over 80% of their students passing the test. What NCLB forces them to do is to disaggregate those scores and see which groups are not succeeding. That is quite valuable. I'm sure that NCLB has flaws, but forcing schools to be accountable is not one of them. If that means cutting an art teacher because kids don't know how to read on grade level, so be it.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 12:02 PM 0 comments

 

Who do you think has the worst hair style ever? The competition is tough. Personally, I would only include people who actually wore that hairstyle regularly, not models. I also object to including Thomas Jefferson. Let's stick to the 20th and 21st centuries. But, I'm fully in accord with the number one choice. With his money, you'd think that the Donald could do better than that weird combover.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:57 AM 0 comments

 

Here's another side of Condoleezza Rice.

Rice's rare and unpublicized appearance at the piano marked a striking departure from her routine as America's No. 1 diplomat. A pianist from the age of 3 she played a half-dozen selections to accompany Charity Sunshine, a 21-year-old singer who was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension a little more than a year ago.

The soprano is a granddaughter of Rep. Tom Lantos, D-California, and his wife Annette, who Rice has known for years. The Pulmonary Hypertension Association, formed in 1990, presented the concert to draw attention to the disease from which more than 100,000 people are known to suffer.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 11:47 AM 0 comments

 

Dissatisfaction with the Iranian government is so high, that some of the leaders of those opposing it are former leaders of the original Iranian Revolution.

Private political debate among the citizenry may be freer and more sophisticated than under the Shah, but the regime does not hesitate to close critical newspapers, imprisons outspoken journalists and breaks up peaceful demonstrations by force.

The situation is typified by Akbar Ganji, another former Revolutionary Guard turned reformist journalist, who was jailed in 2000 after naming dissidents allegedly murdered during the presidency of Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the present favourite election candidate. Mr Ganji was temporarily released from jail last week but has disappeared.

Karim Sadjadpour, representative for the International Crisis Group in Tehran, said of the regime: “Ideologically it is bankrupt. People don’t believe the leadership and they don’t feel they live in a country where there is a representative democracy . . . They have no allegiance with the revolution. The gulf will only increase with the coming years.”

Again, a different situation that Amnesty International might want to raise a fuss about.

There doesn't seem to be much optimism that the situation is going to change anytime soon.

Meanwhile, veterans do not even enjoy their revolution nostalgia.

One said: “My friends and I sit around at night talking about the violent protests of 1979.

“We say, ‘Hey, you remember when you started fighting with the police or did such and such in this street or that? Yeah, you idiot, look where it got us’.”

Michael Ledeen explains what is going on with Akbar Ganji. He was held as a prisoner and tortured, but then the regime lets such prisoners out for a short leave from prison and he bravely used that time to hold an Internet interview criticizing the regime.

“We are faced with a personal dictatorship, the dictatorship of (Supreme Leader Ali) Khamenei,” he said. “Khamenei has ruled for fifteen years and wants to rule for life. I oppose this and I say that this contradicts democracy.” Ganji called for Khamenei himself to submit his dictatorial rule to a public ratification. “He must take part in a free election, should the people vote him in he can rule and should they reject him he must step aside.”

Following the interview the head of the Evin Prison announced that Akbar Ganji had to return at once.

You will not have read about this brave man in your daily newspaper, or seen his face on your evening news broadcast, nor will you have heard about him from the Department of State — which has a considerable bureaucracy devoted to the advancement of human rights — nor from the White House, nor from the self-promoting entrepreneurs of the likes of Human Rights Watch or the intellectuals and elected representatives who call for President Bush to “talk to” the mullahs in order to “resolve our disagreements.” Nor has anyone heard much about the public appeal from the Women’s Movement of Iran for a demonstration at Tehran University this coming Sunday — a declaration signed by 27 organizations.

Ledeen calls for our administration and other international leaders to say publicly that the Iranian elections are a fraud. Unfortunately, our leaders are relatively silent about what is going on in Iran. As are most of the international human rights agencies. These brave Iranians fighting for true democracy should become as well-known in the the West as the Soviet refuseniks once were. But, alas, it does not seem like that is likely to happen.

UPDATE: A reader, code-named Frogg, points to this story to show that the administration has condemned the Iranian elections and is working behind the scenes to give some help to the opposition.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:43 AM 0 comments

 

David Schribman is not impressed with the Discovery Channel's list of greatest Americans. As he finds, there seems no rhyme or reason to a list that includes Marilyn Monroe, Donald Trump, and Dr. Phil. Schribman thinks that any list of greatest Americans comes down to Washington, Lincoln, FDR, or MLK. I'll go farther and say that the list comes down to only two: Washington or Lincoln.

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 8:37 AM 0 comments