I totally agree. Babies are good eatin'. Particularly when slathered in BBQ sauce. Mmmmm. Tasty.

Have at it, my devoted Cake Eater readers.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:55 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 27 words, total size 1 kb.

Benazir Bhutto, the first woman to be prime minister of an Islamic country, was murdered in cold blood today by a suicide bomber in Rawalpindi. The NYT has a decent, covers-the-bases obituary here. Whilst, you can find the details of her murder here. Via Gateway Pundit, we have a claim of responsibility coming from Al-Qaeda, but I'm not quite so sure it's to be trusted.

A spokesperson for the al-Qaeda terrorist network has claimed responsibility for the death on Thursday of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

“We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat [the] mujahadeen,” Al-Qaeda’s commander and main spokesperson Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid told Adnkronos International (AKI) in a phone call from an unknown location, speaking in faltering English. Al-Yazid is the main al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan.{...}

Whether that's actually true or not, I don't know, but suicide bombing is definitely Al-Qaeda's m.o., so I wouldn't be surprised if they're responsible. As much as Bhutto complained about the security Musharraf's administration offered---and the resulting conspiracy theories that abound regarding the attack on her procession back in October---I highly doubt he had anything to do with it.

Neither do I have any clue about what her assassination means for the future of Pakistan. I'm not going to pretend to, either, because, in all honesty, Pakistani politics is always a crapshoot, and I'm of the general opinion that anyone who claims to be the soothsayer of the moment in regards to Pakistani politics is full of it. They don't know what will happen. They can only guess. And they'll most likely be wrong when it all shakes out.

The only commentary I'm going to offer in regards to Bhutto's heinous assassination is that I find it curious that while it's been much heralded that she was the most powerful woman in Pakistani politics, and in Islamic politics in general, it hasn't been mentioned at all that, perhaps, her gender might have had something to do with why she was murdered. There hasn't been one ounce of speculation that I can see in any of the articles I scanned on Google News, that the fact that she was a woman put her at greater risk from Islamic nutjobs. Why, even in the Al-Qaeda claim of responsibility, the only reasoning the Al-Qaeda commander offered was that she was an ally of the United States and had promised to help defeat terrorism.

I don't know whether this is a MSM whitewash job, to avoid the reality of the situation, as they do so spectacularly most of the time, or if, really and truly, her gender had nothing to do with it. That she was simply murdered for who she was, what she represented and what she stood for. If that's the case, well, isn't it rather extraordinary that Islamic nutjobs---who feel they have to be protected from women, lest they be tempted toward sin, and subsequently subjugate them every day of the week, and twice on Fridays, all over the globe---inadvertently achieved a measure of Western-style gender equality and murdered Bhutto simply for her politics. They didn't murder her because she was with a man to whom she was not related. They didn't murder her because she had the gall to get behind the wheel of a car and drive herself where she needed to go. They didn't stone her because they believed she was an adulteress. They murdered her for her politics.

It doesn't make her murder any less heinous. But what's not being said is rather significant: that Bhutto was their equal and she deserved to be murdered the same way as any man with whom they disagreed.

That, at least, is something in a culture where she easily could have been murdered for not covering her hair.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:42 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 635 words, total size 4 kb.

Interesting piece in this weekend's FT, detailing a visit to Winterset, Iowa, home of devoted Cake Eater readers, Russ and The Lovely Janis, and their freezer, which I'm assured is chock-a-block full of venison.

Anyone wondering why Hillary Clinton has a battle on her hands in Iowa should visit the picturesque town of Winterset. The mid-western state, which holds the first critical nominating caucus 10 days from Saturday, is one of the few in the US never to have elected a woman to the House of Representatives, the Senate or, even, to its governorship.

Located amid the ice-covered corn and soyabean fields of central Iowa, Winterset is the birthplace of John Wayne, hero of countless westerns and lifelong friend of Ronald Reagan, president from 1981-1989. “You should visit Winterset,” said a senior figure in one of the Democratic campaigns. “It is like stepping into a 1950s movie set.”

Although John Wayne was born a century ago and his family left town when he was just three, the gruff, plain-spoken leading man of classics such as True Grit, Stagecoach and Fort Apache would find remarkably little had changed. People leave their doors unlocked in Winterset, and their cars running when they pop into the post office.

“Iowa is a socially conservative state,” says Jerry Scheertfeger, former mayor of Winterset, in an interview at the soda fountain in the Montross Pharmacy opposite the clock tower in the town square. “We are proud of John Wayne. He was always on the side of good, he always won and he never used bad words.”{...}

Go read the whole thing. I find it refreshing that the reporter focused on The Duke, Winterset's other claim to fame, rather than that lame-ass book. (In case you're wondering how Winterset and "The Bridges of Madison County" are connected, well, Winterset is the county seat for Madison County. Pretty little courthouse on the square, too.) However, I think, perhaps, the reporter had some preconceived notions about how "religious" people were in that neck of the woods and went out of his way to quote people who supported his notions. I also suspect that Russ will be disappointed that there was not one mention of Fred in the article.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:41 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 405 words, total size 3 kb.

I wonder what it could be?

Oh, yeah. I've got it now.

"It all just depends on what your definition of 'is' is."

{ht: Ace}

Posted by: Kathy at 05:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 35 words, total size 1 kb.

Lately, there's been much ballyhooing about presidential grasper Mike Huckabee's statement about what he'd do about Iran, the upshot of which was, If I may be so bold as to summarize, that he wants to chat with them. There could be more to his position, and I'm sure there is and it's been shaped and molded by the best foreign policy wizard they could afford, much the way I now mold and shape my ever-growing hairdo with gel. But I don't really care. As far as the presidential election is concerned, well, call me when the conventions are over and there are actual candidates in place. Then I'll really start paying attention; right now, it's just a waste of my time to follow positions of people whose policy shaping ambitions will have been firebombed in three months time, ya dig? It's just too much work---and futile, boring, busy work at that.

Here's the thing, though. I may not pay too much attention to the primary/caucus process, but I do listen to what these boneheads (and they're all boneheads---no matter the party to which they've pledged their undying allegiance. It's a requirement when running for president.) have to say about foreign policy. Particularly when it comes to foreign policy regarding people we generally don't get along so well with, like say, Iran. That I do pay attention to. And left or right, there's one thing I'd like to hear from any presidential candidate when it comes to dealing with Iran. It wouldn't make life any easier on them, if by some chance of fate they were elected, but it sure would make me happy and much more ready to accept any sort of formal diplomatic overtures that might happen, should they be elected.

Are you on tenterhooks wondering what this statement could possibly be, my devoted Cake Eater readers? I hope so. I think I've done a good enough job building it up for you.

It's actually pretty simple. I would like these nimrods to say, hey, once Iran formally apologizes for taking over our embassy in 1979, in gross violation of the universally accepted diplomatic playbook, and holding our embassy workers hostage for four hundred and forty four days, whilst sometimes torturing them and scaring the shit out of them by staging fake executions, then we can talk. Until that point in time, forget about it.

I can understand the US has a long and varied history with modern day Iran. We've screwed up there. Big time. The US, on behalf of the UK, in 1953 sponsored a coup that led to some serious repression on the behalf of the dictator we propped up. It was petro-politics gone horribly wrong. This I understand. But this move was also part of the greater Cold War, and for that motive we have no need to apologize. If Iran had become an ally of the Soviets, the Cold War might have taken a turn for the worse. None of this, however, is an excuse for what Iran did to our embassy and our citizens. That they've never apologized for what happened; that they've never provided any sort of compensation for the financial loss of United States property (which is now a museum, dedicated to the glorious hostage taking), or for the pain and suffering our citizens suffered at the hands of their government, shows me that they have no honor. If they do, on the odd chance, want to have a chat with the US about, perhaps having sanctions for their enriched uranium whimsies removed, well, they need to establish some good will. Good will is crucial, otherwise we have no motive to believe a word they say. One way of doing that would be to apologize.

I'm not holding my breath, though. I doubt it will ever happen in my lifetime. But it would be awfully nice if one of these presidential-wannabe boneheads would actually consider that there are things for which other nations need to apologize to us---and this would be at the top of the list.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:45 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 682 words, total size 4 kb.

I've kept quiet about the immigration debate, simply because too many people have become completely unhinged when it comes to this issue. Fact and reason have gone out the window for these people, and, unfortunately, it has become harder and harder to distinguish those who have reasonable positions against illegal immigration from those who are not reasoned and rational about the discussion.

When we were in Tejas over Thanksgiving weekend, I actually had an interesting exchange with my dear father-in-law, while we were watching the news. Apparently, somewhere in the DFW metropolitan area, a preacher had been arrested for alleged pedophile activities. The preacher had a Latino surname. This was, apparently, the smoking gun for the father-in-law, and he harrumphed about it. In response I asked, "What does the fact that he has a Latino surname have to do with the fact he's a pedophile?" His reply, "Oh, you'd be surprised at how one has something to do with the other down here." I was more than a little stunned at his reply. I hadn't thought he would actually go so far. While I was tempted to reply, "Correlation does not equal causation," I kept my mouth shut, lest I upset the delicate peace that is needed for visits.

The father-in-law is usually a pretty rational and reasonable person, who bases his opinions on facts, not inflamed rhetoric, but he's fallen for the worst of the anti-immigration rhetoric, hook, line and sinker. Much of his attitude has been gained honestly, I freely admit, because he is in the manufacturing business, and his most recent job in manufacturing management was at a Maquiladora in Nogales, Mexico. He HATED going over the border every day. And I mean HATED it. The father-in-law is OCD. Everything about the way Mexico works is designed to drive a person like that nuts. Before he received authorization to use the Fast-Pass lane, he would, literally, have to spend hours in line to cross the border, on Fridays and Mondays, in particular, while Mexicans tried to get in and out of their country. His favored phrase for those who would come back with pickup trucks overflowing with items (read poorly tied down, with stuff falling off) was, "The Clampetts." When you're that close to the border, well, no one, not even your local postal carrier, speaks English well, if they speak English at all. The distance signs on the highway are denoted in kilometers, not miles. You're constantly stopped and harassed by the Border Patrol when you're on the freeway. The gorgeous landscape is marred by the litter the illegals leave behind them as they work their way north, toward Tucson and Phoenix, and points beyond. I can understand why people get pissed off about immigration. But that's absolutely no reason to make statements like the father-in-law did. If the pedophile preacher had, in fact, been a pedophile rabbi, would we not be denouncing his statement as anti-Semitic? But because the guy had a Latino surname, it's, apparently, all right to make blanket statements about one thing having to do with the other. How do you debate immigration with someone like this? When everything you say will automatically be discounted with a throwaway line snaked straight from the Lou Dobbs' Xenophobe Hour of Power? Do you even bother?

Well, I've come to the conclusion that you have to. I'll admit I've avoided the topic like the plague because I didn't feel like being used and abused. But the rhetoric is getting out of hand, particularly with the presidential election at hand. I'm not saying there aren't problems with illegal immigration. THERE ARE PROBLEMS. But, if we actually want to solve the problem, (and we do want to solve the frickin' problem, don't we? Or is it just more convenient to use illegals as a scapegoat for all the other assorted ills we have going on?) well, there are certain inescapable facts proponents of walling up the border and kicking every illegal out have to rebut. Jason Riley in today's Opinion Journal points a few of these facts out:

{...}During a sharp exchange with Mr. Huckabee at a recent debate, Mr. Romney said it's wrong to give illegal aliens access to revenue from hard-working taxpayers. "Mike, that's not your money," said Mr. Romney. "That's the taxpayers' money . . . [and] there's only so much money to go around." Following the debate, the Romney campaign released an ad reiterating the charge. "Huckabee even supported taxpayer-funded college scholarships for illegal aliens," says the narrator in a TV spot now airing in Iowa.

If illegal immigrants didn't pay taxes, Mr. Romney might have a point. But they do pay taxes, and by doing so they subsidize services that only legal residents can access. For starters, more than half and up to three-quarters of illegal immigrants in the U.S. are working "on the books," which means they're paying federal and state income taxes, just like the rest of us. They are also paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, even though undocumented immigrants are ineligible to receive benefits from either program. In testimony before the Senate Finance Committee last year, the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration noted that between 1937 and 2003, contributions to Social Security from unauthorized workers totaled an estimated $520 billion.

But even illegals working in the cash economy can't avoid paying consumption taxes, which are levied on the purchase of goods and services. Nor can they duck property taxes, even if they're renting. Mr. Romney implies that illegal aliens are a net drain on state coffers, but Mr. Huckabee's native Arkansas is an example of immigrants paying their way, and then some.

Between 2000 and 2005, Arkansas had the fastest-growing Hispanic population in the country. Today, some two-thirds of the state's 100,000 immigrants are Hispanic and half are undocumented. Yet a study released earlier this year by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation found these newcomers to "have a small but positive net fiscal impact on the Arkansas state budget."

Taking into account both education and health care expenditures, the report found that immigrants "cost" the state $237 million in 2004, but made direct and indirect contributions of $257 million. Immigrant Arkansans also generated some $3 billion in business revenues. According to the authors, without this foreign labor, "the output of the state's manufacturing industry would likely be lowered by about $1.4 billion--or about 8 percent of the industry's $16.2 billion total contribution to the gross state product in 2004."{...}

{my emphasis}

When you look at the entire picture, immigration is good for our economy. It just is. We need a strong economy, with cheap houses, cheap food, and cheap goods. For that economy to stay strong, we need immigration to continue apace. It would be better for the US, in the long run, to embrace immigration, to find an efficient and efficacious method to regulate immigration. This would allow Border Patrol to spend more time keeping the drug traffickers, murderers and other nasty people out of the country. Instead, they have to spend their time chasing after people who would simply like to work for a living, support their families and who aren't going to cause any trouble---and only the drug traffickers benefit from the Border Patrol's overwhelmed situation. Because our system does not work, as it stands, we get both kinds of immigrants---good and bad. And that's not good for anyone.

Other than Lou Dobbs, that is. I hear his ratings are through the roof.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:13 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 1266 words, total size 8 kb.

My goodness. The EU really doesn't want yet another Balkan "conflict" springing up, do they?

European Union leaders will offer Serbia a fast-track route to joining the bloc in a bid to soothe Balkan tensions over Kosovo's push for independence, a summit draft showed on Friday.

But Belgrade bristled at suggestions the move was designed to compensate it for the looming loss of the majority Albanian province. Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic insisted any such trade-off would be out of the question.

"It would be an indecent proposal, and European leaders are decent people, they have not made such an offer," Jeremic told reporters in Belgrade on Friday.

A day after signing a treaty to end a long institutional stalemate, EU leaders switched focus to challenges posed by the Balkans -- a test of the EU's hopes of strengthening its foreign policy clout -- and by globalization and immigration.

The leaders were due to say Serbia should be offered an accelerated path towards EU entry once it meets existing conditions to sign a first-level agreement on closer ties.

"(The European Council) reiterated its confidence that progress on the road towards the EU, including candidate status, can be accelerated," a draft copy of the summit communique obtained by Reuters said.{...}

Considering how they've managed to dodge letting Turkey in for quite some time, this is surprising.

I don't know if many people have been following this struggle, but the crux of the matter is this: Kosovo wants independence and they have US, EU and UN backing for this move. Serbia doesn't want Kosovo to break away, not only because there are plenty of ethnic Serbians in Kosovo, but because they believe they have a long-standing, historical claim to the area. One has to wonder why the Serbs are particularly attached to this piece of land, particularly when they are the minority. The best explanation of this claim was delivered by Sebastian Junger in his July 1998 Vanity Fair piece entitled, "Kosovo's Valley of Death." The article isn't available online, but as I happened to have it stashed away in the basement, I'll type it out for you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, because it's truly enlightening.

In 1389, as the myth goes, Prince Lazar of Serbia was visited by Saint Ilija in the form of a falcon. It was on the eve of a great battle with the Turks, and Lazar had gathered around him, on the plains of Kosovo, much of the Balkan military elite: Bosnian warlords, Albanian noblemen, and Hungarian horsemen with shamanic bones sewn into their uniforms. Lazar was understandably nervous---the Turks had wiped out an entire Serb army 18 years earlier---and wondered whether it might not be better to retreat and fight again another day. Saint Ilija gave Lazar the choice between a kingdom on earth and a kingdom in heaven; Lazar wisely choosing the kingdom in heaven, went on to meet his death at the hands of the Turks.

The battle became known as the Battle of Kosovo Polje---the "Blackbird Field"---and it occupies a particularly fevered part of the Serb psyche. It was on Kosovo Polje that a Serb leader first chose death over subjugation; it was on Kosovo Polje that the guiding maxim of the Serb people, "Only unity saves the Serbs," was first acted out in all its bloody glory.

Nearly 600 years after the battle, Slobodan Milosevic---the man responsible for igniting the entire Balkan conflict---would stand on the ancient battlefield and whip a crowd of angry Serbs into a nationalist frenzy. "Yugoslavia does not exist without Kosovo!" he yelled, instantly catapulting himself to the top of the political heap. "Yugoslavia would disintegrate without Kosovo!"

There are candidates at least as good as the plains of Kosovo for the mythic homeland. The Serbs migrated southward from Saxony and what is now the Czech republic in the sixth century A.D., and didn't settle permanently in Kosovo for another 600 years.

The high water mark of the Serb empire came in the 1330s, when a brutal nobleman named Stefan Dusan defeated his own father in battle, had him strangled and then went on to extend his empire throughout Kosovo and into Greece. He built numerous Orthodox monasteries and churches, and eventually had himself crowned emperor of the Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs and Albanians.

The empire didn't survive his own death, though; within decades the turks defeated the Serbs at Kosovo Polje, and 300 hundred years after that the turks put down another uprising so ruthlessly that most Serbs fled Kosovo. The void they left behind was filled by the Albanians, who drifted back down out of the mountains with their wild, hill-people ways.

Traditional Albanian society was based on a clan system and was further divided into brotherhoods and bajraks. The bajrak system identified a local leader, called a bajrakar, who could be counted on to provide a certain number of men for military duty. In another era, Adem Jasari and Ahmet Ahmeti might well have been considered barjakars. That organization has fallen into disuse, but the clans---basically used to determine allegiances during a blood feud---seem to have survived.

Feuds in this part of the world inevitably break out over offenses to a man's honor, which include calling him a liar, insulting his female relatives, violating his hospitality, or stealing his weapons. Tradition dictates that these transgressions be avenged by killing any man in the offender's family, which creates another round of violence. As late as the end of the 19th century, one in five adult male deaths was the result of a blood feud, and in Albania today, is is said, a tradition still exists whereby you must kill one man for every bullet in the body of your dead kin.

Seen in the context of the code of male honor, the Serb police have violated just about every blood-feud rule in existence, including the killing of women---a provocation above all others. It's no wonder they have such a hard time maintaining control over Kosovo.

The Kosovars were granted autonomy at the end of World War II, but then aspiring president Milosevic had the autonomy revoked in 1989, and the Dayton Accords of 1995, which ended the recent war in Bosnia and Croatia, failed to address the issue of Kosovo's status. Inevitably, an independence movement was born, funded by a voluntary 3 percent tax given by the Albanian diaspora and supported by groups in Albania proper. {...}

When you take this into account, it is interesting how the EU seems to believe they can solve the pesky problem of nationalism with supranationalism. Granted that supranationalism comes with the lure of free and easy trade, but really, the Serbs just don't seem to care. They believe they have a historical right to Kosovo, and they have the added bonus of having a new and improved Russia behind them. Despite the Serbs' recent humiliations, they seem to think this is the one they can win. Given that the Russia of 2007 is much different than the Russia of 1999, they might just be right.

The months-long talks the UN organized to come to some sort of agreement over Kosovo ended on the 10th of this month, with no resolution. Everyone is sticking firmly to their opening positions. The Kosovars want independence; The Serbs don't. The two sides are not going to come to any agreement over this, and, quite frankly, all it's going to take is a few Molotov cocktails and the area will be transported back in time to 1999. Fortunately, that hasn't happened yet, but I believe it's just a matter of time. Diplomacy has failed. The UN has handed over shepherding duties to the newly formed EU diversionary force and I have a suspicion that when all hell breaks loose, they won't be up to the job and will come crying to NATO. Which, if you believe Russia's bluster on the matter, could conceivably mean the US, via NATO, will, in essence, be at war with Serbia and, by extension, Russia. This could happen before the end of the year, but my money's on an early to mid-January start.

One wonders if the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade is ready to be mistakenly bombed again. more...

Posted by: Kathy at 10:46 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 1379 words, total size 8 kb.

I present with minimal comment, because I used to live there, the New York Post's Cindy Adams, on the Iowa Caucuses.

Ahem.

WHO the hell cares about Iowa? Barring a caucus every few years, who even thinks of Iowa. All it's ever brought us is corn, Herbert Hoover, the Wright Brothers, Ashton Kutcher and "The Music Man." Its main attraction is an airport in Des Moines that gets you out.

And this state with less people than I have in my kitchen is determining the future of our most powerful nation on Earth?

OK, first off, in Algonquin "caucus" means "a tribal gathering of chiefs." In Iowa, it means a grass-roots get-together. In truth, it means a load of BS. The history of their caucuses (caucii?) comes down to the fact that Ronald Reagan lost in them. Twice. Bill Clinton came in fourth. But they did deliver us Jimmy Carter. So what's that tell you?

This first step toward occupying the White House begins in maybe a firehouse. Farmhouse. High school gym. Just being able to write your name is the first plus toward eligibility. The event begins 6:30. Registration starts at 6. Not like this is a big long line or anything. You needn't even be 18 to register. Needn't even be a Republican, Democrat or Independent. You can decide when you get there. Besides, after you decide and after a piece of pie you can change again. We are not talking deep convictions here. For all anybody cares, a body can even stick up a finger for Ross Perot.

And, please, the eyes of the whole world are on this come-as-you-are operation, where the next president of the United States of America can be picked by a show of hands?{...}

But wait, there's more...

{...}Hey, this incredibly fabulous area is only important because we made it important, not because it is important. Ask what's it really known for and a local might boast, "We're the only state whose name begins with two vowels." Wow-ee! Take that, Ahmadinejad! The whole deal in Iowa is a hustle. It gets this state farm subsidies and fortunes in advertising. With tubloads of volunteers, gurus, journalists and specialists piling in, this translates to hotel rooms, restaurants, drivers. It brings Oprah to the plains and bread to the cornfield.{...}

I repeat: Yeeee-ouch. Can't wait to hear what Russ has to say about this one.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:02 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 402 words, total size 2 kb.

Vlad the Impaler finally made his move yesterday and announced his "heir": one Dimitry Medvedev, St. Petersburg lackey, first deputy Prime Minister and---surprise, surprise, surprise---the Chairman of Gazprom. Today, Medvedev made it apparent that he appreciated the support by announcing he'd hand dear old Vlad the post of Prime Minister if he were elected President in March.

{...}Mr Medvedev said that he would ask Mr Putin to take the post of prime minister as a way of ensuring continuity in the country’s economic and political course. “I consider it principally important for our country to keep in the most important position in executive power – in the post of chairman of the Russian government – Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,” Mr Medvedev said in brief televised remarks on Tuesday.

The announcement came just one day after Mr Putin endorsed Mr Medvedev, a soft-spoken ally from St Petersburg, as his preferred successor as president, in a move hailed by investors as signaling a continuation of Mr PutinÂ’s policies by a figure seen as less hawkish than his potential rivals for the post.

{...}“This means the team will remain,” he said. Putin will retain leverage he will also have the parliamentary majorty behind him. Medvedev will be the head of executive power. But he will not have experience with the siloviki. They will continue to see Putin as their de facto leader. "Putin will remain the real leader,” he said..

Sergei Markov said the tandem of Mr Medvedev as president and Mr Putin as prime minister would leave Mr Putin with more leverage, at least for an initial period, because Mr Medvedev had no experience of dealing with the crucial “power ministries” – the Interior and Defence Ministries, the secret services and the prosecutor general’s office.{...}

Well, no one's really surprised at this development, are they? Everyone knew that Vlad would retain power; it was simply a matter of waiting to see precisely how he would do it. About the only interesting thing about this is his choice of Medvedev, who is pro-western and not a member of the siloviki---members of Putin's entourage who are former KGB or were associated with other security services, such as Sergei Ivanov, yet another first deputy prime minister and much-banger-on of the "new" Russia's power. I find it curious that Vlad passed over Ivanov, who is much more hawkish, and whose views are much more in line with Vlad's. One could perhaps surmise that, with this move, Vlad thought Ivanov wouldn't be as pliable as previously thought, but who knows for certain.

Yet, with this appointment, I don't think we'll be seeing the end of the "agree with us or we'll shut off your heat" blackmail Gazprom is so fond of using on its former republics (and Europe, to some extent.). If anything, that will be worse. If Medvedev doesn't resign his chairmanship of Gazprom, that would mean Gazprom (and Rosneft, the state oil company) wouldn't just be rumored to be carrying out Russia's foreign policy goals, the arrangement would be formalized. While I don't know if this is possible under Russian law, it would make things very tidy, which, as we all know, is how Vlad likes things. This wouldn't be any different than when Gazprom was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Soviet Socialist Republic. If I were in charge of a major multinational oil company, you can bet that the last thing I would consider is dumping any money into developing Russia's oil and gas reserves. Considering what Russia's done in the past in terms of "repatriation" of developments like Sahkalin 2 ("environmental damage" my ass), I can only think the situation would be worse if Medvedev retains the chairmanship, is elected president, and takes his orders from Vlad.

This situation may be disturbing to those of us who remember the Cold War---and it IS disturbing---but I have to say, I'm finding this whole thing somewhat fascinating. I can't outthink Vlad on the chess moves (I suspected he'd pull something along these lines, but the specifics were beyond me, and it's not like I was alone in that, either.) but find myself watching nonetheless. You can appreciate the brilliance of the moves, even if you don't agree with the moves themselves. He's one canny bastard, that's for sure.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:08 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 717 words, total size 5 kb.

Because it's time to stop watching NBC.

Why did NBC refuse to air these ads? Well, because they include the URL of Freedom's Watch website.. Which, according to NBC, is "too political."

WASHINGTON - NBC has rejected a TV ad by Freedom's Watch, a conservative group that supports administration policy in Iraq, that asks viewers to remember and thank U.S. troops during the holiday season.

NBC said it declined to air the ad because it refers to the group's Web site, which the network said was too political, not because of the ad's message.

{...}The spot was to be part of a seven-figure campaign that includes newspaper ads and television commercials. The ads are to run on CNN and Fox News Channel and are running in various newspapers. The New York Times ran a full-page Freedom's Watch ad Friday that said "Thank You!" and depicted a soldier reading a letter. The newspaper ad also contained the Web site address.

Alan Wurtzel, NBC's head of standards and practices, said the network decided not to run the Freedom's Watch ad because the group insisted that the spot contain the URL address of its Web site.{...}

What offense is to be found on Freedom Watch's website?

{...}It also contains a welcoming message that states: "For too long, conservatives have lacked a permanent political presence to do battle with the radical special interests groups and their left-wing allies in government."

"We have a policy that prohibits acceptance of advertising that deals with issues of public controversy," Wurtzel said. "This particular ad, in and of itself, is fine. It thanks the troops for their action overseas. We asked them to eliminate a URL address where a person is asked to contact elected officials and told not to cut and run on the war on terror."{...}

{my emphasis}

To be fair, a quick Google search will show you that NBC has refused to air any number of uber-liberal Moveon-dot-org ads. Yet, curiously enough, in the course of my search, I couldn't find any mention of NBC ever saying to Move on-dot-org, as they did to Freedom's Watch, "Hey, remove the political content on your website and we'll let the ads air."

What does that tell you?

Sunday, December 9th Update: NBC caved!

WASHINGTON -- NBC reversed course Saturday and decided to air a conservative group's television ad thanking U.S. troops.

The ad, by the group Freedom's Watch, asks viewers to remember the troops during the holiday season. NBC had refused to air the ad because it guides viewers to the Freedom's Watch Web site, which NBC said was too political.

But in a statement issued Saturday evening, NBC said:

"We have reviewed and changed our ad standards guidelines and made the decision that our policy will apply to content only and not to a referenced Web site. Based on these amended standards the Freedom's Watch ad will begin to run as early as Sunday."{...}

And NBC did, indeed, run the ad this morning---with the URL present and accounted for---during Meet The Press, or so the husband, who is the one person in the Cake Eater Pad who actually watches that show, informs me.

{ht: Ace}

Posted by: Kathy at 05:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 547 words, total size 4 kb.

Oh, bite me.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Once again there has been a mass shooting in the United States, this time in a Nebraska shopping mall. Once again there is no national outcry for gun control.

Hmmm. Why do I get the feeling Mr. Trotta is a wee bit disappointed with this development? Maybe he's not disappointed. Maybe, just maybe, he's just reporting the facts of the situation? Could it be?

A 19-year-old man shot and killed eight people and then himself in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday with a semi-automatic AK-47 that police say he stole from his stepfather.

Leading presidential candidates for the November 2008 U.S. election issued statements expressing sorrow and support for the victims. None called for tighter gun laws, which are traditionally left to state and local authorities.

The crime revived memories of a massacre in April at Virginia Tech university, where a student killed 32 people.

There has been a string of such shooting sprees in recent years, but little resonance among national politicians.

Well, that's "factual" enough, but why am I still getting a faint whiff of disappointment that a national gun control melee hasn't broken out?

The right to bear arms is fiercely defended as a U.S. constitutional right by large numbers of collectors, hunters and advocates of home security, cherished the way civil libertarians champion the right to free speech.

Yet the issue is controversial enough to draw in the Supreme Court, which said last month it would review an appeals court ruling that struck down a 31-year-old ban on private possession of handguns in Washington, D.C.

"Although people who favor increased gun control in the United States are a substantial majority, those who oppose it are far more intense in their opposition and far more likely to vote on the basis of that issue alone," said Bill Galston, senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

He cited the 1994 elections when the Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress. Some political analysts attributed the rout to backlash against a Democratic-led ban on assault weapons. That law was allowed to expire 10 years later.

"I might want to qualify that judgment, but the fact that it's widely believed and that there is some basis for it is enough to determine political behavior," Galston said.

Hmmm... still that faint whiff of disappointment. Maybe he'll present the opposing side in the next little bit? Ya think?

A Pennsylvania state representative who last month helped defeat a proposal to limit hand gun purchases to one per person per month said he would support tougher sentencing laws for people who acquire and use illegal guns, but that law-abiding citizens should not have their rights infringed.

"I received thousands of e-mails with some of these gun control measures. Once again, it's the right to bear arms and many of our citizens don't want that right taken away," said Ron Marsico, chairman of the state House Judiciary Committee and a Republican.

Besides, he said, no law may have prevented the Omaha tragedy.

Wow. A bit of fairness has been introduced. A nasty mean legislator who helped defeat a measure in the Pennsylvania legislature that would have kept people to one handgun a month was quoted. Wooh. I'm impressed. Let's see how he finishes up. Who do you think he'll quote next? Someone from the NRA, perhaps?

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, disagrees. He said European countries have enacted effective gun control laws and that U.S. politicians are cowed by the gun lobby as exemplified by the National Rifle Association.

"There is the mythology advanced by the gun lobby of the Wild West and the individual frontiersman single-handedly holding off the British and the Indians and the bears simultaneously," said Helmke.

"They've got politicians nervous about anything that's even got the word gun in it."

Ah, he blew it. He went to the people responsible for the Brady Bill, who then played the stereotypical gun lobby/owner card. He might as well have said everyone wants a gun to go with their coonskin caps, because it's fashionable. And he brought up the all holy Europeans and their attitude towards gun control. Never mind the fact that while European countries have enacted strict gun control legislation, ahem, people are still being murdered in said countries. They're just being offed via knives, mostly, and other, more creative means of murder.

It's quite amazing to me that Trotta never really hits the reason why there hasn't been a revitalization of the gun control debate in the wake of the shooting in Omaha and that is, ahem, because the shooter was not right in the head. Increased gun control might have kept Hawkins from shooting shoppers and employees at Westroads, but who's to say that he wouldn't have done the same thing with a knife? Or some other deadly instrument? Yet, because the guy used an AK-47 that he stole, apparently we're supposed to be outraged enough to ban all handguns and assault rifles, despite the 2nd Amendment. That would be the logical response, evidently. That people aren't baying for Charlton Heston's blood seems inconceivable to Trotta.

I've said it before: I don't like guns. They scare the crap out of me. I've held a 9mm Glock in my cold, sweaty hands, and I did not like it one bit. Particularly after I found out that it doesn't have a safety on it. But my dislike of guns does not mean I'm going to impinge on someone else's right, by the Constitution of the United States of America, to have one. If they feel the need to defend themselves, and want a handgun to do it, so be it. If they feel they need a rifle to kill Bambi on a regular basis, well, since I'm a fan of venison, so be it. As long as they're law abiding citizens, I don't see what the problem is. Gun control laws only regulate people who purchase guns legally. It doesn't control the people who steal guns and then use them. Like Robert Hawkins. Who stole a n AK-47 and killed and wounded a goodly number of people. Trotta would seemingly have us believe that Hawkins---and all other shooters---is irrelevant, but that the bloody gun---and all other guns---are the most relevant things in the world.

I think not.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:24 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 1071 words, total size 7 kb.

Not here, but in Venezuela.

Betty Rojas has every reason to feel disenchanted with the government of President Hugo Chávez. A resident of the sprawling La Pedrera shanty town in the south-west of Caracas, Ms Rojas says Venezuela’s government has been slow to help after landslides last month made her home unsafe and cut off supplies of water and other services.

She now faces the prospect of eviction and a spell as a resident in a former pasta factory that has been converted into a centre for the homeless, and is bewildered by the prospect. “Nobody is providing any answers,” says Ms Rojas, a 32-year-old dressmaker.

But her disenchantment with the government will not lead her to vote on Sunday against the president’s plans to change the constitution and accelerate Venezuela’s transition towards 21st century socialism. “I voted for Chávez last time but I will not vote at all on Sunday.”

Other residents of La Pedrera are equally exasperated by official inaction and complain that lack of maintenance made disaster inevitable. Norma Valero, 40, who sells clothes on a market stall, is upset at the prospect of living in the refuge. “Chávez builds houses in Bolivia and Cuba. Why doesn’t he do something for us. We are forgotten. They move at the speed of a tortoise,” she says. But angry though she is, Ms Valero says she will abstain rather than vote against the government. “I have no time for any of them.”

{...}But it is not clear that this will be enough to defeat Mr Chávez’s project to reshape the constitution. Even in La Pedrera Mr Chávez can still count on many votes. Margarita Lopez Maya, a sociologist who has studied La Pedrera for many years and says its problems could easily have been avoided, says the unwillingness of the residents to oppose Mr Chávez is hard to believe. But for “the poor people there still really is no other option”.

{my emphasis}

There's no other option? Really? Maybe---and I would like to emphasize this is only a suggestion---you might want to ditch the victim mentality and go out and do something for yourself. Like protesting or even---gasp!---voting against constitutional reforms which would guarantee you'll never have the chance to get out of the slums you live in.

Because, if it hasn't already dawned on you, Lippy McLipster wants you to be in the slums. He wants you running to hell and back simply to obtain milk, bread and other daily necessities. Why would someone who's so fond of claiming he's fighting for social justice (!) seemingly want these things? Why, it's really quite elementary, my dear. You're easier to control that way.

UPDATE: Well, way to go Venezuela. I'm happy to be proven wrong.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Humbled by his first electoral defeat ever, President Hugo Chavez said Monday he may have been too ambitious in asking voters to let him stand indefinitely for re-election and endorse a huge leap to a socialist state.

"I understand and accept that the proposal I made was quite profound and intense," he said after voters narrowly rejected the sweeping constitutional reforms by 51 percent to 49 percent.

Opposition activists were ecstatic as the results were announced shortly after midnight — with 88 percent of the vote counted, the trend was declared irreversible by elections council chief Tibisay Lucena.

Narrowly defeated, yes. But who the hell cares? Lippy McLipster is actually recognizing the vote and isn't claiming that the US meddled with the election as an excuse to nullify the returns. That's progress!

Of course, there are still some who aren't happy:

{...}Nelly Hernandez, a 37-year-old street vendor, cried as she wandered outside the presidential palace early Monday amid broken beer bottles as government workers took apart a stage mounted earlier for a victory fete.

"It's difficult to accept this, but Chavez has not abandoned us, he'll still be there for us," she said between sobs.{...}

{my emphasis}

No, Lippy hasn't abandoned you. As if. Sha. He needs you. After all, what's socialism without idealistic people who willingly sign up to be impoverished in the name of social justice (!)? I'm sure he'll promise you an overarching subsidy within days, just to keep you satisfied, so that you'll vote for whatever "reforms" he proposes next.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:20 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 725 words, total size 5 kb.