Archive for February, 2005

OF COURSE SHE’S HOT — SHE’S A BELLICOSE WOMAN:

In addition to German and English, Sabine speaks French and Italian. She is proficient in basic tactical pistol skills, because she thought it would be a fun thing to learn.

And — also like the InstaWife — a pilot.

UPDATE: Since various people emailed to ask, no the InstaWife hasn’t flown for years, and now that she’s got the ICD she’s not allowed to. She started college in Air Force ROTC as an aerospace engineering major, but switched out when they wanted to make her a navigator instead of a pilot. This was a wise decision, I think, judging by the navigational skills she displays on family trips. That Chinese embassy bombing fiasco may have its roots in similar decisions . . . .

“PRESSURE MOUNTS ON SYRIA:”

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Jubilant opposition supporters in Lebanon have vowed to carry on with their protest in central Beirut in a bid to drive Syrian forces from the country after the collapse of the Damascus-backed government.

The pro-Syrian government of Prime Minister Omar Karami resigned on Monday after two weeks of protests, piling more pressure on Damascus, already under fire from the United States and Israel.

Thousands of demonstrators turned Beirut into a sea of Lebanese flags and exploded into riotous celebration when the government unexpectedly quit after a parliament debate on the killing of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri.

“This is just the first step. We are staying here to make sure they don’t set up a new government that is just the same. We are staying until we have independence,” said Carla Khoury, draped in a Lebanese flag.

Good.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS wonders what happened to the Arab street. I guess that Josh Marshall was right all along:

In their view, invasion of Iraq was not merely, or even primarily, about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Nor was it really about weapons of mass destruction, though their elimination was an important benefit. Rather, the administration sees the invasion as only the first move in a wider effort to reorder the power structure of the entire Middle East. . . .

In short, the administration is trying to roll the table–to use U.S. military force, or the threat of it, to reform or topple virtually every regime in the region, from foes like Syria to friends like Egypt, on the theory that it is the undemocratic nature of these regimes that ultimately breeds terrorism.

He said that like it was a bad thing. Or like it was some sort of secret, when some of us found the approach to be self-evident. Even Iraqis.

UPDATE: Zach Barbera notes that he had figured some stuff out a couple of years ago.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Gregory Djerejian says that lots of people are noticing.

MORE: Heh.

STILL MORE: The Lebanese seem to have figured it out!

TOM MAGUIRE has a Gannon/Guckert update, where he discovers something interesting.

LEE HARRIS says that it’s the Palestinians’ moment of truth, and notes the way terror has been institutionalized. As I’ve said before, the Palestinians will stop committing terror when the pain of terrorism exceeds the rewards. Are they there yet? I’m not so sure, though with democracy appearing the rewards of non-terrorism are higher, which may accomplish some of the same things. At any rate, Mark Steyn observes signs of progress:

And, for perhaps the most remarkable development, consider this report from Mohammed Ballas of Associated Press: “Palestinians expressed anger on Saturday at an overnight suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that killed four Israelis and threatened a fragile truce, a departure from former times when they welcomed attacks on their Israeli foes.”

No disrespect to Associated Press, but I was disinclined to take their word for it. However, Charles Johnson, whose Little Green Footballs website has done an invaluable job these past three years presenting the ugly truth about Palestinian death-cultism, reported that he went hunting around the internet for the usual photographs of deliriously happy Gazans dancing in the street and handing out sweets to celebrate the latest addition to the pile of Jew corpses – and, to his surprise, couldn’t find any.

Maybe they’ve learned something.

AUSTIN BAY IS HAPPY — and yet, also, a bit irritated — to see that some people are finally catching on regarding the “strategery.”

BLOGGER JEFF OOI has been taken in for questioning by Malaysian authorities over comments on his weblog. Interestingly, the harassment stems from complaints from a Malaysian newspaper. Could this be as much about competition as politics? Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Rajan Rishyakaran emails:

Just to drop the quick email (I’m typing from a cyber cafe computer, don’t have much time), while the questioning seems to be a new development strangely not covered at Jeff Ooi’s Screenshots, the story is rather old. Berita Harian is a Malay daily printed by NSTP (called “Jalan Riong” by the Malaysian blogosphere for where its “Balai Berita” or newsroom headquarters is located). NSTP’s is owned mostly by UMNO, part of and dominant member the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional.

However it is less of politics than of commerce. Jeff Ooi have been covering a story which NSTP have been hitting on for months preceding the harrassment you have mentioned – NSTP claims that the sole statistician making figures for newspaper circulation, AC Nielson, is biased towards The Star (the dominant English daily in Malaysia, owned by UMNO’s partner, MCA) and against its dwindling daily, the News Straits Times. Jeff Ooi have been attacking that assertion, so obviously NSTP wasn’t very pleased.

So it seemed that Berita Harian used its media leverage to try to pin Jeff Ooi down. The prime minister’s son-in-law (nepotism in Malaysia? Never!), Khairy, UMNO Youth’s leader, weighted against Jeff Ooi. But it eventually died down, and nothing seem to have come up regarding this case since.

Newspapers going after bloggers — I wonder if that will happen here?

HEY, MATTHEW: Want some Egypt-blogging? Try over here!

But actually I hope that a lot of people on the left read Matthew’s post, for this:

Yes, it’s but a tentative step and things could still all work out poorly, but still, this is a pretty unambiguous success for Bush’s second term freedom kick. It’s also a stunning refutation of those of us who argued that he’d never follow through on his lofty rhetoric. Give the man some props.

And not just to poke fun, but it’s actually important that props be given. Bush has, historically, gotten a lot of praise for his lofty rhetoric. He’s also been rather diffident about actually doing something about it. But he decided to go do something. Test the waters, so to speak. If doing the right thing winds up just being met with stony silence, then there’s little reason to think it’ll be the start of a trend. But it should start a trend….

It certainly should.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The above didn’t appear until just now — I saved it earlier, but then had a bit of a server hiccup, or something. Meanwhile, Viet Pundit is complaining that the lefty blogs aren’t paying enough attention to Lebanon.

HERE’S A BBC SLIDESHOW of images from the Lebanese protests.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration seems to be keeping the pressure on:

Earlier, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield met Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud.

He said he reiterated Washington’s demand that Syria comply with UN resolution 1559, passed in September, calling for the withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon.

“We want to see free and fair elections take place [in Lebanon] this spring,” he said.

Indeed.

UPDATE: The New York Times has endorsed Bush’s democracy-promotion agenda. Just call ’em an early adopter . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ed Morrissey has a map and a prediction.

MORE: Heh.

SLATISM OF THE DAY: The Volokh Conspiracy escalates its online struggle with Jacob Weisberg.

I think that the “Bushism” feature — like its late, unlamented “Kerryism” sibling — has long since passed the point where it started making Slate, rather than its subject, look bad.

FREE SPEECH IN ALABAMA: Apparently, students value it more highly than faculty.

MORE ON LEBANON:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami announced the resignation of his pro-Syrian government Monday, two weeks after the assassination of his predecessor, Rafik Hariri, triggered protests in the streets and calls for Syria to withdraw its thousands of troops. . . .

Karami made the announcement during a parliamentary debate called to discuss Hariri’s Feb. 14 assassination in a bomb blast that killed 16 others. The announcement prompted cheers from more than 25,000 flag-waving demonstrators protesting against the government and its Syrian backers outside.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey writes: “This is Assad’s worst nightmare come true. With the Syrians, especially the Kurds in the northeast, watching the Iraqis vote in the first free multi-party elections ever on their east and the Lebanese on their west showing how fragile the Syrian grip on power truly is, the Assad government may wind up facing similar demonstrations in the streets of Damascus, demanding free multi-party elections — which would end Assad’s grip on power, unless he got in front of the effort immediately.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Some analysis and predictions, from Joe Gandelman.

THE BELGRAVIA DISPATCH has an email from Beirut.

And there’s more here. Including a report that the government has just fallen.

A WHILE BACK, I noted Amazon’s new “frequent flyer program” in which you get free shipping on all your orders for a rather reasonable flat yearly fee. Being a heavy Amazon customer, I signed up, and it’s definitely changed the way I shop there. For example, I just ordered some of these Balance nutrition bars — a snacking mainstay at our house — where I wouldn’t have done so before without tacking more stuff into the order to offset the shipping charge. But now I just order them as needed via Amazon, with no shipping charge, rather than buying them in bulk at Target. They’re a bit cheaper than Target’s price, and I don’t buy all the other stuff I wind up buying when I visit Target — a double savings of sorts. I don’t know whether other online merchants, lacking Amazon’s clout with shipping companies, will be able to emulate this, but I suspect that over time cheaper shipping will start cutting into brick-and-mortar merchants’ business. Maybe the 1990s bubble was just premature, and not fundamentally wrong . . . .

LOTS MORE BLOGGING ON LEBANON, here, at Across the Bay.

NPR’S ON THE MEDIA did an interview with Jim Meigs of Popular Mechanics on that magazine’s debunking of 9/11 conspiracy theories. The audio is here. The transcript isn’t online yet.