Stem Cells in Saudi Arabia
GedankenPundit, noting Christopher Reeve's visit to the Middle East, is confused whether Israel or Saudi Arabia is more advanced in stem cell research. Maybe the Saudis have to be. How do you re-attach a head? :-)

The dishonest president
No I'm not talking about President Bush whose integrity the media is impugning on the basis of a specious charge. I'm referring to his predecessor, Governor Clinton. Last week Governor and Senator Clinton received word that most of their legal expenses for defending themselves against the independent counsel would not be reimbursed. The court held that of the $3.5 million the Clintons claimed they were only eligible for $85,000.
The Washington Post wasn't happy. So the Post impugned the court's motives.

An indictment of the Bush administration?

The Washington Post dedicated a front page article to Rand Beers, a former counter-terrorism adviser to the president who has resigned his position and signed on with the Kerry campaign. The article explains that Beers felt that the administration is not doing enough to fight terror at home. I guess if the article simply described Beers' feelings of being overwhelmed by threat reports it wouldn't be bad. But the reporter does all she can to amplify Beers' view that the Bush administration asks for results that conform to its worldview. Mrs. Beers is quoted:

"It's a very closed, small, controlled group. This is an administration that determines what it thinks and then sets about to prove it. There's almost a religious kind of certainty. There's no curiosity about opposing points of view. It's very scary. There's kind of a ghost agenda."

In fact not a single quote is brought to suggest that maybe Beers' criticism of the Bush administration is misplaced. After all if there are more terror threats now maybe it's the result of more complete reporting. According to the State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism report it would appear that actual terror has been declining since the Bush administration came to power in 2001. Maybe the reason for that is that President Clinton took a "Holiday from History" that cost the United States much of its deterrent power.

Of course the Washington Post must simply add to the chorus of those who claim that this administration is ideological rather than practical; even if facts suggest that its ideology is on target!

NY Times Math
In an article about State Department employee Liz Cheney - the Vice President's daughter - the NY Times reports that:

Although the program provides only a small part of the $1 billion in annual economic aid that the United States gives to the Arab world, its goals are an unusual amalgam of ideas usually associated with liberals, such as improving the status of women in the developing world, and with neo-conservatives like Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, who argue that the United States has an unparalleled chance to spread democracy throughout the Middle East after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The United States give $2 billion in aid to Egypt annually. How does the Times get $1 billion to the Arab world? Does Egypt give some of it back?

Internet 1, NY Times 0

Unlike the New York Times the internet seems to have self-correcting mechanisms. According to "Counteracting the Internet Rumor" Starbucks was faced with a boycott on account of its closing its franchises in Israel. According to the report:

For Mrs. Miller, 39, a private investment manager who lives in Greenwich, Conn., the e-mail message meant the immediate end of almost daily runs to Starbucks for a tall decaf caramel macchiato or a Frappuccino.

"I was determined that I was not going back to Starbucks," said Mrs. Miller, who said she believed the e-mail message because it came from a person she considered to be a reputable source. That day she forwarded the message to about 30 of her cyberbuddies.

But Mrs. Miller's boycott lasted only one day because the implication of the e-mail message was not true. Starbucks had said it was pulling out of Israel because it was dissolving its ties with a partner in the country and because of an economic downturn in the area.

So it took Mrs. Miller one day to determine that something was wrong with the rumor. How long did Jayson Blair report for the Times? It's amazing that the Times didn't mention snopes.com. The day I received the message, I thought it sounded funny so I checked out the 'net's debunker of urban legends. Sure enough...

Starbucks didn't remove itself from Israel because it was pro-Arab or anti-Israeli; it did so because this was the business decision that appeared to make the best sense. Although the corporation has given muddled explanations for its pull-out from Israel — sometimes citing the danger of terrorist attacks, sometimes making passing mention of "operational challenges" — the most likely reasons for the retreat were Starbucks' difficulties in dealing with its Israeli partner and the underperformance of their six stores. (Starbucks was a latecomer to an already-saturated Israeli market, didn't adapt well to local market conditions, and offered little to distinguish themselves from their competition except higher prices). As Chief Financial Officer Michael Casey said about the cessation of Starbuck's operations in Israel, "It's a difficult place to do business, as you can imagine. And we've had some disagreements of philosophy with the partner. You put those two together and we just decided it was a good time to stop."

There you have it. I was able to debunk the rumor pretty quickly. I don't know that this even rated a news story. But at least be complete.

Sniping at Muhammed

I fail to see the problem with seeking the death penalty in the case of John Allen Muhammad. It should not be important whether or not he pulled the trigger to kill any of the victims. News reports consistently referred to Muhammad as an army trained sniper. Well why not check the regulations governing snipers?

Under the heading of "Organization" we learn that:

b. Snipers work and train in 2-man teams. One sniper's primary duty is that of the sniper and team leader while the other sniper serves as the observer. The sniper team leader is responsible for the day-to-day activities of the sniper team.

In other words according to his training, snipers operate in teams. Each one is an essential component of the team. Specifically,

Each member of the sniper team has specific responsibilities. Only through repeated practice can the team begin to function properly. Responsibilities of team members areas follows:

a. The sniper--

Builds a steady, comfortable position.
Locates and identifies the designated target.
Estimates the range to the target.
Dials in the proper elevation and windage to engage the target.
Notifies the observer of readiness to fire.
Takes aim at the designated target.
Controls breathing at natural respiratory pause.
Executes proper trigger control.
Follows through.
Makes an accurate and timely shot call.
Prepares to fire subsequent shots, if necessary.
b. The observer--

Properly positions himself.
Selects an appropriate target.
Assists in range estimation.
Calculates the effect of existing weather conditions on ballistics.
Reports sight adjustment data to the sniper.
Uses the M49 observation telescope for shot observation.
Critiques performance.

The way John Allen Muhammad learned how to shoot, was in two man teams. He was an essential component to the commission of the crime. I fail to see why the question of whether or not he pulled the trigger is relevant. He should be subject to the needle if he is convicted.

The twisted Times

If there's even a hint of racism or sexism, count on the New York Times to lead the fight in its news and editorial pages. But when the subject is antisemitism the Times seems somewhat reticent to condemn. This is astonishing. According to the FBI's hate crime statistics Jews are the ethnic group that suffers from the highest rate of hate crimes in this country. (Check out page 13 of the report. Yes I know that more hate crimes are directed against blacks, but blacks have roughly 7 times the population of Jews in the U.S.)

The problem is with the Times's coverage of the new trial of Lemrick Nelson. After two trials, in which he's claimed that he never stabbed Yankel Rosenbaum during the 1991 Crown Heights pogrom, Nelson is changing his story. Now he's admitting to having stabbed Rosenbaum but that he wasn't motivated by hate. There's a problem with this claim. But in the Times report on Nelson's change this is left until the last paragraph.

Mr. Rosenbaum's older brother, Norman Rosenbaum, a former prosecutor in Australia, dismissed Mr. Jasper's arguments with a snort. Mr. Nelson, he said outside the courthouse, did not appear drunk in videotapes of the scene. As to the contention that Mr. Nelson's attack on his brother was motivated not by racial bias but simply by the excitement of the moment, Mr. Rosenbaum said it would have been impossible not to know what the excitement was about.

"The excitement was when that mob called out, `There's a Jew, let's get the Jew,' " he said. "It was the excitement of getting the Jew."

In fact what's worse than waiting until the last paragraph to note that the mob that attacked Yankel Rosenbaum yelled "...get the Jew" is that Newman (the Times reporter) presents that information through Norman Rosenbaum, Yankel's brother. Many accounts of the riot I've found, note that the members of the crowd identified Rosenbaum as a Jew. Unless drinking made Nelson deaf, this story establishes his motive as being based on hate. The information should have been presented earlier in the story to discredit Nelson's legal strategy and not simply as a statement of a bereaved brother.

Things are not going well for Nelson. Or shouldn't be. After essentially claiming that Nelson was deaf yesterday, (apparently he drank so much he couldn't hear anyone say "...get the Jew." the defense can't even establish that Nelson was drunk!

Lieutenant Sanossian testified yesterday in United States District Court that Mr. Nelson did not appear to be drunk, did not smell of alcohol, did not have problems following instructions and had no difficulty walking up the stairs of the station house when he and other officers took him back there from the hospital.

I would like to see the Times get as upset about this patently dishonest attempt to escape justice for murder as it did about Trent Lott's offensive but essentially harmless (to other people) remarks about Strom Thurmond's 1948 candidacy for president.
I won't hold my breath.

The Times they are a-charging - Crippling the Blogosphere

Today I wanted to take another look at an excellent article I had recently read in the New York Times Magazine. It was Paul Berman's investigation into the philosophy of Sayyid Qutb, called the "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror." Well I went to my blog with a reference to the article and clicked the link. Go ahead try it. What happened?

Guess what? The Times now resolves the URL into its archives section and charges for the article. This is another step in the Times efforts to limit free access to its articles. First you could access articles for two weeks and get older articles through Yahoo or saved links. Then they shortened the free searches to a single week. Then they started charging for articles accessed through Yahoo news. Now they're charging for articles even if you have the links yourself.

I know that it's their property and they have a right to charge for it. Maybe they noticed that through blogs people were circumventing the for-fee accesses and they were losing money due to blogging.

The problem is that if more media outlets start doing this it will undermine one of the joys of blogging - being able to link to articles that you're critiquing. InstaPundit often brings up the skill with which bloggers do their tasks without editors. In truth, everyone edits a blog. If you misrepresent an article there's millions of editors out there to set you straight, or even to - gasp - Fisk you. Maybe the Times will relent. Maybe it's just another example of big corporate interests trying to squeeze the little guy.

Cantori's Wrong

This morning I switched to WBAL to get a traffic report. When I switched, the morning guy Dave Durian was interviewing Prof. Lou Cantori of UMBC. Even before I heard who it was I wasn't much impressed with the analysis. In addition to the typical complaint that the Americans were spread too thin, another thing that got me was that Cantori claimed that Iraqis are nationalists and prefer Saddam to the Americans. Really? Did he read today's David Ignatius column?

"It's too dangerous," he said. "We are scared from Saddam's people, 100 percent." He said Iraqis believe that Hussein's power is "like magic," invisible and impossible to destroy. "We will not sleep well until we know he's dead," he said.

Yeah these guys prefer Saddam.

Second Guessing Rumsfeld

There seems to be a parlor game in the media: second guessing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The most notorious of these articles "The Battle Between Rumsfeld and the Pentagon" by Seymour Hersh has gotten a lot of exposure. Hersh's article wasn't the first. (Several months ago the Washington Post reported that Rumsfeld had run afoul of a number of bureaucrats and generals in the Pentagon.) Hersh's premise, and of those that follow him, is that Rumsfeld is doing a bad thing by undermining the military. But is he? Maybe Rumsfeld isn't simply an ideologue but someone who's trying to change an entrenched culture. That could be a good thing.

Happily there are some people who don't view our leadership with such a jaundiced eye. Jim Hoagland makes Tommy Franks into something of a hero. And implicitly backs Rumsfeld.

Give my regards to Baghdad

A number of publications have published accounts of "human shields" who have seen the error of their ways. There's this piece in the Jerusalem Post (originally in the Telegraph). The author notes when he had his epiphany:

As he realized I was serious, he slowed down and started to speak in broken English about the evils of Saddam's regime. Until then I had only heard the president spoken of with respect, but now this guy was telling me how all of Iraq's oil money went into Saddam's pocket, and that if you opposed him politically he would kill your whole family.

Leave it to the NY Times to publish a piece by a human shield who had no regrets. Being a human shield is just lots of campfires and singing, "Kumbaya." It doesn't mean that we're standing up for a guy who turns opponents into fish food.

No doubt the Times will argue, "but it's our job to give exposure to alternative views" or "do you want us to support the government blindly?" Of course they'd be obfuscating the issue. Given the horrific nature of Saddam's regime you'd think that a newspaper would like to keep a reputation of at least a moral authority when covering the war. Yet it seems more intent on demonstrating its independence from the government than in showing it is capable of judging right and wrong.

So the Times gives the benefit to America's opponents and enemies. It publishes letters to the editor in proportions that reflect its own views and not those of the country. And they find the odd "human shield" who's been hit in the head one too many times and remains oblivious to Saddam's evil.

Doomed to Repeat

Does a lot of the war reporting seem redundant? Not just within this war - but have you heard any of it before?

Tom Bevan at realclearpolitics noted the impression in the media and elsewhere that the war effort was getting bogged down. Well as Tom noted it happened before. In Afghanistan. That was about 15 or 16 months ago. How did the president react then? Like this:

"We've been at this only 19 days. Be steady. Don't let the press panic us." The press would say they needed a new strategy, that the current strategy was a failed one. He disagreed. "Resist the second-guessing. Be confident but patient. We are going to continue this thing through Ramadan," the Muslim holy month. "We've got to be cool and steady. It's all going to work."

In other words he had confidence in his game plan. He wasn't going to change it because of the second guessers. President Bush is very deliberate. He's not going to get spooked by an impatient media. He knows that wars aren't won in a day and he will stay the course now, too.

Did anyone think it was weird when Amnesty International condemned the United States for bombing Iraqi TV? Well in 1999 the UN investigated the United States - actually NATO - for war crimes for its choice of bombing targets in Yugoslavia.

The charges came not just from the government of President Slobodan Milosevic, who was indicted on war crimes charges by the tribunal in May, but from journalists and academics in the West. Arbour met with a delegation of legal scholars from Norway, Greece, Canada and other countries in August to hear their views on the tribunal's role.

The there's this headline:

Bombing Awakens Anti-U.S. Feeling Around World

Sounds familiar doesn't it? OK, I cheated, that should read "Bombing of Yugoslavia..." and if you read the article you'll learn that:

Here in Argentina, one of Washington's closest Latin American allies, a poll last week showed that 64 percent of the populace opposes the NATO air campaign. More respondents had a negative opinion of NATO than of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Of course there's the similarly themed recent headlines:

Opponents of War Decry U.S. Stance

Many Nations Assail End of Diplomacy

And many of those in the anti-war movement think that Bush is worse than Saddam.

Lest we think that this international anti-Americanism is a recent phenomenon, let's remember Daniel Patrick Moynihan with some of his observations presented by George Will:

At the United Nations he witnessed that institution's inanity (as in its debate about the threat to peace posed by U.S. forces in the Virgin Islands, at that time 14 Coast Guardsmen, one shotgun, one pistol) and its viciousness (the resolution condemning Zionism as racism). Striving to move America "from apology to opposition," he faulted U.S. foreign policy elites as "decent people, utterly unprepared for their work."

Their "common denominator, apart from an incapacity to deal with ideas, was a fear of making a scene, a form of good manners that is a kind of substitute for ideas." Except they did have one idea, that "the behavior of other nations, especially the developing nations, was fundamentally a reaction to the far worse behavior of the United States."

In other words, the anti-American anti-war movement has been going on for a long time. It used to be, in Moynihan's time a front for pro-Soviet groups. Now, the anti-war movement has coalesced around the anti-globalization movement. In either case it's a movement that tolerates the worst dictators. The movement has no moral compass (well maybe it does with the United States always pointed toward E(vil)).

Those like Thomas Friedman who criticize Bush's efforts diplomacy don't acknowledge that the movement had been in place well before Bush was elected. Look these people have the right to express themselves, no matter how wrong they are. Our duty is to point out the immorality and indefensibility of their position.

Survival of the Fittest to Print?

On March 26, InstaPundit ran an item about how the NY Times spins its poll results. In the Times article, the reporters play up all the divisions in the country over the war, finally, in the last paragraph they acknowledge that:

"Support for Mr. Bush and the war remains high. By 70 percent to 24 percent, Americans believe that the United States did not make a mistake getting involved in Iraq."

Well you wouldn't know it from reading the Times's letters page. On the 27th, The Times ran 8 letters to the editor about the war in Iraq. Guess what? Only one of them was pro-Bush!!! (There was a second letter that supported the war but dissed Bush for not pushing the Mideast Peace Process like his British counterpart was doing.)

What's going on here? Are the editors of the Times screening letters to give the impression that the population of this country largely agrees with the editorial position of the Times regarding the war in Iraq? Or are letter writers simply self selected? Those who agree with the Times figure that they have a good chance of having their letter published. However those who disagree figure (fairly or not) that there's less of a chance that their letter would be published, so they blog instead.

Soccer Dad

My repository for thoughts not having to do with Israel or Thomas Friedman.

The Ridiculous and the Sublime

Michael Moore got all the attention on Sunday for his rude criticism of the President at the Academy Awards on Sunday night. Despite the dishonesty of his speech and of his film (that dishonesty should have disqualified him from an Oscar for documetaries!) he made it to the news. The shame is that the guy's a buffoon and not a particularly pleasant one either.

Sunday was the day that the guy who should have been talked about was Paul Berman who wrote a fantastic article in the New York Times Magazine called "The Philosopher of Islamic Terror." Berman's article is a careful synopsis of the worldview of Sayyid Qutb, whose worldview guides Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

So what does Paul Berman have to do with Michael Moore?

Back in 1986 Michael Moore was the editor of Mother Jones Magazine. Paul Berman had been commissioned to write an article about the Nicaragua. Berman's article was critical of the Sandinistas. Moore, favoring radical orthodoxy over truth spiked the article. As a result of the controversy, Moore was ousted as editor (with a generous golden parachute). (Check out the third paragraph here.)

Even back then, Moore had only a passing acquaintance with the truth. He's successfully parlayed his dishonesty into a lucrative and critically acclaimed career. (What does that say about the ability of critics to think critically?) He's not everyman. He's a skilled con man.

Not in whose name?

Funny but the ones who protest that an American led war is not being waged in their names seem to be under the impression that life in Baghdad is just dandy. If only the United States would steer clear, regular Iraqis would continue thriving under Saddam and would vote him out of office if he didn't behave. Maybe Iraq isn't such an Eden. One refugee writes very well that they don't speak for him. And what of the posturing of the human shields? This fellow didn't have a choice. (These two came from Real Clear Politics.) This harrowing testimony- do not read if you are faint of heart - comes from Little Green Footballs and the Volokh Conspiracy. Additionally from the Volokh Conspiracy there's this.

Prayer for Soldiers

The Orthodox Union (Jewish) has published a prayer for the well being of American soldiers in their fight against the forces of terror. Though it goes back to December 2001, the Rabbi of my synagogue recited it Monday evening before the prayers of Purim and reading the Megillah (Scroll) of Esther. I suppose that the Pat Buchanans and Jim Morans of this country will see this as just one more sign that Jews support the war, it's not that at all.

Jews have been privileged to live in this country. After the destruction of European Jewry, the freedom of America's Jews has been a factor in the strengthening of Judaism. Jews have benefitted tremendously from America's benevolence. The country may not be perfect; no human institution is. But America has been an extremely generous host.

Jewish expressions of support for America's armed forces are not just expressions of gratitude. They are expressions of confidence that such a benevolent nations does not use force recklessly.

Misguided Protesters
Even Pravda, I mean the New York Times, occasionally allows dissenting opinions on its Letters to the Editor page. Though it's not the only good one, scroll down to Susan Petrarca's letter. She says it very well:

Millions supported Stalin and Hitler; they were misled. Millions opposed the placement of Pershing missiles in Eastern Europe; they were overreacting. Millions demonstrate in support of Hamas, Hezbollah, Yasir Arafat, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein; they are misguided.

I wish I had said that.

"Two men do not dream the same dream"
There's been a lot of buzz about the talking fish of New Square. Did it really happen? Or is this just one more example of Messianic talk that becomes frequent before Passover?

A Scrapple Attempt

Today Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer responded to Rep. James Moran's charges that influential Jews were leading the United States to war with Iraq. "I'm shocked by this charge," exclaimed the President's spokesman, "I thought I had done a better job of hiding the conspiracy. Until Representative Moran revealed what was going on, I thought that Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld and National Security Advisor Rice had hidden their Judaism effectively. Now I'll have to consult with the secret cabal of Rabbis to who secretly control the American government to determine how to undo the damage of this revelation. If it hadn't been for Mr. Moran's uncanny ability to detect conspiracies we might have gotten away with it and no one would have been the wiser."