Those damn right-wing libertarians...
Wow. Never overestimate wacky campus radicals.

As usual, Instapundit gets off the best one-liner.

Does Jill Nelson really believe what she writes?
That sounds like a patronizing thing to say but I honestly wonder. Am I the only person who thinks both her original article and her follow-up letter (reprinted by Andrew Sullivan) are crazy, if not offensive?

How many people do you think read her original article (which I found, if nothing else, deceptive, since she spent the whole time trying to set up a false moral equivalence between how women are treated in traditional Islam versus western society) and came away from it agreeing with her?

Say for the sake of argument (well, not just for the sake of argument but actually because it's true) that I not only disagree with her 100% but also feel strongly that her thesis is just beyond the pale? (Note: It's very rare for me to disagree that way; usually I'd just think to myself, "it's a reasonable position but it happens to be wrong." Hers was just not a reasonable position, in my opinion.)

Anyway, so we have:
1. An outspoken person (me) reading the news, coming across something like this, and having at least a modest audience to write to.
2. The "something like ths," in which someone with massive media exposure says something (IMHO) repugnant.
3. Far less critical response than the outspoken person would like to see.

(Incidentally, those three also apply to Lott's comments.)

What's the best way to convince as many people as possible that the repugnant statements actually are repugnant?

Weird moments in mental politicking
I thought of the perfect soundbites for a solid presidential rebuke of Trent Lott or anyone who actually thinks the way his Strom birthday bash statements implied.

Basically the harsh words won't be for Lott himself so much as the pure ugly bigotry that lurks on the fringe and makes people actually like the implications of what Lott said. Short version: If you're going to be a racist asshole, I don't need your support and don't want your vote. Welcome to civilization, etc., at this critical time in the world's history blah blah we need unity not vile nativism etc.

The problem is that the only president who I could see giving this speech would be the hypothetical President McCain. (Who, by the way, would do -- I think -- a damned good job on post-September 11 foreign policy and homeland security.) That is to say, it's plausible that if he ran, I'd vote for him in 2004 regardless of his party affiliation if any. Not a guarantee, just plausible.

We'll see how W. handles it all. Obviously this isn't to the point where it's fair to condemn him. At least not yet.

UPDATE: Or maybe it is. (Final question on the transcript.) At least Ari Fleischer just lost my vote.

On a cheerier note
I'd forgotten all about this site. Admittedly my interest is mildly prurient. Then again, Instapundit actually used this photo to give the site a free plug.

(Speaking of which, Instapundit is where I first heard the Lott quote. This entry to be precise. Meanwhile, as a sign of how much -- thankfully! -- things have changed, check out this Democratic Party sample ballot from 1948. If Trent wants to be one of those Democrats, he can be my guest. Those are the people who need to get the hell out of the GOP.)

(By the way, pardon my scattered French. As you might guess there's an inverse relation between the quality of my writing and the anger that brought a given post on. Any time you see me launch a barely literate screed, if you can't say anything nice about it at least you can see it's what I honestly think. Not that the more ponderous, "voice of reason" posts are DIShonest necessarily, but you get the idea.)

This is why I'm not a registered Republican
On the precinct list I'm a Libertarian, thankyouverymuch. Otherwise I'd have to hang my head in absolute shame over this insanity.

So earlier today I overheard a most interesting cross between dating advice and political rant. "Feminists just don't marry Republicans," was the matter-of-fact assessment. (No, this wasn't about me.) The gist of it was that if you actually do believe in civil rights and women's rights, you should vote that way. (And if you don't, well, I guess that part is obvious.) As someone who usually votes Republican and who hates to see people demonized/smeared, I... very reluctantly held my tongue but strongly considered posting something about people who beg the question.

And then I had to read about this. I could almost cry. If no Republican speaks out against this; worse yet, if that man actually becomes Senate majority leader, then I'll officially cease to root for Republican ballot box victories. (Depending on which Democrat(s) run for office I'll grit my teeth and brace myself, but it won't be as though the GOP had anyone else to blame aside from itself.)

UPDATE: Unsurprisingly, Bill Kristol is with me on this. William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, said "Oh, God," when he learned of Lott's comments. "It's ludicrous. He should remember it's the party of Lincoln," referring to Lott's role as Republican leader of the Senate, which the GOP will control when the new Congress convenes next month. (Emphasis added.)

Now's the time for George W. Bush to echo the same sentiment and put out a big-time public rebuke. He doesn't need Lott. He can tell Lott to kiss his ass. In fact, if he doesn't, then you know exactly what's going into Democratic campaign commercials almost nationwide two years from now.

UPDATE II: Note the new banner headline. Obviously I don't seriously believe he's committed an impeachable offense; my sentiment is no less serious. It's analogous to the people who had the Impeach Earl Warren bumper stickers. The Reagan quote will be back... someday... only when somebody in his party shows some backbone and actually lives up to his legacy.

Have you had your daily dose Jonah Goldberg?
Why write original arguments when I can just block-quote? Here's the second half of his most recent column. The opening is also well worth reading but it's mainly stomach-churning anecdotes.

Amnesty International couldn't dispute the facts of the British dossier because the British dossier was, in fact, largely a reprint of information gathered by Amnesty International. So, it attacked the motives of the British government.

"There's no question that the regime has an appalling human rights record," Kamal Samari, a spokesman for Amnesty International, told the Washington Post. He admitted, for example, that the group had collected the names of as many as 170,000 Iraqis who had "disappeared." "But what we don't want to see for Iraq or any other country is that the human rights record is used selectively in order to achieve political goals."

What? . . . What!?

I could have sworn the whole reason Amnesty International existed was to make fixing human-rights problems a "political goal." When Amnesty talks of using the record "selectively," it means that the U.S. and its allies are being hypocritical by not taking a uniform line around the world on human rights. Ms. Khan complains, "Let us not forget that these same governments turned a blind eye to reports of widespread violations in Iraq before the Gulf War."

This is so childish. So stunningly, jaw-droppingly immature it staggers the imagination. A reasonable and mature human-rights advocate would shout "Finally! You people are going to do something about Iraq! I hope you don't stop there!" She would say, "At long last, you are going to fix the problem you helped create!" She would ask, "What can we do to help?" Instead, Amnesty has its dress over its head because America isn't doing the right thing for the right reasons. This reminds me of an annoying former girlfriend who wanted me to go to some Meryl Streep movie because I wanted to, not because she was making me. That's fine for youthful boyfriend-girlfriend stuff, but grown-ups interested in stopping mass murder and systematic torture are supposed to get beyond such silliness. Serious people take their victories where they can.

If you don't see it in major news sources...
Meanwhile, sort of on the anti-Semitism subject, yesterday I was prepared to get all pissy about Holland banning kosher slaughter. Turns out that story was untrue. Which didn't stop lots of weblog fulminations. Not a crowning moment in Internet-based news percolation.

Actually, truth be told, before I considered any ranting, I wanted to make a quiz question out of it. To do would require a more solid source than any I could find on-line. Almost disappointing; then again, how many quiz players would know what shechitah was? And would you accept "ritual slaughter"? "Kosher slaughter"? Prompt on "kosher" or "slaughter"?

More on Anti-Semitism
I guess I already mentioned the grocery co-op (eviscerated here -- boy, I came to Amish Tech Support tonight for something off-color and got more than I bargained for; at least he does have an obligatory post about his cats).

There's also the school in Montreal that banned Hillel. Yes, you read that right. My first thought was, can they do that?!

In foreign affairs I'm one of the most strongly pro-Israel people I know; this seems unusual for someone who's neither Jewish nor evangelical. (A few Christian Coalition people have faith-based reasons to support Israel that I don't quite understand.) The main point is that it's a democracy surrounded by tyranny.

In some ways I feel as though I don't have the right to be really stridently anti-anti-Semitic. Then again, sometimes the bigotry is so obvious that I'm shocked more people don't see it. Also, a lot of people (in my opinion) have a harder time seeing the actual bigotry because they make too much of perceived bigotry that actually isn't. Like how some people get a free pass for sympathizing with the suicide bombers, yet other people (like me, a few years ago) get labeled a threat to Judaism for liking the idea of a Christmas tree in a dining hall. Between the Palestinian terrorists and the Christmas trees, I know which one I'd see as a bigger threat.

(Last paragraph actually not directed at anyone known to read this, at least not if memory serves.)

Obtuse Pacifist Watch
Stunningly guileless op-ed here, already rudely attacked here and (line by line) here. I really don't want to contribute to the rudeness or get all picayune but I just have to ask:

Does someone who writes a column like this actually believe what she's writing? At first glance she's asking what seems like a perfectly reasonable question ("What do the terrorists want?") but am I the only person who finds this approach just breathtakingly stupid? Am I within my right to point out why?

First off, we know damn well what they want: They want us to get out of Saudi Arabia, convert to Islam en masse, and impose Sharia. I'm not exaggerating on any of these points. Ask the fake Osama (from the most recent tape) or the guy in Indonesia. (They also want Israel to cease to exist and Jews to die en masse but as a Goy I feel mildly sheepish driving this point into the ground. Beyond a certain point it looks like I'm trying too hard to claim solidarity.)

Even if what they wanted were something one could plausibly give to them, would anyone in their right mind actually suggest doing it? There's a reason the idea that one "doesn't negotiate with terrorists" has become a cliche. You don't negotiatie with terrorists for the same reasons why you don't submit to blackmail. (Hint: Incentives.)

Am I just going crazy? Speak up even if you're on the fence.

Made in Israel
More unwitting anti-Semitism here.

Don't get me wrong, people have every right to do what they want with their business, and it's probably not racism so much as just gross information about what's actually going on in the Middle East. Still, trends like this need a good counterbalance.

Henceforth I will go out of my way to buy products made in Israel, though I'm not optimistic that they'll be so clearly labeled as the Made in the U.S.A. stuff is.

(And this is probably not as true as it sounds: In theory I refuse to buy things Made in [The People's Republic of] China; in practice it's really hard to.)

More thoughts on unfree nations, Amnesty, and so on
Their hearts are in the right place. Somebody really does need to point out the atrocities taking place worldwide. The biggest trouble with human rights bean-counters over the past few decades is a combination of selective reporting with breathtaking lack of perspective. (Or maybe it's my own perspective that's lacking.)

Still, there are nations where torture is still routine, where imprisonment for thought crimes is routine. There are people trying to get the news out about what's going on in China, Cuba, Iraq, the Middle East, and so on. Bless them for reporting what's out there.

My apologies: It turns out I really do get as upset about tyranny around the world as about, say, abortion. (The latter came up in college because really nobody else was pro-life and speaking up about it. The former didn't come up for me personally because enough other people would spend so much time and energy complaining about, say, Burma. Sometimes international human rights people seem to have a really weird sense of priorities, as when they seem to let China get away with genocide, but then something like a Tibetan freedom concert comes around and it looks as though people sort of get the general idea.)

Can we police the world?
Captain Fancy raises a very good point in a comment, about how most of the abuses pointed out the second dossier have been true for over a decade.

There's an obvious problem though: You can say, "if we should liberate Iraq now, then we should have liberate Iraq then." But then what's your answer if we really should have taken military action then?

(Yes, military action. If you honestly believe that Saddam or Fidel or Mugabe or any other tinpot dictator gives a rat's ass what pencil-necked geek diplomats say and do, then I have a bridge to sell you.)

I'm dead serious about this, with one caveat: The biggest reason why we didn't/shouldn't take military action in Iraq 15 years ago is the same as why we're not on the ground in Nigeria or Zimbabwe right now. Specifically, there are only so many resources to go around. It's a matter of literally choosing one's battles. The U.S. couldn't, for a variety of reasons, go it alone then. We probably can't go it alone now (and despite what the Left tells you, we're really not), which is exactly why working through the U.N. in this case is a pretty good idea up to a point.

Part of me really does want to see the woman-stoning tribal leaders of northern Nigeria smoked out, or Mugabe's palaces destroyed and his head on a platter (among other things, he's literally starving his political opponents). It's the same impulse that makes me want to see rapists publicly castrated or what-have-you. It wouldn't be a 100% bad thing; it's just, as it happens, not the way civilized people do things.

The problem comes when somebody crosses the line, especially if the line that's crossed has to do with people's safety (as from a terrorist or a rapist or whoever). That's why the death penalty, even though it's barbaric, might be necessary; it's also why, IF Saddam has crossed the line, regardless of people's misgivings we really can't not take him out. I believe he's crossed the line, and I believe that every atrocity he has conflicted while in office is fair game for making that case.

So in other words, to the extent that triage permits, we can police the world. Given the shit-fit the rest of the world throws when we try to, it's really the equivalent of a fire extinguisher kept under glass.

Postscript
Some of these stories are fascinating even if none have to do with Clinton.

"Gotcha!" -- then and now
Found this story from this link by way of this talking point.

J.M. Marshall calls the Canadian story "undigested" but lookee here at the old chestnut in the final paragraph. I still see the supermarket scanner story all over the place even though it's been thoroughly debunked.

Marshall's panties are in a bunch over how stuff like this gets regurgitated. (In this specific case, Matt Drudge making hay that John Kerry pays $75 for his hair cuts from the same salon that Clinton used when he got two of the four LAX runways shut down. By the way, is that fully true? Searching on Snopes for "Clinton haircut" yields nothing.)

In a case like this, the problem isn't that reporters have an axe to grind (I like Instapundit's sarcastic take: Judy Woodruff, right-wing tool! Who knew?) but just that they're breathtakingly lazy sometimes. Democrats used to do a much better job taking advantage of this. Used to.

(The very title of Marshall's weblog, Talking Points Memo, comes from the briefing sheets that Clinton administration officials would use to circulate a story through the press.)

By and large, as press bias goes, the lefties still win by a landslide. Part of this comes from opinion disguised as "news analysis" -- or even from reporters who assume a lot that what they think about things is so universal that opinion somehow becomes fact. When a vast majority of an organization holds a given set of political views, it's funny how often people assume that everyone else in the world thinks that way too.

This is why you should be interested in local politcs
I never realized how hilarious these people were.

My first endorsement!
I don't think anyone in the reading audience is eligible to vote in this race (you don't live in my neighborhood, do you?) but I'll officially endorse Ron Dudum for District Superviser.

He may not be as photogenic as his runoff opponent but his campaign material (at least, the junk mail I got today) makes a big deal out of his actually having lived most of his life in this district (his opponent is allegedly a carpetbagger) and of his not being a tool of the Brown-et-al machine. It alludes to his support for Gavin Newsom, who seems to be a gadfly.

The last straw was the campaign worker (for his opponent) who called me just now. (Chris never asks who's calling when the phone is for me; then again, I never answer the phone period -- calls are almost always for him -- so I can't complain too much when it's him taking my calls in the first place.) She had about two minutes worth of a script to read. Blah blah blah San Francisco Democratic Party blah Nancy Pelosi blah before she even asked if I would support her candidate.

Usually, phone-callers (always for this same race!) ask me right at the beginning whether their candidate has my support. (It was always either Leland Yee or Andrew Lee; maybe they share campaign staff. I do know Lee didn't make the runoff this year.) Then when I lie and say yes, I'm only politely declining a campaign sign (I always claim they would violate my lease) away from ending the phone call.

This time I lied and said I was undecided, then ended the conversation as quickly as possible. If that poor lady keeps reading her whole script to every person she calls, she'll never get through her precinct list.

UPDATE: Apparently I'm all about the pork. From Dudum's web site: As a lifelong resident, father community activist and small businessman, I will make certain the Sunset/Parkside neighborhoods receive our fair share of city resources. That's my only interest.

Well, that stopped my vigor dead in its tracks. I was even about to volunteer for him or something but there doesn't seem to be any "Get Involved!" type link on his site. Just as well: They'd probably ask me to cold-call, and the whole point of this entry is just how much I despise being cold-called myself.

Oriana
Blistering screed here.

I do not loathe John Kerry
But according to Mickey Kaus, a lot of other people do.

My thoughts on Kerry:
1. If nominated by the Democrats in 2004, he would lose. I'd stake large amounts of money on it. I can't explain why, I just know it innately.

2. He got almost no media coverage in Boston when I was there. (Maybe I just didn't know where to look.)

3. The worst thing I can think of about him is that he's living off his wife's fortune rather than doing anything productive on his own. Worse yet, his wife inherited her fortune from her own late husband, who was a Republican (albeit a relatively liberal one). I probably shouldn't say this, knowing effectively nothing about her (beyond what I've written here), but I'm mildly surprised that more people don't resent Kerry's wife rather than Kerry himself.

If Bill Clinton died tomorrow, could you imagine Hillary marrying some GOP congressman from Long Island?

Dossier II
Read the whole thing yourself (requires Acrobat reader or equivalent; you probably already have that). Or read the BBC summary.

Amnesty International is all pissy about it but I think Opinion Journal sums it up best:

Actually, it condemns the report as "a cold and calculated manipulation of the work of human rights activists" in an effort "to justify military action." The group's concern about human rights, it would seem, is outweighed by its opposition to actually doing anything about it.

Amnesty International won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1977.

Could someone explain to me why this is such a big deal?
According to the Washington Post, one of the weapons inspectors is a sex club maven. So? I think I've seen a half-dozen snarky references to this by now, most recently here (the December 2 edition).

I guess it's amusing and all but I don't see the newsworthiness, other than the part about nonexistent background checks. I wouldn't disqualify the guy for being kinky, any more than I would disqualify the Army's Arab-language experts for being gay. But then what do I know?

Striking down Bowers
According to Instapundit (also my source for the links that drive both of the entries below this one), Bowers v. Hardwick is likely to be rebuked this Supreme Court term.

(I almost wrote "overturned" but technically it wouldn't be an overturn. Then again, technically Brown didn't overturn Plessy, even though in any practical sense it corrected the grievous error. Other than Plessy and potentially Bowers, can you think of a third famously heinous Supreme Court decision to be all-but-repudiated by some future decision?)

(Update: Yeah, Lochner v. New York came to mind but first, I'd argue strenuously that this is nowhere near as bad a decision as law books these days make it out to be; second, you can't really point to any one decision that directly rebuts it, so much as a continuous series of them. Yeah, it's probably a good thing that the Supremes refuse to play fast and loose with the Constitution to protect economic freedom (yes, economic freedom, specifically the freedom to contract), but is that really worse than playing fast and loose with the Constitution to, for example, protect some extraconstitutional "right to privacy"?)

Talifemmes, Moral Equivalence, and Blaming the Victim
Not sure what I was smoking last week that led to all the Talifemme posts being on the main blog rather than here but I do feel vindicated now.

The same column that I'd railed against, Cathy Young calls out here (end of her column).

How long until America is hit by European terrorists?
James Lileks asks that question (scroll down a bit in the entry). Excerpt:

[L]et’s just posit that somewhere in this undisciplined mob of anti-globo goofballs there are a few men possessed of a miserable certainty, a few dozen folk who want Americans to suffer for the horrors they have visited on the world. (Big Macs, Adam Sandler, inferior cellular-service paradigms.) One bomb in Herald Square, one communiqué to the New York Times on behalf of the Bove Brigade, and now the equation changes.

What would be the European response?

Among the diplomats, Sincere Regrets, of course. (We hear about that famous Brazilian Butterfly whose wings set off a cyclone on the other side of the world; no one ever wonders about the impact on the weather of the breeze stirred up by the gently-shaken wattles of a Deeply Troubled EU diplomat. They’re probably responsible for 70% of our summertime tornadoes.) But we’d hear the same vicious pleasure the European left-wing press spit out in the months after 9/11. It wouldn’t be indicative of general European opinion, of course. The American Street - or, more accurately, the American Cul-de-sac - wouldn’t believe that Europe was rising against us. But isn’t it odd how many in America have had their opinions on the Europeans change over the last year. You can’t blame a concerted effort by American media to demonize Perfidious Belgium; we’ve just absorbed a hundred small stories, reached a new conclusion.

Stuff
Back in SF. Some political posts to come, mostly links to other people's eloquent prose.

Ever since Wednesday I've been afraid to read the actual posted-blog version of this because my most recent post here was rushed and probably came out hatefully rather than just angrily. Odds are somebody's called me out on the comments widget; if so, I'll get to it once settled in.