April 30, 2006

Help Wanted - Los Angeles

Andrew Marcus (with video camera), Juliette Ochieng (aka baldilocks) and I will be covering the immigration demonstration in LA tomorrow for Pajamas Media. If you are a blogger or just a concerned citizen who would like to help us, we will be rendezvousing in the lobby of the New Otani Hotel (120 S. Los Angeles St.) at 8:30AM. Bring your digital camera and/or tape recorder. Spanish speakers especially welcome.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:24 AM
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The Vile Pin at work

I'm on PJ duty again today and another great story popped up, this one from France via one of my favorite blogs - L'Ombre de l'Olivier. Apparently our good friends de Villepin and Chirac (by extension) have been up to some not unexpected dirty tricks to tarnish rival Nicolas Sarkozy - actually to make Sarko seem like a criminal. This is the kind of nasty corruption game we don't even begin to play and (if you can make your way through its spy novel ins and outs) easily outdistances our own scandals. The French are, of course, more blasé (their word, after all) about these things, but not, ultimately, for their own good. Check out the links at the PJ post - amusing reading now that le Carré has gone off the deep end.

UPDATE: Meandering around the L'Ombre de l'Olivier for this post, I noticed another entry with photos of a 20-30 century old olive tree. Worth a look.

MORE: Fausta had an extensive post on this scandal - "The Clearstream Affair"- on Friday.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:37 AM
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April 29, 2006

The Los Angeles Times can't catch a break

First, subscriptions down... then the Hiltzik Affair... now this.

UPDATE: Apparently, spelling is also causing a problem. From reader Joel Engel...

FOR THE RECORD
April 25, 2006

Ernest Hemingway: The author's last name was misspelled as Hemmingway in a Sunday Calendar article about Andy Garcia.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:41 PM
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War without End

Doing my duty at PJ today, I also came across Dan Drezner's post on John McCain's opening speech at the Brussels Forum. It seems the Arizona Senator buried his lede, adding as an aside that we would probably be dealing with the WoT for the rest of the century.

Whoa.... This century is only six years old. My daughter was born in 1998. If McCain's right ( and I am afraid he is), that means she will be confronting this horror until she's roughly a 102. (Talk about getting a dad depressed. ) Kind of puts the ultimate kibosh on Francis Fukuyama's "end of history," doesn't it, not to mention adds a soupcon of skepticism to one's evaluation of his recent attack on his former neocon friends. The problem for the neocons these days is that everyone seems to be picking on them, although they are the only ones who ever came up with an idea of how to solve this mess in the first place. Right or wrong they've made an attempt (had a theory). No one else really has.

Which is why part of me would like to see the Democrats elected in '08. If McCain's correct about the time frame and we are engaged in a reupped Hundred Years War with Islamism, all our political parties (and ones unknown) better be prepared to deal with it. The frivolously hostile Bush bashing persona of a vast portion of the Democratic Party must be replaced by some serious foreign policy thinking. They literally have to grow up and, sometimes, in order to grow up you have to be thrust into the middle of the process, have responsibility.

Ironically, in the midst of writing this brief post, a delivery man appeared at my door with a copy of my pal John Podhoretz's new book about Hillary - Can She Be Stopped? I picked it up and, like everything John writes, it's compulsively readable. He makes the case against Hillary as well as anybody could. Still... and I'm sure John would agree with this... no one knows the state of our world next week, let alone the first Tuesday in November 2007. So if Hillary is ultimately the one to swear on the Bible before John Roberts (the nightmare vision in John's introduction), I sincerely hope she realizes her first and by far most important mission is the preservation of Western Civilization as we know it. I believe and hope for that more than I could possibly care whether she or anyone is a Democrat or a Republican.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 3:46 PM
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Thank God I'm an agnostic ...

... and not an atheist... otherwise I'd be among America's new betes noires, according to what I've been reading across the blogosphere. I'm on weekend duty at PJ and discovered that this morning's number one Technorati search is Rabbi Marc Gellman for his Newsweek column categorizing atheists as "angry." Well, as I said, I'm an agnostic, so I can't speak for atheists. But as one of that namby-pamby crew that can't make up its mind - even after reading St. Thomas - about the Big Question, I have to say that, yes, sometimes I am "angry." I'm particularly angry at self-satisfied pontificators who pick on minorities.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:11 AM
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April 28, 2006

Blog Week in Review II

The second podcast is up at PJM and guess who's in it! [Not your buddy Brother Ledeen?-ed. Yes, him. I hope he didn't commit any espionage this time. No Niger forgeries... We're clean as a whistle.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:19 PM
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In defense of the (political) hybrid

Glenn Greenwald has a post today in which he quite graciously acknowledges my apology to Kos of yesterday. (Thank you, Glenn). He also goes on to make a well-reasoned, well-written case for the necessity of lumping people into broad political categories. This is, of course, the conventional wisdom and I don't think I need to rehearse the argument here. You can click to Glenn for that, but for the most part, you already know it.

That argument, however, turns me and I think a substantial (perhaps even a majority) percentage of the American public into "non-people." We just don't think that way. We are Political Hybrids.

Now I don't just mean by that centrist, I mean actual hybrids with passionate feelings about a variety of issues that cross lines. And a hybrid, of course, could cross those lines in a variety of ways. Since I see this site is being visited today by many who have not been here before, I will risk boring some people and give a quick tour d'horizon of my views (with the obvious caveat that I am just one guy - though there are others who share my constellation).

Woman's right to choose - favor
Gay marriage - favor (neither presidential candidate did)
Stem cell reserach - favor
Death penalty - oppose (except in rare case of political mass murderers like Hitler, Saddam whose
supporters could release from jail)
National health insurance - basically favor - don't think anyone has come up with good system yet
Global warming - agnostic, don't know enough
Energy - completely favor conservation and alternative source research
General economics and taxation - I'm with Chairman Deng Tsiao Peng on this ("I don't care whether a cat is black or white, only if catches mice."). Show me what works and I'm with you. The ideological arguments are way too 19th Century on this one.
Immigration - I'm with Bush here (in other words more liberal, in the conventional sense, than most Dems and Republicans, ).
War on Terror - as everyone knows, I favor (in part because it seems in harmony with my views above- confusing, huh?)

Anyway, had enough? I know I have. But my point is this - with all due respect Glenn Greenwald's approach encourages the worst in us and certainly the worst in the Internet. We are, I hope, sophisticated people capable of sophisticated argument - not simply generalization and attack. The Internet can be a great tool for that, for seeing and understanding, not for lumping. Maybe I am an optimist fighting pathetically against the stream, but polarized thought is a form of lobotomy that I will continue to oppose.

UPDATE: ShrinkWrapped comments.

SEE ALSO:QandO

MORE: Dan is getting impatient with the length of this discussion. Can we blame him?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:37 AM
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Flight 93

I am not feeling particularly well, but I am going to try to brave the crowds for the opening night of the film tonight. It's interesting that it currently gets an extremely high 94% on Rotten Tomatoes' tomatometer of critical approval. No matter where you are on the political spectrum this film seems to be succeeding - a rather remarkable achievement in these polarized times.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:05 AM
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Chirac watches Abbas' back

Well, with Jacques, you bet it's probably his own back he wants to watch. But in any case he's got a plan afoot to finance the PA through the World Bank, not surprisingly funneling the dough through Abbas' familiar hands (been there - and gone - before). What's consistent about the French way of doing business (high and low ) is the easy acceptance of corruption that frustrates us anglosaxons. It's as if everyone in France has agreed to be on the dole from the top to the bottom of society - and to distribute the largesse to minions like Abbas no matter what their record of "redistribution." Great as long as it works - but talk about deficit spending.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:50 AM
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You say you want a resolution... well, you know...

Don't even go there with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's president said today of any such action by the Security Council: "The Iranian nation won't give a damn about such useless resolutions."

He's probably right about that.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:44 AM
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April 27, 2006

Double Retreat

Little Brown is doing the right thing in pulling Harvard student Kaavya Viswanathan's novel from the stores, so I will do the right thing in a (financially) much smaller way and apologize to Markos Zuniga for my snotty comments about his book sales. I should have known better because, as I noted below, it's been a number of years since one of mine sold very well. Book sales are mysterious. When I have asked publishers for an ad for one of my novels, they have frequently told me "Ads don't sell books." When I have mentioned a good review and wondered why the book wasn't selling (again hinting at an ad), they have told me "Reviews don't sell books." So what sells books? Beats me. For a while I thought the Internet might - and it does. But only to a point. So far I haven't seen it push anybody's work onto the bestseller list, or even that close to it. In any case, I wish Markos the best and, again, apologize.

UPDATE: More above.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:45 PM
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Valli of the Dolls

Alida Valli - the Italian actress who starred in Visconti's Senso and Graham Greene/Carol Reed's The Third Man and (who could have known this?) whose husband apparently wrote "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" - is dead. I remember her from both of those films (although it's been a long time since I've seen Senso) and from Bertolucci's La Luna (a movie I liked better than most people).

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:31 AM
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Les précieuses ridicules

EU Referendum (via PJM) accuses Sweden of being "precious" in announcing its withdrawal from European military exercises due to be held next month in Italy because of Israel's participation, but I think it's a bit more than that. The Scandinavian country has a "mixed record" these days where the Jewish state is concerned. Of course, as EU Referendum points out, the Swedes seem quite willing to make deals with the Israelis when it comes to buying military equipment. But, as we know, "balance" must be maintained between the parties in the peace process. In that case, perhaps they would like to make a donation to fill this short fall.

MORE on Sweden and Hamas here.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:19 AM
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Cable Envy

Watching Anderson Cooper and the rest of the CNN crew chew on the Tony Snow appointment as presidential press secretary last night reminded me of several Hollywood occasions when I've listened to friends gossip about an acquaintance's Oscar nomination - envy was pouring out of their eyes like some green slime from The Exorcist. Only those occasions were usually (relatively) private. Suzanne Malveaux, etc. were on TV. ABC puts it this way:

There's just something about Fox News.

Not only does the cable giant have more than twice as many primetime viewers as the closest competition, but it's often the network of choice for the White House administration in terms of big-name interviews.

Well, why wouldn't it be? I'm no unremitting fan of Fox - far from it. I find Hannity & Colmes bombastic and dopey, O'Reilly a tedious narcissist (duh) and Greta... well, if I never hear the word "Aruba" again as long as I live I'll be happy. But the Brit Hume Show is actually for grownups with serious discussion not tilted completely to the conservative side and the Neil Cavuto Show is fun if you don't take the stock tips too seriously. What's to watch on CNN? Not much for me. No wonder they're jealous.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:42 AM
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As PJM gets into podcasting ...

... satellite radio seems to be having its troubles.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:20 AM
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April 26, 2006

Hix Nix Kos Pix

Although it underscores what we already knew - that Glenn Reynolds (whose book is selling much better) has remarkable respect in the blogosphere for his integrity and intelligence - I must say I am surprised at the relatively pathetic sales figures for Markos Zuniga's book "Crashing the Gates." It could mean one of several things: 1. Kos' audience has heard it all already; 2. Kos' audience is not "bookish"; 3. Kos' audience is not as big as it's cracked up to be; 4. Kos doesn't write particularly well; 5. Kos doesn't have anything new to say. 6. People are tired of all this political blather anyway. (Hinderaker thinks the latter).

I suspect some combo of "all of the above" might be the proper answer. But this dismal response, coupled with a similar response to AirAmerica detailed in the above Drudge link, should give pause to those Dems rejoicing over Bush's numbers. When it comes to politics these days, the public is not just fed up with Bush. It's fed up with "all of the above."

[What about your most recent book sales figures, smart guy?-ed. There's a reason there's a Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.]

UPDATE: Correction here.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:42 AM
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Little, Brown "works hard for the money"

Having been an author for umpteen years, I suppose nothing should surprise me about the venality of publishers, but somehow the recent behavior of Little, Brown - once an outfit with a classy reputation - leaves me scratching my head. As many of you know, they are printing a new edition of " teenage Harvard sensation" Kaavya Viswanathan's first novel "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" with the several dozen "similarities" to (read: plagiarisms from) Megan McCafferty's books excised and an "apology" to Ms. McCafferty appended.

According to Robin Abcarian in the LAT, Steve Ross of Crown (McCafferty's publisher) is taking the proper attitude:

When Steve Ross, publisher and senior vice president of Crown Publishers and Three Rivers Press, learned that a first-time teenage novelist might have borrowed a few passages from the works of one of his own authors, Megan McCafferty, his first instinct was to consider it "a youthful indiscretion."

After all, the alleged transgressor, Kaavya Viswanathan, a 19-year-old Harvard sophomore, was being heralded as a kind of literary prodigy, a kid with a voice who'd scored a two-book deal worth close to $500,000 while still in high school. Who'd want to squelch that?

But as Ross' staffers compared the newcomer's novel, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life," with two of McCafferty's novels, he became alarmed and then angry when they turned up 40 passages in "Opal Mehta" that seemed borrowed or lifted directly from McCafferty's two popular young adult novels, "Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings."

"This is literary identity theft," Ross said Tuesday. McCafferty, he said, "feels that something fundamental was taken from her."

Viswanathan's Boston-area phone number was disconnected, but through her publisher, Little, Brown & Co., she apologized Monday in a written statement, saying she had made an unintentional mistake.

Forty unintentional mistakes?! How's this for a new cliché? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on Little Brown for being such blatant liars. Meanwhile, how will Harvard react? I imagine this kind of plagiarism on one of Ms. Viswanathan's sophomore papers would get her kicked out of the institution. All writers' organizations (Author's Guild, PEN, WGA, etc.) should also be appalled and behave accordingly.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:49 AM
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Attention Amnesty International

Forget North Korea. Forget Darfur. Forget Abu Ghraib. Look at what Airbus is trying to do to us!

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:36 AM
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April 25, 2006

Petition to bar Ahmadinejad

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is circulating a petition to bar the Iranian president from attending the World Cup. I don't normally sign such things, but I couldn't resist this one.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 3:58 PM
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Tammy puts the whammy on Dubai

Okay, terrible title by me but interesting post from Tammy Bruce. If you thought it peculiar the Middle Eastern nation was involved with our ports, how about production of the Stealth Joint Fight Striker?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:05 PM
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No Amnesty for Amnesty

David T at Harry's Place has done us all a service by pointing out a huge problem in Amnesty International's worldwide survey on the death penalty for 2005.

[Before I go on, I would like to note, as I have frequently on this blog, that I oppose the death penalty except in the rare cases of political mass murderers like Saddam and Hitler whose adherents can too easily free them to kill again. This post is not about that, but about the methods of Amnesty International.]

Now. Here's what Amnesty reports:

- at least 2,148 people were executed in 22 countries
- 94% of them were killed in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the USA

"As the world continues to turn away from the use of the death penalty, it is a glaring anomaly that China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the USA stand out for their extreme use of this form of punishment as the 'top' executioners in the world." - Irene Khan, AI Secretary General.

The USA with China, Saudi Arabia and Iran? How embarrassing. But working from numbers on Brett Lock's blog, David T. shows how the execution rate in the United States, on a per capita basis, is a statistically insignificant one per cent, not even in the same ballpark as China, Saudi Arabia and Iran (and this doesn't even deal with what the people in those countries were executed for, like political dissidence, homosexuality, etc. In the US it is invariably for having committed murder.).

David then goes on to several possible reasons Amnesty lumps the US in with these totalitarian regimes, including the ritualized anti-Americanism that is correctly criticized in the Euston Manifesto. But ... oddly for a website with writers of socialist background... he overlooks the greatest motivation of all. I will put it in block letters with an exclamation point: MONEY! Amnesty International exists by donation. Do you think they get one penny from opponents of the death penalty in China, Saudi Arabia and Iran? Please, Louise! No, they make virtually all their money from upper middle class supporters in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, etc. whose egos are flattered by giving their bourgeois bucks to an organization that is "sticking it to the man." If the man's not so bad, no bucks. Well, they're not getting mine anymore. I don't give to liars.

UPDATE: See Ron's mathematical revision in the comments - even more damning of Amnesty.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:54 AM
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Hitler's back. Let's disarm!

It's hard to tell if King Abdullah of Jordan meant what he said or was merely posturing when he called on Israel to abandon nuclear weapons in an interview with Spain's El Pais (as reported by Ynet News). My guess is the latter because Abdullah is generally a sane fellow and with Iran on the march, it's likely, in the secrecy of his own home-palace, he feels safer (somewhat, anyway) with a well-armed Israel in the neighborhood. In fact, he left himself an out in the same interview by saying that after the Palestinian-Israel conflict was resolved, the Israelis would no longer need nukes - an event that is not exactly around the corner. And of course even then it would be absurd for Israel to abandon its advanced weaponry. Disarming in the face of Ahmadinejad et al would be an act of national suicide beyond comprehension and Abdullah has to know that.

Speaking of Jordan, I was struck by the similarity between recent events at the Red Sea resorts and in Amman. Al Qaeda and their friends go straight for pleasure zones of their own culture - hotels, beaches, etc. The enemy is not the US or even Israel. It is modernity itself. To disarm in the face of that insanity you'd have really to be nuts.

Meanwhile, worth reading as a curiosity is Chinese state-run Xinhua's reporting on yesterday's bombing in Dahab. The article, under the editorship of one Zu Jhin, informs us that local residents and tourists were "unfazed" by the terror attack:

Egyptian shopkeepers were quietly cleaning debris in their destroyed stores, with anger and frustration clearly under control, while foreign diving instructors, though scared, appeared not to over read into the consequences of the blasts.

"I was really scared, but not so much worried about my safety here," said a young Swedish diving instructor near a restaurant where one of the explosions took place.

He went on to joke about his experiences of bombings in Egypt. "I somewhat got used to such things," he said.

"I was in Taba in 2004 and I happened to be in Sharm el-Sheikh last year," he added, referring to two other rounds of bomb attacks in other Sinai resorts which killed more than 100 people since October 2004.

"You can call me an explosion-chaser," he said with a wink. Peter Johnson, an Australian who has been living in Dahab for over three years as a diving instructor, also appeared unnerved.

"I had first thought it was a big bang on a door, but then people told me it was a bomb," he said in a calm voice.

"I'm not really worried. I believe in God," he said, and then went on to look for his friends whom he feared might have been injured in the attacks.

Hundreds of foreign tourists, mostly westerners, were seen on Tuesday afternoon walking around near the area where the explosions occurred.

If not for the broken windows and blood stains, Dahab looked just like any other serene Egyptian Red Sea resorts with clear sky and blue sea.

Serene? Thirty-four people died, in the latest count. Is this meant ironically or do the Chinese have an investment in the Egyptian tourist business?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:14 AM
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April 24, 2006

Again

It's hard to imagine people were still frequenting the Egyptian Red Sea resorts, but after today, when a reported 90 people were murdered in three terror bombings (the third such massacre in as many years), I think that's end of sunbathing there for a while. This Islamist psychotic behavior is now reaching a level beyond comprehension.

UPDATE: Evidently only 10 were killed, 70 wounded.

MORE: Now it's jumped up to 30 dead. I bow to the commenter below who asked "When was it ever comprehensible?" He's right.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:44 AM
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An Experiment in Journalism

Michael Totten wants you.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:56 AM
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Fake but accurate

Ahmadi-whatever-his-name-is is calling the Israeli regime "fake" today.

"Some 60 years have passed since the end of World War II. Why should the people of Germany and Palestine pay now for a war in which the current generation was not involved?" Ahmadinejad said at a news conference.

"We say that this fake regime (Israel) cannot not logically continue to live," he said.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:35 AM
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Why not Ward Churchill?

I can't believe it's true, but John Fund - who has turned into Yale's worst nightmare on the pages of the Wall Street journal, no less - is reporting the startling news the university is considering Juan Cole "to fill a new spot as a professor of contemporary Middle East studies."

Wow. Why not go the Full Monty and choose Ward Churchill? I know - Churchill's in Native American studies, not the Middle East, but given the reliability of either of these gentlemen, I can't see what difference that makes.

But I'm no one to talk. Evidently one of the raps on Cole is that he is a blogger. From Fund's article today: "He [Cole] has since abandoned scholarship in favor of blog commentary," says Michael Rubin, a Yale graduate and editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Mr. Cole's postings at his blog, Informed Comment, appear to be a far cry from scholarship. They feature highly polemical writing and dubious conspiracy theories."

Indeed, as Glenn Reynolds would say. But speaking of Instapundit, he and Eugene Volokh had better watch out. Their law professorships could be in jeopardy from blogging. Maybe we should reconsider our opposition to Cole in order to protect our friends.... except that .... to put it bluntly... Cole is a propagandistic nutcase and the thought of him teaching at Yale is absurd! [Why should they listen to you? You never give money to the alumni fund anyway.-ed. Don't worry. They won't.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:17 AM
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April 23, 2006

Noguchi on stage

Sheryl, Madeleine and I went down to LA's Little Tokyo today to catch the Isamu Noguchi - Sculptural Design show at the Japanese American National Museum. Noguchi was a patient of my father's and I remember meeting him when I was little boy (I noticed all the adult women going into an immediate flutter), so there is a personal family connection to the Japanese American artist who was born in Los Angeles as Sam Gilmour. He was the son of Leonie Gilmour and a Japanese poet named Yone Noguchi. Asian-caucasian marriages are completely routine in LA these days, but this was 1900, so there's probably a story there. Anyway, if you live in SoCal or are visiting, the show, beautifully and dramatically mounted by Robert Wilson, is more than worth a visit. Much of the work are not the usual granite sculptures we associate with the sculptor, but wood pieces Noguchi designed for the stage, notably for the early dance performances of Martha Graham, like the photo to the left. [see correction in comments] The American Masters series says:

One of the early pieces of the [Graham] company was "Frontier" (1935), a solo performance about the pioneer woman. This piece brought together the two men who would be close collaborators throughout her life. Isamu Noguchi, the Japanese-American sculptor, created a sparse and beautiful design that replaced flat backdrops with three-dimensional objects. Together Graham and Noguchi revolutionized set design through this inclusion of sculpture.

The other man referred to is Aaron Copeland.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:47 PM
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Google - pretty good; Microsoft - okay; Yahoo - bad

That's the conclusion of famed Chinese blogger Zhao Jing near the end of Clive Thompson's fascinating (in its details) and disturbing (in its equivocation) New York Times Magazine article today - Google's China Problem (and China's Google Problem). Yahoo has been selected as the fall guy here because its actions in China - passing email identities of dissidents to authorities which resulted in the lenghty incarceration of these same dissidents - most egregiously cater to China's totalitarian impulses. Overall, the article asks the question: Can an imperfect Internet help change a society for the better? Thompson's answer, despite numerous quibbles, appears in my reading to be yes. Although he may be right in the long run, this is not justification for me for US companies observing laws and traditions that keep the door open for despotism. Maybe I'm just not sufficiently post-modern enough - or have any Google stock. Still, Thompson's article is definitely worth a read. This is the best overview I have seen of how the relationship between these companies and China developed.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:39 AM
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Don Corlejihad?... Don Hamasi?...

Don Abusoni ... Don Jamaloni? ... I'm trying to come up with the best name for the new chief of the Palestinian security force Jamal Abu Samhadana whose Mafia bona fides would make him a good bit player in Godfather IV, if that ever happens (not a good idea). Adloyada has some insight into this fellow that she tellspredictsin her email will appear on the BBC.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:44 AM
Comments (2)

April 22, 2006

The Leaker's Tale

It's hard to imagine how you can have an effective intelligence service if members of that service leak to the press. The level of trust necessary for intelligence work would simply disappear in several directions, internal and external, simultaneously. At the same time what was and is reported in the press from those leaks is suspect, not only to due to the possible bias of the leaker but also obviously the possible bias of the reporter (and his editor, publisher, etc.). Nothing can be fully authenticated because the intelligence agency which has been compromised can and should not talk in its own defense. The agency is at a natural disadvantage because of the secret nature of its work. The rationale for this dance is that the public is informed- but is it? Do we really know anything, anything that we can fully believe anyway? I doubt it.

So where does that leave us? I was not surprised to read in today's Washington Post of the firing of CIA agent Mary McCarthy for leaking to that paper and others. I was only surprised that it didn't happen earlier. Meanwhile, the literary association of Ms. McCarthy's name has a certain je ne sais quoi given that one of the people to whom she leaked her information, Dana Priest, has just won a Pulitzer Prize for her "revelations" about the CIA. How are we supposed to regard that? Tim Rutten has an article in the Los Angeles Times this morning about the dustup concerning this and other Pulitzers and some conservative bloggers who think the reporters who revealed classified information don't deserve the prize. They deserve to go to jail for violating the Espionage Act instead.

I agree with Rutten to some extent that this may be overkill. (If anyone deserves prosecution, it is the leakers, who undoubtedly have employment contracts that forbid such disclosures.) But I certainly wouldn't give these reporters a prize for their work, which seems to me more like a fancy version of taking dictation. They were, for reasons we of course do not know, chosen by these leakers to be trusted conduits of the leakers' version of the truth. This deserves a prize? Not in my school yard. But what I do know? Most of the time I have been nominated for a prize (including one even better known than the Pulitzer), I lost. So you can just assume I'm a sorehead when I say that prizes of this nature are nothing more than self-serving political nonsense.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:50 PM
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Iraq moves forward

Just when we were about to give up, Iraq is moving forward with a new government:

Iraq's president formally designated Shiite politician Jawad al-Maliki to form a new government Saturday, starting a process aimed at healing ethnic and religious wounds and pulling the nation out of insurgency and sectarian strife.
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The move ends months of political deadlock among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds that threatened to drag the nation into civil war. Al-Maliki has 30 days to present his Cabinet to parliament for approval.

Iraq the Model live-blogged the event.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:33 AM
Comments (6)

April 21, 2006

Mullah Homophobia (and not just phobia)

Gay Patriot has the story.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:12 PM
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Playing Freud with Hiltzik

I'm actually feeling a bit sorry for LAT columnist Michael Hiltzik who is undergoing something of a "skimmity ride" (see Thomas Hardy) across the blogosphere and now the mainstream media. For those few who don't know, the Pulitzer Prize winner was caught posting
on various blogs under fake screen identities excoriating his enemies (fancy talk for calling names). Of course, he isn't alone in this slightly pathetic enterprise - it's a fairly common occurrence (happens on here frequently enough). But it is surprising to see that someone with Hiltizk's bona fides would think he could get away with this - we can trace your IP pretty easily, Michael, often even locate you on the map. It is, however, equally likely that Hiltzik knew this deep down and had the all-too-human desire to shoot himself in the foot (or in this case worse, since his reputation, unlike his foot, will never fully recover).

But why would he do this, Dr. Freud? Well, son, let's leave the primal issues out of it for the moment. Maybe it's closer to the surface. Maybe he simply knew that he was wrong and, like a schoolyard bully (threatened child), simply had to lash out. Otherwise, why call Cathy Seipp, in Howard Kurtz's phraseology, a "tool" and "someone hampered by her own ignorance"? I know Cathy, and while she has her biases like everyone else, she is clearly as far from those accusations as anyone I can think of. But Hiltzik wasn't thinking. He was lost in his own rage. Did he want to get caught? You decide. On Cathy's site today, she says she has learned that the LAT is now looking into other signs of possible dishonesty by Hiltzik in the pages of the paper itself. As they say in France, à voir.

UPDATE: There's a possible irony in all this too. It may be that blogging is more the big leagues than the mainstream media. In blogging, you're out here on your own. It takes self-discipline that is not as necessary in mainstream venues where you are (sometimes) back-stopped by editors and by the "reputation" of your journal (diminishing though that may be). Perhaps Hiltzik, a relative newcomer to the online world, was simply in over his head.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:16 AM
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Walter Winchell's back! (and I don't mean Drudge)

Pajamas Media is sticking its toe into podcasting with our first Blog Week in Review. We're planning on doing these on a weekly basis (duh) with other podcasts coming somewhere down the line. Your comments and suggestions are solicited. There's a very short survey along with the Review podcast - or if you'd care to go on at longer length, please do so here.

UPDATE: One person who probably won't be appearing on one of our podcasts anytime soon is the LAT's Michael Hiltzik. I think he's had his fill of the blogosphere for a while.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:51 AM
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April 20, 2006

When you know you are doing something right

The Euston Manifesto - in which a number of liberal/leftists try to return to their "authentic values" (some of which could justify more hawkish foreign policy views) - is one of the more interesting and laudatory documents to appear on the Internet in some time, not least because it shows people wrestling with their beliefs in a genuine manner. Still (or should I say "Therefore"?), it is hardly surprising that it received the reactions detailed by Norm Geras:

Much of the comment on the manifesto has been, to put it generously, pathetic; and, though this part of it doesn't actually merit a response, it is worth registering just how much there has been like that. Schematically: (1) 'Ha ha, they met in a pub.' (2) 'Tee hee, they named it after a station.' (3) Some other generic flip but contentless remark. (4) 'These people are deadbeats'; or [from some of the sadder members of the blogosphere] one or another version of 'They are bad people.'

Norm does a superb job in his essay of defending the signers against more adult criticism than the above. Read it. (via PJM)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:35 AM
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April 19, 2006

Mullah Murder

The Student Movement Coordinating Committee for Democracy in Iran is reporting a mass execution at the notorious Evin prison: Reports are stating [sic] about a mass execution that took place, today, at the infamous Evin jail located in North Tehran. 9 un-identified victims were hanged in the facility in which tens of political activists are being held including several student activists.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:16 PM
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Do You Yahoo (not if you're a Chinese dissident)

On the eve of the US - China summit, "groovy" Yahoo is once again being accused of complicity with the Chinese regime in the jailing of a dissident:

Yahoo Inc. may have helped Chinese police to identify an Internet writer who was subsequently jailed for four years for subversion in the third such case, an advocacy group for journalists said on Wednesday. ... Yahoo was accused of providing electronic records to Chinese authorities that led to an eight-year prison term for Li Zhi for subversion in 2003 and of helping to identify Shi Tao, who was accused of leaking state secrets abroad and jailed last year for 10 years.

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said it had obtained a copy of the verdict showing that Yahoo! Holdings (Hong Kong) helped Chinese police to identify Jiang by confirming that the e-mail account ZYMZd2002 had been used jointly by Jiang and another pro-democracy activist Li Yibing.

Yahoo, whose excuse in the past is that it "had to abide by local laws," could not be reached for comment regarding the Reuters story. I could take a guess what Tom Lantos would say.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:24 AM
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Tony Snow

Scott McClellan has resigned as the presidential press secretary and some bloggers are buzzing that Tony Snow is the replacement. I can't imagine a better choice. Snow is one of the most well-spoken journalists around, a highly capable person with a winning personality.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:31 AM
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One from column Boeing, two from column Microsoft

Why should it be surprising that the first person Hu Jintao called on on his visit to the US was Bill Gates? After all, the Head o' Microsoft and the Head o' China both have more longevity in office than any US President (with the nod probably going to the man from Redmond). The meeting had all the trappings of a state visit and (most likely) better food:

Touring Microsoft's suburban Redmond campus earlier Tuesday, Hu said he admired what Gates had achieved. He also sought to reassure Gates that China is serious about protecting intellectual property rights, a key concern for the company as it battles widespread piracy of its Windows operating system there.

"Because you, Mr. Bill Gates, are a friend of China, I'm a friend of Microsoft," Hu said through a translator. "Also, I am dealing with the operating system produced by Microsoft every day," he added, to laughter.

The new obeisance to "intellectual property rights" is another sign of the extraordinary economic growth of China. Their businesses are moving up past simple manufacturing into technological innovation with their own executives calling for protection of these rights to encourage creativity. As for the "friend of China" boilerplate, we all know what that means - You keep your mouth shut about democracy and I'll keep those operating system dollars rolling your way and throw in some spare renminbi for MS Office as well.

Forget Karl Marx. What would Mao himself, whose face still decorates those renminbi, think about all this? He'd probably approve, because, as the song goes, "Ideology is only skin deep, yeah, yeah, yeah..." To add to the dark comedy of all this, another greeter of Hu was apparently Starbucks Corp. Chairman Howard Schultz, the man who made jillions off the yuppiefication of the 1962 Greenwich Village coffee shop. Having been a denizen of those places as a teenager, I remember well the face staring down at us from the pipe smoke-stained walls. It was... Chairman Mao!

MEANWHILE: No word from Gates' State Department about Chinese blogger Hao Wu.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:30 AM
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April 18, 2006

Chintzy Russians

For all their bluster, the Russians are only coming up with ten million in aid for the Palestinian Authority. I think Hamas should try another studio (Warner Brothers?), because that's not enough to make even a good low-budget movie these days. They're getting even less support from the Danish Prime Minister who said the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority had isolated itself and added: "A Hamas spokesman had tried to legitimate the terror attack. That is totally unacceptable." But you know those Danes - they spend all their time watching cartoons!

Of course the bigtime gangsters are taking up the slack.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:56 PM
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Al-Arian guilty; Horowitz has a question

Hold on a minute...I'm confused. [As usual.-ed.] I thought the government lost its case against former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian. But now there's this from the Tampa Trib:

Capping an ordeal that spanned more than a decade, former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian has reached a deal with prosecutors, agreeing to be deported after admitting involvement with a terrorist organization, an attorney involved in the negotiations said.

"My understanding was that he was to plead guilty" to conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization, said William Moffitt, who represented Al-Arian...

"Material support to a terrorist organization" - now there's a "nice" thing to do in this day and age. Give those impoverished "activists" a helping hand while they oppress women and homosexuals and blow folks up. But now I'm confused again. Didn't the AAUP, the ACLU, Salon, the Nation and other right-thinking folks tell us Sami was being railroaded? How is it he agreed to leave the country then? The ACLU just knuckle under or could there be that little something called evidence? Nah, why believe that? Obviously the fix was in. We all knw the drill "Bush lied and people died." Oops, wrong link, wasn't it? Wouldn't want to disturb anybody's weltanschauung.

Meanwhile, David Horowitz has a question.

UPDATE: New friends for Sami in his exile? Or maybe he'll get involved with public health.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:13 PM
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In the Valley of Ahmadinejad

I cannot but think that the psychopathic racism and Holocaust denial of the Iranian President helped instigate the release of 30 to 50 million Holocaust records announced by the German government today. I also think the change in the German government sped the disclosure as well. The actual release of the documents should take six months.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:14 PM
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Hollywood goes Havana ... but not in the usual pro-Castro way

Last night I attended the premiere of Cuban-American actor/director Andy Garcia's The Lost City (trailer here), which opens next week. The movie is an epic about a Cuban family in the time immediately before and after the revolution. One brother is a social democrat, one a committed Fidelista and the third (Garcia) is the Bogartish owner of El Tropico, an Afro-Cuban night club where much of the action takes place. (The movie is infused with Cuban music and dance and has a sensational sound track.) The screenplay is by the recently deceased Cuban novelist Cabrera Infante who was an early on a supporter of Fidel and then decamped for Paris as the regime became more totalitarian.

Andy, a friend of mine, has been working on this film for eighteen years, so to say it is a labor of love is an understatement. The movie is in many senses the story of Garcia's own family and is infused with a passion almost never seen in commercial filmmaking these days. When his character makes the final decision to leave Havana for New York, the scene of his departure is gut-wrenching. You feel Garcia's own father climbing onto that DC3. This is a real "cinema from the heart."

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:56 AM
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Jerusalem chess

Ehud Olmert is moving to box in Hamas by not responding heavily to yesterday's suicide bombing.

"Olmert heard the defense establishment's ideas for possible strikes against the Palestinian Authority, and though the government is responsible, the decision was that there should be more limited action for now," a political source said.

Among measures authorized was the revocation of the Israeli residency status of Hamas officials living in East Jerusalem and a police crackdown on the smuggling of Palestinians without permits, who could be militants, into the Jewish state.

Not much considering what happened, but I think this is a smart move. Israel has much larger concerns at the moment and should save energy for them. Meanwhile, Hamas and their pals contribute to their own demise by attacking the hapless Abbas for criticizing the suicide bombing.

"We ask President Abbas to apologize to the entire Palestinian people because of the offense he committed," the groups said in a joint statement by a coalition of militants read by a masked gunman at an open-air news conference in Gaza.

The Mossad couldn't have done it better. [Maybe it was the Mossad.-ed. Who knows?]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:19 AM
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April 17, 2006

The Man Who Would Be Clueless

Hitch's latest salvo on the Plame Affair - Clueless Joe Wilson - leads me back to the conclusion I and others drew from this tawdry business when it was first made public what seems like eons ago. Wilson was chosen (by his "cloak-and-dagger" wife and by the CIA) for the Niger mission precisely because he could be relied upon to come back with nothing. They got even more than they bargained for - overwhelming self-centered arrogance yielding to endless venalilty on all sides (including journalists lapping up meretricious book contracts). Although my title references Kipling, the whole pathetic story is a natural for Evelyn Waugh. Too bad he's gone.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:54 PM
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The BBC vs. Vanity Fair

It seems the two organizations are not telling the same story on climate change. Who's right? Don't ask me - I'm not a scientist. [No Al Gore jokes, please.-ed. I swore off them for Lent.] But whatever your stand on global warming, there's plenty of reason to conserve oil.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:58 PM
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Will they or won't they?

From the Haaretz ticker: 20:05 Israeli ambassador to UN asks Security Council to condemn Tel Aviv attack

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:51 AM
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The End of a Hudna

I was going to post this morning some quibbles about otherwise intelligent comments on hybrid cars in the NYT by automotive critic Jamie Kitman, but it seems rather tastless in the face of yet another suicide bombing at Tel Aviv's Central Station, ending a "hudna" that lasted only a couple of months. The always reliable religious psychopaths at Islamic Jihad have claimed responsibility for an average Middle Eastern terror attack (eight dead so far), stereotypical in every way except that Hamas is now in control of the PA. Unlike the usual condemnations of violence from Mahmoud Abbas and Saeb Erekat, CNN reports the Hamas reaction as follows: A Hamas spokesman, in an interview with Al-Jazeera television, described the attack as an "act of self-defense" against the Israeli occupation.

Well, there you have it. No condemnation from those in authority so far, only justification of mass murder. Meanwhile, that other crew of religious psychopaths in Tehran is sending fifty million to the gang on the West Bank. Will this be used to finance suicide bombings? If not, what will it be used for?

UPDATE: Haaretz now says nine are dead. They also have more complete quotes from the various Hamas authorities:

Hamas official spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the attack "a natural result of the continued Israeli crimes against our people."

"The Israeli occupation bears responsibility for the continuation of its aggression. Our people are in a state of self-defence and they have every right to use all means to defend themselves," he added.

"We think that this operation... is a direct result of the policy of the occupation and the brutal agression and siege committed against our people," said Khaled Abu Helal, spokesman for the Hamas-led Interior Ministry.

Earlier, Moussa abu Marzouk, a Hamas leader abraod, told Al-Jazeera television that "the Israeli side must feel what the Palestinian feels, and the Palestinian defends himself as much as he can."

At least we know where they stand. The Israeli government, according to Haaretz, holds Hamas responsible. Wouldn't you?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:32 AM
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April 16, 2006

Paris, Kobe and Iraq

The Lakers are back in the playoffs on the back of Kobe Bryant. According to the AP, Paris Hilton was at the game against the Suns today, wearing the Kobester's "Number 8" and drawing boos from the crowd. Over at the Lakers Ground fan website, drew4lakers had this comment:

When you get a close look at a lot of the Hollywood crew, they're nothing special.

As for me looking at those celebrity mags -- hey, we didn't have much to choose from.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:15 PM
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Disturbing holiday reading and some less so

Amir Taheri - the former Executive Editor of Kayhan, Iran's largest daily newspaper, who now lives in Europe- has written an evaluation of the Iranian regime's recent behavior for which the term "worrisome" is a vast understatement.

Last year, it was after another khalvat [one on one with the Hidden Imam] that Ahmadinejad announced his intention to stand for president. Now, he boasts that the Imam gave him the presidency for a single task: provoking a "clash of civilisations" in which the Muslim world, led by Iran, takes on the "infidel" West, led by the United States, and defeats it in a slow but prolonged contest that, in military jargon, sounds like a low intensity, asymmetrical war.

In Ahmadinejad's analysis, the rising Islamic "superpower" has decisive advantages over the infidel. Islam has four times as many young men of fighting age as the West, with its ageing populations. Hundreds of millions of Muslim "ghazis" (holy raiders) are keen to become martyrs while the infidel youths, loving life and fearing death, hate to fight. Islam also has four-fifths of the world's oil reserves, and so controls the lifeblood of the infidel. More importantly, the US, the only infidel power still capable of fighting, is hated by most other nations.

Indeed it seems to be. If you read Taheri's complete article you may be even more disturbed by his predictions than his analysis. On the more optimistic side is The Euston Manifesto, which shows some of my old colleagues on the left are waking up to the current situation. Good for them. We need to work together at this moment, not resort to name-calling.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:56 AM
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Muriel Spark dies at 88

The novelist Muriel Spark has died. She was a natural writer of great dramatic gift. A Catholic convert whose works often concerned theological issues, it is particuarly poignant to think of her this Easter Day. I remember with special pleasure The Mandelbaum Gate and, of course, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

UPDATE: The NYT obit is fascinating, especially regarding the relationship with her son.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:06 AM
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Happy Easter to all!

As a kid this was an ecumenical occasion for me, walking with my family in New York's Easter Parade and hunting colored eggs (dyed by me and hidden by my mother ) throughout our apartment. It didn't have much in the way of religious connotations for a little Jewish boy and was just a fun event. Now I know better, of course, but somehow in these dark times the idea of putting some of that fun back into these religious hollidays appeals. Happy Easter to all!

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:39 AM
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April 15, 2006

Dept. of Bloviation

Billmon writes: But I also know that firebreathing rhetoric about destroying the "Zionist entity" has been a staple of Middle Eastern political hate speech since Nasser's time if not before - just as talk about nuking Mecca has become an occasional feature of American political hate speech.

Very occasional, Billmon, as in hardly ever by obscure congressmen who are then subject to ridicule by everyone in sight. The statements about "wiping Israel off the map" were made repeatedly by the President of Iran and not contradicted at all by the mullahs. Moral equivalency? Perhaps to you but not to me, I'm afraid. It makes me suspicious of everything else you wrote.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:33 PM
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What?! No choice of dessert?!!

If I were Hu Jintao, I'd be outraged by this chintzy treatment by his host for the Chinese president's U. S. welcome dinner that begins Hu's visit here even before the Chinese leader meets our president:

The first lavish dinner of China President Hu Jintao's historic visit to the United States next week will be in a big, secure house in Washington where the host is one of the world's most powerful men.

The White House? No.

It won't be in Washington D.C., but Seattle, Washington, and the April 18 dinner will be held at the $100 million lakeside mansion of Microsoft Corp. founder and the world's richest man, Bill Gates.

The approximately 100-person guest list is a who's who of the U.S. Pacific Northwest power elite, including Starbucks Corp. Chairman Howard Schultz and Washington state Gov. Christine Gregoire, said event organizers.

The guests will undergo strict security checks before entering Gates' lodge-style, 66,000 square-foot (6,130 sq meter) home overlooking Lake Washington with a reported seven bedrooms, six kitchens, 24 bathrooms, a domed library, a reception hall and an artificial estuary stocked with salmon and trout.

Gates and Gregoire are expected to introduce and welcome Hu, who will then offer a toast in front of the gathering.

The guests will be served a three-course dinner, starting with a smoked guinea fowl salad, a choice of either beef filet with Walla Walla onions or Alaskan halibut and spot prawns before a dessert of rhubarb brown butter almond cake, the event organizers said.

And what happens if Hu's allergic to rhubarb? Did anyone think about that? You'd think considering the following, Bill wouldn't be stinting on dessert:

Like any good dinner guest, President Hu will not come empty handed. The Chinese government issued a decree two weeks ago that all PCs will need to have a licensed operating system software installed before leaving the factory gates in an effort to crack down on piracy.

As a result, three Chinese PC manufacturers announced plans to buy a total of over $400 million worth of Microsoft Windows operating system software over the next three years and Lenovo Group Ltd., China's largest PC maker, is expected to announce a similar deal on Monday, organizers said.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:44 PM
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Signs of the great decline

In Hollywood, "Bringing Up Baby" used to mean this. Now it means this.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:53 AM
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From one hack to another

About a month ago, I posted about the Baigent/Leigh lawsuit over The DaVinci Code - Calling Mr. Holinshed. The other day Kenneth Hite posted much more extensively and informatively on the subject. Though equally as dismissive of B & L as I am, Mr. Hite is less sympathetic to Code author Dan Brown than I, deeming Mr. Brown a "hack." Perhaps. But a hack is not such an easy thing to be. Many try, but few with remotely the success of Dan Brown. I am not being entirely facetious here either, even though I admit to a certain kinship with Brown (not in the success area), having been called a "hack" by no less than Pauline Kael in the pages of The New Yorker. Actually, she said "author of pop drivel," basically the same thing. (Sorry, no link - this way pre-dates the Internet.) In any case, I still have my doubts about the merits of Baigent and Leigh's case even though Brown admits to using the same structure for all his thrillers (so, frequently, did Aeschylus) and to using his wife as a researcher (like Will Durant). I can sympathize to a small extent with Baigent and Leigh, however, who woke up one day to find their relatively mundane ideas turned into a huge international bestseller. How could that be when their books sold fifty copies? Well, maybe it has something to do with character, pace, action, style, etc. Nobody that I know is forcing anybody to read The DaVinci Code, especially not members of Opus Dei.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:17 AM
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April 14, 2006

Time to revise Godwin's Law for Ahmadinejad?

Until now, I admired the ironic intelligence of Godwin's Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. The problem though is that GL depends on, essentially, a rational starting place so that the "long discussion" can evolve into fascist insanity and name-calling. This man (Ahmadinejad) begins as Hitler. So where do we go when discussing him? Some other comparison or end point like Satan? (For some Hitler is worse than Satan.) What do you say to the that Mike Godwin? Any suggestions?

UPDATE: Reuters somehow deems this Ahmadinejad speech (linked above in AP coverage) a "slight" improvement from last year's speech in which the Iranian leader called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." Today Ahmadinejad said: "Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation. The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm." Sounds actually worse to me, but you know Reuters - always looking for the bright side where reactionary tyrants are concerned.

MORE: Hugh Hewitt, on whose show I just appeared talking about the Iranian situation, has posts here and here.

FURTHERMORE: Is Project B the next Zyklon-B?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 1:23 PM
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April 13, 2006

More spy games ... or not.

Buried in an otherwise routine Jay Solomon WSJ article - Trial Unnerves Some U. S. Jewish Leaders - is this interesting tidbit about that trial in which two former representatives of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee are charge with alleged violations of the Espionage Act: Several members of Congress have expressed concern about the case since it broke in 2004, fearing that the Justice Department may be targeting pro-Israel lobbying groups, such as AIPAC. These officials say they're eager to see the legal process run its course, but are concerned about the lack of transparency in the case.

Transparency problems are only part of the problem. A lot of people, including the judge, are confused by the government's case against the two former lobbyists Steven Rosen and Keith Wasserman. According to the WaPo:

The filing was ordered by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, who wanted the government to deal with constitutional issues raised by the defense in arguments on March 24 to dismiss the charges.

Ellis said that although the espionage statute had been around for almost 90 years, there were few precedents he could follow and that Rosen and Weissman were the first non-government employees to be indicted for receiving and transmitting national defense information orally.

The case has drawn attention from First Amendment lawyers because the judge, the prosecutors and the defense attorneys have all noted that the two lobbyists, in receiving and disseminating classified information, are doing what journalists, academics and experts at think tanks do every day.

Meanwhile, the defense has subpoenaed Condoleeza Rice and Stephen Hadley. This could get ineresting. Michael Isikoff disclosed in March some parts of what the classified information in this case entailed. His report is short on details, however, but states:

The indictment does not specify the subjects of discussion, but a source familiar with the meeting—who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities— says they included the circumstances surrounding the recent seizure by the Israeli government of the Karine A—a boat loaded with Iranian-made rockets, anti-tank grenades and C-4 explosives that Israeli officials charged was destined for the Palestinian Authority headed by Yasir Arafat. Press reports at the time indicated that the U.S. government had assisted the Israeli government in tracking the arms-laden trip and that there was intelligence indicating that the shipment may have originated in Iran. The shipment touched off an intense debate within the Bush administration about whether to sever relations with Arafat after White House officials became convinced that the Palestinian leader was lying about his knowledge of the shipment.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:18 PM
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Fidel the despoiler

Local (Hollywood) "progressives" who had to ignore their hero Fidel Castro's jailing gays as some kind of "minor cultural flaw" will now have to do some "green" rationalizing. The Caudillo is apparently going to be drilling for oil someplace even George Bush is forbidden to go - forty-five miles off the Florida coast. Fausta has a roundup. Gentlemen, start your Priuses.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:57 AM
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Friends of Google Unite!

The thing about totalitarianism is that as a lifestyle it can be pretty grim, but when it comes to rhetoric it has some solid comic potential. Orwell may have been the first to recognize this (Animal Farm) and I wonder what he would say about the recent call by the Internet Society of China for the suppression of "Unhealthy information" online. Now what do they mean by that? A list of MacDonald's in Shanghai? A parody of the Chuck Berry classic? ("Unhealthy information down in Memphis,Tennessee...") I guess it depends on what your definition of "unhealthy" is. According to our friends at Xinhua, the group called for its 2,600 member companies to supervise content, delete "unhealthy" information and oppose acts that undermine "Internet civilization."

Ah, now there's the clue to what they mean - "Internet civilization." Has the ring of "lost worlds" about it, doesn't it? Lost worlds like ... say.... Tibet. Now there's an example of "unhealthy information" you won't find on a "right-minded" organization approved by the totalitarian state like ... say... Google China.

(On third thought, I realize Orwell was far from the first to recognize the comic potential of fascists. Aristophanes beat him to the punchline a couple of thousands years before.)

UPDATE: But speaking of Tibet ... and giving the dog his due ... here's something they probably wouldn't have had under the Dalai Lama. But who knows?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:54 AM
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April 12, 2006

Happy Passover Japanese restaurant review

Since my house is filling with Passover aromas - Sheryl is a terrific cook and loves to experiment with all cuisines; this time obviously Jewish, both ashkenazi and sephardi - I have food on the brain. [Don't you always?-ed.] So I thought I'd drop in this short review apropos my post below on the Italian election and Japanese and Italian cooking.

The other night, in the eternal search for the perfect sushi bar, we discovered Izayoi, a new placein LA's Little Tokyo. It's not a sushi bar really, though it has superb sushi - don't miss the amberjack - but an izakaya. Those are the sake/small tastes hangouts that abound in Japanese cities. Locals know about them, but they are only just now beginning to appear in tour guides. At izakayas they cook practically everything you can imagine while serving a wide selection of cold sakes in those generous over-flowing glasses that seem to disappear as quickly as mineral water, down my throat anyway.

We sat at the bar, evidently a coveted spot, because you could see the sushi chef in front of you and just behind him a covey of other chefs and sous-chefs working on cooked foods. After a delectable order of nearly translucent needlefish sushi (new to me), we tried some of those cooked dishes including grilled black cod, mashed edamame in homemade tofu (outstanding) and something called Genghis Khan (a house special hot pot recommended by the Japanese-American guy sitting next to us). Total bill for three stayed south of a hundred dollars - though you could spend a lot more. Still, not a bad deal for the level of cooking. If you live in SoCal, it's definitely vaut le detour. But get there early - it's already popular.

Meanwhile, chez Simon/Longin we're expecting nearly thirty people for our (super casual) Seder tonight, including several folks from Pajamas Media. We make up for our lack of religious observance with a generous supply of kosher wines. We have brought in vintages from the US, Australia, Italy, Chile and Israel for a full out kosher wine tasting. It's not your grandmother's Manschewitz (Sheryl's using that for the haroset). I'll let you know the results.

By the way, the photograph accompanying this post is not of a sushi chef, but of the late Chiune Sugihara, the so-called Japanese Schindler, a Japanese diplomat in Eastern Europe who saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust at the beginning of World War II. Thank you, Chiune.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:11 AM
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April 11, 2006

The Americanization of Emilio

I was interested to read (via PJ) that (Joe) Trippi & Associates were involved with the (marginally) victorious Prodi campaign in Italy. In such a squeaker, it's hard to determine the value of the Trippi Group, though in this case if they gained as few as 25,000 votes they were hugely instrumental. But what would interest me, though it is not available on the Trippi site, is what advice the American company gave to the Italian economist. The globalization of politicial campaigns is not new, but it has, to me, weird overtones. I'm not sure "managed" political campaigns are my favorite American export.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:34 PM
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The bad news and the good news

The bad news is that Italy faces paralysis after their election. The good news is there's more time for lunch in the country with the best food (tied with Japan, in my estimation).

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:55 AM
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Brave new world revisited

Iran claims to have enriched uranium.

UPDATE: From the NYT coverage -

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private research group in Washington, said that the announcement that Iran was able to produce that level enrichment of enrichment had been expected, but that the quantities were probably very small.

"They need to learn a lot more to produce it in significant quantities and they need to build a lot more centrifuges," he said.

Frankly, I don't understand this comment. Why would it take Iran so long to do something in 2006 that the US was able to do relatively rapidly in 1942-44?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:30 AM
Comments (32)

April 10, 2006

Horowitz responds

David Horowitz responded to my criticism of his debate with Ward Churchill the other day. I would like to say that I respect Horowitz's work on the state of American academia. It's important and valid. I would like to have seen him debate a substantial figure of left/liberal academe like someone from the smug coterie that just put the squeeze on Harvard President Lawrence Summers. Ward Churchill, however, is a buffoon and not worthy of anyone's attention, especially someone who has given as much serious thought to the subject as Horowitz.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:40 PM
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Global Warming takes a hit

Those who have adopted "global warming" as their new religion and the Kyoto Protocols as yet one more example of the malfeasance of the United States ought to have a close look at the signatories of Thursday's open letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper - Open Kyoto to debate. Some of those signers might know a little bit more about this than you do.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:29 PM
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Too close to call...

We've heard that song before... very close to home... but the Italian election is being deemed too close to call with incumbent PM Silvio Berlusconi ahead in this latest poll by a whisker:

After a campaign dominated by economic issues, projections based on 98 percent of pollster Nexus' sampling of votes cast gave the flamboyant billionaire's center-right alliance 158 seats in the Senate compared to 151 for Prodi's coalition. But with a margin of error of 1-3 percentage points and six seats chosen by Italians voting abroad unaccounted for, the Senate majority was far from assured.

For the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, 89 percent of the voting sample gave Berlusconi's alliance 49.8 to 49.7 percent for Prodi's coalition. No seat breakdown was given.

In a way, the Berlusconi lead, even if it it doesn't hold, is a surprise. To what could it be attributed?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 3:04 PM
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Everything old is new again

I have to agree with Tammy that Sharon looks a lot better than Harrison. (Of course she's a bit younger too.)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:58 PM
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More of this, please

Matt Stoller of MyDD reports that "[Joe] Lieberman is considering running as an independent." Good for him, if he does. He'd have my vote in a heartbeat... Okay, I don't vote in Connecticut, but American party politics as currently constitued badly needs a shake-up. In the age of the Internet, the independent mind should be applauded and supported. We don't need political parties anymore to tell us how to think. (via PJM)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:35 AM
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Arrivederci, Silvio! (and Bonjour Tristesse for Dominique)

Exit polls reported by Reuters and Pajamas Media are both showing the beginning of the end for Silvio Berlusconi's center-right hodge-podge in Italy. The election of Romano Prodi's center-left hodge-podge (from Roman Catholics to communists) had been predicted and seems to be coming true.

MEANWHILE in la douce France: Frère Jacques has acceded to the wishes of the étudiants (of something) and union leaders and rescinded the new labor law encouraging businesses to hire youths by allowing those same businesses to fire those who don't work out. Current youth unemployment stands at a disastrous 22%. The rates for non-white youth from the suburbs - the other rioters of late - are pushing fifty percent. But this one was clearly a white "bohemian" student rebellion - and they won. Democracy works in strange ways, non?

UPDATE: Things are looking slightly better for Berlusconi.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 6:47 AM
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April 9, 2006

Just a second here

According to the aptly-named AP writer Nedra Pickler, the White House is trying to "dampen the idea of a U.S. military strike on Iran":

Dan Bartlett, counselor to Bush, cautioned against reading too much into administration planning.

"The president's priority is to find a diplomatic solution to a problem the entire world recognizes," Bartlett told The Associated Press on Sunday. "And those who are drawing broad, definitive conclusions based on normal defense and intelligence planning, are ill-informed and are not knowledgeable of the administration's thinking on Iran."

I certainly have no idea of "the administration's thinking" but let me ask a simple, almost a simple-minded, question. What would a "diplomatic solution" to the Iranian nuclear question actually look like? Just give me a few concrete sentences... Not easy, is it? Not for anything tangible anyway. Even if we got the Iranians to sign something, what would it mean? Hardly any countries acknowledge their nuclear weapons programs while engaged in initiating them. The US didn't in 1944. The Soviets didn't. The UK and the French didn't. The Israelis didn't. The Pakistanis and the Indians didn't. What they said they were doing and what they were doing were rarely the same thing. And we expect the Iranian Mullahs, of all people, to behave differently? You'd have to throw in the Golden Gate with the Verrazano Narrows and the Brooklyn Bridge, if you wanted to sell me that one. Who knows what the Iranians are really doing? In order to know, we'd have to have a watcher, or maybe three, on every street corner of their vast country. And even then I'm not sure we'd know. Remember, back in the days of the Manhattan Project, Enrico Fermi and his colleagues split the atom in some made-over squash court under the University of Chicago football stadium. Its worth reviewing those times while recalling that was the early 1940s, over sixty years ago! So when we have the following from our British cousins in the same AP article, I can only roll my eyes:

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., said Britain would not launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran and he was as "certain as he could be" that neither would the U.S. He said he has a high suspicion that Iran is developing a civil nuclear capability which in turn could be used for nuclear weapons, but there is "no smoking gun" to prove it and justify military action.

What to do is not an easy question. But I wonder if, when you're in 2006 and you're talking about a 1944 technology, whether a "smoking gun" is anymore than a facon de parler.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:54 PM
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Marc Steynisms du jour

WHEN MOST of us across the Atlantic think of "welfare queens," our mind's eye conjures some teenage crack whore with three kids by different men in a housing project. But France illustrates how absolute welfare corrupts absolutely.

These Sorbonne welfare queens are Marie-Antoinettes: Unemployment rates for immigrants? Let 'em eat cake, as long as our pampered existence is undisturbed.

The most accurate thing I can say is touché.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:46 PM
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What is to be done - Part 704

I don't always agree with Carolyn Glick, who is more of a fire-breather in the war against jihadism than I am, but the woman has to be reckoned with and respected for her honesty. Her column in the Jerusalem Post last week is an excellent summa of where we are now and ends with these depressing words:

FOR MORE than two years, the Israeli government and media have told the public that no matter how our enemies threaten us, they can do us no harm because America is protecting us. Protected by America, Israelis are told that we have no reason to fear the consequences of IDF retreats and the transfer of vacated lands to Hamas.

Sadly, this promise is largely untrue. The Bush administration today is bogged down in a swamp of strategic paralysis and political distress that prevent it from designing clear policies regarding the war against global jihad.

American policy towards the Palestinians is case in point: One day the Bush administration announces that it is cutting its ties with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority and the next day it demands that Israel keep the borders with Gaza open and promises to find a way to give direct aid to the Palestinians that somehow will not strengthen Hamas.

As to Syria, the stubborn stance the administration maintained towards Damascus during the months of Detlev Mehlis's investigation of Hariri's murder has been replaced by no stance. Aside from finger pointing at Damascus, Washington offers no plan for ending Syrian support for terrorists in Lebanon, the PA and Iraq.

On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal noted that during her weekend pit stop in Baghdad, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came down publicly against Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's bid to maintain his position in the next government. Rice and her British counterpart, Jack Straw, announced their governments' support for Finance Minister Adel Adul Mahdi, who serves as the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is known to have strong relations with Teheran.

Rice's heavy-handed interference with Iraq's democratic processes goes hand in hand with the administration's decision to open direct negotiations with Iran for the first time since the Khomeini revolution in 1979. On Saturday, direct US-Iranian negotiations on the stabilization of Iraq are scheduled to begin. And as if the Bush administration's decision to legitimize Iran's destabilizing position as a power broker in Iraq weren't enough, on Tuesday German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier met with Rice in Washington and urged her to open a direct dialogue with Iran on its nuclear weapons program.

All of these recent developments demonstrate that the members of the Iran-led Islamist axis are actively pursuing and indeed progressing in their quest to encircle Israel and entrap the US. This they accomplish - both separately and together - while Israel and the US insist on doing everything they can to prevent any possibility of effectively meeting the rising threats. There is no doubt that the political leadership of at least one of these states has to snap out of its policy fog immediately. Our enemies have no consideration for our desire to ignore them.

While I might disagree with Glick on strategic issues (i. e., to what extent Israelis should withdraw from West Bank settlements) and I am agnostic about Rice's handling of the Iraqi political scene (I don't know enough), I certainly don't quarrel with Glick's main point. We are clearly in a fog. Our policymakers are unsure what to do. Is Iran (and by extension the Islamic world) somewhere-somehow reasonable or is it inextricably mired in a culture of religious and ethnic lunacy? This is a far larger question than even the Iraq War, which is only one benchmark. News like today's stampede in Pakistan, especially since it is not all that exceptional, is not encouraging to those who want to believe in reasonableness. And yet, ironically, it was this reasonableness upon which the administration depended in invading Iraq. The main argument of the war's critics (when you cut through all the partisian blather about WMDs) is that the invasion would only make things worse--a dark conclusion about the Islamic world with overtones that are not even remotely liberal. And so far these critics seem to have a point (at least partly).

But where does that leave us? These same critics, so far, have no concrete proposals whatsoever to deal with the situation. Isolationism would have been an option, but isolationism only works if both sides will play. Jihadism, which is about proselytizing by any means necessary, is the antithesis of that. Whatever comes from this conundrum, the solution will take serious national dialogue in this country and, ultimately, some consensus. The ultra-partisan political climate we are in is the enemy of this, yet the problem becomes more acute by the minute. Blink and you're in a nuclear-armed Middle East. The only people who should be happy about that are those who believe in population control, a long-descredited thesis.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:39 AM
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Early Pesach

ShrinkWrapped consults the Passover Haggadah for a Blog Commenters Taxonomy.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:26 AM
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April 8, 2006

May the force be with you!

The Israelis go Star Wars. (via Dean's World)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:57 AM
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The Man Who Would Be Indian

It's hard to believe people are still interested in Chief Smirking Fake (Ward Churchill), but the semi-professor's fifteen minutes of fame seem to have morphed into more than fifteen months, largely because adversaries like David Horowitz and Sean Hannity are keeping him alive. I suppose Horowitz's rationale for debating Churchill (at George Washington University the other day) was that the self-described Indian's propaganda has to be faced down and contradicted in front of gullible students, but my sense is this is a classic case of the cliché that those who lie down with dogs gets fleas. At least Horowitz had the grace to conduct himself like a grown-up (a definite win). By screeching at Churchill in his usual witless fashion, Hannity only served to make the braindead Ward look good. But that's our Sean.

Of course, Horowitz has another more important rationale. He's got a book to promote.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:21 AM
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Another Viagra ad for Fox News?

The Stones sing "Start Me Up" in Shanghai.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:58 AM
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April 7, 2006

Peaktalk talks peak

Excelent roundup on Peaktalk of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on Islamic extremism in Europe. (via PJ)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:13 PM
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Scenes from the Class Struggle at the Boston Globe

I had to laugh that Ellen Goodman is still engaging in the same o', same o' mainstream media bash of the blogosphere we have been seeing for several years now. This time the cause célèbre is supposed blogospheric disappointment at the release of journo Jill Carroll by her Islamofascist kidnappers. Goodman cites two examples out of thirty-three million for this, but never mind. Those are just 'Damn Statistics'. No doubt she's right - in the sense of the famous Pirandello title Right You Are If You Think You Are.

Of course some of us have a different view. As a honcho at Pajamas Media, it is my job (which I often fail at miserably) to keep an eye on what bloggers are saying and I didn't notice one person with this kind of ugly attitude toward Carroll until I read Goodman's article. It's the columnist's privilege, even responsibility, to go after the authors of these humanity-challenged blogs, if that's what they were, but tarring the other thirty-two plus million of us with the same brush is a tad propagandistic, wouldn't you say? So what's Goodman after here? Is this just more of the old ideological gotcha game? Goodman hasn't changed her views on much of anything since the mid-Sixties, though I can't say I've been paying enough attention to know for sure. But still, I think this is much more about money than it is about ideology. Since Goodman and I share a vaguely marxist youth, let's put it in those terms. It's a question of "class privilege." And from this class privilege flows ideology, rather than the other way around. Goodman's class has a lot of money invested in being left/liberal. Why else be so threatened by blogs as a form? It's only writing, after all. Just like a newspaper. Praise what you like and debate what you don't, like everything else.

(via Confederate Yankee)

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:40 PM
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Learning from the Iranians

The Mullahs have long been the masters of misdirection and now it seems their Hamas clients are learning the fine art of two-facedness:

A senior Hamas official said Friday the group is ready to accept a "two-state" solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the Hamas prime minister said he is unaware of plans by the Islamic militants to change their hard-line government platform.

The senior Hamas official said the two-state idea was to be raised by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh in a meeting Friday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate who advocates negotiations with
Israel.

The meeting was preceded by a series of contradictory statements from Hamas officials about whether a new government would recognize Israel in some fashion.

A "two-state" solution would appear to be a softening of Hamas' position and imply recognition of the Jewish state.

Haniyeh later told reporters that he would discuss a wide range of issues with Abbas, but that "there is nothing new about political positions" outlined in the Hamas government platform.

In its own weird way this can be seen as progress because, for whatever reasons (financial?),Hamas is beginning to feel constrained to talk this way. Of course it's hard to believe they will walk any of the walk to go along with this talk. But at some point, they may have no choice.

UPDATE: The State Dept. has just released the dollar amounts for US aid to the new Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. Vital Perspectives has the numbers. Another way to look at this, howeve, is that lack of aid is the best thing that ever happened to the Palestinians. The correlations that some have made between countries with high foreigh aid and high economic failure in Africa are certainly worth noting.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:42 AM
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Good News for Rolling Stone

The doughty rock and roll publication, which some years ago lost its edge and street cred, has been banned in China. [If there's anything more old fashioned than an aging hippie publication, it's a Chinese censor.-ed. Speak for yourself.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:27 AM
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Oil-for-Food in the French court

This is