Archive for October, 2002

GARY HART FLYING TO MINNESOTA? And what do the cops do when they find Mickey sleeping in his car? Kausfiles has the scoop. . . .

GEITNER SIMMONS ON EUROPE:

When Gerhard Schroeder stands up for his country’s interests, he’s called a political pragmatist. When Jacques Chirac does the same for his country, he’s calmly regarded as just another French chauvinist. But when George W. does it, he’s derided as an out-of-control cowboy.

Read the whole post for the amusing context.

VIRGINIA POSTREL has some new posts up!

I MEANT TO BLOG SOMETHING on the attempted coup in Qatar the other day, but didn’t. Here’s a post from Rantburg. Were the Saudis behind it? He’s also got a good post on a convenient accident in Iran.

AN INTERNET DIGITAL CLOCK — but it’s the graphics that I like.

ALABAMA POLICE SUSPECT A THIRD PERSON may have been involved in an Alabama shooting by Muhammad and Malvo. The same gun was used as in the D.C. area killings, and witnesses place Muhammad and Malvo at the scene, but not as the shooter. Curious.

THE IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKET reflecting House and Senate races has shifted sharply toward the Democrats.

A GOOD PLUMBING IDEA, from the Italians. Well, they did give us the aqueducts, you know. And sanitation. And pizza. But what else have they . . . oh, never mind.

NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT: An article on life among the internationalistas. I wonder why these guys haven’t brought peace yet? Too hung over, I guess.

Sounds a lot like old-time colonial society.

I HAD PLANNED to write something on the Clifford Chance story, which is pretty interesting, but I never got to it. Now Dahlia Lithwick has a piece on it. I especially like the conclusion, though the answer to her question is: you can’t really do that, and make the kind of money these people want to make.

INTERESTING STORY suggesting that the FBI may lose its counterintelligence mission to a new, MI5-like organization.

While new bureaucracies don’t thrill me, the FBI has done badly enough at this that the idea has some merit. And new bureaucracies usually do their best in the first five years of their existence, which — I hope — will represent the period when we need this the most.

IT TAKES GUTS to write a column like this in Australia. Read it, and admire the guy.

(Via Clayton Cramer).

KIM DU TOIT’S National Ammo Day website has received over 4 million hits since it was started three weeks ago, Kim reports. Pretty impressive. By way of comparison, MSNBC’s Rachel Elbaum seems to be impressed that the antiwar ANSWER website gets 100,000 visitors per week — less than a tenth the traffic.

Perhaps MSNBC will do a story on Ammo Day next.

UPDATE: By way of comparison with ANSWER, my sitemeter counter shows 92,180 pageviews and 73,125 visitors so far today (it’s just before 11:00 pm).

HERE’S ANOTHER FIRSTHAND BLOG ACCOUNT from the D.C. antiwar marches. It’s a bit different from Jim Henley’s.

BELLESILES UPDATE: The Federal Lawyer has retracted its positive review of Michael Bellesiles’ Arming America, and Eugene Volokh has copies of the review, and the retraction, up on his site, along with some comments.

Will the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and various other publications follow suit?

HERE’S A SPECIAL FOR ALL YOU INSTAPUNDIT PREMIUMTm SUBSCRIBERS: Which is, er, all of you. . . . Tomorrow’s FoxNews column is available now.

MICHAEL KELLY ON THE CHICKENHAWK SLUR:

Its power lies in the simplicity that comes with being completely wrong. The central implication here is that only men who have professionally endured war have the moral standing and the experiential authority to advocate war. That is, in this country at least, a radical and ahistorical view. The Founders, who knew quite well the dangers of a military class supreme, were clear in their conviction that the judgment of professional warmakers must be subordinated to the command of ignorant amateurs — civilian leaders who were in turn subordinated to the command of civilian voters. Such has given us the leadership in war of such notable “chicken hawks” as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Further, the inescapable logic of “chicken hawk”-calling is that only military men have standing to pronounce in any way on war — to advocate it or to advocate against it. The decision not to go to war involves exactly the same issues of experiential and moral authority as does the decision to go to war. If a past of soldiering is required for one, it is required for the other. Chicken doves have no more standing than “chicken hawks.” We must leave all the decisions to the generals and the veterans.

A great piece, though lacking a reference to Starship Troopers.

UPDATE: Matt Wech emails: “Incidentally, one of the core pre-conditions for post-communist countries to join NATO is that they establish *civilian* control over their militaries.”

My reply: “Where the hell is Layne?”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tacitus points out that Lincoln did in fact serve, in the militia.

TIM CAVANAUGH WRITES on CampusWatch and McCarthyism, and does so quite well. But the most memorable part is the throwaway line about ” Robert Fisk, the war on terror’s Mr. Bill.” It’s even more fun when you follow the links!

BRIAN LINSE EMAILS:

Don’t miss Warren Zevon on the Letterman Show tonight. 11:30p eastern and pacific on CBS.

Warren will be performing several songs, and the entire show will be dedicated to him.

Watch it or tape it, folks. We won’t have him around for much longer.