The hunt for the fugitive Texas Democrat legislators has intensified with a set of playing cards being issued to troops in Iraq in case any of them turn up there.
[Alan K. Henderson rocks]
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Although details are still sketchy, it seems that Algerian government forces have rescued some of the European tourists taken by Islamic terrorists of the ‘Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat’, who are part of the Al Qaeda network. Some reports indicate that both Austrian and German special forces (perhaps GSG 9?) were involved in the operation assisting the Algerians. This is very good news indeed! May 14th, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
 One of the news headlines today was about the discovery of mass grave in Mahawil area in Iraq. So far remains of more than 3,000 people have been found but Iraqis fear up to 15,000 people reported missing in the area may have been buried there during Saddam’s government crackdown on Shi’ites when they launched an uprising in 1991. Reuters reports:
To all those protesters whose righteous hatred for the United States and Britain was declared out of self-proclaimed desire for peace. Is this the kind of ‘peace’ you wanted to preserve when you cried “not in my name”? Araya Hussein carried the remains of her husband in a bag away from the site weeping.
Explain to this woman why your righteous wrath was directed at Bush and Blair but not at Saddam. Explain how according to your warped view of the world Saddam has ‘the right’ to rule Iraq and kill thousands without any fear of retribution. Explain how you can end up supporting an evil and oppressive regime and distance yourself from the long awaited liberation. Damn you and your coddled, self-centered and twisted minds. You have caused enough misery and suffering by your irrational and irresponsible opposition to anything that might bring freedom to those parts of the world where free expression is an unknown concept. Perhaps you should change your slogans and cry for ‘peace of mind’, your minds that is, in the face of the gruesome truth emerging from Iraq. 
The mass murders in Iraq have been stopped… but not in your name May 14th, 2003 | 276 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked western civilian workers in Saudi Arabia are nothing more than a timely reminder that the overthrow of Ba’athist Iraq was not the end of the matter which blasted into the public consciousness on September 11th 2001. Saddam Hussein and Islamic terrorism were related subjects but were never the same. I was starting to detect a “Game over, now it’s Miller Time” attitude in some newspapers and blogs after the triumph in Iraq, but I think this shows that if there is ever a time for complacency, it sure as hell is not now. It will be interesting to see what happens if this atrocity leads to a mass movement of Westerners out of the accurséd Kingdom. If the risks posed by terrorism means the Saudis become unable to induce western technicians and specialists from working there at any price, I suspect the impact on the Arabian economy will be quite dramatic. No doubt within a couple years infrastructure and certain essential functions will decay beyond the point where the regime’s spin doctors cannot hide the truth that Saudi Arabia is not an internally viable nation-state in any modern sense. And if the Saudi Wahhabist regime’s ability to use petrodollar funded patronage to buy off the disparate elements of its indolent society grinds to a halt, what happens then? Would a monstrous and tyrannical fundamentalist regime take over? And would that regime be a breeding ground for Islamic terrorism? Well considering that the current regime already is a monstrous and tyrannical fundamentalist regime, and it is from Saudi Arabia that most of the September 11 The House of Saud is built on sand, so let it go down the toilet of history and let’s see what comes in its place. After all, if we like the look of what comes next even less than the current tyranny, it is not like the 3rd Infantry Division has to travel all the way from the United States to do something about it… and that self-evident fact alone should concentrate the minds of those who would be the new rulers in Riyadh. The US will not be in the region forever but at the moment the peoples of the Middle East are very aware that they are living in the shadow being cast by that 900 foot tall gorilla currently standing astride Iraq… for a short while at least, that might not be such a bad thing just so long as the gorilla knows when it is time to go home. May 14th, 2003 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
I detect a distinct air of despondency in the ranks of the libertarian camp in ever seeing any point in voting for, or co-opting with, right-of-centre parties such as the Conservatives in Britain (see David Carr’s remarks) or the Republican Party in the U.S. (see Jim Henley in similar vein). I see no reason for being surprised. Even if you support Bush on the war, as I do, albeit while detesting the Patriot act and the Dept. of Homeland Security, what is there to like? The vast increase in the budget deficit is a real worry – and I say that as a supply sider, not as a ‘deficit hawk’ – we have had the steel tariffs, the Farm bill, etc. Okay, the first tax cut was better than nothing, but not as good as a cut to marginal tax rates across the board. Oh, Dubya did at least stiff the Kyoto Treaty. But while he is probably a tad better than the likely alternatives, his GOP makes an unlikely suitor for libertarians. As for the Tories, I despair utterly of them being in a fit state for any outreach to us. With the sole and erratic exception of shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin, there is not a single top-ranking Tory MP I come across who seems to have a thorough grasp of the extent to which our civil as well as economic liberties have been crushed. Which leaves us with the usual cul-de-sac of a possible new party. And I cannot see how that is going to work. May 14th, 2003 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
Iain Duncan-Smith relaunched the Conservative Party yesterday, announcing that a future Conservative government would abolish tuition fees. Of course, political parties have to reach out to those outside their traditional supporters. But IDS is going about it the wrong way. Margaret Thatcher got lots of people living on council estates to vote for her. It was not by being left-wing, but by applying her free-market principles to make their lifes better. By giving them the option to buy their houses from the state, she helped them to rise up the ladder of economic prosperity. By allowing parents to have a say in which state school their children could go to, power was taken away from government bureaucrats, enabling parents to take their children to away from failing schools. Her strategy for getting non-Conservatives to vote Conservative was entirely consistent with her principles. Voters believed her policies because they saw their consistency. By simply adopting socialist policies – and moving the Tories to the left of Labour – IDS is alienating his core support. But worse, he is unlikely to gain the votes of those who support his policies anyway. There aren’t many Old Labour opponents of tuition fees that are going to jump ship and vote Tory. They are much more likely to vote Lib Dem, a rather more convincing party of socialism. May 14th, 2003 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
I believe I am guilty of taking the latest Conservative proposals on education out of their context. As a result, I made the mistake of regarding them as an aberration; a singular folly. However, I should have examined these proposals in the round of their ‘Fair Deal for Britain’:
Seen in that context, a return to old socialist education policies makes perfect sense. After all, in a society where you won’t be able to turn round without running smack dab into the dead hand of the state, shoving you along a line of pre-determined ‘fairness’, you cannot expect higher education to be the exception, can you. Just who is advising the Conservative Party these days? Who was it that convinced Iain Duncan Smith that Clintonesque pain-feeling was the wave of the future? What premium do they think they will derive out of being Labour-lite? What, precisely, is the unique selling point of socialism with a Tory twist? If I thought it likely that I would get any answers I would put those questions on the back of a postcard and send it off to Tory HQ. As it is, I don’t think I’ll bother. I’m too busy adjusting myself to the next 20 years of New Labour. May 13th, 2003 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
I just came across this bit of news :
I do not know whether such incidents get reported mainly because of the spotlights directed at islamic and muslim societies or whether they are normal ocurrance, part of the fabric of society. I find such acts abhorent, although in principle I support individual’s taking justice into his own hands where the state or appropriate authorities fail him. Also, the right to retribution should not diminsh with time, so 16 year delay would not necessarily bother me. But exacting revenge in the form of mutilation that is sponsored by a clan and carried out in the context of collective guilt, undermines the right of individual in that society to fair trial and proportionate punishment. It is barbarism, pure and simple. May 13th, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
In what is perhaps one of the greatest examples of political farce I have seen in quite a while, 53 Texas legislators from the Democratic party have fled the state capitol to avoid a vote that could cost their party seven congressional seats. So let me get this right… it is okay to be a member of an elected assembly of lawmakers that passes laws compelling people to do this or that, but if you don’t like the laws being passed because it interferes with your party political agenda, well, screw democracy, just quite literally run away and prevent there being a quorum. Okay, that works for me. Anything which bring into disrepute the elected bodies at the very heart of the system is just fine by me… I can think of few ways to de-legitimize the public face of democratically sanctified force which robs and regulates its ‘citizens’ that by having them act like petulant school children taking their ball home because they don’t like the other team’s rules. No quorum means no voting and no voting means no new laws on anything, at least for a while. Excellent. It is pretty funny that they call themselves Democrats though, eh? [Thanks to Shannon for the link] May 13th, 2003 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
Just under a year ago, the Prime Minister’s wife Cherie Blair expressed her sympathy with the plight of ‘suicide bombers’:
Her steaming pile of wisdom was delivered just hours after one of them had murdered 19 Israelis. But that was then. This is now:
Assuming the threat was genuine, it looks like Mrs.Blair’s outreach exercise was a waste of time. May 13th, 2003 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
The bete noir of much of the left, Ariel Sharon, appears to be ‘doing a Nixon’. Just as only Nixon could go to China without a collapse of domestic support, perhaps Sharon can make peace with the PLO, secure Israel’s pre-1967 borders and compromise on the settlements. He is being branded a traitor by Jewish settlers, a war criminal by pro-Palestinians and a pariah by the usual suspects. So he must be doing something good. He clearly has a difficult task in balancing Israel’s security against peaceful compromise, but with the new strategic reality in the Middle-East, his task might be easier. May 13th, 2003 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
It appears that Los Angeles is well and truly in the tarpits:
But the truth is, most of these things are not “vital services the city depends on”. Lifeguards? Sorry but no one is forced to go swimming, so if lifeguards are so damn important then allow companies to provide the service on a fee paying basis. Health? Do it all privately. Education? The state has no business whatsoever involved with the education in the first place, particularly in this era of cheap internet access and in a country with probably the most efficient and inexpensive phone system in the world. Security is a legitimate concern, so the solution to the problems faced by the sheriff’s department should be clear… cut back on everything else, scrap irrational drug prohibitions (less jails will be needed) and remove all the ludicrous restrictions on ownership of the means of self-defence (less police will be needed). The thrust of the linked article is that ‘Los Angeles is in crisis’. Bullshit. It is the city government of Los Angeles and the people who think that theft based appropriation is the only way to satisfy their needs (which usually means wants) who are in crisis, and far from being ‘beyond its control’, this is a crisis of their own making. Good. May 13th, 2003 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
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