Better Late Than Never

Only 30 years late, the US State Department is finally admitting that Yasser Arafat might not have been such a great guy after all.

In the early evening hours of 1 March 1973, eight Black September Organization (BSO) terrorists seized the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum as a diplomatic reception honoring the departing United States Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) was ending. After slightly wounding the United States Ambassador and the Belgian Charge d'Affaires, the terrorists took these officials plus the United States DCM, the Saudi Arabian Ambassador and the Jordanian Charge d'Affaires hostage. In return for the freedom of the hostages, the captors demanded the release of various individuals, mostly Palestinian guerrillas, imprisoned in Jordan, Israel and the United States.

The Khartoum operation was planned and carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval of Yasir Arafat, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and the head of Fatah. Fatah representatives based in Khartoum participated in the attack, using a Fatah vehicle to transport the terrorists to the Saudi Arabian Embassy.

I don't understand why many US officials - those in the State Dept. in particular - are so keen on putting a positive spin on bad people/countries. How arrogant do you have to be to decide that the truth is too dangerous too give to the voters who pick the policy makers?

Unfortunately, Iran's Leaders Aren't Stupid

Not long after the suggestion that Iran is extremely vulnerable to a limited military strike due to its lack of oil refineries comes the news that it's leaders intend to solve that problem ASAP.

Last year Iran signed a $70 billion deal with the Chinese to modernize its oil and gas fields. Iran also signed an oil deal with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez that guarantees its fuel imports will be sanctions-proof.

To make itself immune from the effects of economic sanctions or a possible naval blockade, Iran is building two new oil refineries. It is also moving its transportation sector from oil to natural gas. With the second largest natural gas reserves in the world, an Iranian transportation system which runs on natural gas will be immune to foreign sanctions. Furthermore, by modifying its gas stations and private cars to run on natural gas, Iran is freeing up its oil refineries to produce jet fuel for its air force.

The Problem with General Motors

Via Double Blind, an article on the problems with GM cars. It's not very pretty. Aside from the poor engineering, they tend to be user interface nightmares.

Among several other design lapses: a clunky shift-lever whose settings are unlit in the dark, pull-up door locks located in hard-to-reach places, the absence of exterior key locks on doors other than the driver's. This last omission would be less annoying if the master lock on the driver's door unlocked the other doors (as it does on comparable imports). But GM does not include that feature.

The single ray of light is that Americans are successfully assembling high quality Japanese vehicles, so it's not like the general population is too stupid to make good cars.

Merry Christmas from Syria

John Kerry's partners for peace celebrate Christmas by comping a rock throwing Santa Claus into scenes of rioting Palestinians. Damn those Jews for persecuting Santa!

The "Moron Corps"

Just when you think a guy's reputation is about as trashed as it can be, you learn something new. Enter Project 100,000.

Robert McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, decided in the middle of the Vietnam War that the military would be a great tool to give job skills training to people too stupid to get in normally. And that it would be best not to tell the military commanders which of the recruits were the dumb ones.

These poor bastards, more than 300,000 of them, got shipped off to Vietnam and proceeded to die at more than twice the rate of regular volunteers.

Do Not See 'Eragon'

Eragon is bad, very bad. Based on a well cut trailer I ignored popular opinion and watched this stinker.

The only worse lead actor they could have chosen would have been Hayden Christensen (from the recent Star Wars movies). The musical score was terrible. The cinematography was terrible (massive overuse of one really annoying camera trick). The first half of the movie was drawn out and tedious while the rest tried to cram in way too much. Parts made no sense at all - how does a guy on horse travel just as fast as a damn dragon? The dialog... oh, the humanity.

The mood was good though, as were the big name (over)actors suckered into playing parts. It was clear that the book had a lot more depth that was dropped for the film adaptation. A big waste.

Iran Moving Up To The Big Leagues

Iran appears to have compromised a British Corporal who is likely to have had access to significant information about the operations in Afghanistan. Unfortunately for Iran he was not very wise about his spending habits.

Michael Ledeen on how this and other incidents demonstrate that the Shiites and Sunnis are not nearly so uncooperative as the media portrays them.

Investing vs Gambling

Sacha critiques a "professional" sports gambler profiled in a newspaper article. Some interesting insights into what divides investors from gamblers, and warning signs to watch out for.

Tax Free Lotteries Finally Bite Revenue Canada

A court case has confirmed that Canadian lottery winnings are untaxable, no matter how many millions of dollars you make running (what I assume to be) an arbitrage business between the Provinces.

These guys are draining a pretty significant amount of money out of the Provincially owned lottery corporations. How many people would it take doing this before it broke the system of independently calculated fixed odds that are currently used? Will this be then end of pre-taxed lottery in Canada?

Also, I am bitter that I didn't think of this. Is it too late to jump on the bandwagon?

Clintons Obstruct Sandy Berger Investigation

The National Archives have released a report detailing the extent of the Sandy Berger sock stuffing incident.

Former national security adviser Sandy Berger removed classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 and hid them under a construction trailer, the Archives inspector general reported Wednesday.

There is still no word on what exactly he was so keen on removing from the public record, and Bill Clinton is not allowing anyone to see the comparable documents that were not destroyed (apparently ex-Presidents get 12 years after leaving office to keep a lid on things).

Yet another piece of baggage for Hillary's inevitable run for President...

Donate Now to Support the Poor New Yorkers

New York mourns the loss of the pork spending that the Republicans never got around to approving.

(Not all the projects are entirely garbage, just massively innappropriate for the Federal gov to be involved in.)

TIME Magazine Loves Ahmadinejad

TIME Magazine's first caption for Ahmadinejad bordered on hero worship; it took bloggers spreading it all over the Internet to convince them a change was needed.

Champion of the dispossessed [as long as the dispossessed hate the Jews], global Everyman [as long as the men aren't Jews], [reasonably accurate stuff]

Does TIME have something they want to share about their thoughts on the Jews? Luckily the "people of the year" are filling in for their missing editors.

Via SDA.

On Being a Test Tube Baby

Via David Frum, an article by a (grown up) test tube baby who has some criticisms of the whole process.

Interesting points raised about the lack of half your family's medical history, and about the frustration of growing up in a 'weird' family. That frustration would seem to apply equally well to the other non-traditional type families that are becoming more common.

2006 Journalism Wall of Shame

Honest Reporting honors the biggest liars in the news industry.

Pay the Homeless to Pick Up the Litter

Driving through East Hastings (Vancouver, BC) for the first time in a few years, I was astounded by how many more junkies are on the streets now. Either there was some sort of I Luv Crack jamboree going on, or the problem has increased massively.

And working in Vancouver I regularly see the growing number of homeless around my office.

Which brings me to the following two local news stories:

• Increased bylaw enforcement planned to clean up the city. Because homeless people and junkies are likely to be influenced by fines for littering and peeing in public.
• RCMP believe the safe injection program is increasing the number of junkies in the city.

I suspect that the safe injection program is doing a fantastic job of keeping junkies alive and addicted. Without the normal rate of attrition their numbers are growing. The non-junkie homeless are probably being pushed out of the "bad" areas (by the junkies) and this is why I have to be careful not to run any vagrants over on my way to work in a "good" area every day.

Somehow I thought that the safe injection program had loftier goals...

The Most Disturbing Story of the Year

Why would you ever think that leaving a baby unattended with a pit bull could be a good idea? And already the "it's the fault of the owners/ferret, not the dog" crowd is trying to sell the usual "dogs are perfectly safe" crap again.

I'm not opposed to the possibility of a safe and predictable dog, but I have yet to meet one.

20 Year LED Christmas Lights, My Ass

I bought a bunch of those new-fangled, energy efficient, LED Christmas lights last year. The warranty promised roughly 20 years worth of use, but given that they weren't all that expensive to begin with I didn't bother to save the packaging/receipts.

Anyway, they were pretty good - definitely met the power consumption promises, and weren't too much dimmer than the old style lights.

But only one year later they have already suffered a roughly 5% casualty rate. I don't have much hope that the failure rate will be anywhere close to linear; probably 5 years of (some sign of) life is the best that can be expected. At least a single dead LED doesn't cripple the string...

Medal of Freedom for Natan Sharansky

President Bush awarded 10 individuals the Medal of Freedom, Natan Sharansky being one of them for his work exposing the USSR for what it really was. I intend to review his book any day now.

That honor was cheapened by the fact that Norm Mineta also received one, for being... the Secretary of Transportation for 5 years? Or being a successful Asian-American. No one seems to know what happened there.

Limited Tactical War Against Iran

Arthur Herman argues for limited strikes against Iran to eliminate the various threats that country poses. In short, it is eminently doable and the cost is likely less than most people think.

Above all, the air attack would concentrate on Iran’s gasoline refineries. It is still insufficiently appreciated that Iran, a huge oil exporter, imports nearly 40 percent of its gasoline from foreign sources, including the Gulf states. With its refineries gone and its storage facilities destroyed, Iran’s cars, trucks, buses, planes, tanks, and other military hardware would run dry in a matter of weeks or even days. This alone would render impossible any major countermoves by the Iranian army. (For its part, the Iranian navy is aging and decrepit, and its biggest asset, three Russian-made Kilo-class submarines, should and could be destroyed before leaving port.)

[...]

In fact, there is little Iran could do in the face of relentless military pressure at its most vulnerable point. Today, not only are key elements of the Iranian military in worse shape than in the 1980’s, but even the oil weapon is less formidable than imagined. Currently Iran exports an estimated 2.5 million barrels of oil a day. Yet according to a recent report in Forbes, quoting the oil-industry analyst Michael Lynch, new sources of oil around the world will have boosted total production by 2 million barrels a day in this year alone, and next year by three million barrels a day. In short, other producers (including Iranian platforms in American hands) can take up some if not all of the slack. The real loser would be Iran itself. Pumping crude oil is its only industry, making up 85 percent of its exports and providing 65 percent of the state budget. With its wells held hostage, the country’s economy could enter free fall.

VDH on Arab Self Esteem

Thoughts on why Israel is such a sore point for the surrounding nations.

It is not “stolen” land, or “Zionist” killings, or Jewish “aggression” that gnaws at the Arab Street. And the solution is therefore not to be found in short-term Israeli land-concessions, but only in the now caricatured and apparently waning policy of supporting democratic reform inside the Middle East.

Why?

The real problem is that Israeli success ,and the resulting sense of failure in the surrounding Arab world, fuels much of the rabid hatred.

One Way to Handle Iran

Powerline lays out a pretty inspirational plan of attack against Iran that no President since Reagan would have or will dare to try. They don't make'em like they used to.

You might think it impossible for any plan of war to be inspirational; bear in in mind that I am confident that if Iran is not dealt with now there will be (a very short) nuclear war in the future. Ugly now, or really ugly later.

How to Undermine a Cause

Just expand the scope until it is completely ridiculous. Like the "Minutemen" volunteer border patrols watching the US-Canada border. I gather that you can see them on their lawn chairs if you drive down 0 Avenue in Surrey towards Abbotsford.

I can empathize with the southern Minutemen - there are lot of people jumping that border, and the negative effects of illegal immigration disproportionately impact the residents of the southern US.

But who is sneaking into the US from Canada? Our top professionals enter legally, and no one else wants to move to the US. It's conceivable that a terrorist might creep across, but there is virtually no way to stop that. Patrols make the odds worse over the long run for large numbers of illegals, but will almost never catch a dedicated and smart individual.

On the other hand, here's a silly writeup on the threat Canadians pose to the US.

The Doctor Is In

M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim doctor in Phoenix, criticizes the flight-challenged Imams.

Sunni or Shiite, and Does It Matter?

Jeff Stein is back, asking embarrasing questions of the people who oversee US military strategy. Last time he hit the Republicans, this time it's the newly empowered Democrats.

It's pretty poor to not know this stuff when it's your full time job. That being said, the defence I intended to air the last time this came up still applies.

The premise of this war was that all peoples of the world love democracy and Iraqis would jump at the opportunity, making the sacrifices needed. If that isn't the case, then this project is (even more) doomed unless the US is willing to start bombing mosques. Doesn't matter why the Sunnis and Shiites hate each other, just that they do.

Also, the idea that Sunnis and Shiites have irreconciliable differences is somewhat questionable. Iran's mullahs are not stupid - they are interested in only their own power and are willing to work with Sunnis as needed. For example, Michael Ledeen says that Iran is helping Sunnis in Somalia set up proper Islamic courts.

Via TKS.

Is Hillary's 2008 Campaign Over?

Over on Powerline, a former New York Times photographer accuses Time Magazine of doctoring a photo of Hillary Clinton to make her look older than she normally appears.

Secondly, the gold jewelry and glasses are all the same heightened tone which is achieved by the "saturation" tool that ramps up the apparent color. In this case it also brings the brooch into play in the image. But it does even more to make an unflattering image by emphasizing the "gold" glasses and jewelry of a stereotypical "older" lady. Hollywood uses the technique all the time to "age" an actress. Interestingly, they used the "blur" tool to take out the folds under her eyes. Also, they didn't make the lipstick more garish with "saturation" as happened in the case of Katherine Harris, though Hillary's hair has been softly streaked with the same gold as in the brooch.

The photographer goes on to speculate that Time has decided to try to push Clinton out in favor of Barack Obama. Even if that is true, I would bet any amount of money that if she were to succeed in taking the nomination Time would fall into line behind her. So it's a primary hurdle at worst.

Ah Photoshop, what ever did we do before you?

Illustrious Seniors Group

Mark Steyn mocks the ISG and the UN.

Via Powerline.

Standards for Police Dogs

In the local news, a kid was recently attacked by a loose police dog. Aside from the details of the disturbing events themselves (although it is rather inspiring to see how many witnesses to the event jumped in to help the kid), the expectations of police dogs are somewhat revealed by the incident.

A non-police dog that attacks a person gets put down, no questions asked. After causing injury requiring some 72 stitches and being injured itself by the people that intervened (who, among other things, beat it with a car securing 'club'), this dog has been declared fit to keep its life and keep serving its official position. This would imply that it is not abnormal for an unattended police dog to be be randomly aggressive, and that a newfound distrust for men with shovels and 'clubs' would not be considered a problem.

Probably not dogs you want to be letting your kids pet, regardless of how close their handler is...

How Much Did the Iraq Study Group Report Cost?

Because I would have done the work for half whatever they charged.

Basically they said "Stay the course with some minor tweaks, and as long as we solve the Israel/Palestine problem, convince Iran that chaos in Iraq is not in its interests, and the Iraqi Army magically becomes effective and corruption free, we will totally be able to gracefully exit this thing."

I admit that I would have had trouble coming up with something quite as outrageous, but millions of dollars are a lot of incentive.

The US can maintain Iraq as is, forever. The casualty rates are not high enough that they couldn't be absorbed indefinitely, and reducing the scope of the mission to smashing any organized 'resistance' would solve the $ cost issue. Staying the course is unlikely to ever result in an independent Iraq however.

There are only two non-stay the course options:

1. Take the fight to Iran.
2. Withdraw, leaving no more than special ops units in place to do assassinations.

There are solid arguments for both alternate options. ISG members have proudly claimed to never have even considered the first.

Didn't the Bay of Pigs debacle largely occur because of this kind of "consensus must be reached" groupthink?

Bob Rae Too Jewish To Be Liberal Leader?

Allegations that Bob Rae was actively campaigned against by a Canadian Muslim group because he has a Jewish wife.

Apparently my favorite, Ignatieff, was the only candidate Muslims disliked more than Rae.

Bank Robbery != Political Expression

A dual US/Canadian citizen has been arrested for executing a bank robbery with a bunch of his Ranger buddies, all fresh back from Iraq.

He is now claiming that he did it to draw attention to bad things his unit did in Iraq (because it sure is hard finding an anti-Bush newspaper to peddle that kind of story to...). Based on his recent behavior, I can only assume that he was a willing participant and/or instigator in any bad things his unit did.

Vigilante Triple Bill

Although not all the same flavor of vigilantism...

Four Brothers chronicles the tale of four adopted kids, now grown up, who return to their childhood home to bury their murdered mother. Convinced that the police won't be able to find the killers, they go out to wreak horrible vengeance upon the perpetrators. Did I mention that they weren't the best of kids? Great art it is not, but there are some interesting characters and it's fun watch.

Brick is about a teenager (who goes to one of the worst high schools on earth) trying to figure out why his ex-girlfriend was killed. Lots of kids doing very adult things, it has a strange vibe to it. Some fantastic performances though, and that more than makes up for the rather contrived "let's explain everything" ending. The protagonist here also decides that the cops would only get in his way, although he never seemed to have a concrete plan to get revenge. If teenagers were really capable of this kind of scheming, there would be calls to lock them all up.

The two brothers who make up The Boondock Saints, on the other hand, never had a specific wrong to avenge. They were either brought up to smite evil, or they just happened upon it - the movie isn't terribly clear on that. But smite they do, all under the nose of the weirdo cross-dressing FBI agent played by Willem Dafoe (who makes the ugliest woman I hope to ever see). This one has a frenetic, vaguely Tarantino feel to it, but is also good.

In case you are wondering about the all positive movie reviews these days, I have decided to not waste my time writing about the bad ones. Only so many hours in the day.

Sowell on Multinationals

Thomas Sowell on the economic stupidity that comes out of Hollywood.

He briefly touches on the concept of "Fair Trade", which I have always found to be mind bogglingly retarded. There is a relatively fixed amount of money people are willing to spend on something like coffee. How the hell does paying a small group of people decent wages to grow way less coffee help the much larger group that now starves?

Westerners are so desperate to "do good" that they toss out common sense if that is what it takes to convince themselves they are helping someone.

I do find Sowell's argument in favor of multinational corporations to be a bit over the top though. I have yet to see any evidence that it is possible for a company to not lose efficiency as it grows larger. In my experience, the bigger the company, the greater proportion of productive hours it flushes down the toilet.

Harper Piledrives Dion

Catching a moment of classic Canadian political "debate" (trash talking), I happened to see the new leader of the Liberals, Stéphane Dion, chastising Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his handling of the newest aspect of the Arar torture scandal.

(In a nutshell, the RCMP intentionally gave the US faulty intelligence that resulted in Arar being shipped back to Syria for "questioning". And now the head of the RCMP has admitted that he may not have been entirely accurate the last time he gave a statement to the House of Commons on the situation. Kids, don't maintain dual citizenships with horrible dictatorships.)

So Dion does his whole "you suck" speech, really hamming it up for the cameras. Harper responded in a far more dignified and effective manner: It will be publicly investigated, due process, blah blah blah. And by the way, stupid, do you remember which party was in power when Arar got sent off to be tortured in Syria? (That would be the Liberals, in case you were wondering.)

Dion looked completely flustered. He promptly forgot the parliamentary rules and tried to jump right back in - the lady sitting next to him had to drag him back down before he got reprimanded (or at least this is what I imagine would have happened).

They should have picked Ignatieff for their leader.

Associated Press VS Reuters

How low can they go?

Not to be outdone by Reuters, The Associated Press (when its photographers aren't being arrested for making bombs) has started reporting atrocities in Iraq that it won't bother to or can't produce evidence for even in the face of mounting skepticism.

The Cultural Divide

The Saudi Executioner for Mecca is interviewed on Lebanese TV. The video seems to only play in Internet Explorer, but this thing is worth any amount of trouble to see.

You'll be pleased to know that when he chops off hands and legs (he's not just a head chopping executioner) on opposite sides of the body, as required by Allah, he uses a local anesthetic.

Also, he doesn't regret chopping off the heads of his friends because they deserved it. And women are better executees because they don't flinch as much as men.

Words cannot capture the true amazingness of this interview. Watch it.

Rumsfeld's Stock is Rising

Two days after this leaked memo business, Rumsfeld has been transformed from a war-mongering incompetent to a brilliant strategist, wronged by the Bush administration. I tend to think the media finally has it right.

Too bad that it took a rather desperate anti-Bush spin for them to see it.

One point that really stands out in Rumsfeld's recommendations is that US troops be deployed on the border between Iraq and Iran/Syria. Not as strong a position as I would like to see taken, but at least he's acknowledging that there is a limit to what can be achieved without minimizing external influences.

Cuban Health Care

My grandfather recently told me that he believed Cuban health care to be just as good as US health care, and that all the drugs used in the West are virtually useless. This was based largely on his visit to Cuba in which he got to see how the locals received health care; loosely paraphrasing, he said that "while the facilities were generally unclean, and drugs and surgery generally unavailable, the focus on preventative care was very effective at keeping people healthy".

I think I made a half-hearted attempt to attack his position (for the principle of the matter), but really, what the hell do I know about Cuban health care?

I have since done some basic research, and he appears to be largely correct, although I might quibble with his definition of "good" health care. Canada is there as a reference point, and it probably is the only one of the three to have what could be described as a health "system".

	USA	Cuba	Canada
Infant Mortality	6.43/1000	6.22/1000	4.69/1000
Life Expectancy*	77.85	77.41	80.22
Healthy Life Expectancy	69.25	68.3	72.05

*I chose the CIA's Life Expectancy numbers over WHO's because it appears that WHO is rounding to the nearest 5 years in that category (although they try to trick you by providing a 1/10 year decimal place).

The US and Cuba come out pretty close in most regards - notable exceptions being that Cuba has a lower Infant Mortality rate, and the US has about a year on Cuba in the Healthy Life Expectancy category. Infant mortality is tricky though - I suspect that countries that are more enthusiastic about abortion (Canada, for example) have reduced rates for that reason alone.

So, it seems fair to say that the US and Cuba have comparable success in health care delivery. Given how much more the US spends on health care per capita, it seems that Cuba's health care is far more efficient.

But in light of the fact that Canada is a couple steps ahead in all regards, I would say that the US has health care equally as bad as Cuba, rather than promoting the Cuban way. In summary, drugs and surgery are effective, but don't have a meaningful effect on the population stats unless they are cheaply available.

Chris Soghoian is Out of the Woods

After being arrested and having his computers seized by the FBI due to the hysterics of a showboating Congressman, Chris Soghoian is back to where he started.

The charges have been dropped, and his computers returned.

That is one area that the Internet really excels at - building enough outrage that government officials do the right thing reasonably fast.

BC Midterm Budget

Sacha has a nice summary of the latest BC Budget.

His summary is still pretty long, so I'll cut it down even further: BC is doing really well. Big surpluses, high employment, etc.

Iran is Officially Meddling

The US military has released details of recently made Iranian weapons that they are finding in Iraq.

Iran's funding and planning of attacks on US soldiers over the last two decades or so is common knowledge, yet all the recent US administrations have willfully ignored its culpability.

Power Line speculates that this press release might be an effort by the Pentagon to undermine the deranged ideas expected to come from Iraq Study Group, namely that the US should try to bribe Iran to stop funding the war in Iraq that has served it so well. Maybe it'll work as well as the last attempts to bribe North Korea and Iran to not build nuclear weapons...