Instead of a Silly Germans story, you're getting a "Flamingly Idiotic Germans" story.

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services'' at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.

Prostitution was legalised in Germany just over two years ago and brothel owners – who must pay tax and employee health insurance – were granted access to official databases of jobseekers.

The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.

She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her "profile'' and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.

{...}Tatiana Ulyanova, who owns a brothel in central Berlin, has been searching the online database of her local job centre for recruits.

"Why shouldn't I look for employees through the job centre when I pay my taxes just like anybody else?" said Miss Ulyanova.

Ulrich Kueperkoch wanted to open a brothel in Goerlitz, in former East Germany, but his local job centre withdrew his advertisement for 12 prostitutes, saying it would be impossible to find them.

Mr Kueperkoch said that he was confident of demand for a brothel in the area and planned to take a claim for compensation to the highest court. Prostitution was legalised in Germany in 2002 because the government believed that this would help to combat trafficking in women and cut links to organised crime.{...}

{Empahsis mine}

While I generally believe that if you hand yourself over to social services, you well and truly should be at their mercy, that strings are always and forever attached, this is just absolutely outrageous and just plain wrong. Perhaps it might actually make women want to get off the welfare rolls, but threatening them with a loss of benefits if they don't start hooking---particularly if they're willing to work at other jobs---is barbaric. It just is. This is no different than someone who is out on the street and finds that this is the only way they can pay the bills. This is moral equivalence at its finest. Germany can't say a legal, tax-paying business isn't worthy of the best and brightest of its unemployed because---ahem---they refuse to distinguish brothels from other late-night businesses, such as bars. It's all about the hours of operations, don't you know? One late night job is the same as the next late-night job.

Germany's effort to be a place where freedom of choice is celebrated has limited the choices of some to refuse things they find morally repellant.

I hate prostitution. I really do. I believe it seriously damages the person who is forced into selling themselves. It tells them that all they have of value to offer society is their genitalia. How it degrades the act of sex is really beside the point here, but that's another serious problem I have with it. But mostly, I hate it because some people refuse to see the downside of prostitution. They close their eyes to it. They take the worldly view and say it's just consensual adults fooling around, and what's the harm in that---even if money is what is required for one parter to consent? Ironically enough, I find that attitude to be incredibly naive and lacking in sight. Also, I don't believe such an emotionally and physically damaging business should ever be allowed equal protection under the law. Think about it for a minute: if an employee is legally protected from ever having to work with asbestos or some other harmful object, why on earth should they be allowed to sell themselves? Sex can be just as life-threatening as working with asbestos: why should this be allowed? I know I don't have to worry about this happening any time soon, but it just flames me when people suggest this is the solution to the problem.

I fully realize that given my, er, adamant stance on this one, I will probably get zero replies, I would love to hear from all of you who believe that prostitution should be legalized on this. Because I know there are a goodly amount of you out there. Really and truly, I want to know what you think about this one, because this is precisely what could happen if such a thing were ever to pass muster here in the States. If you force brothels into paying taxes, they are granted rights in return, one of those rights being that they should be allowed to advertise for employees at unemployment centers, with all of the restrictions associated with such an advert. It could---conceivably---happen here. Does this change your view at all, knowing this could happen to someone you know and perhaps love?

{Hat tip:Villains Vanquished}

Posted by: Kathy at 02:46 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Hey, I'm still fuming over the gender-based discrimination implied in this deal. I mean, really, they looked up her data and decided she was female. Ooh, goody, walking vagina! I still contend that if they can't offer the job to a man...and fill the job with any man...then it is discriminatory and therefore they should not be entitled to the same benefits as other employers. For example, suppose they were interested in an IT professional to build their webporn site. In this instance gender makes no matter. Nor does it for doctors, engineers, or au pairs. However, when you are looking for a receptacle for slaking the lust of the public...it becomes a bit more murky. Now you need gender specificity. So, what you have is someone choosing a life of prostitution in order to feed themselves vs. the government forcing someone into a life of prostitution if they want to continue eating. Nice. they are scum.

Posted by: Phoenix at January 31, 2005 03:07 PM (l3ytA)

2 I'll have to disagree and say that prostitution should be decriminalized and given the same treatment under the law as other forms of consensual adult activities. The vast majority of harm is a consequence of government persecution creating a black market controlled by organized crime. When done legally it's no more dangerous then other commonly accepted activities. The job of the government is protecting people's rights,not dictating their lifestyle choices. Much like homo***uality,if you personally find it too dangerous,unpleasant or immoral, then the answer is simple-don't do it! P.S. according to articles posted at www.Feministing.com, the article you commented on was actually false. Does that change your opinion on legalization?

Posted by: Anon at February 03, 2005 11:27 AM (C4Xq6)

3 I really don't know about the validity of the article anymore. It probably is wrong. I should have kept up with it, but I didn't. Bad blogger The overall point, however, remains the same: this could conceivably happen if a country was to legalize prostitution. I take your points, anon. Usually I am one of those "get the government out of the bedroom" type of people. I don't believe it's anybody's business what happens in someone's bedroom, whether it be homos*xuality, BDSM, whatever...if everyone's on the same page, it's fine with me. I'm definitely not going to ask, and I definitely don't want to someone to tell. Yet, wouldn't you agree, that when money enters into the equation, it's a different story altogether? The acceptance of payment substitutes for informed consent, and I don't believe that's good enough. Because what if someone really does need to feed themselves, or to pay the rent, and this isn't something they'd like to do, but can find no other way to raise the cash? In the world of prostitution, well, it's all right to sell yourself; your genitals can make you money, why the hell not do it? After all, you're going to do it anyway, why not get paid for it? There's something inherently wrong with that. It's coercive. It's not the same as saying you have a strong body and can haul things. It's not the same as saying you have strong legs and are able to pedal a bike and can deliver packages. It's not the same thing as saying you can deftly work a needle and thread. People who use their bodies in such a way don't lose much. Sure their legs and backs and eyes might hurt at the end of the day, but they've also earned an honest dollar, and they can still look themselves in the mirror. The simple fact is that the cost is not as high with those jobs as it is with prostitution. Besides the risk of STDs, there's also the fact that a goodly amount of violence takes place in prostitution---even the legal sort of prostitution. They always have bouncers in brothels. Why? Because there is a very good chance the prostitutes will be abused by the customers. Personally, I believe the risk of emotional harm can potentially outweigh all of these issues. S*x is already a thorny enough issue for most people without money entering into the equation. Prostitution harms us all. It degrades self-worth and it degrades s*x in general. Like pr0n, prostitution makes s*x into something cheap and sleazy. Where prostitution is concerned, it's only about the satisfying of the baser human needs, it's only about what makes you happy in the pants. Your brain doesn't come into it. And that not only degrades s*x, but it degrades humanity, as well. So, I suppose that's a longwinded way of saying, no, I don't believe it should ever be legalized. While there is a valid argument to be made about bringing it above board, there's always going to be something someone wants s*xually that will be outside the realm of the law. Are we now going to have children working in brothels? While, I don't think that's going to ever be legalized, still...once you take the approach that because there is a market to serve, that you're not going to make any moral judgments about what people do as long as its consensual, the slippery slope appears. Where does it stop?

Posted by: Kathy at February 03, 2005 12:26 PM (sQLe5)

4 How about mistresses -- in the old form of a "kept woman." It's quite legal, and it's a girl (or guy -- see also Breakfast at Tiffany's) giving 5exual favors in exchange for financial or in-kind remuneration. How is that morally different from prostitution? Is it that it's not regulatable? Higher-end prostitutes will pick and choose which people to have as clients, so the take-anyone-who-pays doesn't always work there. On the veracity -- checked with a friend in Germany (nothing like going to the source), and she says that while she's quite certain that nothing like that has happened, and that there are some level of safeguards in place to ensure that it won't, it's still theoretically possible, based on local regulations. So.... fake, but accurate.

Posted by: Adrianne Truett at February 03, 2005 06:37 PM (B2T6R)

5 The poverty argument is simply a strawman. A person can consent to s*x regardless of how much money they have. Wealthier people,like beautiful people,simply have more options. Everyone has the option of saying "NO". A prostitute doesn't sell herself,she sells a service. What's the difference? Agency. Engaging in any given activity is entirely a matter of her choice. A s*x worker never relinquishes control of her body at any time. Just as a massage therapist uses her skill to bring physical pleasure to her client,so to does a prostitute. While far more intimate,there isn't any ethical difference between the two. The exchange is as honest and legitimate as any other service for money interaction. Social stigma is the basis for why prostitution is considered degrading. There's nothing objectively different about prostitution that would distinguish it ethically from other forms of casual s*x. All s*x is about satisfying basic human desires-none of it has an intellectual component. Why do you consider being "happy in the pants" objectionable? Doesn't that essentially condemn all s*x,and not just prostitution? As far as the slippery slope is concerned,it stops when the people involved haven't given informed consent, free of force or fraud.

Posted by: Anon at February 04, 2005 02:19 AM (C4Xq6)

6 The poverty argument is simply a strawman. A person can consent to s*x regardless of how much money they have. Wealthier people,like beautiful people,simply have more options. Everyone has the option of saying "NO". Yeah, everyone has the option of saying 'no.' But saying 'no' is a luxury some simply cannot afford. Whether they're hooking for money, for a visa, to keep their families safe (as is the case with many Eastern European women), to make sure they live to see the sunrise, or simply to eat, many people don't have the option of saying 'no.' Why is it the default position of those who support legalized prostitution that everyone who hooks for a living: a. knows precisely what they're doing b. has no issues with what they're doing c. sees it simply as a way to make a living d. simply provides a much-needed service? It's like you assume there is no bad side to prostitution. You say "the poverty argument is a strawman." No, it's not. There are more poor hookers in the world than there are fancy prostitutes who sell their services for thousands a night. That's a simple fact. Why assume that because there are fancy hookers out there and they do well by themselves, the rest of the s*x trade is just like it? And should be judged accordingly, particularly when it's blatantly obvious that it's not the case? Choice is a luxury most poor prostitutes simply cannot afford. A s*x worker never relinquishes control of her body at any time. Wanna make a bet on that one? I have to ask: are you a man? While I don't want to threaten your anonymity, it would seem to me that you are. If so, you wouldn't know what it's like to be a woman and to know that most men are simply bigger than you and, if they wanted to, could force you into doing many things during s*x you would not like to do simply because of their size and strength. I'm not saying all prostitution is rape, or even that all s*x is rape, but your statement is a broad generalization and is not true in actuality, whether it be consensual, non-moneyed s*x, or prostitution. Just as a massage therapist uses her skill to bring physical pleasure to her client,so to does a prostitute. While far more intimate,there isn't any ethical difference between the two. The exchange is as honest and legitimate as any other service for money interaction. That's kind of funny. I never go to a massage therapist to "receive pleasure." It feels good, don't get me wrong, but any pleasure I might receive is a side benefit: I generally go to get my back straightened out While I would agree that both can be honest and ethical exchanges, which transaction is less likely to cause physical and emotional harm to the service provider? While I'm not discounting that there are, undoubtedly, many prostitutes who have absolutely no problems with their customers, that everything is just as you said, who is more likely to be attacked? Who is more likely to have harm done to them? Who is more likely to have some sort of hangup with what they're doing? It's not the massage therapist and I don't think legalization would change this. Social stigma is the basis for why prostitution is considered degrading. While I'm not going to argue with you about social stigma just yet, I would simply ask whether you consider all stigmas to wrong and if they are, should they be pitched in a 21st Century way? Were the morals of our forefathers completely wrong, or is there perhaps a reason, outside of religion, that certain behavior was encouraged and other discouraged? I'm curious as to what you'll say. There's nothing objectively different about prostitution that would distinguish it ethically from other forms of casual s*x. All s*x is about satisfying basic human desires-none of it has an intellectual component. Why do you consider being "happy in the pants" objectionable? Doesn't that essentially condemn all s*x,and not just prostitution? S*x doesn't have an intellectual component? Of course it does. To get turned on, your brain has to be involved. Male or female genitalia just doesn't swell up on it's own. The eyes see things, the nose smells things, the mouth tastes things---these are all processed by the brain, which then sends out the appropriate signals to your body. That's what's going on in the subconscious. But then there's the conscious part of the equation: human beings think about s*x. They know what they like. They know what they don't like. They fantasize. They put their thoughts into motion. I would argue that human beings use their brains more during s*x than during their commute home from work if they're doing it right. Whether conscious or unconscious, all s*x starts with the brain: in either case, if the brain's not into it, well, there isn't going to be any action in the hot town tonight I would have to say that conscious s*x is much, much better than s*x that's simply motivated by the desires of the subconscious. I don't find "being happy in the pants" at all objectionable. I just know I'm much happier in the pants when my brain hasn't just been shut off by hormones. Can you get conscious s*x from someone you barely know, or someone whom you've paid? I don't know for sure, but I don't think so. I know which type of s*x is ultimately more fulfilling to me as a human being and I simply don't think you can find that with a prostitute, because it involves taking the kind of risks one wouldn't take with someone they're paying. If you just knock s*x down to the basic need department and treat it as such, you're missing all the good stuff.

Posted by: Kathy at February 04, 2005 02:09 PM (sQLe5)

7 They do have the option of saying no-it's simply that saying yes is a better choice for that person. The "poverty argument" is flawed because if the person is truly in dire poverty,starving homeless or whatnot, then forcibly preventing them from saying "yes" simply condemns them to a life that they feel is worse then prostitution. I don't want to generalize for all supporters of legalization,so I'll only give my personal opinion on the following questions. A.-is part of informed consent. B.-it's possible some or most have issues,but isn't relevant from a legal standpoint. C. I doubt very many do it as a hobby. D. Everything has a bad side,including prostitution. That doesn't invalidate the legitimacy of those who choose to do it. It's akin to saying that we should oulaw s*x and dating because date rape,heartbreak, and divorce exist. Weighing the pro's and con's of any choice in life is best left to the one who'll experience the consequences of it. Only around 1/3 of prostitutes are of the stereotypical "street hooker" type. The vast majority are working in illegal "massage parlours",brothels,and escort services. As such,their job choice isn't qualitatively different then any other form of work. "Choice is a luxury most poor prostitutes simply cannot afford." Which is a very good reason why it shouldn't be a crime. It simply means that person will be engaging in a dangerous criminal activity,rather then a safe legal one. If you truly want to help poor people,then the best way to do so is by protecting their rights, and increasing their options and opportunities through education,counseling,drug rehab,healthcare or other similar assistance programs. Prohibiting what they choose to do simply infringes on their freedom, increases the danger,promotes organized crime and diverts resources from more useful areas. "A s*x worker never relinquishes control of her body at any time." "Wanna make a bet on that one?" Yes, I would. If she hasn't given consent then it isn't prostitution,it's s*xual assault. "who is more likely to be attacked? Who is more likely to have harm done to them? Who is more likely to have some sort of hangup with what they're doing? It's not the massage therapist and I don't think legalization would change this" On this question the statistics are overwhelming clear-legal prostitution is many times safer then doing so illegally. If the government gave equal protection to s*x workers then there is no reason why they would have any significantly increased risk of attack compared to a massage therapist. If someone has an emotional problem with doing that form of work,then they should say " no thanks" and find some other way of making money. "While I'm not going to argue with you about social stigma just yet, I would simply ask whether you consider all stigmas to wrong and if they are, should they be pitched in a 21st Century way? Were the morals of our forefathers completely wrong, or is there perhaps a reason, outside of religion, that certain behavior was encouraged and other discouraged?" I would say that,yes,historically all stigmas regarding s*xual behavior are baseless and irrational. Be it casual s*x,homos*xuality,"alternative" forms of s*x,interracial s*x,the virgin/whore dichotomy,misogynistic slut/stud double standard,etc.etc. None of these stigmas or prohibitions have ever been rationally substantiated. It's possible to disagree with or discourage a behaviour using reason and discourse without criminalizing or stigmatizing it. In a free society if you disagree with how someone chooses to live their life,you voice that disagreement by writing an op-ed piece,not with government force. "S*x doesn't have an intellectual component? Of course it does. To get turned on, your brain has to be involved. Male or female genitalia just doesn't swell up on it's own. The eyes see things, the nose smells things, the mouth tastes things---these are all processed by the brain, which then sends out the appropriate signals to your body." Exactly. That's all the act of s*x is-a stimulation/sensory experience. There isn't any significant high-level abstract thinking occuring. This holds true for everyone, whether or not money is involved. While certain reasons or means for having s*x may be best for you personally,that standard doesn't hold true for everyone. Each person has a variety of different needs and desires in life, and what works well for one person won't be suitable for another. When peoples rights are protected then each person can choose for themself what actually best suits their needs,not the lifestyle that others would force upon them.That's why free societies work so well.

Posted by: Anon at February 05, 2005 08:00 AM (C4Xq6)

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Seventy-two percent of eligible voters in Iraq turned out to vote. Election officials have backtracked a bit from that percentage, saying it's more likely around sixty percent. Of course, there's also no way to independently verify any of this because the international observers who usually monitor such things were---ahem---too chickenshit to show up (they were afraid they'd be kidnapped). Still, though, it's awe-inducing.

Mohammed and Omar say it best:

{...}The sounds of explosions and gunfire were clearly heard, some were far away but some were close enough to make the windows of the center shake but no one seemed to care about them as if the people weren't hearing these sounds at all.

I saw an old woman that I thought would get startled by the loud sound of a close explosion but she didn't seem to care, instead she was busy verifying her voting station's location as she found out that her name wasn't listed in this center.

How can I describe it!? Take my eyes and look through them my friends, you have supported the day of Iraq's freedom and today, Iraqis have proven that they're not going to disappoint their country or their friends.

Is there a bigger victory than this? I believe not.{...}

Go read the whole thing.

While this victory did not come without costs, I, for one, am more than willing to pay the price demanded. It was our pleasure, my friends, to be able to share our liberty with you.

I am so happy for you!

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Arturo's been spouting off again: Fausta, as usual, has the scoop.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:55 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Way back in the day, when I managed a Caribou, I would sneak outside for the occasional smoke break. Some of my customers cottoned onto the fact I was a smoker and tried to give me the whole "tsk-tsk" routine. It's so bad for you. You should really quit. Why do you need to do this anyway? You have to go outside in the freezing cold to fire up---isn't that a clue that perhaps you're doing something that's crazy? and so on and so forth.

If you're a smoker, you, too, undoubtedly have gotten these schpiels thrown at you. It's generally fine with me when someone does this. As long as they're not getting righteous about it, I choose to believe it simply means they're concerned for my well being. I know, most likely, their motivation for their speeches had nothing to do with my health, but rather their desire not to have to smell the smoke, but I can take that. They chose not to voice that concern. They chose to voice their concern about me. There's a difference.

What was funny, though, was when someone would get righteous with me and said cigarettes should be illegal. This presented a bit of a leap: these people morphed from concerned customer to activist. I told these people, hey, go right ahead and make them illegal...and just you wait. Once the government and the health advocacy groups don't have smokers to beat up on, they'll start aiming for other people. They'll go after the obsese, because of course they don't need to shove all that unhealthy food down their gullets. They'll go after people who eat too much refined sugar, because that causes Type 2 diabetes. What about red meat? Doesn't that lead to heart disease? Why, heck, they might just go after people who drink too much caffeine! Of course, I would generally say this to them right as I was handing them their coffee.

Talk about having all the tools at the ready to drive home a point. It was beautiful. The looks on their faces were priceless. They either scoffed or they looked abjectly horrified. The scoffers couldn't make the leap of the imagination. The horrifieds could make the leap, but they were far and few between. Privacy rights weren't all that big a deal five years ago.

Well, as it turns out, I was right.

Four workers in the United States have lost their jobs after refusing to take a test to see if they were smokers. They were employees of Michigan-based healthcare firm Weyco, which introduced a policy banning its staff from smoking - even away from the workplace.

The firm says the ban is to keep health costs down and has helped 14 staff to stop smoking, but opponents say the move is a violation of workers' rights.

If the firm survives a potential legal challenge, it could set a precedent.

Weyco gave its staff a stark ultimatum at the end of last year - either stop smoking completely on 1 January or leave their jobs.

The four workers who refused to take the test left their jobs voluntarily, although a lawyer for Weyco confirmed the company was preparing to dismiss them.

The firm says that, as its business is to help other firms save money and improve employee health through its benefit plans, it is only natural it should take a lead on the issue. {...}

You got that? If you're a Weyco employee and you smoke at home, you can be fired. They're all about leading by example.

When you read that little bit up there about them coming after you, you thought that was just BS, right?

Well, it's not.

{...}According to Reuters news agency, Mr Weyers wants to turn his attention next to overweight workers.

"We have to work on eating habits and getting people to exercise. But if you're obese, you're (legally) protected," he said. {...}

Whether this new litmus test will make it through the courts is up in the air. The privacy rights of the individual have been so eroded over the years, I can't make an accurate guess as to what the courts will do as a result. But you might want to pay attention---whether you're a smoker or a non-smoker---because anything you might do that could be considered unhealthy by someone could be banned. Furthermore, eating a can of Sour Cream and Onion Pringles in your off-hours, if Mr. Weyers has his way, could potentially get you fired.

You could conceivably lose your job because you think you have rights you don't have. Why don't you have those rights? Well, because of all those public health precedents set by the anti-smoking lawsuits.

Well done, people! Good job. Enjoy your fat-free, caffeine-free, salt-free, sugar-free and smoke-free world! I hope you love it!

UPDATE: Might have been a little premature with my claims of sacking due to Pringle consumption. According to the Opinion Journal:

{...}The company can tell fat employees to slim down, but it can't try to save money on health care by firing them. According to a Weyco press release cited by WRAL.com yesterday: "Anyone concerned about limiting employers' rights to specify terms of employment should know that federal law protects people with conditions like obesity, alcoholism and AIDS."

Point taken.

How long, honestly, do you think obese workers will be protected? Particularly once people do studies correlating lost work time with obesity? Of course, then Congress will get into the act. Hmmm. You think that protection will last? Particularly since they have the public health precedents set up by anti-smoking lawsuits?

Slip, slip, slip goes the slope.

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Yep.

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Drew's got em all bunched up.

While I respect Drew's arguments, and question The New York Times' and Time's motives and characterizations, the fundamental point remains clear: questioning the teaching of the Theory of Evolution in schools is backdooring the teaching of Creationism. Because, after all, when one theory evaporates, something generally takes its place. What's the only other option, besides Intelligent Design, that explains it all? Mmmhmmm. You guessed it: creationism.

Darwin's Origin of Species while optimistically titled, has been presented over the years as a theory. It also happens to be a theory that cannot ever be proved until someone provides us mere human beings with an accurate timeline of just what occurred on this planet, how it happened and when it happened. I'm not saying that there aren't problems with Darwin's work: there are. However, we simply do not have an acceptable theory to replace it. It just happens to be the one that makes the most sense, hence its wide acceptance in the scientific community.

The problem occurs when creationists try to make hay with the "theory" business, knowing that no one can ever prove them wrong. This is their silver bullet that cuts right through the bullshit. And, to my mind, it's a logical fallacy that has no end. They conveniently ignore that "Creationism" is a theory as well.

This debate is about which unprovable theory should be taught in public schools.

I present, for your consideration, the game of "Which Scenario Is More Likely":

That God created everything in six days, took the seventh to kick back and slurp some brewskies. He then created man, and so he wouldn't be lonely, took one of man's ribs and created woman around it. Then he told man and woman never to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge because it was off-limits. The Devil---conveniently in the form of a serpent---tempts woman into eating the fruit. Subsequently, she lures man into eating it as well. God boots them from the Garden of Eden and sends them off into the wilderness, considerably bewildered as to why these ungrateful wretches had countermanded his order.

Or...

The Earth is one big puddle of primordial, carbon-based goo. The essential elements for life are there. Nothing happens for a long, long time. We don't know what, but something eventually sparks life. One celled creatures appear and everything evolves over millions of years. Features on everything and everyone that are useful are propagated into the next generation by means of choosy reproduction.

Now to judge which scenario is more likely, I give you Occam's Razor as your yardstick. Using Occam's Razor, which dictates that the simplest explanation is almost always the correct one, which scenario seems more likely to you? Knowing that both options seem fantastic and beggar belief?

I choose evolution.

While I don't buy it exactly as Darwin presented it, it does make sense. Technically speaking, you could probably lump me in with the Intelligent Design people. I think God was the spark to the goo.

And I'm Catholic. I am a direct beneficiary of this "give them a choice" business that creationists are trying to install as the standard, because it was what I was taught in the Catholic schools I attended. Darwinism was a "theory." We were supposed to believe in creationism, but just to make sure we had all the options, Darwinism was presented in the course materials. It was confusing, to say the least. What earns you brownie points with the priest does not earn you the same number of points with your science teacher. I can tell you from experience that we all pretty much leaned toward Evolution at the end of those science classes and you would have had to have been a nitwit to think otherwise. We just kept our mouths shut in religion class when the subject was raised.

If you want your kids to learn about creationism, fine. Great. That's wonderful. Just don't insist they learn it in the public schools. It's disingenuous in the extreme to think that Darwinism is so easily discounted simply because it's a "theory." You're simply going to have to do more work than that to disprove it. The genie's out of the bottle: just try and shove that beast back in. It won't work.

This move is intellectually dishonest in that it claims to be honest. It claims to offer "choice" for students. Until someone comes up with something better, well, there shouldn't be any choice on this one because one version of our origins relies upon God and the other relies upon empirical evidence and more than a bit of educated guessing. God---anyone's God---does not belong in a public school that is paid for by everyone, even people who don't believe in God, or people who believe in a different God. Church and State are separated in this country for a friggin' reason and this is the way it should remain. If you really want your children to learn creationism in school, well, might I suggest that you enroll your child in a parochial school? I would recommend the same thing if you want your child to pray in school.

There is simply no room to maneuver on anything religious based in the public school system, because if you start letting religion in, where does it stop? Where is that line drawn? We Americans have this lovely habit of assuming everyone is a Christian. While Jews share the same story of creationism with Christians, what about the Hindus? What about the Muslims? What about the Bhuddists? And so on and so forth. If a strictly Christian version of creationism was eventually put into place, well, whose version of the Bible would be used to teach this theory? The Evangelicals? Or the Catholics?

This country was founded by Christians who had been persecuted for their religious beliefs by other Christians. Once you bring religion into it, it's darned hard to get it out again.

UPDATE Drew comments further in the comments section and over at his blog. Go Read. I comment further as well, in the nifty comments section right below!

Posted by: Kathy at 03:38 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Interesting stuff going on over at Martini Boy's joint. I really enjoy that there are two bartenders nowdays: we get more good stuff as a result.

First, after reading this article , part of which touches upon the "white flight" that might or might not be occurring as a result of the rise of minorities in the Netherlands, Will Collier wonders where this new diaspora will flee to:

{...}What if a considerable fraction--even a large minority--of that 13,000 really are fleeing from Islamic radicalism? What happens 20 or 30 years from now, when demographic trends could well result in "minority-majority" (or even outright majority) status for the Islamic cohort in western Europe? If they're faced with the options of dhimmitude or flight, where will the native Europeans flee to?

Why, here, of course.{...}

Martini Boy replies thoughtfully that instead of simply fleeing or adjusting, Europeans might actually be forced into fighting in such an instance.

{...}What Will left out is the third option. If somewhere down the road the worst should come to worst, Europeans could always stay home and fight. And don't think they couldn't.

Problem is, the fight wouldn't be the pretty kind where you see a few bold arrows drawn on the map, confidently slicing through history and the enemy lines. We're not talking Desert Storm here, which you could draw with five arrows and lasted only 96 hours. We're not even talking about the Liberation of France in 1944, which took slightly more arrows and just six weeks. Oh, no.

We'd be talking about city fighting. But not the kind of city fighting you saw in Saving Private Ryan, where the likeable, well-trained and battle-hardened soldiers could call in an air strike just when all seemed lost. Thanks to modern Europe finally putting "ain't gonna study war no more" into nearly full effect, they hardly have any battle-hardened soldiers. They hardly have any soldiers left at all.

The city fighting we'd see in Europe would look like what we saw in Sarajevo ten years ago. You know, ragtag bands of men with no uniforms, stolen weapons, and a desire to kill anybody who looked Muslim (or on the Muslim side, European). Holland and Denmark would fare worst. They're both tiny, both have very high (and increasing) Muslim populations, and neither country has much of a modern military tradition. In this worst-case scenario, the likelihood of ethnic mob rule ala Bosnia seems high.{...}

Go read the whole thing.

While I think Will's got a point and that an awful lot of Hollanders will simply pull up stakes and in a fit of "I can't believe it's gotten this bad" whining, and will move elsewhere, I also think Stephen's scenario is likely to occur. If the worse case scenario comes to pass---meaning the Europeans doing nothing to stem this tide now---it will also be as ugly as he claims. Replete with mass murders, mass rapes and the like.

I agree that the Europeans do know a thing or two about warfare and can be made to fight. They're just reticent to do so. WWII may have hit them just as hard, if not harder than The Great War, but, in my humble estimation, it is still the memories of just how flamingly idiotic WWI was fought that has made them gun-shy. That war may have started ninety-years-ago, but its legacy has been long lasting. Europeans don't focus so much on WWII in their movies and books, but rather on WWI. ( Why, there's even a movie out right now that uses it as a backdrop. ) They leave WWII to the Americans. WWI has more resonance for them. It's the ulitmate cautionary tale for these deep thinkers with long memories. An Archduke is assassinated in Sarajevo, as a result war breaks out because of the ruling elite's misguided perceptions of some Serbian nationalist nutjob's intentions, and teams are picked. Worldwide chaos unfolds, millions die, and when no one can take it any longer, this chaos ultimately leads to unwieldy, harsh peace deals, economic depression, starvation, the rise of mass murdering dictators, and ultimately to more chaos caused by yet another war. I can't blame them for going to the beginning and focusing on the start: the twentieth century was their bloodiest ever. Given Europe's war-torn history from Caesar to Attila the Hun to Charlemagne to the Bourbons, well, that's saying something.

Its also the history of the Great War that kept Great Britain and France from checking Hitler early on. While we today equate Chamberlain with the appeasement, his "Peace in Our Time" approach to dealing with Hitler's Germany was incredibly popular in Britain. While I don't know the exact numbers, it's generally known that Britain lost half her young men in WWI. That's a lot of men. These men are referred to as "The Lost Generation," because a generation was, for all intents and purposes, lost somewhere in the death and maiming that occurred. France suffered just as much. (As did Germany, but that really didn't stop them, did it?) Is it any wonder, given this fact, that neither France or Britain wanted anything to do with WWII and did everything they could to avoid it? While the French wildly underestimated Germany's intentions and let them walk all over them during the occupation, they nonetheless saved the lives of countless young men who would have been slaughtered if they had fought a blitzkrieg that would have smashed them regardless of their efforts. Was this the honorable thing to do? Was it right? Given what we know to have actually happened during the German occupation, no, it was not. But what we conveniently forget when we denouce the French as a bunch of lily-livered wine snots, is that this judgment of their appeasement is also hindsight. WWI was fresh in their minds: they remembered. They had lost many. Who---and be honest about this---can blame them for trying to minimize the cost they might have to pay when the next time occurred?

Britain's fate was different. They picked up the charge when it was presented to them, but they did so with full knowledge of what might happen and how badly they might suffer. In my humble opinion, I believe this knowledge is what saved them from a much worse fate in WWII than what they did suffer. They knew. They knew what needed to be done and they did it. It was their chance to avenge their losses and to put an end to Germany's madness once and for all.

With a little (heh) help from their friends, they succeeeded.

Europeans do know how to fight. The question remains, though, how long will it take for them to wake up and realize if they don't do something now they will have no other option than to fight? They may have gained a reticence to fight as the result of WWI and WWII, but that reticence is also willfully blinding them from the fact at hand: their societies are just as much at risk now from Islamic fascism as they were from Hitler's aggression.

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Fascinating---and heartbreaking---reading courtesy of Fausta.

Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal: The Frivolity of Evil.

When prisoners are released from prison, they often say that they have paid their debt to society. This is absurd, of course: crime is not a matter of double-entry bookkeeping. You cannot pay a debt by having caused even greater expense, nor can you pay in advance for a bank robbery by offering to serve a prison sentence before you commit it. Perhaps, metaphorically speaking, the slate is wiped clean once a prisoner is released from prison, but the debt is not paid off.

It would be just as absurd for me to say, on my imminent retirement after 14 years of my hospital and prison work, that I have paid my debt to society. I had the choice to do something more pleasing if I had wished, and I was paid, if not munificently, at least adequately. I chose the disagreeable neighborhood in which I practiced because, medically speaking, the poor are more interesting, at least to me, than the rich: their pathology is more florid, their need for attention greater. Their dilemmas, if cruder, seem to me more compelling, nearer to the fundamentals of human existence. No doubt I also felt my services would be more valuable there: in other words, that I had some kind of duty to perform. Perhaps for that reason, like the prisoner on his release, I feel I have paid my debt to society. Certainly, the work has taken a toll on me, and it is time to do something else. Someone else can do battle with the metastasizing social pathology of Great Britain, while I lead a life aesthetically more pleasing to me.

My work has caused me to become perhaps unhealthily preoccupied with the problem of evil. Why do people commit evil? What conditions allow it to flourish? How is it best prevented and, when necessary, suppressed? Each time I listen to a patient recounting the cruelty to which he or she has been subjected, or has committed (and I have listened to several such patients every day for 14 years), these questions revolve endlessly in my mind.

No doubt my previous experiences fostered my preoccupation with this problem. My mother was a refugee from Nazi Germany, and though she spoke very little of her life before she came to Britain, the mere fact that there was much of which she did not speak gave evil a ghostly presence in our household.

Later, I spent several years touring the world, often in places where atrocity had recently been, or still was being, committed. In Central America, I witnessed civil war fought between guerrilla groups intent on imposing totalitarian tyranny on their societies, opposed by armies that didn't scruple to resort to massacre. In Equatorial Guinea, the current dictator was the nephew and henchman of the last dictator, who had killed or driven into exile a third of the population, executing every last person who wore glasses or possessed a page of printed matter for being a disaffected or potentially disaffected intellectual. In Liberia, I visited a church in which more than 600 people had taken refuge and been slaughtered, possibly by the president himself (soon to be videotaped being tortured to death). The outlines of the bodies were still visible on the dried blood on the floor, and the long mound of the mass grave began only a few yards from the entrance. In North Korea I saw the acme of tyranny, millions of people in terrorized, abject obeisance to a personality cult whose object, the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, made the Sun King look like the personification of modesty.

Still, all these were political evils, which my own country had entirely escaped. I optimistically supposed that, in the absence of the worst political deformations, widespread evil was impossible. I soon discovered my error. Of course, nothing that I was to see in a British slum approached the scale or depth of what I had witnessed elsewhere. Beating a woman from motives of jealousy, locking her in a closet, breaking her arms deliberately, terrible though it may be, is not the same, by a long way, as mass murder. More than enough of the constitutional, traditional, institutional, and social restraints on large-scale political evil still existed in Britain to prevent anything like what I had witnessed elsewhere.

Yet the scale of a man's evil is not entirely to be measured by its practical consequences. Men commit evil within the scope available to them. Some evil geniuses, of course, devote their lives to increasing that scope as widely as possible, but no such character has yet arisen in Britain, and most evildoers merely make the most of their opportunities. They do what they can get away with.

In any case, the extent of the evil that I found, though far more modest than the disasters of modern history, is nonetheless impressive. From the vantage point of one six-bedded hospital ward, I have met at least 5,000 perpetrators of the kind of violence I have just described and 5,000 victims of it: nearly 1 percent of the population of my city—or a higher percentage, if one considers the age-specificity of the behavior. And when you take the life histories of these people, as I have, you soon realize that their existence is as saturated with arbitrary violence as that of the inhabitants of many a dictatorship. Instead of one dictator, though, there are thousands, each the absolute ruler of his own little sphere, his power circumscribed by the proximity of another such as he.{...}

Go read the whole thing.

While this gentleman doesn't have much empirical evidence to back up his opinion, I don't think it matters very much. I'll take informed anecdotal evidence any day of the week (and twice on Sundays) over supposedly objective empirical evidence. This man's story is compelling and while I realize it's probably better for his health and mental well-being to have left his work, it's nonetheless a sad thing because he will most likely be replaced by someone who doesn't care so very much. People who are able to remove themselves from the daily grind of their own little bureaucratic fiefdom to see the big picture are rare in social services.

I wish he was sticking around.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:58 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Ernesto Zedillo on Latin America:

Not every fiscal problem is the same throughout the region, however. Some countries raise high amounts of revenue but spend even more. Others spend more frugally but proportionally collect less in taxes. All spend too little on basic infrastructure. The general goal must be to achieve fiscal consolidations--either by axing current expenditures or by collecting more taxes. This would enable governments to apply countercyclical macroeconomic policies and to invest more in human and physical infrastructure.

Next in importance is guaranteeing the rule of law, under which falls the protection of property rights and the relentless fight against corruption. The rule of law is an essential requirement for the development of credit markets and other important aspects of a modern economy. Finally, the removal of internal and external barriers to competition must be part of any must-do list of public policy. Latin American economies need fewer and better regulations and must be more open to foreign competition and investment.

{Emphasis mine}

Yeah. I'd agree with that. But only if it came from some other horse's mouth.

Particularly the bit about, "the relentless fight against corruption." That's a laugh.

You have to admit that I might be allowed a wee bit of incredulity when it comes to anything Zedillo says. If the name Ernesto Zedillo isn't ringing a bell, well, let me inform you: he was the last PRI (The Institutional Revolutionary Party---an oxymoron if there ever was one) President of Mexico. The guy that Vincente Fox replaced. He was also the guy who lost control of the government for the PRI, which is why he's hanging out in New Haven now, as the Director for the Yale Center For the Study of Globalization, and not in Mexico City. I can't think that Mexico is a good place for him to be right about now. Good thing Yale coughed up a job, eh?

Remember the days in Mexico when elections were rigged, the state treasury was a bank account for anyone other than the people of Mexico, revolts were slapped down quickly, Rambo-style, and drug dealers told the politicians what to do as long as some cash changed hands? Well, that was the PRI's fault. It wasn't so much "Institutional Revolution" that they were peddling, but rather institutional corruption. Systemic, top to bottom, institutional corruption. Ernesto was a member of the PRI. He was their last president, and while he knowingly did do some things to weaken his own party to bring about its demise, he was still a party man. And knowingly participated in the raping and looting of his own country.

Why Forbes gives this guy column inches, I haven't the foggiest idea. I don't believe a word he says.

{Hat Tip: Fausta}

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Fausta Delivers

Man, that's upsetting.

While what he said was upsetting in itself, it's that this man who is a master of portraying the undercurrents of human life in his novel is absolutely, positively clueless as to how this would come across that's really bothering me.

If you've never read a Perez-Reverte novel, know that it is truly a wonderful experience. While he works within the thriller genre, his prose is absolutely wonderful. That his books are translations and his prose doesn't get lost in the translation makes me wonder if he isn't actually better in Spanish, but that's neither here nor there. His words are wonderful, but the feelings they evoke are even better. You, as the reader, are pulled into the character's world. Even if that character is a not-too-bright unemployed merchant marine, or a somewhat off-the-rails art restorer who spends too much time by herself, or a priest who is having issues with his servitude to a Church he's no longer sure he believes in, it doesn't matter: he brings their world alive in such a way that you would have to be an emotional incompetent to not feel what they are feeling. He is a master of the carefully chosen word. As a result his novels are not just thrillers, they are a meticulously crafted insight into the human mind and condition.

For example:

He went down into the garden with his jacket over his shoulder and breathed in the night air. She was waiting. The moonlight cast the shadows of leaves over her face and shoulders.

"I don't want you to leave," she said. "Yet."

Her eyes shone, the teeth between her parted lips gleamed white, and the ivory necklace was a line of white around her tanned neck. The day was very hot. Thin slits of afternoon sun filtered through a bling onto the naked body of a woman. Carmen the cigarette girl rolled tobacco leaves on her thigh, tiny drops of sweat beading a dark triangle. There was a soft breeze. The leaves of the orange trees and bougainvilleas moved over Macarena Bruner's face, and the moonlight slid down the priest's shoulders like a coat of mail being taken off and falling to his feet. The weary Knight Templar stood straight and looked around, listening to the rumble of the Saracen cavalry heading toward the hill of Hattin. He heard the stormy sea thundering against the breakwater as the fragile little boats struggled to return to port. And a woman dressed in mourning held a child's hand. Soup boiled while an old priest sat by a fireplace declining rosa, rosae. And, lost in a world that guided itself by starlight five centuries old, the little boy's shadow was cast on a wall that protected him from the bitter cold outside. His shadow moved closer to the other shadow waiting beneath bougainvilleas and orange trees, until he could breathe in her fragrance and her warmth, and her breath. But a second before he ran his fingers through her hair to escape loneliness for a night, the shadow, the boy, the man watching the naked body in the sunlight filtered through the blind, the exhausted Knight Templar, they all turned to look up at the dimly lit window of the pigeon loft, where an old priest, unsociable, skeptical, and brave, deciphered the terrible secret of a cruel sky, in the company of a ghost searching the horizon for a white sail.

{Excerpt taken from Chapter XI, Carlota Bruner's Trunk, The Seville Communion by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Copyright 1995. All Rights Reserved. English Translation by Sonia Soto, Copyright 1998. All Rights Reserved.}

And so is the condition of Father Quart on the night he breaks his vow of chastity. All of his life is laid out in one paragraph. How he sees himself during the various stages of his life, knowing that these various incarnations of himself led him to this very place. I could go on, but I think you get the gist. That you find this wonderful prose, this fantastic character development in what is, essentially, a mystery novel, is extraordinary.

Pushing aside his prose, Perez-Reverte's novels also make you think. They invariably revolve around a big idea and how that big idea comes to fruition in everyday human lives. This is the dilemma he crafts his novels around. These big ideas are where the conflict comes in. He handles these conflicts deftly and generally rails against the postmodern idea of never making judgments based upon what one values. His characters make the call and act according to their consciences. So, knowing this, knowing that he gives his characters the correct sort of ideals even if they struggle to practice them, why Perez-Reverte refuses to make the call that anti-Semitism is, indeed, wrong, makes one wonder just how inbred that disgusting philosophy is in Europe today. While this might seem like a big leap, to my mind it's a small jump.

To explain: I don't believe Perez-Reverte would ever allow one of his contemporary protagonists to be an anti-Semite. The language he employed in that article wouldn't be good enough for one of his characters. The ideas wouldn't be good enough for one of his protagonists. Why he let it fly from his own fingers, to represent his own views, I don't know. None of his protagonists would be so crass and uneducated. His antagonists, yes. But not his protagonists. That's why I find it so hard to swallow that he actually wrote that. It's why the repulsion is so strong. It's such a large disconnect from his work and the ideals he promotes in said work that I actually goggled when I read that paragraph. That he apparently thought he would get a hale and hearty "hear, hear!" as the audience response is even more shocking. Did he have a clue as to how this would come off? Did he just not give a damn? Does he regret his words? I don't know, but that he wrote that in the first place does seem to indicate that he believes he's penning words that represent the voice of popular opinion.

All of this makes me, again, wonder just how deep are the anti-Semitic waters of Europe today.

I don't want to sound like a rube. I know Europeans are blasting Israel and Jews, in general, left and right. I would, however, like to think that, just like the election here in states a few months ago, it's only the fringe loudmouths who are getting the most press. That the normal European who minds their own business, who goes to work and then goes home to be with their family at the end of the day, doesn't espouse such views, but doesn't get the opportunity to voice their dissent either. That would be my hope. It's a hope that is getting fainter and fainter as the months go by, but I'm still trying to have faith that they haven't forgotten the genocide of sixty-years ago that occurred, quite literally, on their doorsteps. Whether this hope of mine is a naive Anne Frank-ish sort of dream will shortly, I believe, be borne out in the months and years to come. I can only wait and see if these views we see coming out of Europe are truly representative of the whole.

I have no idea if this is making any sense, so I will cut it off here. To sum up: Arturo, Arturo, why hast thou taken the easy road of cheap and popular hate and vile beliefs and forsaken us in the process?

I honestly thought you were smarter than that.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:31 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Well, that was fast.

Abbas hasn't even been sworn in and already the Israelis are refusing to deal with him.

Not to downplay the seriousness of the attack that occurred, or the loss of life involved, but this seems unreasonable. For me, it simply screams that the Israelis were just waiting for something like this to happen so they'd have an excuse not to deal with him. I don't know that this is the case, but that's what it seems like to me.

While I don't think negotiating with Hamas and the other Palestinian terrorist groups is bound to go anywhere, at least Abbas is actually working on the damn problem in the first place. Which, I might remind you, is something Arafat absolutely refused to do. Disagree with Abbas' means all you want, he's at least tackling the problem.

Give the man a chance. Then if he fails, you can cut off all ties. But this means having patience and not cutting off said ties before the man is even sworn in. While I don't doubt that it's a bitch to live in Israel and be attacked by all sides constantly, if the Israelis really want peace, they're going to have to have a little faith in Abbas. All they've really done with this move is to give Abbas props with Hamas and the other terrorist organizations operating in the occupied territories, and honestly, is that good for anything?

Posted by: Kathy at 01:30 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 I wonder if you have any idea who it is we are dealing with in Abu Mazen. Do you remember the Munich Olympics? Abu Mazen was responsible for the financing of the Munich attack. Abu Mazen's relationship to Yasser Arafat has been approximately that of Heinrich Himmler to Adolph Hitler. Abu Mazen is a holocaust denier who authored a book titled: The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement. Do you believe it is possible that after 30 years as a Jew hating terrorist, Abu Mazen is all of a sudden a moderate who wants peace with Israel? Give him a chance to do what Kathy? Preach peace while Jews are blown in buses and restaurants? Didn't we have enough of that with Arafat? What did he ever do to earn the benefit of the doubt, especially when giving him that benefit will likely only mean more Jews will be killed by terrorists?

Posted by: LindaSoG at January 15, 2005 03:19 PM (duP9h)

2 Linda, I believe I do understand who Abbas is. I'm not denying anything you wrote up there. He is NOT a good man. I don't believe he is a moderate. I believe he wants peace simply because it would be best for his people and not because he suddenly loves Jews. And I didn't write or imply that anywhere in this post. What I am saying is that the Israelis have to give the man a chance to get things under control. If Sharon didn't want him in office and wasn't going to deal with him if he did so, Sharon should have said so from the get go. He didn't. Though tentative and extremely hesitant at the possibility of dealing with Abbas, Sharon nevertheless did not pull away from the potential. Abbas needs time to do what he says he's going to do. Undoing all of the damage Arafat wrought is not going to happen overnight. If Abbas doesn't do it, which is not only possible but probable, then cut off ties. Fine. Go right ahead. If peace is to be obtained, a little faith has to be given, and it has to be given even to people who are not the optimal candidate for the job. The point here is getting a deal done. Do you only want to ever deal with angels? Knowing full well that the angels, despite their goodness, simply can't wrangle a deal? Or are you perhaps interested in doing a deal with the devil if the devil can get the job done? This is the case in every peace deal that has ever been signed. Ask the southern Sudanese if they believe the northerners---who are still led by Omar Bashir, who prosecuted that war since Day One, over twenty years ago---will stop attacking them now that the cease fire has been signed. They're probably pretty doubtful, but they at least have a bit of faith. The only way any peace deal, let alone one between the Israelis and Palestinians, can ever be proved is if the people in charge not only give faith, but return it as well. It seems a bit preemptory on the part of the Israelis to pull their willingness to deal with the man before the man is even---technically speaking---in charge of the whole shebang. If that attack had happened next week, instead of this one, well, I would think differently on the whole matter. That it happened this week, makes me wonder not only about the intentions of the Israelis, but also about just what Abbas is capabable of getting done and how much support---from all sides---he's going to get in the meanwhile.

Posted by: Kathy at January 15, 2005 04:58 PM (sQLe5)

3 Your reply to my comment makes me see that I am jaded about the topic. I want to share your hope and I find it difficult to do so. That is no reason for me to try to shatter someone else's hope and I apologize for giving you a hard time about it. You are right. Hope and faith are both good things and without them, we are lost. Regards, LindaSoG

Posted by: LindaSoG at January 16, 2005 04:55 PM (duP9h)

4 No biggie, Linda I hope that he lives up to his end of the deal and we can finally have some sort of resolution that allows people to be able to leave their houses without worrying about being killed. That's ultimately what this is all about and it's what I would really like to see happen. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but my eyes are wide open Thanks for stopping by.

Posted by: Kathy at January 17, 2005 10:20 AM (sQLe5)

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Surprisingly, France 2 has been very supportive of the American military's effort in spreading relief from the tsunami, whilst criticizing their own government.

Start here with Douglas' fabulous commentary-cum-transcription of Monday night's broadcast. Then read what Fausta has to say about it.

Fausta follows up today with a report on Tuesday's broadcast:

{...}One could argue whether there's a political agenda -- to shame the Chirac government's deadly inefficiency. For instance, David Pujadas (this week's anchor), who has been doing a great job, clearly asked pointed questions whose answers directly contradict the official party line: "the field hospital is ready." Bernard Coq, the reporter in Aceh, started by saying, "while clearly one won't contradict Mrs Defense Minister,"{then went on to report} the field hospital is obviously not ready since at least half the supplies and nearly half the staff have no means of getting to the disaster area. The helicopter the French government sent is yet to be assembled.

What is clear, however, is that France2 news has presented a factual, and objective, record of what the USA has done well. France2 has also done an excellent job reporting the daily travails of the survivors, and the tsunami itself. If you have the time, it's worth watching the entire broadcast even if you don't understand the language.{...}

Highly interesting. And very welcome, too.

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Courtesy of a leak to the AP from some random congressional aide, we're finally getting a peek into the UN Audits of the Oil For Food Program. While we're only talking about three audits out of a total of fifty-six, well, it doesn't look very nice for the UN.

{...}Two of the audits examined irregularities including overcharging by two companies that were hired to monitor oil sales and the import of humanitarian goods under the program. Another detailed financial mismanagement by a U.N. agency administering humanitarian aid under the program.

{...}A congressional aide provided the AP with copies of three of the 56 audits, including one that found that the United Nations was billed over several years for 31 days of work in June, which only has 30 days.

Pardon me for interrupting, but it seems pretty---ahem---Goddamn basic to realize there are only thirty days in June and not thirty-one. It gets better.

{...}It was unclear what steps the United Nations took to correct the mismanagement uncovered in the reports and to demand repayment from the companies recommended by the auditors.

One audit dated July 3, 2002, examined contracts with Saybolt International BV, a Dutch company that was hired to monitor oil exports from Iraq under the humanitarian program.

The report detailed billing by the company exceeding $2 million. The company inflated invoices, charged for accommodation of workers provided by the Iraqi government and exaggerated staffing and other expenses. For example, the report found that the United Nations was billed several years for 31 days of work in June, which only has 30 days.

Another report from July 21, 1999, detailed possible overpayments of more than $3 million to London-based Lloyd's Register Inspection Ltd., which was hired to inspect and monitor humanitarian goods as they were imported into Iraq.

The audit noted that the company billed the United Nations for agents deployed in December 1996, two months before the first contracts for the import of humanitarian supplies were issued.

"The contractor without consultation took the decision to deploy all the agents," the report states, costing the United Nations an estimated $1.97 million.

The company also was able to renegotiate inflated renewals of its contract because U.N. administrators neglected to consider competitors in time.

"It appears that the contractor was fully aware that the (United Nations) was unprepared or unwilling to undertake fresh bidding for the service," the report stated. "Negotiations with Lloyd's were always conducted just before the expiry of the contract."

In 1998 Lloyd's Register pulled out of the contract and was a replaced by another company, Cotecna Inspection S.A., a Swiss company, which has also been the subject of investigations of the U.N. program.{...}

{emphasis mine}

Now, Paul Volker, who's overseeing the UN's internal investigation, has pooh-poohed these audits. And I quote:

{...}In an interview Thursday, Volcker said that the internal audits "don't prove anything," but do show how the United Nations was urged to tighten up its supervision of the program. "There's no flaming red flags in the stuff," he said.{...}

Even better, UN spokeswoman Stephanie Dujarric said:

{...}"These audits do show that this was a program that was highly audited with a great level of oversight by the U.N."{...}

As if simple oversight was enough to correct the outright thievery.

It never ceases to amaze me how blind these people are to how all of this looks. If you do not have the power to stop someone from overbilling you, well, you're not conducting business in an appropriate manner, are you? Even better, you renegotiated a contract with a company that was overbilling you! And at a higher rate, too! Wow. You're smart! Give that International Governmental Organization a Gold Star for efficiency and smart bookkeeping!

According to Volcker, there aren't any "red flags" in these audits. I beg to differ. The red flag that's sticking up for me is how flaming easy it is to rob the UN.

These contractors deliberately padded their bills and expense accounts, knowing that the UN wouldn't notice. And if the UN did notice, well, there doesn't appear to be much that they could do about it, does it? These audits just give us even more proof about how corrupt the UN is. And they don't even care! It's absolutely amazing, isn't it, that they would deny the corruption, skipping over the inconvenient fact people died because of the corruption, and say, hey, but we were auditing, so we were doing something. That's weak. And any fourth-grader could tell you that.

But they're oblivious. We're doing the good deeds of the world, they say. We're relevant, they claim. We should be the leading body of international statesmanship, they demand.

Well...

If we went by Uncle Joe's old aphorism, to make an omelette you have to break a few eggs, the UN's omelette would be made with golden eggs laid by a certain goose we're all familiar with. That's a pretty expensive omelette to begin with, you'll agree. But wait, it gets better. The UN would acquire these eggs, they would then pay twice the normal price (while, of course, not realizing they were being swindled until well after the fact) and then would have trouble breaking the damn eggs because someone, namely the dictator in charge of serving the omelette, would object about the portion size and would want the bigger half for himself.

Meanwhile, the poor people who just want the fucking omelette---no matter what it's made out of---are starving.

Would you want these makers of omelettes in charge of the world? Do you think they're qualified? I don't. And the fact they don't even have a clue as to how incompetent they are does nothing to convince me otherwise.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:47 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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The UN really has a lot going for it, don't you think?

They can't stop genocides.

They can't stop people stealing from the Oil For Food fund.

They can't organize the logistics of humanitarian aid and must rely on the resources of donor nations to get the job done. When they can find donor nations to help in the first place.

They can't get member nations to pay their dues.

They can't shoot bullets at bad people, but seem willing to shoot whenever their lives are on the line.

They can't organize lasting cease fires, but can beg and plead for "three days of tranquility" to vaccinate children for polio. Did I mention that the people they're begging for these "three days of tranquility" from want to kill these children? And have been doing a bang-up job, for the most part.

And they can't stop their very own peacekeeping troops from sexually exploiting the very people they're supposed to be protecting.

YAY for the UN! I'd trust them to save my life. Wouldn't you?

Posted by: Kathy at 02:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Good and interesting stuff going on over at Protein Wisdom.

The long and short of the story: Michelle Malkin has her knickers in a twist over Kid Rock being invited to play at the inaguration. She objects on moral grounds, because Kid Rock, well, he ain't a moralist, ya dig? And, of course, being the reactionary she is, wants him disinvited. Jeff replied and there's some very interesting discussion in the comments section that anyone who's interested in the potential backlash over the Jesusland debate might want to check out.

As far as my personal opinion: Kid Rock's music sucks. I've hated it for years. It grates on my nerves and I love the part of that song where the "radio edit" kicks in because I know that it's almost over with! That said, far be it from me to ban someone from playing at an inauguration he was invited to, for a president he supported during the election. That's just crass and wrong. Just because you don't like the music or what it says doesn't mean you can get up on your high horse and ban it. That's wrong. And if the inaugural committee caves and disinvites him, well, that's a serious sign to me that they wanted my middle of the road vote, but don't really want to pay me any heed.

Banning Kid Rock and his music also says to me that said censor has little to no faith in the fact they can be subjected to something they consider to be morally wrong and come out on the other side unscathed and strengthened in their morals. It's the equivalent of covering your ears and screaming, "LALALALALALALA!" really loud so you can't hear whatever it is you find objectionable. Which is childish.

And don't throw the "it's all about protecting the children" argument at me on this one. Who on earth brings kids to an inaugural event? And if so, don't you think those kids haven't heard or seen worse on the radio or MTV, respectively? Puhleeze. If you don't like it, walk away. Don't listen, but don't deny others the opportunity to choose for themselves.

Heh.

Who knew Kid Rock could inflame such serious discussion over the future of the Republican party?

See Also: INDC Journal

*That's the name of a Kid Rock song. We have it on WinAmp, and given the fact that everyone seems to have their panties in a wad over what, seems to me, a very small thing, well, the jibberish fit.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:25 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Mine spent the day learning how to be nice to one another.

More than 60 state legislators showed up at the Humphrey Institute Thursday for a conference on how to behave better and get more accomplished than they did last year.

For some, the turnout was a positive sign. Other vote-counters read it as 60 for civility and 141 absentions.

"A lot of those who should be here aren't," noted Sen. Leo Foley, DFL-Coon Rapids. "But there are enough here to create movement forward to do something about it."

The session, which was held at the University of Minnesota, was called "Beyond Bickering and Gridlock: Your Role in Changing the Legislature." It was organized by Independence Party Sen. Sheila Kiscaden of Rochester, the university's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and the National Conference of State Legislators.

Last year's Legislature ended in disarray. After nearly four months it adjourned without passing major legislation. Many observers attributed the lack of accomplishment to a high level of partisanship and an erosion of mutual respect.{...}

Ahhhhh.

My tax dollars at work.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Oliver Stone, in a feat of amazing mental rubberiness, jumped the shark!

Too bad it didn't take a chunk out of his ass in the meanwhile.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Heh.

The bastard deserves a lot worse than just being beaten up.

{hat tip: The Blog Child}

Posted by: Kathy at 03:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Need yet another example of how wonderfully effective the UN is?

The UN announced on Monday that it is hoping for three "days of tranquility" in Darfur. January 10-12 are the scheduled "days of tranquility."

Why, you ask, are they asking for these "days of tranquility" now? Particularly after all they haven't been able to achieve in Darfur? The least of which is a lasting cease-fire.

Well, the answer would be that they would like these "days of tranquility" to immunize children for polio, which appears to be making some progress in the refugee camps on working its way back from oblivion.

{...}"What I am asking is during the (vaccination) campaign ... to have days of tranquility and that means no action whatsoever," Jan Pronk, the U.N. special envoy to Sudan, told reporters. "That means that all forces should stay in the camps, in their barracks."

{...}Pronk said he would discuss the issue with the government and southern rebel movements, as well as with the Darfur rebel groups such as the main groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).

{...}The WHO said that polio was on the rise in Sudan and an epidemic was feared, with one official saying the number of cases has risen to 105 since the disease re-emerged in mid-2004.

Guido Sabatinelli, WHO representative in Sudan, said that ideally any fighting would halt for two days before the vaccination campaign began and continue two days after, but said the key was to ensure there were no incidents during the 3 days.

He said the campaign would administer oral vaccinations to children under five with household-to-household visits. He said three days would be enough to reach children under five.

So, let me see if I've got this straight: the UN has no hesitations about asking for "three days of tranquility" to vaccinate refugee children for polio, but somehow they cannot be bothered to stop these parties from killing the children and their families in the first place?

Explain that one to me, would ya?

See Also: The Butchers

disclaimer after the jump more...

Posted by: Kathy at 01:33 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Ian Buruma's Letter From Amsterdam in The New Yorker.

Go Read.

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