Tuesday, June 30, 2009So, the President of Honduras decides he doesn't want to leave when his time is up.He uses his goons to gin up support for a popular referendum. The people don't support him. The constitution of Honduras doesn't support him. The Supreme Court doesn't support him. The military doesn't support him. Obama supports him. The same Obama who can't quite bring himself to say anything forceful about Ahminejad leaving when his time has come. Worried? 
posted by gbarto at 10:11 PM
Tuesday, June 23, 2009A passing thought on Iran... The President's statement said:The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching.To which one must respond: The President of the United States must understand that the world is watching. When the statement came out over the weekend, I was heartened that the administration had taken a step in the right direction. But more is needed. When George W. Bush ran for president, he scoffed at internationalism, multinationalism and anything else that might pull him away from domestic politics. It took a crater where the WTC used to be to wake him up - though to his credit he got serious once his attention had been gained. This is Obama's first wake-up call, his chance to understand that being President of the United States means being leader of the free world, like it or not. So far, though, he seems more interested in grabbing an ice-cream cone and pushing healthcare. It's as though taking a real stand is too much trouble. Not to worry, though. The world will give him other wake-up calls if he doesn't answer this one. The only question is whether it will take Jerusalem on fire or Americans dead before he catches on.
posted by gbarto at 1:21 PM
Saturday, June 20, 2009Finally:We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights. - Statement from the President
posted by gbarto at 1:56 PM
Thursday, June 18, 2009Idle thought prompted by events here and in Iran:The true value of democracy lies not in this election, but in the next. It's not just the ability to choose your rulers and set the country's direction. More important is the ability to remove your leaders and go in a new direction. After Napoleon III got elected in France - for real, according to my best sources - it took the defeat of the country by the Prussians and the collapse of the government to get rid of him. The ability to choose a leader is not enough; the people need the means to remove him as well. That's why Iran is in such a mess - only violence can bring change. Here, inshallah, in four years Obama will be done "digging us out of the hole" and we'll be able to move forward.
posted by gbarto at 10:48 PM
Tuesday, June 02, 2009The Really Scary Part about that Accidental Disclosure of Where our Nuclear Materials are LocatedFormer CIA Director John Deutsch says these screw-ups happen. And I suppose they do. What's really scary is the why: The information, considered confidential but not classified, was assembled for transmission later this year to the International Atomic Energy Agency as part of a process by which the United States is opening itself up to stricter inspections in hopes that foreign countries, especially Iran and others believed to be clandestinely developing nuclear arms, will do likewise. (NYT via Insty)In other words, the One hopes(TM) that if we let the UN regulate our nukes, Iran will follow suit. The only way this plan has any merit is if he thinks the Iranians will slip up and publish maps of their arms depots too so the Israelis will know what to bomb. Here's an idea: Before we lead by example on something like this, why don't we start smaller. Maybe, for example, the United States could decline to lynch gays and stone prostitutes for a couple weeks and see if Iran emulates us. Or maybe Obama could do something really bold like declaring that the people of Israel shouldn't be driven into the sea and see if Ahminejad pipes up and says that they should also get free ice cream. Honestly, it's hard to figure out what's up with this administration. The only lesson I see so far is that if the Chrysler bondholders really wanted their claims heard, they should have stopped prattling about the rule of law and lobbed a few missiles into Sderot. Then maybe Obama would have seen the need for "constructive dialog."
posted by gbarto at 8:21 PM
Tuesday, May 26, 2009Prop 8 and the California Supreme CourtIt looks like they did as good a job of splitting the baby as one could, upholding the Proposition but also the marriages performed prior to its passage. The decision is as sound as one could hope for from the Court: They recognized that while they can get away with a lot in interpreting the Constitution, when the voters explicitly change the Constitution in order to remove any margin for error in interpretation, that's that. Gay rights activists, predictably, are mad as hell. But they're wrath is wrongly channeled at the Court, which did the best it could in upholding existing marriages. Likewise, they miss the mark if they demonize everyone who voted for Prop 8. The problem, rather, is that the activists ran a lousy campaign against Prop 8. If the gay rights activists really want gay marriage because gays are normal people just like you and me with the same desires as you and me, they need to dump the abstractions designed to hold together a GLBT community whose members range from mild-mannered gays and lesbians about whom no one gives a damn all the way to the circus on Castro Street (in San Francisco) in which gays demand respect from everyone else and show none to anybody who looks even slightly askance at event the strangest of their antics. This is not a matter of right and wrong, mind you. It is simply the politics of building a coalition centered around winning elections on behalf of mainstream gays and lesbians, in lieu of the current coalition designed to maximize donations for professional activists. So, as an opponent of Prop 8, but also of judicial activism, I offer a regretful tip of the hat to the Court. They came far closer to a responsible decision than I would have expected. I hope that gay marriage supporters will now show some responsibility of their own, dropping the hysterics that turn away prospective supporters, admitting to the lousy job they did in the last campaign (winnable, were it better undertaken) and taking seriously the need for a better approach in crafting a new initiative and selling it to those who are squeamish about but not inimical to the idea of gay marriage.
posted by gbarto at 12:53 PM
So, North Korea can make a nuke equivalent to Hiroshima and can launch it. And China is holding off on buying our bonds. And people are unsure about investing in corporate bonds given the Chrysler, GM situation... Well, it's change, anyway. Happy Memorial Day (17 minutes late)!
posted by gbarto at 12:04 AM
Sunday, May 17, 2009On AOL, the headline just went by:"52% Said Ashley Olsen Doesn't Deserve Her Fame" So... 48% of us consider Ms. Olsen's oeuvre and her tie-in businesses, ask ourselves if she should have such a high profile and come out somewhere between "Yeah, sure" and "I guess I don't see why not." Olsen critics may be snickering, but Chris Dodd's trying to hire away her publicist.
posted by gbarto at 4:58 PM
Friday, May 08, 2009Big Changes Coming in the Middle EastRumor has it Netanyahu told Obama that Ahminejad secretly manages a hedge fund. Then he let slip that Likud's considering joining the UAW...
posted by gbarto at 11:54 PM
Tuesday, April 21, 2009FBI workers accused of spying on dressing room[name suppressed], 40, of New Milton and [name suppressed] of Buckhannon have been charged with the misdemeanors and face fines and up to a year in jail on each charge if convicted. Sutton has been released on bond, Wilson said, and Hommema is to be arraigned later this week. Wilson did not know Hommema's age.Specifically, they were spying on teenage girls trying on prom dresses at a charity event. Nice. I've suppressed the names because, who knows, they may be innocent. And if so, this will follow them around enough. Besides, I don't care about the names. Because this isn't about individual people. It's about federal officers in positions of power to act in ways that impact private citizens. The comments to the article are filled with remarks about Obama's FBI. But the remarks that ring the truest are a handful suggesting that if now they'd just cheat on their taxes they could have a cabinet post. This isn't really about Obama's FBI, after all. There's every chance these guys were with the FBI under Bush, and a fair chance that they abused their trust then as well. The thing is, as a conservative I know that 1) human nature doesn't change, 2) human nature isn't universally warm and fuzzy and 3) human nature left unconstrained can do bad things. As a libertarian, I know, furthermore, that even if the Republicans are in charge, and even if they're conservative - really! - human nature doesn't change just because you've been given a position of power and trust. This is not a story, then, about a couple of perverts looking at underage girls. This is a story about why there are already investigations into TARP fraud with the program barely half a year old. This is a story about why Chris Dodd took those friends of Angelo loans not to mention getting into an Irish cottage. This is a story about why Tim Geithner fudged his taxes. It is a story about why Joe the Plumber's financial and marital picture hit the front pages as fast as a functionary with access could pass it to the New York Times. This is a story, in short, about how power - any power and all power - corrupts. It is a story about how human frailty leads us to take advantage, abusing the strong position until we slip and find ourselves in the weak position. The next time you're reading about "the government plan" for Chrysler, for AIG, for health care, you need to stop watching for the black helicopters and the Presidential storm troopers. Because the conspiracy isn't "them." It's us, a human race that often overreaches, through greed, through fear, through venality, even and often through good intentions. In the next year or so, we're going to hear about government "fixing" the economy, "creating" jobs and "making health care affordable." If you're a Republican operative, you can feel free to tremble at the evil that is Obama. But if you're a conservative or libertarian, I'd suggest that you forget about all that and think about two FBI guys in a mall in West Virginia using their office to spy on teenage girls. Because the real danger isn't an omnipotent Big Brother. The real danger is that people will start to believe in "the government" and forget that the government is just a collection of these bozos, some better, some worse, but all subject to the temptation to use the power we give them over us in ways we didn't plan on or agree to.
posted by gbarto at 7:29 PM
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