I totally agree with Michele about the morning after. Salient agreement points:
and
"It means the same things for [me]. Maybe in this time we can produce a candidate who doesn't alienate the social liberal in us, yet speaks to our concerns about defense, security and the war on terror. I am not completely enamored with the Republican Party. There's a lot of work to be done within the ranks. I'd like to see a full stop of the move towards the religious right."
It's worth a read. Especially if you didn't vote for Bush. As for me, I need to get over the fact that certain friends at work have swallowed the "Bush is evil", "it's all about oil/Halliburton" line, and resolve not to be angry at them because of it. Our friendship goes beyond politics and it's better that we don't talk about it. Especially because I get the feeling that I'm looked down as being stupid because I don't agree with her/them. Live goes on. Ob le dee, ob la da.
According to The Ugly American (who read in the German daily tabloid BILD) and the Washington Post (scroll down to "Clinton's dream job"), yes. Clinton would love to have Kofi Annan's job as the UN Secretary General when Mr. Annan steps down in 2006. And knowing Clinton, he'll probably get the job. Of course, it hinges a little bit on the outcome of the US election and it's still two years away. Lots of things can happen in two years.
On the one hand, it would be nice to have a former American President in the top seat. And the Europeans love him, so his appointment would probably improve relations across the ocean. Or just convince the Europeans/the Middle East that we really are imperialistic pigs looking to take over the world. Bwhhaaha. Er, um, sorry about that.
On the other hand, I'm not so sure Clinton is a good person for the job. I'm really not sure what to make of this. Feel free to speculate or offer your opinion in the comments.
The Guardian, a UK newspaper, has an article urging Europeans concerned about the US Election to write a personal letter to people living in Clark County, Ohio. The purpose of this letter: to persuade them why voting for BushKerry is better than voting for KerryBush. Oh, it's never said in so many words, but that's the implied thrust of the article.
What? You don't know anybody in Clark County, Ohio?? Well, that's okay. They've helpfully mined the public database of registered voters who've idenitified themselves as unaffiliated for you. Just give the Guardian your email address and they'll email you an address of a Clark County voter.
Now, the Guardian freely admits that it's "worth considering at the outset how counterproductive this might all be, especially if approached undiplomatically", however "this year the issue is more charged than ever". So it's okay then. Right?
And the Guardian does suggest being civil and to try not "coming across as interfering or offensive", and hand writing your letter so it gives a more personal touch. Wow, they're so sensitive. In the last week I've read about blogs, even US Senatorial House campaigns, accusing Americans of being stupid if they re-elect Bush. In fact, I read about this article on one of them. What do you want to bet a good majority of these concerned letters to Clark County voters will contain such language? If not so explicitly, then certainly implied.
Boy, I'd feel real happy to be an unaffliated Clark County voter right now. So happy I might feel like visiting my friendly neighborhood lawyer.
This makes me so mad. The aggrogance. Imagine an American newspaper suggesting it's readers to write letters to Britians about why Tony Blair's party should be re-elected. Or to Germans suggesting Stoiber would be a better candidate because he's more friendly to America. Or voting against Chirac in the next French election. Riiighhhtt.
You know what? Butt out.
Update: Bob kindly points out in the comments that I reversed the names of the candidates above. I've corrected it. I obviously meant the Guardian was suggesting it's readers send letters for Kerry, against Bush, but in the heat of my anger I messed up. And didn't see it in my several read through's. Sorry.
Update 2 (21.10.2004 11:12): I'm closing the comments on this entry. I've said I'll I want to in the here and in the comments, and the Guardian itself is backing away from the letter campaign. As I say in the last comment:
If I received a civil letter, I'd read it, chew on it awhile (there'd still be the immediate hackles going up), and then probably send a return letter to the person thanking them for their view. However, I can't honestly say it would change my mind. On the other hand, if valid points were raised, or issues were mentioned that I'd never considered before, I'd probably do some research.
Yes! I was waiting until this evening for it, then I was going to send off the emergency ballot. Now, I'll fill this one out and send it off Monday morning.
Btw, there are eight, count them, eight choices for President & Vice President. The obvious Bush/Cheney, Kerry/Edwards, Nader/Cemejo. I never knew Nadar's running mate's name. How am I supposed to have know the other five choices? Like I'm going to pick any of them anyway. This election will be too close for me to pick one of the others to give them a boost & because they have a female running mate, regardless of their policies.
There's all these Fl. constitutional amendments to think about too - Mom sent me some websites to read up on them, guess I'll have to read them Sunday evening.
Go read new blogger Non PC in Latte Land. He's got a good analysis of why he thinks we are in Iraq, and why we need to stay the course (in answer to John Kerry's remarks last week about us having a "genuine coalition"). First entry here and a rebuttal to a harse critic here.
In the second post, he mentions a Commentary magazine article from the September 2004 issue: World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win by Norman Podhoretz. They don't allow you to link directly, so you'll have to navigate to 2004, September, and then click on the second article. You need Adobe too. Instapundit linked to the article back in August and I printed it out. It's a great article. Goes into the history behind the current Iraq conflict, the hard left's evolution as a protest machine, why he feels it's more correct to refer to the "War on Terror" as "World War IV", and why we need to win this war. I highly recommend reading it.
This is too funny. Scroll down to the "Flip flop" headline (hat tip: Inoperable Terran):
Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani told President Bush this week that he is sorry.
“I owe you an apology,” Mr. Giuliani began. “I made a mistake during my [Republican National Convention] speech ... I said that with 64 days to go, John Kerry could change his mind five or six times about what to do in Iraq. Well, he’s already changed his mind four or five times and I’m going to be proven wrong again because I think we’re looking more like eight or nine times.”
The Kerry/Edwards people were at the Alte Oper today during lunch and I registered to vote. Well, I hope I'm registered to vote. I filled the card out and they're going to mail it off Monday from the Consulate. Thing is as I was filling it out, my boss shouted that I'm going to vote for Bush. I hope my card doesn't end up in the trash because of that. (Just kidding - sort of.)
Through a fluke of chance, I ended up with pieces of the Wall Street Journal, Europe yesterday. [My boss obtained it somehow, read an article on Handball (a sport that has not yet sucessfully exported to the US), and gave it to one of my colleagues who is a goalie in his local Handball Team. Then, being finished with the paper, my boss gave it to me. See, it's complicated.]
Annnywayyy....tonight on the S-bahn ride home, I read two opinion pieces in there, one by Charles Hill (Keflavik, Ramstein, Clark, Aviano. . . [official WSJ subscribers only link], [full text on beaconblog]) and another by Claudia Rosett (The Real World: Escape From Kerryland [official WSJ and, so far, free link]. Both very good, both very insightful.
The first opinion piece by Charles Hill outlines why (he thinks, and I agree) the troop re-deployment is a good idea. He also gives a realistic outlook on the impact this discission will have on Germany and S. Korea. Ie., despite the hand wringing of German Unions, not all US bases are going to disappear and we'll still have enough troops on the ground in S. Korea to handle developments there. Give it a read, it's worth it.
Best quotes:
The Kerry campaign charges that just at the moment when we want greater NATO involvement in Iraq, the Bush decision is bound to annoy our allies in Paris and Berlin, further damaging our relationship with Europe.But Sen. Kerry has the meaning of a security relationship backwards. A warmer European-American relationship would not have produced a NATO decision to join us in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, or in the hard-slog work of establishing security and democracy in Iraq. It works the other way around.
When we and like-minded partners face and solve a problem together, a strong relationship can be forged. The minimalist support from NATO's "old Europe" members -- and the commentaries of the Continental intelligentsia -- indicate that neither Western Europe nor the U.N. has yet grasped that if the Middle East is not transformed in a positive way, the international community and its system of laws, organizations and cooperative mechanisms will find itself embroiled in a world war.
....
If elected, President Kerry, smothered with European approbation, will declare that he has healed the trans-Atlantic rift. Then, as the Middle East continues to generate pathologies reaching beyond the region, the Europeans will counsel caution, delay and diplomacy, and President Kerry will acquiesce in order to preserve his new "relationship." And the war will draw closer.
Amen.
And for those of us who are getting entirely fed up with the Kerry Vietnam chest thumping and mud-slinging, Claudia Rosett first reminds us the terrorist are not idly sitting back doing nothing.
[gah! just discovered the WSJ link doesn't have the full text of what appears in the paper! Specifically, the paragraph I want to quote here. Sigh. Forgive my typos as I transcribe it. :(]
Somewhere - remember Madrid - the next attack is quite likely in the making. ...
[I]t must surely be clear by now that we face not simply Osama bin Laden, or al Qaueda, but a fascist movement that finds in murder an intoxicating power over the rest of mankind, and in modern technology, a terrible arsenal.
I love that last sentence. Very powerful.
She then offers us suggestions of more constructive ways to pass our news watching time: re-read the Constitution, specifically passages dealing with the [non]-rights of tyrants; re-reading the Gettysburg address; or reading through Shakespeares Henry V (Act IV, Scene 3) for the stirring speech in which the "band of brothers" phrase was originally used. All good suggestions. I have a feeling I'll be reading through these this weekend.
I've been reading references to "brown shirts" on blogs lately (Lileks, ASV, etc). What the heck does this mean? Al Gore is mentioned a lot in connection. I missed something. Can somebody clue me in?
Update: Thanks to Karl, in the comments, I understand. He points to this Wikipedia entry that has the following definition:
Today, the term "Brown Shirts" has become part of every day langugage as a term to describe the extreme rank and file of right wing organizations. It can also mean an individual of a right wing organization who is seen as very narrow-minded and excessively loyal.
As for the context with Al Gore, I followed a few links and learned that Al Gore gave a somewhat impassioned speach this week to the American Constitution Society. The transcript is here (pdf). In the first part of the speech, he gives reasoned, and reasonable, arguments about what the founding fathers meant for the Constitution to accomplish and how the President should carry out his role. In contrast to that, he mentions examples of how our current President has distorted the meaning of the Constitution and, in his view, abused his powers. For example, labeling somebody as an "enemy combatant" and holding them indefinitely without access to a lawyer. I agree with this. I don't like some of the things President Bush has done in his term. However, then Al Gore starts to get a bit emotional and, in my view, a little illogical. He calls right wing bloggers "digital Brown Shirts" and goes on and on about the illegitimacy of the Iraq war and how Bush is lying to the people.
Alles klar?
This is a very poignant and touchy article about the last few minutes of President Reagan's life. Prepare the tissue before reading.
I'm going to try catching the funeral tomorrow. It's hard because it starts at 4:30pm my time and I'm still in work then. But maybe I'll be able to at least catch the Eulogy's.
He's the first President I really knew. [I remember Carter vaguely. I distinctly remember wanting him to win re-election though - I was five during his campaign. For some reason, after he lost the re-election, I remember seeing him on TV talking about something space related and somehow made the connection that he was going into space because he lost. LOL.] But Reagan was the President of my childhood. He's the one that started bringing us out of the Cold War and gave America hope and pride in being American. I've never been very political, but those were happy years. Even if I DID get really annoyed with the Iran-Contra affair because it kept interrupting my soap opera Days of Our Lives. The things a 12-13 year old worries about. :)
God Speed President Reagan. I hope you are in a much better place.
Via lgf, I found this article in Egypt Today, an English language tourism-oriented magazine. The title of the article is "When is it Murder?". The it being suicide bombings. A choice bit of circular logic from the article is below. Wow, it's amazing what your hatred and zealotry can talk you into.
According to Egyptian cleric Sheikh Gamal Kutb, a former member of Al-Azhar’s Fatwa Committee, the confusion and contradictory statements issued by Al-Azhar on suicide bombings stem from the fact that in the West all such operations are lumped together and called “terrorism.”“When we talk about people blowing themselves up, a clear distinction has to be made between those who do so to defend their own land, and those who are just aiming to cause terror and instability as with the World Trade Center bombings,” says Kutb.
At first glance, though, all such missions appear to contradict two basic precepts in Islam: not taking your own life and not killing innocent civilians.
Both Kutb and Ashour, however, argue that a suicide mission carried out as a form of defiance against a foreign occupier makes you a martyr; the same act in a case where there is no occupation or state of war makes you a sinner and terrorist.
Kutb says because most Israelis are required to serve in the military, none can be considered civilians.
It’s a logic that allows the indiscriminate bombing of men, women and children alike.
“It’s true that Sheikh Al-Azhar has repeatedly gone both ways on the issue, but the consensus within Al-Azhar now is that Palestine and Iraq are two special cases,” Kutb says.
I found this series of articles via ASV a while back, started reading it and never finished. It's a good post, I meant to get back to it, but other things came up. Then last night (and this morning) I was bored, so I started trawling the blogosphere for interesting reads and I found it again. Bill Whittle crystalizes a lot of my nebulous feelings and thoughts on the war and makes some excellent points about Iraq, the War on Terror and general Anti-Americanism. Lots of food for thought. I recommend going there and reading it.
Okay, off to get ready for my soccer match which may or may not be sold out already (according to the UEFA website). We'll see. Of course, I don't have tickets yet. I just decided to go on Thursday!
I just read on ASV about the video showing a contractor being beheaded - it's the lead story on cnn.com. Supposedly in retaliation for the abuse at Abu Ghraib.
This just makes me sick. I'm soo sad at this.
This is NOWHERE near on par with the abuses that happened at Abu Ghraib (under US control). And claiming that this shows how insensitive our administration is because they supposedly offered to trade him for Iraq prisoners there is just .. unthinkable. We DO NOT negotiate with terrorists. It is NOT an option.
Really. I'm crying. I can not imagine being in that contractor's place. What are these people (the terrorists) thinking of?
...
Sigh. I normally don't follow news a lot. You either know me and know it's true or can tell it from reading my blog. I've been following it alot the last couple of weeks. Trying to bone up on my German, my knowledge of world events, signing up for news alerts, etc. And I've just been so full of anger at seemingly unreasonable critics and news events (the CNN anchor this morning asking the TIME Europe Editor if the prison scandal meant we were really in a quagmire now REALLY ticked me OFF) the last couple of days. Maybe this is WHY I don't follow the news so much. I care too much? I get really opinionated when I start learning more about something?
Oh, another thing ... a colleague and I were talking the other day about conspiracy theories about 9/11. He said he had an article at home about various theories and I said I just couldn't believe the US gov't was behind the attacks. OR just as ludicriously that the Mossad was behind them. Today he brought the article in and mentioned it at lunch. Then on the way back he mentioned that people believe we never went to the Moon - another moonbat theory he has an article on at home. Since we were mentioning moonbat theories, I said how there are people who believe the Holocaust never happened. Immediate disgust and "how could ANYbody believe that" on his face and the comment that it DID happen. Which just contrasted for me how much his reaction was different to the moon landing and 9/11 conspiracies. As if OF COURSE the Holocaust happened, but .... well... it's POSSIBLE there's some merit of truth to the other two. WHY???? Because Americans are involved in the other two? Maybe I'm just too sensitive and took it out of context. And maybe I shouldn't be writing about it here.
Maybe I'll just go....read my Da Vinci Code book I started yesterday. Sorry for the ramble.
Here's an article about why the draft is "really, really dead", ie., it's not likely to happen ever again. Opening paragraph:
Talk of reviving the military draft, to supply enough troops for the war on terror, is just that, talk. More accurately, it's clueless and opportunistic politicians fishing for headlines. But the draft "controversy" has become a popular media story in the last few months, even though the military says it has more volunteers than it needs and is even laying off people.
He then goes on to give some history of the draft, why an all-volunteer force is better (and more plentiful!), and just generally de-bunks the idea that a draft will be re-instated for the War on Terror. Read it. (hat tip: Instapundit)
I just received a CNN "Breaking News" email:
President Bush tells Arab TV that treatment of Iraqi prisoners was "abhorrent" and does not reflect "the America that I know."
And this is breaking news HOW? If the President had told Arab TV that he commends the soldiers for doing this or how he delighted in looking at the photos, I could see THAT as being "breaking news". But that he found it "abhorrent"??? Please! Any decent human being finds it abhorrent. And besides, he's the President and a political man. Of course he's going to say what he said. This is NOT news, at least not BREAKING news.
I do not understand news organizations sometimes.
Update: Mom suggests in the comments that the Breaking News is the fact Bush was speaking on Arab TV about the scandal, not what he said about the scandal. Which makes sense. I was surprised when I first read he would be speaking on Arab TV. That would be breaking news. Still, the email could have been worded better so that was the thrust of the message, not what he said.
Do you ever get the feeling that EVERY terrorist group has "ties to Al-Queda"? Okay, I know it's a vast organisation, but really.....
How disgusting is this "comic"?
[click for a bigger version]
Makes me sick. (hat tip: A Small Victory)
Update: MSNBC pulled the offensive cartoon from it's site. Good.