Pipes Smoker

To think the New York Sun pubishes this guy:

NEW YORK When an opinion survey released by Cornell University last week found that 44% of Americans wanted to curtail the civil liberties of all Muslim-Americans, with better than one in four saying they should all be required to register their location with the federal government, many commentators expressed concern. Not syndicated columnist Daniel Pipes, however.

In his latest column he declares that he was “encouraged” by the Cornell survey, calling it “good news.” But he also identifies “the bad news,” which he describes as “the near-universal disapproval of this realism. Leftist and Islamist organizations have so successfully influenced public opinion that polite society shies away from endorsing a focus on Muslims.”

In addition to those who want all Muslim-Americans to register, 29% agree that law enforcement agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations, and 22% said the federal government should profile citizens as potential threats based on the fact that they are Muslim or have Middle Eastern heritage.

Pioes, director of the Middle East Forum, says the backlash against such notions stems from a “revisionist” negative view of the Japanese internment during World War II wielded by such “radical groups” as the American Civil Liberties Union.

He hailed the recent work of columnist Michelle Malkin, who supports the Japanese internment and claims the apology by President Ronald Reagan in 1988, plus the nearly $1.65 billion in reparations paid to former internees, was premised on faulty scholarship.

According to Pipes: “Malkin has done the singular service of breaking the academic single-note scholarship on a critical subject, cutting through a shabby, stultifying consensus to reveal how, given what was known and not known at the time,’ FDR and his staff did the right thing.

“She correctly concludes that, especially in time of war, governments should take into account nationality, ethnicity, and religious affiliation in their homeland security policies and engage in what she calls ‘threat profiling.’

“These steps may entail bothersome or offensive measures but, she argues, they are preferable to ‘being incinerated at your office desk by a flaming hijacked plane.’”

So You Know

We are a day away from the anniversary of when President Clinton stopped a terrorist attack on our country.

Lets give thanks.

Have a happy holiday. That's right, I said it, HOLIDAY!

Pink Floyd Would be Jealous

AP:

The FBI is investigating an incident in which lasers were apparently aimed at a pilot preparing to land at Teterboro Airport.

The pilot, who has not been identified, reported that three green lasers were pointed into his cockpit Wednesday night. They were believed to have originated in the vicinity of Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, said Bill Maer, a spokesman for the Passaic County Sheriff's Office.

The pilot saw the lasers on his approach to Teterboro, according to Maer.

The plane, a corporate-owned Cessna Citation with 13 people aboard, was about 11 miles from the airport when the incident occurred, authorities said. It landed safely and no injuries were reported.

The FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration were investigating the incident Thursday, according to spokesmen with both organizations. New Jersey State Police, the county sheriff's office and the Wayne police department were also involved in the investigation.

Several recent incidents involving laser beams aimed at aircraft have raised concerns about possible terrorist activity. A federal law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that the FBI is investigating six incidents that have occurred in the last four days around the country.

On Monday, one incident involving a commercial jet occurred about 15 miles from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, and two pilots reported seeing laser beams near Colorado Springs. All three planes landed safely. The law enforcement official did not provide details about the other three incidents.

No arrests have been reported. Interfering with a commercial flight is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Laser beams can distract or temporarily blind a pilot. They can only enter a plane through glass, according to Dr. Linda Connell, director of the Aviation Safety Reporting System at NASA's Ames Research Center in California, which analyzes reports from pilots, flight attendants and other airplane personnel. Some pilots have reported the beams have richoceted around a plane's cockpit, and at least one has reported suffering an eye injury, Connell said.

The FBI and Homeland Security Department have sent a memo to law enforcement agencies stating that there is evidence that terrorists have explored using lasers as weapons, though there has been no specific intelligence indicating terrorist group plan to use lasers in the United States.

Terrorists, what can't they do, aside from get captured.

Give

If you've ever given to a politician there's no excuse not to give now.

American Red Cross International Response Fund

AmeriCares South Asia Earthquake Relief Fund

Direct Relief International International Assistance Fund

Médecins Sans Frontières International Tsunami Emergency Appeal

Oxfam Asian Earthquake & Tsunami Fund

Sarvodaya Relief Fund for Tsunami Tragedy

UNICEF South Asia Tsunami Relief Efforts

Stingy?

Uhh, yes?

President Bush finally roused himself yesterday from his vacation in Crawford, Tex., to telephone his sympathy to the leaders of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia, and to speak publicly about the devastation of Sunday's tsunamis in Asia. He also hurried to put as much distance as possible between himself and America's initial measly aid offer of $15 million, and he took issue with an earlier statement by the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, who had called the overall aid efforts by rich Western nations "stingy." "The person who made that statement was very misguided and ill informed," the president said.

We beg to differ. Mr. Egeland was right on target. We hope Secretary of State Colin Powell was privately embarrassed when, two days into a catastrophic disaster that hit 12 of the world's poorer countries and will cost billions of dollars to meliorate, he held a press conference to say that America, the world's richest nation, would contribute $15 million. That's less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the Bush inaugural festivities.

The American aid figure for the current disaster is now $35 million, and we applaud Mr. Bush's turnaround. But $35 million remains a miserly drop in the bucket, and is in keeping with the pitiful amount of the United States budget that we allocate for nonmilitary foreign aid. According to a poll, most Americans believe the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries; it actually spends well under a quarter of 1 percent.

Bush administration officials help create that perception gap. Fuming at the charge of stinginess, Mr. Powell pointed to disaster relief and said the United States "has given more aid in the last four years than any other nation or combination of nations in the world." But for development aid, America gave $16.2 billion in 2003; the European Union gave $37.1 billion. In 2002, those numbers were $13.2 billion for America, and $29.9 billion for Europe.

Making things worse, we often pledge more money than we actually deliver. Victims of the earthquake in Bam, Iran, a year ago are still living in tents because aid, including ours, has not materialized in the amounts pledged. And back in 2002, Mr. Bush announced his Millennium Challenge account to give African countries development assistance of up to $5 billion a year, but the account has yet to disperse a single dollar.

Mr. Bush said yesterday that the $35 million we've now pledged "is only the beginning" of the United States' recovery effort. Let's hope that is true, and that this time, our actions will match our promises.

You gave me, promises, promises...

The Steward Bush

And the beat goes on:

The ailing US dollar hit a lifetime low against the euro for the fifth straight session on Wednesday as traders saw little reason to reverse their bearish stance on the greenback.

David Gilmore, analyst at FXA, saw a "very good chance" of the dollar sliding to $1.45-$1.50 against the euro by the time of February's G7 meeting in London, with $1.60 a possibility before the dollar begins any sustained recovery...

With concern mounting over the twin fiscal and external deficits of the US, Mr Gilmore saw a "growing consensus that the dollar downtrend has months more to play out".

Clifford Bennett, chief strategist at FxMax, was even more bearish, seeing a "real risk of a blowout" in the US current account deficit in the first half of 2005 as the falling dollar forces US consumers to spend even more on imports to maintain their standard of living.

"The nightmare scenario is a falling dollar starting a spiral of loss of investor confidence, generating an even lower dollar, which generates a further loss of investor confidence," he said.

Patrick J

Pat's take on why we should leave Iraq. It makes you scratch your head a bit because it leaves you feeling like an isolationist, but if that's what it takes to justify.

Start asking yourself how this war is going to end, when, and why. I bet you scratch your head again.

Nice

"If it was oil, they'd pay royalties. If it was coal, they'd pay royalties."

"But if it's gold, it's scot-free," he said.

:)

What more needs to be said?

In the wake of back-to-back ethics slaps at the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, House Republicans are preparing to make it more difficult to initiate ethics investigations and could remove the Republican chairman who presided over the admonishments of Mr. DeLay last fall.

Seriously.

Food

Like everyone else I love junk food, but I think Bachman Pretzel Rods are far and away the best snack in the game. I like Cool Ranch Doritos, but at the end of the day it's the BPRs.

In Vermont you can get 2 bags for a dollar. A DOLLAR!

Doing All We Can, Part Two

Just for comparison sakes, again:

The United States gave $20 million in cash aid to the interim Palestinian leadership today to help finance economic reform and next month's presidential election, the United States Embassy announced in Tel Aviv.

And then there's:

The United States provided an initial $15 million mostly channeled through the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, plus logistical support for aid efforts. On Tuesday, the U.S. Agency for International Development added $20 million for the earthquake relief, a White House spokesman said.

This may be too easy.

Why Not?

Times:

The Defense Department, which controls 28 million acres of land across the nation that it uses for combat exercises and weapons testing, has been moving on a variety of fronts to reduce requirements that it safeguard the environment on that land.

In Congress, the Pentagon has won exemptions in the last two years from parts of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. It has sought in recent years to exempt military activities, for three years, from compliance with parts of the Clean Air Act.

Also, the Pentagon, which controls about 140 of the 1,240 toxic Superfund sites around the country, is seeking partial exemptions from two laws governing toxic waste. And two months ago, it drafted revisions to a 1996 directive built on a pledge "to display environmental security leadership within Department of Defense activities worldwide."

This way when they assert military control over the whole nation they can ignore all environmental laws...

Democrats would argue what's more important, the environment or the military.

Republicans don't have those internal debates.

Doing All We Can

The United Nations apologized for calling our effort "stingy" with regard to the aid we're sending to Asia.

Egeland, a Norwegian, pleaded at a Monday news conference for individuals and governments around the world to respond generously to the humanitarian disaster created by the tsunami that struck a broad swath of southern Asia on Sunday.

Asked about the response of rich nations to such crises, he said: "It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really."

"If actually the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of their gross national income, I think that is stingy really. I don't think that is very generous," he said..

Egeland told reporters on Tuesday: "I've been misinterpreted when I yesterday said that I believed that rich countries in general can be more generous."

In case you're looking for some context here:

The United States provided an initial $15 million mostly channeled through the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, plus logistical support for aid efforts. On Tuesday, the U.S. Agency for International Development added $20 million for the earthquake relief, a White House spokesman said.

And then there's a Presidential inauguration:

The inauguration is estimated to cost $30 million to $40 million, which private donations will cover. The estimate includes security costs not covered by the federal and local government. Security is expected to be tight for the first inauguration since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

There are two categories of major donors. Sponsors contribute $100,000, and underwriters donate $250,000. Schmitt said that the committee was pleased with the number of donations and that more are expected to come in over the next several weeks.

So, we're really not stingy at all, rather, we're really just overly generous when it comes to parties.

Tsunami Footage

Crazy footage.

Don't worry. President Bush just vowed to continue his War on Nature.

It's a Tough Life

When I read headlines like this:

That Line at the Ferrari Dealer? It's Bonus Season on Wall Street

I thank God we cut taxes on dividends and income for the wealthiest.

A Thought

Isn't it just amazing that Republicans are trying to limit the damages a person can collect in a lawsuit, but they're not willing to limit the dollars that go into their own campaigns?

Should tell you something about who they are, and their plans.

Week after week we hear about drugs with deadly side effects. We hear less about the solution to that problem than we do about limiting a person's ability to sue the manufacturers of those drugs.

Good times, people, good times.

How to Help

Those affected by quake and tsunamis.

Click here for the Command Post.

FINALLY!

It's about time:

DENVER -- The Denver Nuggets fired coach Jeff Bzdelik on Tuesday on the heels of a six-game losing streak and a lackluster start to the season.

"We felt we needed a change. I want to thank Jeff for all the hard work. He's a big part in turning this around," Nuggets general manager Kiki Vandeweghe told the Denver Post. "But we want to build to the next level, and the team wasn't going in the right direction. Sometimes, you can use a change or a new voice."

This guy has to be the worst coach I've ever seen in the pro game. I've watched at least 3 Nuggets games, and it's amazing how they run their offense.

Here's the gist of what they do:
- Andre Miller brings the ball up court.
- Rest of team forms semi-circle around the three point line.
- One guy, maybe Kenyon Martin, maybe Carmello Anthony will then post up, that's assuming Melo doesn't have the ball on the wing, then there's no one down low.
- Player gets the ball down low and makes a valiant attempt to get the ball near the rim.
- No player will crash the boards for a rebound, including the shooter.
- Other team gets the ball and heads the other way.

I swear, that's it. THAT IS IT!

If this guy even gets a job breaking in balls for the NBA I have a problem with it.

Nice

Still working out well...

THE Iraqi Islamic party, a mainstream political movement representing the minority Sunni Muslim community, has announced it will boycott next month's landmark elections.

"We are obliged to pull out," party chief Mohsen Abdel Hamid told reporters in Baghdad, saying the decision was motivated by the refusal of authorities to postpone elections for six months to ensure broader participation.

"Our party asked on December 5 that elections be delayed for six months using reasonable arguments," he said referring to the worsening security situation in the country in the run-up to the January 30 vote.

"The authorities concerned have refused to hear the voice of reason."

Remember the bottom half of this, about how some people will soon blame the Iraqis, and the part about the inevitable breakup? Well, it's coming.

People, worry not, come April there will be no war in Iraq since there probably won't be an Iraq at all.

Great Take

Boston Globe, Peter Canellos:

WASHINGTON -- The run-up to President Bush's plan to deal with Social Security is looking a lot like the run-up to his plan to deal with Saddam Hussein.

The expected Social Security shortfall has been a perennial domestic concern in much the same way that Hussein's intransigence with arms inspectors was a perennial foreign-policy concern: From the White House to Congress to think tanks, policy makers worried about it, but presidents (including Bush) felt no immediate need to deal with it.

Then Bush decided to focus on it, and suddenly a long-term concern became intense and immediate.

Much as the Iraq war was preceded by speeches designed to show Hussein in the most threatening light, the Bush economic summit seemed designed to dominate a slow news week with the idea that failing to deal with Social Security now will hurt the national economy.

"The time to start making sacrifices is now . . . so that the markets can have confidence that we're on a course that is going to avoid a train wreck," Bush said at the summit.

Still, the link between the current economy and a Social Security deficit that will begin to strike benefits in decades is every bit as speculative and theoretical as the link between Hussein and the war on terrorism in late 2002.

there's more.

Sure, Pal, I Buy It

The quake and tsunamis that killed thousands across Asia are hard to believe. I mean, on 9/11 we lost almost 3,000 people in a centralized area, but this situation is so far beyond that it's absurd. What can you say?

Well, you can say it's embarrassing to watch Senators like Richard Lugar from Indiana speak to a CNN reporter and talk about how his heart goes out to all the familes and that we (I assume Americans) will do whatever we can to help them.

Well, Dick, lets not get crazy about this. We won't do whatever we can, and I'm not even saying we should do whatever we can. There are many millionaires, including yourself, Dick, that could easily take their own wads and write some checks to help out. That's not going to happen. What bothers me isn't the "whatever we can" line he dropped, but it's the way he said it, as if he was saying it because he has to say it, not that he actually would do whatever he could.

He won't do whatever he can. His Congressional allies won't do whatever they can. I know this because they don't do whatever they can for the people in this country who they should be doing whatever they can for. They're going to do whatever they can for people in Asia?

It's 15 degrees outside and there are families across this country without heat. The parents aren't too happy the kids don't have school tomorrow because there's no one to take care of them, and if they're home the heating bill will go up. The kids might not be too happy either since the school has heating, at the very least. Ask Richard Lugar what should be done about this and I'm sure he'll tell you we're "doing everthing we can to help."

I'm not comparing one enormous tragedy to another enormous tragedy, but rather, I'm just saying that I don't buy comments from people like Dick Lugar. The reason I chose him is because he's the one I saw on CNN. Had I seen Dick Cheney it'd be no different.

These people act concerned because maybe for 5 minutes, an hour, one day, maybe two, they actually are concerned, but in reality, they're not concerned, and in two week they won't be AT ALL. Which gets me to a totally different point, but one I've wanted to expand on for a while...

Somehow the Dick Lugar thing sent my mind off on a very pissy tangent, and it landed on the world of "environmental politics." It speaks directly to Lugar, and his "acting like he cares" bullshit. Again, I'm sure he caresa bit, but he doesn't care enough, or, at least not enough to really do something about it.

Last week Bush made it easier to cut down trees, piss in lakes, burn coal in the street, shit in the ocean, whatever, that's his thing. So I started thinking about why he even has an "environmental policy." Well, being that democrats, greens, and others are more concerned with the environment, Bush has to appeal to those people too, as well as the moderates and republicans that actually do care about the environment (albeit not enough). Simple, I know. But in reality Bush wouldn't have a policy if it were up to him. If it were really up to him he'd just let business do what it does, and business/people could pollute a lot more than they do now.

At this point I started thinking about what issue the democrats use that republicans are all for? I mean, you have to have a policy perspective on almost every issue. Granted, you could say many liberals would have no policy on pro-choice/pro-life, and it would just be every person for themselves, but that's not really comparable at all, especially since it's more right than wrong. When it comes to the environment, republicans really only enact legislation because they have no choice.

So how does Dick Lugar's comment about Asia make me think about this? Well, when I see his face on TV feigning sorrow for these people the first thing I thought of is, "Well, he has to say that..." and it's about as genuine as his and his cohorts policies on the environment, education, and many other issues.

Definitely Balanced!

I have to agree, FOX is on the money, since it wasn't just them who failed to report this story the day it happened:

On December 22, the Bush administration issued controversial new regulations governing national forests. While newspapers across the country covered the change extensively, the new rules, which are expected to take effect next week, were not mentioned on network evening news (ABC, CBS, and NBC) or on cable primetime news (CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News). This pre-Christmas announcement continues a Bush administration pattern of issuing controversial changes to environmental regulations just before holidays and weekends, in a largely successful effort to keep them under the public's radar screen.

As the Los Angeles Times reported on December 23, the new rules contain two major changes to the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service planning regulations. The first change puts an end to requiring environmental impact statements when management plans for individual national forests are developed or revised. The Times referred to the 25-year-old requirement, now dropped by the new rules, as "a cornerstone of public involvement in environmental decisions." The second major change drops a 1982 Reagan-instituted mandate that fish and wildlife be managed in a way that maintains "viable populations of existing native and desired nonnative vertebrate species." The new rules instead direct managers to provide "ecological conditions to support diversity of native plant and animal species."

Environmental groups, including the National Resources Defense Council, the Wilderness Society, and the Sierra Club, oppose the new rules as favoring industry over wildlife and the public. Former Agriculture undersecretary Jim Lyons, who oversaw the U.S. Forest Service during the Clinton administration, told the Los Angeles Times: "It is really a clandestine effort in my mind to subvert much of what the national forests stand for."

Congratulations to FOX who was just as shitty as every other network and cable outlet.

Mission Accomplished

The Times runs this:

An audiotape message said to be made by the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden called for Muslims to boycott elections there next month and endorsed the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as Mr. bin Laden's deputy in Iraq.

So the US Armed Forces are in Iraq trying to maintain control, and at the same time we're on the hunt for bin Laden, but we don't know where he is.

Step back, ask yourself this: are we really going to find bin Laden when we can't even find his deputy who we know is likely located in a major Iraqi city?

After you ask yourself that you can tell yourself: yeah, this is really gonna work out.

Break

This holiday season has caused a real break in the action.

Basically, nothing has changed so if you want to know about Iraq just check the Archives, or yesterday's NYTIMES Front Page story. This is NEVER going to work.

Also, Ted may have been onto something referring to me being "gay" since I anxiously await the Modern Love column in the Sunday Styles section every week!

Finally, I will be writing something later about this debacle. How the Bush White House made failure synonymous with success is so beyond me. History will make the correction.