2009

A healthy reminder with the start of a new year.

Back to the 60's

The Animals - House of the Rising Sun

Awesome.

The NY Times Has a Right to Make a Profit Too, Right?

Oh boy.

Other Loyalties: The Taliban, Pakistan, and India

Looks like the Obama administration is in for some "fun."

Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban who is accused of being behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, said he’d back the government if war breaks out with India. Baitullah promised the Taliban would to send "thousands of our well-armed militants" and hundreds of suicide bombers to Pakistan's eastern border with India "to fight alongside the army if any war is imposed on Pakistan." He also said the suicide bombers are being equipped with their suicide vests.

Baitullah’s call to support the military validates the long-standing Pakistani strategy of establishing strategic depth--supporting the Taliban and jihadi groups--to oppose India. Despite Pakistan siding with the United States after the 9/11 attack, many in the military and intelligence service continued to back this policy covertly. Little has been done to crack down on the multitude of jihadi groups inside Pakistan. And powerful elements within the Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped revive the Afghan Taliban after it was ousted from power in early 2002.

Time to revisit Hitchens...

In rather the same way, the international community is deciding to be, shall we say, nonjudgmental in the matter of Pakistani involvement in the Bombay unpleasantness. Everything from the cell phones to the training appears to be traceable to the aboveground surrogates of an ostensibly banned group known as Lashkar-i-Taiba, which practices what it preaches and preaches holy war against Hindus, as well as Jews, Christians, atheists, and other elements of the "impure." Lashkar is well-known to be a bastard child—and by no means a disowned one, either—of the Pakistani security services. But how inconvenient if this self-evident and obvious fact should have to be faced.

Now while I won't go out and say that we are about to see Armageddon in Southern Asia, it is still a major obstacle that needs to be taken seriously. We must find a way to curb these Taliban types from influencing policy in Pakistan. Otherwise, we're going to see more of this.

Pakistan-Indian peace conference anyone?

Second Amendment: An Individual Right

How many times do we have to go over this? As many times as necessary. For even Associate Justices of the Supreme Court make mistakes.

As for the Second Amendment, Hardy finds that Cornell's article, and therefore Justice Stevens' opinion, contains a major factual error: the militia language which Cornell quoted was not from Tucker's description of the Second Amendment. The language was from Tucker's explanation of Article I's grant of militia powers to Congress. Tucker's description of the Second Amendment comes 20 pages later in the 1791-92 lecture notes, and is nearly a verbatim match with the text Tucker's 1803 book, unambiguously describing the Second Amendment as encompassing a personal right for a variety of purposes, not just for militia service.

The Cornell article is St. George Tucker and the Second Amendment: Original Understandings and Modern Misunderstandings, 47 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1123 (2006). Perhaps the error in article, and the derivative error in a Supreme Court opinion, could have been averted with bettter cite-checking.

Hating guns and/or blaming them for everything isn't an excuse for trying to infringe on someone's rights. Look, I'm not even a big gun person; I'm not into the "gun culture" or anything like that. I understand the Second Amendment as a right. That people have the right to defend themselves, their family and property. That they have the right to own a gun for the sake of owning a gun. This is America, not Europe. And if we were in Europe, by God, let it be Switzerland. Gun violence (as they call it) plaguing your community? Then do something about it; a gun is a weapon, it is not a motive. I think we'd all be a lot better off if people understood that.

Via: Reason's Hit & Run

For Fun: Thundercats Trailer

This is a fan made movie trailer for Thundercats.


Hilarious.

Chávez: South America's Little Fidel

Hugo Chávez is at it again, trying to extend his power by another referendum. Yet is it too late for him?

THE FUTURE does not look bright for Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Last month, opposition candidates won control of the country's three most populous states and the two largest cities. The price of Venezuela's heavy oil has dropped below $35 per barrel, which is 40 percent below what the government says it planned for in next year's budget and less than half of what independent analysts say Mr. Chávez needs to sustain his heavy spending on projects such as the nationalization of domestic industries, purchases of Russian weapons and subsidies to clients including Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega. Already, Venezuelans are experiencing inflation of more than 30 percent, shortages of basic goods and the world's second-highest murder rate. In less than five weeks, the inauguration of Barack Obama will remove Mr. Chávez's favorite foil -- George W. Bush -- and replace him with a president who may be more popular in Venezuela than Mr. Chávez himself.

Hopefully this will mark the end of the Bolivarian "Revolution."

Revisited: The Chávez Authoritarian Check List:

1. Create an external foe: Check
2. Breakup of political opposition: Check
3. Build up your military: Check
4. Nationalization: Check
5. Rule partially by decree: Check
6. Support terrorist groups: Check
7. Build a network of informants: Pending
8. Re-education camps: Soon to follow
9. Total rule by decree: Soon to follow

A Little Torture With Your Coffee

Great finding everyone, we are all weak willed individuals who are obedient.

Some things never change. Scientists said on Friday they had replicated an experiment in which people obediently delivered painful shocks to others if encouraged to do so by authority figures.

Seventy percent of volunteers continued to administer electrical shocks -- or at least they believed they were doing so -- even after an actor claimed they were painful, Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University in California found.

"What we found is validation of the same argument -- if you put people into certain situations, they will act in surprising, and maybe often even disturbing, ways," Burger said in a telephone interview. "This research is still relevant."

Burger was replicating an experiment published in 1961 by Yale University professor Stanley Milgram, in which volunteers were asked to deliver electric "shocks" to other people if they answered certain questions incorrectly.

Pass the whiskey, I need a shot.

Lost: The Countdown Begins

I can't wait.

Whitewashing Stalin

Nothing to see here, only greatness.

In Russian classrooms, history teachers are guided by a new, government-approved textbook, Alexander Filippov's "Modern History of Russia: 1945-2006," which hails Stalin as an efficient manager who had to resort to extreme measures to modernize the lumbering Soviet agrarian economy.

There were, writes Filippov, "rational reasons behind the use of violence in order to ensure maximum efficiency."

What's that quote by George Santayana again, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

The question here is, what if one knowingly manipulates it?

Via: American Power

Nanny State: The Year of 2008

Reason TV segment:

Banning large inflatable gorillas? Talk about lame.

Nanny State 2008: Because we need to be treated like children...for the children...because they...might uh...die. Yeah, children will DIE!

UN Court Convicts Theoneste Bagasora

The UN Court has just convicted Theoneste Bagasora, one of the masterminds of the Rwandan genocide.

A United Nations-backed court in Tanzania on Thursday convicted the one of the masterminds of the Rwandan genocide – a decision that is an important milestone both for a record of truth telling in Rwanda and for international justice.

Theoneste Bagasora, a former Rwandan Army colonel, was found guilty of "genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes" in the 1994 slaughter of more than 800,000 people. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda also convicted ex-military commanders Anatole Nsengiyumva and Aloys Ntabakuze of genocide. All three were sentenced to life in prison.

Mr. Bagasora was the "highest authority in the Rwanda Ministry of Defense" and was captured in 1996, two years after Hutu militias, backed by the Army, went on a 100-day killing spree that targeted minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Thursday's verdict is considered a boon for an International Criminal Court in The Hague that recently indicted Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir for genocide in Darfur.

"The Bagasora verdict is a rebuke to the self-serving and demagogic argument by al-Bashir and his supporters that accountability and justice through an international court is somehow 'anti-African,' " says Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch in New York. "This is a conviction by an international tribunal for genocide against Africans, and it serves African victims."

Let this be a sign to other genocidal figures... you can't hide.

I remember being in 9th grade when I first found out about the Rwandan genocide. It was unbelievable to find out. Nearly a million people in a 100 days, it was depressing. Besides my obvious anger at the aggressors who, like Theoneste Bagasora, acted out and/or planned the genocide, I was also angry at my high school. For it wasn’t them (i.e. my high school) who exposed me to this tragic event, yet the History Channel, who ran a segment on it. It wasn’t until Hotel Rwanda came out that it started to be discussed, and even then, hardly anything was said. This event (along with others like what took place in the Balkans, and what is taking place now in Sudan) should be studied in every high school in the nation. It happened under our watch. That is something we shouldn’t forget.

I attended a speech a couple years back by a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. His name was Silas, a tall Rwandan, who's face did not bore the hell he went through. He told us of various situations where he could have lost his life, describing them as in terms of “nightmares.”

The first nightmare was in his hometown. Silas described that a group of people and himself were hiding out in a building (I believe a bar or restaurant). Hutu Soldiers came in and demanded money and beer for the war effort. One soldier spotted a man out and asked him for an ID. Apparently, whatever was on the ID did not please this soldier and he accused the man (who was a Hutu) of being a spy for the “enemy Tutsis.” He said the punishment for this was death. They made the people in the place (including Silas) stand in a circle around the man. The man was then shot (in front of Silas). After awhile, the brother of the man killed spoke up, and then this man was shot too. Eventually Silas was put in the same ordeal as the first man (i.e. put in the middle of the circle), yet Military Police outside of the building intervened (for reasons not specified) just in the nick of time. He then described two other “nightmares.”

One involved Silas being measured at a roadblock, in where Hutu militamen said he was Tutsi because of his height (Silas was taller than the bamboo stick they were measuring with). The militiamen gave two options for the people who were too tall for the stick, to “have their head cut or their legs”. The options obviously did not please Silas, who most likely would have been either handicapped or killed. Fortunately for him, a former classmate intervened and let Silas go. The third story involved him almost being killed again (saved coincidentally enough by another former classmate), yet I cannot recall the specifics of the story. When asked during the Q and A after the speech if he harbored any bitterness towards the outside world (for their lack of response), he told us he did in the past yet not anymore. He left us with the words “value peace.”

Rwanda will be remembered for many things; the horror that took place, the courage of those who tried and perished to defy extremism, and the international response. Yet one thing is fundamental, that when we say “never again,” we mean it. Otherwise, it is just a phrase. Yet for now, lets “value peace” with the conviction verdict of Theoneste Bagasora.

(Photo: AFP via radiofranceinternationale)

Corrected Democracy: Crackdown on Dissent

Russia takes a great leap forw..err backward, to extending treason to cover those who work with NGOs.

Under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, people who fraternized with foreigners or criticized the Kremlin were "enemies of the people" and sent to the gulag. Now there's new legislation backed by Vladimir Putin's government that human rights activists say could throw Russia back to the days of the Great Terror.

The legislation, outspoken government critic and rights activist Lev Ponomaryov charged Wednesday, creates "a base for a totalitarian state."

Government supporters and Kremlin-allied lawmakers said the bill — submitted to the Kremlin-friendly parliament last week — will tighten up current law. Supporters say prosecutors often have trouble gaining convictions because of ambiguities in the definition of state treason.

The bill would add non-governmental organizations based anywhere in the world that have an office in Russia to the list of banned recipients of state secrets. The government has repeatedly accused foreign spy agencies of using NGOs as a cover to foment dissent.

Critics warned the loose wording will give authorities ample leeway to prosecute those who cooperate with international rights groups.

Oh Russia.

How long will it take for the Medvedev/Putin duo to test Obama when he takes office? They are already testing the current administration's response.

Via: Hot Air

Update: Michael Moynihan of Reason. Also check out his older article whose title makes my opening sentence seem cliche and unoriginal.

Back to WWII

There seems to be a bug going around in Hollywood...

Defiance


Good


Valkyrie


Defiance looks the best.

Wolverine Trailer

Looks alright.

Fouad Ajami on Obama

Here is a really good article on Obama, the Middle East and American foreign policy.

There is a detached tone to Mr. Obama's utterances on the Islamic world, a kind of knowingness. In part, it is no doubt an intended contrast to the heat and fervor of George W. Bush. If Mr. Bush believed he could remake that old and broken and wily region, Mr. Obama signals a fatigue with it, an acceptance of its order of power. If Mr. Bush believed that he could insert himself into the internal affairs of distant Islamic lands, Mr. Obama and his foreign-policy advisers portend a return to realpolitik and to a resigned acceptance of the ways of foreign autocracies. We have erred, the Obama worldview preaches, and overreached. We have overread the verdict of 9/11, and it is time to make our peace with regimes we have offended in the Bush years. It is the Scowcroftian way -- other lands, other ways.

Read it all.

Via: Foreign Policy Passport

The Nanny State Wants You to Drink Diet

Looks like the Governor of New York has just added an obesity tax.

A can of Coke could soon cost New Yorkers more than just calories.

Gov. Paterson, as part of a $121 billion budget to be unveiled Tuesday, will propose an "obesity tax" of about 15% on nondiet drinks.

This means a Diet Coke might sell for a $1 - even as the same size bottle of its calorie-rich alter ego would go for $1.15.

Paterson's budget also calls for a 3% cut in education spending, a $620-a-year tuition hike at SUNY and a $600 increase at CUNY - and about $3.5 billion in health care cuts, a source said.

The Democratic governor will not call for a broad-based income tax boost, but he will push to restore the sales tax on clothing and footwear.

The drastic belt-tightening comes as lawmakers struggle to close a $15 billion deficit this year and next.

"It's painful to make these decisions," Paterson said Sunday.

State employees again will be asked to forgo their 3% raises next year and defer five days' pay until they leave their jobs, the source said. In all, Paterson will propose about $9 billion in cuts, $4 billion in new taxes and fees, and $1.5 billion in nonrecurring revenue, a second source said.

The so-called obesity tax would generate an estimated $404 million a year. Milk, juice, diet soda and bottled water would be exempt from the tax.

At least it is a tax on sales and not income. Not that I live in New York anyways.

Via: Reason's Hit & Run

I Hate Finals

...I really do.

Music video time?

In Flames - Pinball Map


John Coltrane - My Favorite Things


Odd mix, huh?

Cult of Che

Reason TV:
Click Here

Via: Instapundit

Energy Secretary Steven Chu?

President-Elect Barack Obama has picked Steven Chu, a 1997 Nobel Prize winner in physics, to become the new Energy Secretary.

Since 2004, physicist Steven Chu has been on indefinite leave from Stanford University so that he might head Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Looks like Stanford will have to hold his slot a bit longer. This afternoon the Associated Press reported that Barack Obama has selected Chu to become the next Energy Secretary. If this is formally confirmed, the next task for Chu, a Missouri native, will be finding digs for his family in the Washington, D.C. area.

The soft-spoken scientist is a heavyweight. For developing a new technique to laser cool and trap atoms, Chu shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics. However, his passion in recent years has become a search for the ever-more-parsimonious use of energy. He’s been exploring the development of not only new technologies but also novel social and economic policies that will lead businesses and the public to accomplish more while using far fewer resources.

In other words, he’ll come to Washington with a host of ideas — and a commitment to see that science will underpin DOE’s decision making and research priorities. Indeed, just three months ago Chu was stumping on the Hill about the need to bolster federal research investments in energy — investments that he said should be grounded on science. He’ll now get the unparalleled opportunity to try and practice what he preached.

Last year, he came to my college's Nobel Conference to speak. Click here to listen to the speech (there is a long introduction by the way). He talks specifically about energy in the lecture.

Governor of Illinois: You're Under Arrest

Gov. Blagojevich of Illinois was arrested today on corruption charges.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on criminal charges on Tuesday, including trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by fellow Democrat President-elect Barack Obama, federal prosecutors said.

Blagojevich was also accused of threatening to withhold substantial state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of the Chicago Cubs' baseball home Wrigley Field "to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members sharply critical" of him.

The 51-year-old Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were charged in a 76-page federal indictment with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery. Both were taken into custody at their homes in Chicago.

In Illinois, the governor selects a successor when there is a mid-term Senate vacancy. Obama resigned from the Senate soon after winning the November 4 presidential election.

As I have said in the past, "Nothing worse than seeing your elected official being hauled off to jail. Yet again, there is nothing finer than seeing your elected official being hauled off to jail."

Hopenchange: Change We Can Put on Trial

Speaking of Schools...

Roosevelt High School, the high school I graduated from in 2005, made the news! Oh wait, what's that?

Dozens of young Somali men in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area have disappeared in recent months, causing community members and U.S. intelligence officials to fear that they are joining jihadist groups in Somalia.

Officials are especially concerned that some of the men may be destined to return to the U.S. after they have received terrorist training.

The missing young men have been the focus of some attention since late October, when Shirwa Ahmed, a naturalized U.S. citizen, died in a suicide bombing in northern Somalia. Ahmed was a 1999 graduate of Minneapolis's Roosevelt High School.

(bold emphasis mine.)

Fortunately for me, I never met the guy.

Read the rest of the article.

Education: What About School Vouchers?

E.D. Kain has a post at Indiepundit (or NeoConstant if you prefer) on privatization and education.

I'm not saying there isn't a huge problem to address with our public schools. I think there are problems with how they're funded in the first place (largely property tax); some serious issues with teachers unions and the lack of merit incentives; huge amounts of waste and a stifling bureaucracy; among many others. But crippling funding of our educational system is so counter-intuitive, so un-American, that I can never get behind the school voucher program.

Amen brother.

I often hear the question, "Do you really want to keep the poor in failing schools? The school voucher system is the way to go." To which I respond, "So instead of fixing the problem (i.e. the failed school), you give a handful a chance (private schools) and the rest dirt? Uh, yeah."

As someone who went to a failing school that doesn't sound very fair.

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates: A Balanced Strategy

Foreign Affairs has an essay by Robert M. Gates on the new direction the United States should take in terms of defense.

The defining principle of the Pentagon's new National Defense Strategy is balance. The United States cannot expect to eliminate national security risks through higher defense budgets, to do everything and buy everything. The Department of Defense must set priorities and consider inescapable tradeoffs and opportunity costs.

The strategy strives for balance in three areas: between trying to prevail in current conflicts and preparing for other contingencies, between institutionalizing capabilities such as counterinsurgency and foreign military assistance and maintaining the United States' existing conventional and strategic technological edge against other military forces, and between retaining those cultural traits that have made the U.S. armed forces successful and shedding those that hamper their ability to do what needs to be done.

It is a very interesting read...if you have time.

I found this article at World Politics Review, which discusses the ongoing dispute over this new direction Gate's is outlining and what it means for the future.

Countdown Mumbai

Reuters:


For more information, go to The New Centrist, who has followed the situation closely.

Also, check out Blake Hounshell's (from Foreign Policy Passport) analysis on India's response.

Obama on National Security: Not That Bad

This is what we are looking at...

Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates

Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton

Ambassador to the United Nations: Susan Rice

Homeland Security: Janet Napolitano

National Security Advisor: Gen. Jim Jones

Not bad in terms of defense.

The Realists:
Gates is as a competent Secretary of Defense you can get, and I admire him greatly (if you can't tell). He might be a realist, yet one you can rely on for sound judgment.

Jim Jones has problems with Israel, which is a big negative for me, yet hopefully Clinton can counterbalance him.

The DLC Members:
Clinton and Napolitano is better than many alternatives Obama could have picked. Plus they are both DLC members, which is a large plus in my book.

The Other Factor:
Susan Rice sounds good on ending genocide (i.e. talk of intervention), yet the reality of it...yeah.

Who knew, Obama is starting to look like a centrist.

Update 1: Even more hope yet?

Update 2: Nope, guess not.

Update 3: Be sure to also check out Roland Dodd's posts on this subject, first here, then here.

Update 4: Westhawk's take on whether Gates will have enough room to make decisions in an Obama administration.