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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page). Relocating to Boise? Use my realtor, neighbor, and friend, Cindy Smith csmith@1realtyone.com.
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Friday, May 21, 2004
A Shocking Proposal To Change Marriage Laws in New Zealand No, not the one that you are thinking about: A respected academic in New Zealand has recommended that incest between consenting adults be legalized, playing down any concerns about the genetic abnormalities resulting from inbreeding.I dare say that 20 years ago if someone had suggested that New Zealand legalize gay marriage, it would have received an equivalent response. Ann Coulter Goes After The Los Angeles Times I had a few laughs at Los Angeles Times editor John Carroll's bizarre complaints about biased journalism from Fox News when it first came out. Ann Coulter has a few razor sharp comments as well: This is the same L.A. Times that engaged in desperate, 11th-hour attempts to sabotage Arnold Schwarzenegger during the California recall election with lurid sex stories from anonymous assistant crudite girls who worked the craft services tables on Arnold's movies from the 1980s and were still trying to break into show biz 20 years later.Yup. While I have no intention of defending the Gropeinator, the failure of the Times to disclose the personal connections to important Democratic politicians of some of Arnold's accusers while running this story just before the election was just too obviously intended as political smear. That's $177,000 She Won't Be Able To Give The Democrats Barbra Streisand has been ordered to pay $177,000 to some environmentalists that she sued for having the umitigated gall to fly along the California coastline and photograph her house! Why, next thing, there will be peasants asserting that they have the same legal rights as Her Highness Barbra! This Is Not The First Time Bill Cosby Has Spoken Truth To Idiocy He wrote a very funny--and yet very powerful Wall Street Journal piece several years ago about Ebonics. Now he goes right into the lion's den: Bill Cosby was anything but politically correct in his remarks at a Constitution Hall bash in Washington commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. To everyone's astonishment, laughter and applause, Cosby mocked everything from urban fashion to black spending and speaking habits.Cosby, in a lot of respects, is a pretty doctrinaire liberal. He does know that the most effective way to break down racial barriers is to emphasize what black and white Americans have in common: a common language; a common religious heritage; a common citizenship as Americans (even though blacks were a bit late in being recognized as citizens). See if you can find re-runs of the mid-1960s television series I Spy. It starred Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, as two American spies running around the world undercover as professional tennis players. Ask yourself how far blacks would have advanced in America if the hip-hop black man had been the image that white Americans saw every week. The End Of Freedom I had mentioned some months back my concern that the gay rights crowd's success would inevitably mean the end of freedom for others. Professor Volokh also pointed to an example of a man sent to prison in Britain for carrying signs that argued that homosexuality was a sin. (The signs caused homosexuals to to attack this man, so he was sent to prison for inciting a riot.) There have been other incidents as well, such as a Canadian teacher who was suspended from teaching because of letters to the editor he wrote expressing his disapproval of homosexuality. The Supreme Court of British Columbia decided that expressing such opinions "undermine the ability of members of the targeted group, homosexuals, to attain individual self-fulfilment." (The fact that no one gives me money to write full-time inteferes with my "individual self-fulfilment" but I haven't filed suit over this--yet.) Now Professor Volokh gives another example of the homosexual campaign to abolish freedom--except for themselves. The ACLU filed suit against a printing company because they refused to print same-sex wedding invitations: SEATTLE -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington today announced an agreement settling a discrimination complaint filed by a gay man against a local business that refused to print invitations to his wedding with his same-sex partner. Under the agreement, the business owner has apologized for her actions and agreed to abide by Seattle’s anti-discrimination law in the future.How long before clergymen are allowed to have their "private opinions" about same-sex marriage, but can't refuse to perform such marriages? Whatever happened to the ACLU's commitment to freedom of conscience? Why are homosexuals so terrified of someone holding a differing opinion--even to the level of forcing a business to print wedding invitations? I wouldn't force an antiwar activist to go fight in Iraq. I wouldn't force them to pay for the war out of taxes (as long as they were willing to grant me the same freedom with respect to the government programs of which I disapprove). But homosexuals seem to be terrified that someone won't smile stupidly and say, "That's nice." I really don't see much argument in favor of sodomy laws, except for this. There seems to be a totalitarian nature to homosexuality--hence their desire to shut up anyone that disagrees with them. The more time that they have to spend trying to persuade a majority to repeal sodomy laws (as opposed to persuading a few judges instead), the less time they have to pursue their totalitarian campaign of suppressing freedom of speech. Will This Revive Anti-Catholic Bigotry? The Washington Post reports that: Forty-eight Roman Catholic members of Congress have warned in a letter to Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick of Washington that U.S. bishops will revive anti-Catholic bigotry and severely harm the church if they deny Communion to politicians who support abortion rights.I confess to being a little confused by this claim. The traditional anti-Catholic prejudice was of Protestants, fearful of politicians who put loyalty to the Pope ahead of loyalty to country. In 1700, or even 1800, this was not a particularly bizarre concern. The Pope had supported a variety of attempts at overturning the English monarchy in support of Catholic claimants. But who would be tempted into anti-Catholic prejudice today? Not the conservative Protestants of the United States--who overwhelmingly oppose abortion. I can see why the pro-choice wing of the Democratic Party (yes, there is a pro-life wing as well, small and stunted) might be prejudiced against Catholic politicians if they put their religion above their politics. I guess I don't understand why pro-choice Catholics remain in the Catholic Church. Why don't they go to a church that better suits their politics? Labels: abortion More On That Sarin Shell Citizen Smash has some more information that argues that the sarin shell is not old manufacture. I don't know if he is right, and there are some assumptions involved (which he clearly states). Certainly, he points out that just assuming that the shell is old manufacture that Hussein's government forgot to destroy is unjustified. John Kerry Is Anti-Semantic Over at Discriminations, John Rosenberg points out that Kerry's latest remarks about a pro-choice "litmus test" for Supreme Court justices are incomprehensible: It seems to me that Kerry either doesn't know what he means or is incapable of saying it, or perhaps he merely wants to be on several sides of every question. Some people interpret that as "nuance." I'm not one of them.Yes! Kerry really did call himself a "strict constructionist" on the Constitution! Read it here! Either Kerry has no idea what that means, means something entirely different from the common meaning of that phrase, or he intends to turn his back on nearly the entire Democratic Party after the election. Kerry did promise to have all U.S. troops out of Iraq real soon: If elected, Kerry promised that virtually all U.S. combat troops will be out of Iraq – away from "the death zone" – by the end of his first term.Let's see, that would mean by 2009. Does that mean that he expects Bush to still have U.S. troops there in 2009? I expect that they will be out a lot sooner than that. "It will not be like Vietnam," Kerry said. "I will get our troops home from Iraq with honor and with the interests of our country properly protected."I was worried at the beginning of the year how Bush was going to win re-election--he may not have to. Bush may just have to wait for Kerry to lose the election. With Enemies Like This... From the Chicago Sun-Times: BELOIT, Wis. -- Strip club owners are putting a little bada-bing in the presidential campaign by asking patrons to turn their eyes away from the stage for a moment to fill out a voter registration form -- and then vote against President Bush.I am utterly mystified by this. Regulation of "adult entertainment" seems to be entirely within the authority of the state and local governments. Unlike pornographic films, there doesn't seem to be any interstate commerce clause component to a strip club that would justify federal regulation. I can't think of anything that screams "teenager that didn't grow up" more than a strip club. When I visit places like Los Angeles and Dallas, where "gentlemen's clubs" seem to be everywhere, all that I can think is, "Grow up." Perhaps that is what Ocello is afraid of--that George Bush's America may encourage people to grow up. I would think Ocello would be more worried about what happens if we lose the war with al-Qaeda. I rather doubt that Taliban Afghanistan had many strip clubs. UPDATE: Another version of that story mentions that the strip club association is organized state by state, with somewhat different results elsewhere: In North Carolina, ACE chapter president David Baucom said he plans to distribute registration forms in his 16 clubs to encourage voting but won't be putting down the president — his business hasn't had any problems since Bush took office. Bush's Liberal Policies David Bernstein has a thoughtful piece about how many of Bush's policies would have won praise from liberals if Clinton had gotten them passed, and gives an example of how liberal criticisms of these programs often exactly match conservative criticisms of a decade or two ago. As Bernstein points out: The failure of liberals to give Bush credit for pursuing policies that they would normally desire reminds me of nothing as much as conservatives' unwillingness to give Bill Clinton credit for holding down federal spending during most of his term, signing the welfare reform bill, or encouraging free trade. In both cases, the president's opponents are consumed with a visceral distaste for the man, and see any "positive" policy he pursues as a mere cynical ploy to achieve additional power so he can puruse his "real" ultra-liberal (Clinton) or "right-wing"(Bush) agenda. (E.g., Mark Kleiman: "It's only marginally obvious that betraying conservative principles in the service of right-wing interests and political gain also doesn't bring you closer to liberalism.") I am more inclined to assume that they are both pragmatic politicians, doing what politicians generally do. Sure, Clinton was inclined toward liberalism, and Bush toward conservatism, but neither of them would let ideology get in the way of purely political ends on most policy matters (I think Clinton had a genuine, if somewhat shallow, commitment to racial equality, and Bush has a genuine commitment to his vision the War on Teror). In other words, Clinton and Bush are typical politicians trying to govern from the center while placating their parties' base, much more alike than they are different, and the constant attempt by partisans on either side to pretend otherwise is grating.I agree. In a lot of ways, Bush is "triangulating"--trying to buy off the people in the middle of the political spectrum so that he can stay in office, and do the things that Bush considers really important. Yes, this bothers me. Many of these programs are financially irresponsible--but would it be more financially responsible to lose the election, and have an even bigger spending liberal (like John Kerry) in the White House? Most importantly, we must win the War on Terror, and it is quite clear to me that the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party (as Howard Dean likes to call it) would indict Osama bin Laden, and declare victory. I'm not interested in living in the Islamic States of America, or having to negotiate with the Islamic European Union, both of which are likely possibilities if we pussy-foot around with al-Qaeda. KKK As A Terrorist Organization Apparently the KKK has taken to distributing leaflets on a university campus in response to the university's so-called diversity program. A professor wants them banned as a terrorist organization: LOUISVILLE, Ky. — University of Louisville professor Ede Warner has a unique plan to keep the Ku Klux Klan (search) off his campus: He wants the school to ban the group, then argue in court that it's a terrorist organization.Now, I can see that there might be problems prohibiting individual Klan members from exercising free speech. The Klan, however, is clearly a terrorist organization. Its lack of activity in recent years doesn't change anything, as far as I am concerned. It has a long history of terror, and anyone that wants to exercise their freedom of speech and yet feels the need to do so under the aegis of the KKK, is doing so for one of two reasons. 1. They are so utterly clueless that I can't take them seriously. 2. They are interested in trading on the Klan's trademark for terrorism. Banning the KKK from a college campus as a terrorist organization doesn't seem any different from banning al-Qaeda as a terrorist organization. Or have I missed something here? Interesting Collection of Quotes About Seymour Hersh Hersh is the New Yorker reporter who has been busily publishing stories about Abu Ghraib that allege a widespread campaign of sanctioned abuse. This article quotes a number of people who now think highly of Hersh's work--but just a few years ago, had tremendously harsh criticism of Hersh's integrity and sense. Thursday, May 20, 2004
Good News On The Book Front One of the university presses that I submitted my book to sent me some critical reviews that suggested that the book had real merit, but suggested a number of improvements that would make it into a publishable work, and the publisher recommended that I revise and resubmit. These revisions represent some substantial work, but what the heck, I'm not afraid of a little work. Concerning the "Where Was The Air Force" Claim A number of readers brought additional facts to my attention, which I have added to the end of that entry. The Nature of Sovereignty Randy Barnett has pointed to St. George Tucker's edition of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, quoting a well-known section about the limits of federal government power and judicial review, apparently as some authority that might support his claims about the supposedly libertarian nature of the U.S. Constitution. All very true--but Tucker's point was about the specific limits that the Constitution (including the Bill of Rights) imposed on the federal government. Tucker is quite clear in another section that Barnett seems to have missed, about the nature of state governmental power: All men being by nature equal, in respect to their rights, no man nor set of men, can have any natural, or inherent right, to rule over the rest.I've put the important points in bold with respect to Barnett's claims about the libertarian nature of the original Constitution. The limitations on state governments are written into their constitutions, and subject to the majority altering or amending them. These limitations do not come from Barnett's ahistorical claim of the early Republic as a libertarian utopia. UPDATE: Here's another statement by Tucker that contradicts Barnett's claim: The state governments not only retain every power, jurisdiction, and right not delegated to the United States, by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, but they are constituent and necessary parts of the federal government; and without their agency in their politic character, there could he neither a senate, nor president of the United States; the choice of the latter depending mediately, and of the former, immediately, upon the legislatures of the several states in the union. Interrogation Techniques In The Middle East A few days ago, I ran into an article by Phyllis Chesler that was so bizarre that I was reluctant to take it seriously. As I have continued digging around, and asking people with significant Middle Eastern experience, I am having no problem confirming the most outrageous parts of the claim. Warning: This is a pretty rough article about a culture of child sexual abuse. Despite enormous and continuing denial on the part of left and liberal ideologues and the media, we are facing an exceedingly pathological strain of Islamofascist terrorism. So a crucial question must be asked: from a psychological and anthropological point of view, what kind of culture produces human bombs, glorifies mass murderers, and supports humiliation-based revenge?I found a surprising amount of evidence that in spite of Islam's strong prohibitions and strong cultural taboos against homosexuality, the culture is awash in the pursuit of young boys as sexual partners. I recall reading that part of what brought Mullah Omar to prominence in Afghanistan in the 1990s was that he stepped in and said, "NO" when two Afghani warlords got into a very public fight over which of them had the right to rape some identical twin boys that had been captured in battle. In Afghanistan, this even appears in popular song: Pashto literature is recorded in manuscript form from the 16th century on. Its love songs are wild: “There’s a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach. But, alas, I cannot swim ...”I ran into a reference to this song being popular on an Iraqi blog a few days ago. I asked a co-worker who spent quite a bit of time with the Air Force in the Middle East, who is fluent in Turkish, and has spent a lot of time traveling around that part of the world. He confirmed that while homosexuality is an enormous taboo, the pursuit of young boys for sex is rampant--but that an adult man being the recipient is incredibly shameful. (This is actually quite consistent--rather like the situation in the classical world.) The sexual humiliation pictures are then easily understood as a method of breaking the will of suspected terrorists to resist--and having pictures to blackmail them makes perfect sense. This co-worker had been an interrogator in the Air Force, primarily working on criminal cases involving U.S. servicemen. He tells me that interrogators always worked in pairs as a restraint on each other, just in case one or the other lost his temper and was tempted to abuse a prisoner. His reaction to these pictures is that this looks like a bunch of drunken party animals at play. Labels: child sexual abuse, terrorism Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Is This The New Lie About 9/11? My sister, who is a devoted Michael Moore fan, sent me an email with this amazing claim: "Where was our Air Force on Sept 11, 2001?"Typically the government sends airplanes out for suspected drug smugglers, unidentified planes, or planes that are off course. Unfortunately, none of these planes were unidentified, and there was nothing about the behavior of the planes until they turned off their transponders to make them suspicious. Where do you get this claim that there will be fighters escorting an errant plane in less than five minutes? Remember that unlike the Cold War, we didn't keep a big chunk of the fleet airborne. It takes five minutes for a pilot to get his helmet on, into his plane, engines started, and off the runway. Even with afterburners on, a fighter plane covers about 30 miles a minute. Even if a plane was already in the air when it was ordered to intercept, a five minute intercept means that you have to be within 150 miles of the target to get there. The first collision into the WTC was at first believed to be an accident (there have been similar accidents in New York City in the past--a bomber flew into the Empire State Building during World War II). It was not until the second plane collided that it became apparent that this was no accident. Between 9:03 AM (when the second plane collision confirmed that this was no accident), and 10:10 AM (when the last plane crashed), is one hour and seven minutes. During this time, it was unclear how widespread the problem was. If you are suggesting that the Bush Administration intentionally allowed this to take place, I am just flabbergasted. This would have been CLEARLY not in his interests. The economic destruction 9/11 caused ($27.2 billion dollars in direct costs, and tens of billions in medium-term indirect costs), and the loss of 2.5 million jobs that came from it, meant that until quite recently, it was still up in the air whether Bush would be able to get re-elected or not. The cost of the war has been a major drag on economic growth, and caused enormous problems for the Bush Administration's foreign policy--which before 9/11, was to disengage as much as possible from foreign military intervention. At the beginning of 2001, Bush had managed to upset a lot of Europeans because he had expressed considerable skepticism that the U.S. needed to be involved in the problems of Africa, and the Balkans. (The Balkans and Somalia interventions had been expensive in lives and money.) The events following upon 9/11 forced a complete reversal of his foreign policy. Even on Iraq, Bush and Blair had been discussing replacing the broad economic sanctions against Iraq with "targeted" sanctions, partly because it was clearly not working. There are some questions as to whether Bush and his team had adequately prepared for al-Qaeda attacks. It appears that like the Clinton Administration, they perceived al-Qaeda as primarily a hazard to U.S. interests overseas. This is not as silly as it sounds. I can remember reading serious work about 15 years ago about terrorists that made the point that the U.S. had been safe from most of the Middle Eastern problems because of something called the 12 hour rule. Apparently, psychologists studying the behavior of terrorists had noticed that nearly all terrorist acts took place within 12 hours travel time from home to target. Apparently, the more the terrorist's familiar environment changed, the more likely he was to chicken out of an attack that might get him killed. (There is some reason to suspect that Iraqi involvement in the WTC bombings of 1993 may have been ignored because it made it simpler to prove a criminal conspiracy against the participants: What incentive would the US government have had to overlook these changes, stipulate that Abdul Basit and Yousef were the same person, and turn away from any suggestion that Saddam was behind the first WTC attack? One can only speculate.A number of other factors certainly played a part in this tragedy. There was an existing FAA rule that prohibited airlines from searching more than two Arab passengers per flight. It might not have done any good, because Logan Airport security was so lax, but there were may failures that compounded on this. I can tell you that security at many airports before 9/11 was really, really bad. I walked through Salt Lake City security in 2000 with a lockback knife in my pocket--I completely forgot it. The guard looked at it, and let me get on the plane with it! I have at least one friend in California who told me that he had passed through security a few years back with a .22 pistol in his carry-on bag--he completely forgot about it, and it wasn't caught. An additional issue may be that there is an Iraqi immigrant--a former member of the Iraqi Republican Guard--who has been of interest for his links to the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995 (he resembles John Doe #2 that the FBI searched for briefly)--and he was working for security at Logan Airport at some point in the late 1990s. I really don't know meaningful any of this, but Senator Spector of Pennsylvania was QUITE concerned about these connections earlier this year. The rule prohibiting the counterterrorism division of the FBI from sharing information with the criminal investigation division was also a problem. One of the members of the 9/11 Commission, Jamie Gorelick, actually wrote that rule, and was explicit that it was above and beyond what the law actually required. Certainly that rule made sense, from a civil liberties standpoint, but the consequence was that an FBI agent in Minnesota who tried to alert the Washington HQ about Zacharias Moussaoui's peculiar flight training was unable to get the information to people that might have been able to use it. An FBI agent in Phoenix who was noticing some odd patterns of Arabs taking flight training was also stymied by his efforts to raise concerns. The CIA and FBI were not communicating, a combination of a long tradition of CIA contempt for the FBI, as well as an intentionally created separation of their spheres of action based on understandable, but it turns out, destructive efforts to keep foreign intrigue "out there." The FBI was also prohibited for a very long time from attending any political or religious group meeting--or even searching the Internet--to gather intelligence until such time as they had evidence that criminal acts were involved, or likely to be involved. This meant that for many years, there were Americans warning of fierce anti-American rhetoric being preached in some mosques in the U.S.--but they could not even go in and listen. This rule made a certain amount of sense, considering the abuses during the Vietnam War era by various state and federal law enforcement agencies, but it also meant that the FBI was pretty well blind to a lot of these threats. One problem now with trying to understand what happened is that significant parts of the bureaucracy have an interest in protecting themselves from accusations of incompetence. This is no surprise, and it may not even been intentionally deceptive. People have a wonderful capacity for persuading themselves that the decisions that they made five years ago were right then, and right now. For example, the Czech Republic's intelligence service the day after 9/11 realized that they had seen Mohammed Atta before--in April, meeting in Prague with the Iraqi intelligence service officer assigned to the Czech capital. Additional information has come up in the last few days that seems to confirm that this was probably Mohammed Atta who had the meeting. But the FBI steadfastly denies that this could be true, because they have no record of Atta leaving the U.S. during this period. Like Atta couldn't have traveled on a passport using another name? There are times when war is the ONLY solution to a problem. We are engaged in a deathmatch with al-Qaeda. They will not compromise or bend. The only way to them to stop is either: 1. Withdraw support from Israel; exterminate all Jews; and become Islamic--and that would be the Taliban form of Islam, with burkhas for the women; no education for women; and no divorce (except at the man's whim). They have stated that a fully Islamic world is the only alternative they consider acceptable. 2. Utterly destroy al-Qaeda. We could, I suppose, take a third course: establish a "national security state" that would allow them to keep trying to hurt us, but making it impossible. But that would mean surveillance cameras everywhere; racial profiling; extraordinary measures at the borders to keep out WMDs and terrorists. The sarin-filled shell that exploded on Saturday, for example, is 155mm in diameter, or about 6 inches. It contained about three liters of unmixed sarin, which would weigh about three kilograms (maybe a bit more--I don't know the exact density of sarin). (It is a good thing that the terrorists didn't realize what they had--it makes you wonder how many more like it are still sitting out there, or like the mustard shell that was also found about two weeks ago in Iraq.) The 100% lethal dose of sarin is about 40 milligrams per minute per cubic meter of air. Released over a minute (say, at the intake to a public auditorium), three kilograms of sarin provides enough to make lethal 75,000 liters of air. This quantity of sarin is something that can fit in a briefcase. (However, it turns out that 75,000 liters of air isn't that big of a room.) UPDATE: I'm told by pilots that being way off course--or even having our transponder not working--would not even get you any air traffic control attention, much less fighter intercepts. A numer of people have pointed out to me that even governments with extraordinarily strong traditions of surveillance and control have trouble stopping terrorists. Look at Russia with the Chechens. It turns out that the Air Force did scramble jets pretty quickly--but this ABC News coverage indicates why it didn't do any good: "I picked up the line and identified myself to the Boston Center controller," said Air National Guard Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins, the mission crew chief for the exercise. "He said, 'Uh, we have a hijacked aircraft and I need you to get some sort of fighters out here to help us out."The plane to the Pentagon was also too close by the time fighters were in the air: "Someone came in and said, 'Mr. Vice President, there's a plane out 50 miles,'" Mineta said.Concerning United Airlines Flight 93, there were fighters that were close--but they weren't armed: The closest fighters were two F-16 jets flown by pilots on a training mission from Selfridge Air National Guard Base near Detroit. Labels: terrorism The Good News From Iraq Visit this site. This guy has gathered all sorts of good news about what is going right in Iraq--and there is a lot of it. But if you listen to NPR, or CBS, or most of the rest of the leftist "news" media, you aren't going to hear very much of it. Some of these stories I have seen before--and quite a number I haven't. Send it to your leftist friends, and suggest that they might want to start watching and reading less biased "news" sources. Why Can't We Have Leaders As Smart As a Chess Player? Russian chess player Garry Kasparov's article in the Wall Street Journal (free registration required) is well worth reading: We have seen 25 years of anti-Western propaganda and hatred emanating from Iran, not only against Israel and the U.S. but against the liberal values that make up the core of our civilization. The effect has been to so polarize the Muslim world that we are left with two unappealing groups. On one side you have those who rally support by exhortation against a common foe: America and Israel. We may call this the Arafat model. By appearing to be the only viable leader in Palestine he has received billions of dollars from the European Union to prop up his corrupt organization and to fund terrorism. Hijacking, suicide bombings, hostage-taking--this "Palestinian know-how" has been exported throughout the region.Worth reading in full. Senator Hollings Comes Up With A New Theory For The Iraq War Instead of claiming that it is about oil, he insists that it was about securing Israel: Led by Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Charles Krauthammer, for years there has been a domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel's security is to spread democracy in the area. Wolfowitz wrote: "The United States may not be able to lead countries through the door of democracy, but where that door is locked shut by a totalitarian deadbolt, American power may be the only way to open it up." And on another occasion: Iraq as "the first Arab democracy ... would cast a very large shadow, starting with Syria and Iran but across the whole Arab world." Three weeks before the invasion, President Bush stated: "A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example for freedom for other nations in the region."Of course, there wouldn't be any other reason why we might want to promote democracy in the region, now would there be, Senator Hollings? Like discouraging terrorism, and bringing peace to the region? Even Hollings admits: Every president since 1947 has made a futile attempt to help Israel negotiate peace. But no leadership has surfaced amongst the Palestinians that can make a binding agreement. President Bush realized his chances at negotiation were no better. He came to office imbued with one thought -- re-election. Bush felt tax cuts would hold his crowd together and spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats.It does seem as though significant chunks of the Democratic Party are really, really intent on moving a big chunk of American Jews into the Republican Party--and Hollings' column may well assist in that process. Oh, and great timing, since this column appeared on May 6: Of course there were no weapons of mass destruction.Whoops! UPDATE: David Bernstein has some more substantial criticisms of Hollings' dumbness. I Guess Someone Who Matters Reads Blogs Chief Wiggles posted on May 15th about his experience in Iraq as a military interrogator, and asked: If you know anyone in the media, please pass the following on.And three days later: Tony Snow, from Fox News, will be interviewing the Chief on his radio show, live at 7:00 AM MDT, that is 9:00 AM Eastern. Adding A New Iraqi Blogger To My Blogroll This guy has somewhat better English than many of the others. He has a description of the surprising changes in the bureaucracy required to get an interim passport: Today, my brother in law and I went to the passports office to get an interim travel document, cause he wants to travel to Syria for some work, so I decided to get a document for me , who knows, probably I might travel oneday. Updated Links On my web page I have a fairly large collection of either primary source documents in American history, or links to them. All of the colonial militia law links to the Colonial Connecticut Records website were out of date. I have since updated them. Marvelous Parody Professor Volokh points to this very depressing review of an ant farm on Amazon.com, and says, "How sad." Uncle Milton's Giant Ant Farm is a fun, interactive way to teach children ages 5 and up about unceasing, backbreaking toil and the cold, inescapable reality of death. My little ones had a front-row seat as worker ants labored, day in and day out, until they inevitably died of exhaustion, their futile efforts all for naught. The ant farm, complete with stackable tiny ant barns, see-through 'Antway' travel tubes, and connecting 'Antports,' is a child's window into the years of thankless, grueling labor that await them as worker drones in our post-industrial society. It's the fun way to teach your kids to accept their miserable fate stoically.I went back to the original source, and I conclude that this is one of the great pieces of parody, doubtless written by a recent graduate of an Ivy League university, disgusted with the similar sounding nonsense they have been reading for the last four years. Someone Didn't Like Troy From Julie Neidlinger's blog: At about the third or fourth scene featuring Brad Pitt's backside, I turned to my friend Naomi. That's Right, No Connection Between Iraq and Al-Qaeda Except that Iraq has, indeed, turned into flypaper for al-Qaeda: MADRID, May 19 (Reuters) - A Spanish judge accused three Algerians on Wednesday of belonging to al Qaeda and forming part of a network that recruited Islamists across Europe to go to Iraq and fight the U.S.-led occupation.Now, it is very, very important for the left to continue to argue that there was no connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Perhaps there wasn't before March of 2003--but there certainly is now. Al-Qaeda members who are attacking U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians in Iraq are not available to attack the United States. This seems like a clear advantage. This Lawyer Doesn't Chase Ambulances... He waits at the hospital. Overlawyered links to some pictures of a motor home prominently labeled as a "mobile law office"--parked in front of a fire hydrant, in the "physicians-only" section of the parking lot at a New York City hospital. Requiring Condoms in Porn Films Random Mentality has an amusing comment about proposals to require condoms in the making of porn: I understand the serious health ramifications from the recent announcements that two major stars apparently contracted AIDS and shut down the industry. But how are you going to enforce this? On-site inspections? The Untouchables-style raids? Prediction: If this goes through, we'll see litigation about whether condoms infringe on the right to freedom of expression and whether there are "less restrictive" alternatives available. Abandoning All Pretenses of Objectivity The Fourth Rail does a pretty good job of demonstrating that the New York Times, BBC, and CBS have decided that finding WMDs in Iraq isn't a terribly important story--at least compared to the Pope's birthday, the Ramallah Film Festival, and similarly important news events. The hatred of Bush--or perhaps their hope for the Iraqi insurgents to win--is so strong that these major news organizations have stuffed what should have been one of the most important stories of the day behind what are really newspaper filler stories. Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Are We Talking About Football Or Abu Ghraib? From an AP news story: Members of the eight-person panel said their investigation had confirmed collegiate athletics nationwide are undermined by a "hyper-competitive recruiting 'arms race' that is complicated by the presence of big money, lucrative media and easy access to alcohol and sex."Wouldn't it be amusing if universities decided that they should be promoting virtue, sobriety, and self-discipline? It might spread throughout the society--even into the military, and with enough pressure, into elected officials. Flagrant Abuse of Presidential Power At least, that's what the Democrats are calling President Bush making recess appointments: Democrats first threatened to hold up Bush's nominees in March, one month after Bush gave Pryor an almost two-year stint on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. The president in January gave Pickering a one-year term on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.Am I missing something? The President uses an authority explicitly granted by the Constitution to fill vacancies on a temporary basis, and this is a flagrant abuse of presidential power? Larry Solum has an explanation of the conflict over this here, but to call it a "flagrant abuse" seems pretty over the top. Stolen? Or was it perhaps just terribly, terribly confused about its species identity? LONDON (Reuters) - Thieves stole a rare penguin called Piglet from a sea life center in northeast England and dumped it in a garden, police said Tuesday. Is This The Only Way To Get People To Watch The News? I was disappointed that CNN Headline News and Fox News both feel the need to throw in the occasional musical group to attract an audience--it's not like there's nothing important going on in the world--but this takes the cake: TORONTO (Reuters) - A Canadian producer is poised to unveil Spanish versions of its Internet and cable television news show, in which anchors deliver the day's top stories in the buff, this week, company officials say.I'm guessing that "more conservative markets" is a relative term. The Hazards of Living in a "Gun Culture"? A very sad story, and a reminder of what happens when handguns are everywhere: Dean Davis was accidentally killed as he watched DVDs with his friends when one put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger as a "prank", believing it could not fire.Oh yes, this was in London--where handguns are completely illegal. Reasonable Gun Control Laws Alabama's legislature sent a bill to the governor, which he declined to sign as is. He made some requests for changes. The bill is an example of "reasonable gun control" and the governor's concerns are also reasonable: A proposed gun law inspired by the January shooting deaths of two Athens police officers now awaits Governor Bob Riley's signature to become law. Governor Riley was expected to sign it Monday, but instead he changed it and sent it back to the legislature.If gun control advocates were really what they claim to be--supporters of laws designed to disarm the mentally ill, the criminal, and those who are underage, we could probably pass reasonable gun control laws. Privately Funded Rocket Reaches Space It was only suborbital, but it is nice to see the private sector going after this. Our government has somewhat more important actions to take for a while, such as exterminating al-Qaeda: The Civilian Space eXploration Team's 6.5m (21ft) GoFast rocket is understood to have exceeded an altitude of 100km. Is The Solicitor General's Office Telling The Truth? Eric Muller over at Is That Legal? is suggesting that the Solicitor General's office may have engaged in semantic gamesmanship in oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the question of whether the executive branch has approved mild torture of al-Qaeda members to get information on terrorist acts. I just can't imagine that the Solicitor General wouldn't be scrupulously concerned about the well-being and rights of al-Qaeda members, can you? Oh, that's right, I guess I can imagine a reason. For those who haven't heard: we are in a deathmatch with al-Qaeda. At the end of this, we are either going to be Islamic State of America (burkhas required, homosexuals will be stoned to death), or al-Qaeda and its members will be dead. There is no middle ground on this. I am not keen on torture for both moral and practical reasons, but let's stop kidding ourselves that every "i" must be dotted and every "t" must be crossed when dealing with these monsters. Instapundit Thinks The Country Is Leading the Courts on Gay Marriage Instapundit points to a web site where fishermen are discussing gay marriage, and decides: As I've said before, the country is moving faster than the courts on this issue.If that were the case, gay marriage laws would be passed by the legislatures, not imposed by the courts. The Independent, Britain's Alternative To Journalistic Competence I have never been impressed with The Independent, one of the British newspapers. It isn't a Page 3 girls sort of British tabloid, but it seems to have much the same journalistic standards. A friend of mine moved to Europe a couple of years ago. He is suffering under a mixture of European journalism and an abiding hatred for George Bush, who he describes as a "religious fanatic." He told me about an article in The Independent concerning the G8 conference being held at Sea Island. The article is laughably ignorant, when it isn't engaged in amazingly obvious bias: Bush holds his summit amid the toxic waste sitesGee, after that description of the wildlife, can you blame him for doing so? But critics will point out this is another case where the environmental facts belie the President's words. For there is an unhappy parallel with Venice, in that ecological danger lurks over the horizon.Government treatment programmes? Do they mean "Superfund sites"? There are a number of Superfund sites in Beaufort County, where Sea Island is located. But as examination of this list of National Priority List Superfund sites shows, these were all designated many years before George Bush took office. Blaming President Bush for these makes as much sense as blaming him for Pearl Harbor. Before the clean-up began, shrimpers used to dock their boats in one of the creeks so the pollution would kill the barnacles on their hulls.Oh dear. More ignorance parading as journalism. Barnacles are salt-water organisms. For decades, ships have taken the Ship Canal from Seattle's harbor into Lake Union. After a couple of days, the barnacles die and fall off. My father told me that this was already standard practice when he was a merchant seaman in the 1930s. Creeks are generally freshwater. Even in an estuary, creeks are generally fresher water than the ocean. It isn't the pollution that necessarily kills the barnacles, but the lack of salt. The most visible sign of pollution is the Hercules factory, emblemised by its two tall stainless steel chimneys gorging large clouds of vapour over the causeway leading to Sea Island. Its smell - a cocktail of glue and stewed cabbage - hangs like a pall.I've added the emphasis to that. I certainly don't see any reason to assume that the improvement was because of George Bush, but neither is there any reason to see the problems of the area as Bush's fault. Shock of shocks, they interview someone who says things are better than they used to be! But the summit - and George Bush's boasts - are unlikely to make things much better. Virtually none of the millions spent on the G8 will find its way into environmental projects. On the road approach to Sea Island last week they were busy stuffing in mature palm trees and erecting quaint lighting. But there isn't much else.And why, exactly, should money being spent on the G8 summit be spent on cleaning up the environment? You can see from the quote from Fendig that there has been no acceleration--but neither does he say that nothing is happening. Wouldn't you like to see the full quotation from Fendig? This article could be a worthwhile argument that the U.S. hasn't done enough for the environment, but to claim that Sea Island belies Bush's claim that it will "showcase the complementary benefits of environmental stewardship and a strong economy"? There might be some case to be made for this counterargument, but this article doesn't present a single piece of evidence that Bush policies have done anything to worsen conditions there. At best, you might be able to argue that he hasn't done anything to improve conditions that were not underway. But that's not the claim this article makes. I would like to think that this article is just a sign of a reporter who can't think. It does, however, seem more like an example of a reporter whose hatred of Bush caused him to fit every quote and fact into the "Bush is evil" theme, regardless of appropriateness. As the saying used to be in biology class, "draw the curve, then plot the points." Monday, May 17, 2004
Clueless Movie Marketing Well, we knew Hollywood would get past its ferocious hatred of Christians once they saw the dollar signs from The Passion of the Christ. But it does seem as though they are still completely clueless about the dominant religion in the United States: A first effort in this regard suggests that Hollywood still has a good deal to learn. On May 28, Saved, described as a "small, irreverent comedy" starring Mandy Moore and Macaulay Caulkin, will open in selected theaters. The movie (begun before the success of Gibson's film) is set in an evangelical Christian school in Maryland "where 'Jesus loves you' is a mantra — and an order." The film features a teenage romance in which a girl becomes pregnant as a consequence of trying to save her boyfriend from damnation as a homosexual. Meanwhile, her mother, a widow, while working to get "right with God," has an affair with the school's handsome and "hip" leader, Pastor Skip (who is "given to complimenting his students on being 'phat'"). Moore plays a schoolgirl depicted as "an overzealous do-gooder who ends up framing others for her crime in her eagerness to convert the unconvinced."I would suggest that Hollywood might be more successful marketing this movie to ACLU members. If they decide that they want to make a pile of money on a movie, I can tell them how: turn Nat Brandt's The Town That Started the Civil War into a film. It is about the Oberlin Rescuers trial in 1858. It has a serious conflict: slavecatchers and U.S. marshals capture a runaway slave in Ohio, and try to take him back South. Oberlin College's students and faculty surround the hotel, with rifles, and demand freedom for the slave. It has social significance, with the Rescuers insisting that the laws of God take precedence over the laws of men. It has a trial, with all the drama that a trial entails. It has political machinations in the background, as abolitionist and slaveowner forces struggle over a jury. It has a wonderful reminder that whites were prepared to put themselves at enormous risk to end slavery. It has a great closing sequence, as we see John Brown reading about the case--and becoming increasingly committed to the Harpers' Ferry Raid. So why are properties like this sitting unused? But there's no sex; no homosexuals; no cannibalism; and no torture (although, if Hollywood insists, we can have the slave flashback to being whipped). And yes, I am available to consult on this project--for a price! Marriage: It Doesn't Mean Exactly The Same Thing To Everyone From the Boston Herald's coverage of the gay marriages in Massachusetts: Yarbrough, a part-time bartender who plans to wear leather pants, tuxedo shirt, and leather vest during the half-hour ceremony, has gotten hitched to Rogahn, a retired school superintendent, first in a civil commitment in Minnesota, then in Canada, and now in Massachusetts, the first U.S. state to recognize gay marriage. Generation X Christianity A reader pointed me to an interesting article about the emergence of the next generation of Chrstianity: Two decades after baby boomers invented the suburban megachurch, which removed crosses or stained-glass images of Jesus in favor of neutral environments, their children are now wearing "Jesus Is My Homeboy" T-shirts.No surprise. There's a whole generation of kids growing up with tremendous emotional hurt, abandoned either literally or emotionally by parents who were too focused on "solving" their problems with divorce. The tales my son tells me of his peers just make me want to cry. Understanding Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Professor Volokh blogs Paul Craig Roberts' latest defense of his counterintuitive position that laws that discriminate based on race are wrong, but that Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was wrong because it struck down laws that required racial discrimination. Roberts's response includes this amazing claim: When the Supreme Court permitted racial segregation under Louisiana law regulating public transportation in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, it did so on the grounds that the state law required equal facilities and that separate accommodation was a social convention, akin to earlier "ladies' cars" on public trains, that did not apply "to nurses attending children of the other race" and did "not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other."If segregation had been a "social convention"--it would have required no legal teeth to enforce it. Segregating restrooms based on sex was, until a few years back, truly a social convention--as some local governments discovered in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with no legal prohibition on using restrooms intended for the opposite sex. (I would expect that you can find either state laws or local ordinances on the subject now.) It was precisely because racial segregation was not a social convention that Louisiana needed to pass a law segregating railroad cars by race. This law was remarkable not merely for requiring segregation, but even providing for "penalties for the refusal or neglect of the officers, directors, conductors, and employees of railway companies to comply with the act...." In short, Louisiana didn't trust the free market and its response to "social convention" to be sufficient to racially segregate railroad cars; the government's heavy hand was required. In other words, even segregationists had to accept equality before the law as the operative de jure principle. In his famous dissent, Justice Harlan was concerned that the Louisiana law would allow class distinctions to enter the legal system in the form of race distinctions. The Louisiana law was particularly dangerous because blacks and whites were economically as well as racially distinct.If blacks and whites had really been economically distinct, there would have been no need for such a law. Blacks could not have afforded to buy first class tickets. If whites had been following a "social convention" about segregation, and were economically distinct from blacks, they would not have been buying tickets in the lower class cars with whites. I have been reading Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction, and one of the points that he makes is that racial segregation of railroads came about not because of blacks and whites being economically distinct, but because they were becoming economically indistinct. An increasingly middle-class black population did not want to sit in the same cars with men who were chewing tobacco, drinking, and otherwise behaving badly. The reminder that the important distinction was not race, but class, was offensive to poor whites (who desperately needed someone to look down upon). Politicians, of course, knew full well that the way to elective office was to appeal to the worst instincts of white voters. The WMD Discovery The leftists, I understand, are already trying to claim that the Bush Administration planted the sarin shell, and the mustard gas shell. (Citizen Smash has a roundup of discussion, including pointers to the leftist claims.) If they were going to plant evidence, why one shell each? And why now? It would have been far more persuasive if a small quantity (say, a few dozen to a few hundred) had been found in a remote desert ammo dump about three months after Baghdad had been overrun. Certainly it would have been within U.S. capabilities to have manufactured a small batch of "Iraqi" shells containing sarin or VX, and then planted them in a legitimate Iraqi dump. We wouldn't have needed to provide access to them (for safety reasons--they're leaking!) to any outsider inspectors. Finding individual shells suggests that somewhere out there is a large ammo dump that contains at least a few sarin and mustard gas shells. The people who have turned them into improvised explosive devices (IEDs) obviously don't know what they have, or they would have substituted a high explosive shell in these IEDs. Having two chemical warfare shells show up so far suggests that there are probably more out there, sitting either in a dump, or sitting in someone's workshop, where they are being turned into IEDs. Why do I say that there are almost more out there? Because it's pretty obvious that Iraq didn't make one each of sarin and one of mustard gas. Think about the problems that you use to learn statistics, the one involving tagging fish, throwing them into a lake, and then pulling out fish a week later. You count the tagged fish, and based on the number you threw in, and the percentage of the fish that you find with tags, you can calculate the number of fish in the lake. The two chemical weapon shells found so far are the "tagged fish." It seems likely that a lot of others haven't been found yet. UPDATE: There's one troublemaker who is saying, "Don't jump to conclusions--it may not be sarin." That troublemaker is Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. If this was a plant, I would expect Rumsfeld to be a little more certain. Labels: Iraqi WMDs So Much For Federalism Professor Volokh points out that an NPR story last night reported as a matter of fact, that homosexuals who get married in Massachusetts and return home will have a basis for suing to demand that their home states recognize their marriage--and that both the state and federal Defense Of Marriage Acts "would conflict with constitutional provisions...." Volokh points out that NPR's statements are: 1. At best, one-sided, and actually inaccurate about the state of the law concerning recognition of out of state marriages. 2. Not reporting, but opinion. If the federal courts decide that every state must recognize homosexual marriages performed in other states, this would be a strong argument for a Federal Marriage Amendment. Remember who is pushing to abolish federalism here: it is homosexual marriage advocates like NPR. Hmmm. Where's the Liberal Protest? Oh that's right: it's being done to Christians by Muslims, so it's okay: Governor Ahmed Sani of Zamfara State, has ordered the demolition of all churches in the state, as he launched the second phase of his Sharia project yesterday. Syrians in North Korea Why were Syrians in North Korea? And was the "large equipment" they were with involved in the explosion? Syrian technicians accompanying unknown equipment were killed in the train explosion in North Korea on April 22, according to a report in a Japanese newspaper.Protective suits? And why was the explosion on their train so big that it was measured by seismometers? TOKYO -- Japan's Kyodo News, citing numerous diplomatic sources in Vienna, reported Saturday that the force of April 22's train explosion at the North's Ryonchon Station was about that of an earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale, which would have required about 800 tons of TNT -- about eight times that officially announced by North Korea.That explosion is a bit small for a nuclear explosion. I would also expect that if it had been nuclear, the U.S. would have already reported it. (Nuclear explosions have a distinctive signature, which the Vela satellites look for.) Thanks to Instapundit for the links. UPDATE: A reader with a Los Alamos address (and perhaps deserving a bit more weight because of it), tells me that Vela responsiblities were taken over by the NavStar satellites that provide your GPS signal. Nerve Gas Shell Explodes In Iraq I guess the WMDs were there, after all: BAGHDAD, Iraq - A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent exploded near a U.S. military convoy, but there were no casualties, the U.S. military said Monday.UPDATE: It turned out the sarin didn't mix correctly; hence the lack of deaths. It also appears that the Iraqi Survey Group has found mustard gas as well: Two weeks ago, U.S. military units discovered mustard gas that was used as part of an IED. Tests conducted by the Iraqi Survey Group and others concluded the mustard gas was "stored improperly," which made the gas "ineffective." The Fashion Police: A Really Dumb Idea, But I Am Sympathetic Professor Volokh points to a bill being considered in Louisiana to prohibit wearing your pants so low that your underwear shows. Demonstrating that Professor Volokh isn't a doctrinaire libertarian, he argues that it's proper to regulate some public behavior on the grounds that it's offensive to passersby, especially because of its sexual suggestiveness -- and so do you unless you think that people should be free to have sex on the street corner.He also thinks the bill is pretty dumb because if this law passes, it would be illegal to wear low-riding pants that show your underwear -- but perfectly legal to take off those pants and just walk around in the underwear.Yup. That, however, wouldn't be fashionable, so I think there is little danger of that happening. This wearing your pants so low that your underwear shows seems to have come out of the rap subculture, apparently because you aren't allowed belts in jail (for fear of suicide). Consequently, members of the criminal underclass started wearing pants without belts outside of jail, I guess to inform everyone, "I'm really baaaaad. They took away my belt at the jail, and I am all ready to go back into the joint." What had started out as a sign that you were used to spending time in jail, through the wonders of MTV, became a fashion statement for privileged white suburban kids. I really, really sympathize with the Louisiana legislators who are pushing this bill, even though I think it is a waste of time. This isn't just a stupid fashion statement of identification with the lowest and scummiest part of the society. It is an open identification with criminality. Imagine if wearing the robes and hood of the KKK or Nazi stormtrooper uniforms became a fashion statement--and visiting the mall felt like a Klan rally. I think you would see liberals pushing similar bills. The difference, of course, is that MTV isn't going to feature music videos that make Klan or Nazi attire fashionable. (If they did, both Klan and Nazi attire would be everywhere.) I Would Love To See The Whole Speech... Even the excerpts sound a lot more sensible than I would have expected: WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) - Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," told graduates at his alma mater they have a chance to become the new greatest generation by winning the war on terrorism.Instead of a diatribe about how Bush has caused the terrorists to hate America, he is calling for the next generation to help win the war on terrorism. That's surprising. Sorry, I Don't Believe This Story Unless, of course, this is one of those stories that has been stuck in someone's in-box for half a century: A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they are still childless - they weren't having sex.Hmmm. We live in a culture where you can't get away from sex and extraordinarily strong hints of sex: in movies and on television. Where were these people living? John Kerry's Daughter Takes A Stand In The Culture War At least, that's how I would interpret this picture of what she work to the Cannes Film Festival. Note: marginally not work-safe. She is wearing a see-through dress. UPDATE: Several readers tell me that very, very strong flashes will sometimes make an opaque dress see-through like this. Sunday, May 16, 2004
Worst Movie I Have Ever Seen: Van Helsing Or at least, the worst movie that hasn't been blotted out of my memory. I don't mean most vulgar and offensive: that would be A Boy And His Dog, which I would have walked out on if I had a ride home. I don't mean most soul-injuring: that would be Interview With the Vampire, which made me wish I could take steel wool and chlorine bleach to my soul afterwards. I don't mean most depressing: that would be About Schmidt, which left me depressed for a couple of months. While I had some negative things to say about The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen last year, that was actually downright entertaining and internally consistent compared to Van Helsing. What's wrong with this movie? Almost everything. Were they trying to satirize vampire and horror movies? If so, the script was almost witless. At times, it felt like they were aiming for a serious horror movie with some light moments, but it utterly fails as a serious horror movie, largely because of substantial internal inconsistency problems. Val Helsing in Bram Stoker's Dracula is a Dutch scientist who specializes in the understanding the occult. He is an intellectual, and not primarily a man of action. In this dreadful movie, he becomes an action hero--and all the intellectual sleuthing is left to his friar sidekick. More important, we find out during the film that Val Helsing is not what he seems to be--being much older than we at first assume. Yet what we learn about him is inconsistent with the rest of the plot, where everyone (including him and his supervisors in the Vatican) assumes that he is one of us. The movie never exactly reveals what supernatural status he has, but we know that fought the Romans at Masada. All I want is some consistency in the fantasy world of this film--and we don't get it. Special effects? Gobs of them--and about as pointless and unexplained as they are in the mindless finale of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and The Avengers. Many of the special effects would seem like they were borrowed on the cheap from some other movie, rather than being consistent with the backstory that one might assume for Van Helsing. The brain of Frankenstein's Monster is exposed--and we see something that looks more like circuits from Tron than anything biological (as Shelley's Frankenstein clearly intended). Mr. Hyde is the same Incredible Hulk that he was in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen--not the Mr. Hyde of Robert Louis Stevenson. I fear that the screenwriter of Van Helsing thought that League's Mr. Hyde was the same as Stevenson's Mr. Hyde. There are a lot of confusing and unresolved subplots here. Why is the town gravedigger so hot to kill Van Helsing? There seems to be some reason, but having made a point of developing this subplot, it is just left hanging. We have Dracula's wives flying about, but there is no sense to some of the special effects and costumes. Sometimes they are flying gargoyles (not bats). Sometimes they are wearing very revealing nightgowns. Even when hanging upside, they demonstrate that vampiress breasts defy gravity! (Something that Bram Stoker never mentioned in his novel.) Finally, they sometimes appear in what I at first took for a body suit intended to suggest that they were flying around naked--but no, they are not naked, just without clothing or any features of real bodies. Why? Why three different forms? No explanation, or even a hint. Of course, Frankenstein's Monster is in here, and is by far the most sympathetic and best developed character. (He has the advantage of not appearing in most of the film.) The closest part to a genuinely touching scene is where the Monster is being taken away to be used for plot advancement, and starts to recite the 23rd Psalm. (If you read Mary Shelley's novel, you would not be surprised.) The plot itself is so ludicrous that Bram Stoker's novel seems positively logical by comparison. The Count and his wives have been...busy for the last several hundred years--but their children are born dead, because the Count and his wives are also dead. You could take Stoker's ideas, and expand on them with either there being no offspring (vampires, remember, are made, not born), or giving birth to cute little baby vampires that are just as dead, but animate, as Mom and Dad. Of course, then Van Helsing wouldn't need to drag in Dr. Frankenstein's experiments in bringing the dead back to life. Many parts of the film show no imagination at all. There is a sequence involving injecting Van Helsing with a werewolf antidote that is just as formulaic as the red LED on the bomb ticking down to zero. There's another sequence involving a stagecoach that is clearly derived from the truck scene in Raiders of the Last Ark. While derived from it, it is clearly not satirical or even good-natured ribbing of that scene--it is just cliche, without wit, originality, or even much actual suspense or tension. Is there anything good to be said for this film? The scenery is often pretty--although a bit too obviously matte, because there are no mountains like these on Earth. The young ladies present some eye candy--when they aren't in the prudish pseudo-body suit attire. There is one really breathtaking scene at a ball in Budapest that showed that someone spent a lot of money making this movie. I just wish that had spent the rest of the money as intelligently as this one scene. Can You Translate "Not In My Name" Into Arabic? I hear that a lot from Americans who reject the U.S. liberation of Iraq (and sometimes, the liberation of Afghanistan). A reader asks: I hear voice after voice saying that the militant islamists do not speak for all Moslems. Some More Good News From Iraq That You Probably Won't See On Television From the Christian Science Monitor--not generally thought of as a right-wing newspaper: BAGHDAD – Accused of being collaborators with American occupation forces, Iraqi policemen, guards, and soldiers have endured ridicule, threats, and targeted violence that have left hundreds dead over the past year. Make Sure You Show This To All Your Friends Who Think Iraqis Overwhelmingly Hate Us This Iraqi blogger describes a journey he just made in southern Iraq: I set off with a number of passengers heading for Samwa. The road was quiet despite the troubles in Kerbala and Najaf, which are both on the road. We had to use the old road as the new one (the high way) is closed because of the current fights in those two cities. I Am So Glad That I Don't Live in the Netherlands This is a very depressing story about self-defense there: AMSTERDAM — The prosecution demanded on Thursday a jail term of 1.5 years be handed down on a disabled 71-year-old man who shot and killed a robber at his business in Leidschendam last year.The victim, of course, knew this with certainty. For that matter, how does the prosecution know this for certain? Gardien has experienced two other robberies and nine break-ins at his car yard business, but the prosecution dismissed claims that the defendant acted out of fear. He said after the first incident in 1975, the defendant had continued to operate his business from the same place.Oh yes, the Gardien is obviously paranoid to think that armed men wearing ski masks trying to rob him might have intended him serious harm. |
