Posted
4/12/2003 03:31:16 PM
by Edward Driscoll
COULD DEION SANDERS BE COMING BACK TO THE NFL? ESPN's Len Pasquarelli writes that Sanders is now a free agent, and therefore, free to play for any team.
For our previous coverage of the cornerback formally known as 'Prime Time', click here.
In other football news, Pasquarelli writes that Junior Seau may be going to the Miami Dolphins, "perhaps over the weekend, no later than Monday afternoon".
Posted
4/12/2003 10:14:15 AM
by Edward Driscoll
LOSS OF FUNDING: Steven Den Beste writes that "one of the biggest supporters of the Palestinian Intifada just went bye-bye. Saddam paid $25,000 to the family of every successful suicide bomber to hit Israel, but there was other less public support for the Palestinians, monetarily and in other ways. There's a good reason that the Palestinians were visibly pro-Saddam during the war; they knew who their friends were." Den Beste adds:
This week's victory in Iraq is the most important event in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle in the last 20 years. The chance for peace between them has never been greater. This is actually the best thing that's happened to the Palestinians in years, even though they don't think so yet. But it's going to begin a process leading them to abandon the struggle to try to destroy Israel, and a process of beginning to fundamentally accept that they will have to coexist with Israel. Only then can peace come.Read the...well, you know.
Posted
4/11/2003 11:35:47 PM
by Edward Driscoll
MIRROR, MIRROR: It's December 2008. President-elect Gray Davis ponders his new administration...
Posted
4/11/2003 02:38:30 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"OH YOU POOR PEOPLE!": Great cartoon by John Cole for the Herald Sun.
(Found via Little Green Footballs, which has lots and lots of other good stuff today.)
UPDATE: This is, if anything, an even funnier cartoon, found via Patrick Ruffini.
Posted
4/11/2003 11:22:16 AM
by Edward Driscoll
SCOTT RITTER KNEW:
"The prison in question was inspected by my team in Jan. 1998. It appeared to be a prison for children - toddlers up to pre-adolescents - whose only crime was to be the offspring of those who have spoken out politically against the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was a horrific scene. Actually I'm not going to describe what I saw there because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I'm waging peace." - Scott Ritter, Time Magazine, Saturday, Sep. 14, 2002.Now that the Baath Party is out of power, will Ritter ever come clean about his stunning about face?
Posted
4/11/2003 10:08:51 AM
by Edward Driscoll
"THE NEWS WE KEPT TO OURSELVES": CNN's chief news executive finally admits what The New Republic reported last year--that CNN's coverage of Saddam's regime was a sham, and that CNN endangered local Iraqi employees simply to be able to put a "live from Baghdad" tag under their heavily censored and manipulated video feeds.
Contrast that to this statement from last year, when Iraq expelled foreign journalists:
Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, said the planned expulsion is "a draconian measure that will sharply curtail the world's knowledge about what is happening in Iraq." Jordan said CNN stands by Arraf and all of CNN's Iraq reporting as "accurate, fair, and forthright."So how long will CNN continue to use their slogan of "Most Trusted News Network?" UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds has a quote from Jordan last year on the New Republic article. REALLY LATE UPDATE (3/31/04): The Times has moved Jordan's op-ed behind their "buy this article if you want to read it" firewall, which is too bad, considering what a staggering mea culpa it is. Fortunately, it's still online, in the middle of this page.
Posted
4/11/2003 09:57:10 AM
by Edward Driscoll
PETER JENNINGS "RUES LOSS OF HUSSEIN SCULPTING JOBS": No, this is not a Scrappleface headline. Jennings actually said that.
Posted
4/11/2003 09:44:11 AM
by Edward Driscoll
KEEPING THE BACK BENCH WARM: Back in the 1970s, "me too Republicans" in Congress ensured that their party would stay on the back bench for many years, by offering little in the way of new ideas. Rather, they'd look at the welfare and social spending by the Democrats and talk about how expensive it was, and that the fat should be cut out of it. They'd focus on the cost of a program, instead of offering a different approach to solving the problem.
Flash forward 25 years to today, as Democrat Nancy Pelosi says, "I have absolutely no regret about my vote on this war".
While she pays lip service to "The cost in human lives", she spends far more time discussing, "The cost to our budget, probably $100 billion. We could have probably brought down that statue for a lot less. The cost to our economy. But the most important question at this time, now that we're toward the end of it, is what is the cost to the war on terrorism?"
Pelosi is the House Minority Leader--and looks to continue to keep her party in the minority.
UPDATE: Tom Harkin is doing a pretty good job himself.
Posted
4/11/2003 09:28:30 AM
by Edward Driscoll
"MUM'S THE WORD": Andrew Breitbart writes, "Hollywood celebs may not quite be pro-Saddam, but there's one tyrant they love."
Only one?
Posted
4/11/2003 09:22:38 AM
by Edward Driscoll
NEW JANEANE GAROFALO TV SERIES "UNDER FIRE": ABC is taking lots of flak from viewers for developing a show around the pro-appeasement Garofalo.
Meanwhile, the Hollywood box office is down 18 percent, and Tim and Susan aren't going to Cooperstown.
As I've written before, Hollywood is becoming increasingly removed from its customers' values--which means it's also becoming increasingly removed its customer's wallets. Maybe they'll eventually make the connection, before it's too late.
Posted
4/11/2003 08:53:58 AM
by Edward Driscoll
MOHAMMED ALDOURI UPDATE: The soon-to-be-ex-Iraqi UN Ambassador is set to leave New York.
Posted
4/10/2003 03:05:29 AM
by Edward Driscoll
CONCORDE GROUNDED FOR GOOD: How long before another attempt at supersonic passenger service?
UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Group Captain Mandrake has more details, and some observations.
Posted
4/10/2003 12:35:33 AM
by Edward Driscoll
FOUL BALLS: The Baseball Hall of Fame wants nothing to do with Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, the stars of Bull Durham.
Robbins' pusillanimous reaction--and utter inability to understand Cooperstown's reaction to them--shows just how right the Hall of Fame is.
Posted
4/9/2003 09:10:47 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THREE MILLION DEAD IN THE CONGO: David Janes asks, "where's all the loud mouths, the hippies, the priests, the trade-unionists, the anarchists, the anti-globalists, the peace lovers? Where's all the people blathering about their concern for the "women and children", the only human beings worthy of compassion anymore."
Posted
4/9/2003 05:33:44 PM
by Edward Driscoll
EVERYBODY LOVES SOMEBODY SOMETIMES DEPARTMENT: Why yes, there is a Web site whose URL is "www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com"!
Posted
4/9/2003 05:19:49 PM
by Edward Driscoll
STEPHEN GREEN: "the real work has yet to begin. We've bought the deed to a crack house in a bad neighborhood, and now we've got to turn it into a place where decent people can live decently. The folks next door aren’t going to be too happy with our gentrification efforts, either. We can expect lots of drive-bys while we pull the weeds and put up new drywall."
Posted
4/9/2003 05:11:34 PM
by Edward Driscoll
WHY IS THIS ALLY OF OURS SO UPSET? Fox News reports:
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud, looking upset at a news conference, called for a quick end to Iraq's "occupation." In a rare departure from diplomacy, Saud responded to a question about Arab anger toward the United States with: "I don't want to talk about anger if you don't mind today."Gosh, you'd think they had something to worry about, judging by their tone. By the way, maybe Jerry Brown is right, after all!
Posted
4/9/2003 04:58:25 PM
by Edward Driscoll
IN OUR NAME: I couldn't have said it better than this post by Charles Johnson.
See also the great post by Tim Blair, titled "I shouldn't be so happy" (scroll down--Blogger has eaten his archives), and this short essay by Christopher Hitchens.
Posted
4/9/2003 04:41:29 PM
by Edward Driscoll
IRAQ'S UN ENVOY says "The game is over", insulting--as only someone trained in the French art of international diplomatic effrontery can--everyone involved on both sides of the war. The writer of this AP article unfortunately doesn't speculate, and apparently didn't even ask the ambassador (who hopefully is now, or shortly will be, an ex-ambassador), what happens to him, now that his boss is no longer in power.
Maybe he and Peter Arnett can team up to write a book on international grooming tips...
UPDATE: I emailed Stephen Den Beste for his take on what will happen to folks like Hussein's ambassador. His response?:
I don't really know the answer. I doubt he'll go on trial, unless there's specific evidence of his complicity in genocide or the like. It isn't a war crime to be a mouthpiece for a corrupt regime. One thing is, I think, clear: he won't continue to be protected by diplomatic immunity for much longer. I think he'll be informed by the State Department of the date when we won't honor diplomatic immunity for him any longer. But not quite yet. As long as major combat continues, they won't take that step. Until we control Tikrit and Mosul, the war isn't over.Fair enough. Thanks Steven! (Posted with his permission.)
Posted
4/9/2003 04:24:30 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"I HOPE YOU USE YOUR OWN TOOTHBRUSH": Very funny post on The Corner on National Review Online.
Posted
4/9/2003 04:12:58 PM
by Edward Driscoll
GUESS I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT FOX NEWS BEING DROPPED FROM DIRECTV: "Murdoch Seals Deal for DirecTV Stake".
Posted
4/9/2003 02:42:08 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THIS PUTS THINGS INTO PERSPECTIVE, doesn't it?
Hopefully France (and Germany) will make up for things by heeding Sen. McCain's advice...
Posted
4/9/2003 02:39:36 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THE WAR CONTINUES: Ramesh Ponnuru cautions President Bush to not turn his entire focus inward now that Iraq has been liberated:
If Bush stakes everything on a legislative agenda, he could end up looking like a success abroad and a failure at home — which is to say, exactly like his father.He's right. But I think Bush #43, Cheney, and Karl Rove have learned enough not to repeat the mistakes of Bush #41.
Posted
4/9/2003 12:26:36 PM
by Edward Driscoll
GREAT INSTAPUNDIT POST putting the liberation of Baghdad--and the BBC's clearly negative coverage of it--into perspective.
Posted
4/9/2003 11:13:25 AM
by Edward Driscoll
WHOOPS: Timing of new Hong Kong advertising campaign really backfires.
UPDATE: Nicholas Stix has an article on SARS titled, "Six Degrees Of SARS: Of Politics, Greed, And Plagues."
Posted
4/9/2003 10:42:35 AM
by Edward Driscoll
THE DANGERS OF WAR: It causes massive displacement of people who find themselves out on the street, looking for work--often looking for new lines of work.
Joe Bob Briggs looks at one such person, now recently unemployed.
Hey, perhaps Jerry Haleva has some suggestions!
Posted
4/9/2003 10:36:48 AM
by Edward Driscoll
NEWSWEEK SUFFERS "'War Whiplash' Injury". The Media Research Center has the details.
Posted
4/9/2003 10:31:22 AM
by Edward Driscoll
AN AMAZING VICTORY: I'm quoting Andrew Sullivan, but I won't sully the phrase with quotations around it:
This is an amazing victory, a victory over a monster who gassed civilians, jailed children, sent millions into fruitless wars, harbored poisonous weapons to threaten free peoples, tortured thousands, and made alliances with every two-bit opportunist on the planet. It's a victory over those who marched in the millions to stop this liberation, over the endless media cynics, over the hate-America crowd, and the armchair generals. It's a victory for the two countries in the world that have always made freedom possible and who have now brought it to another corner of the world made dark by terror. It's a victory for the extraordinary servicemen and women who performed this task with such skill, cool, courage and restraint. It's a victory for optimism over pessimism, the righting of past wrongs, the assertion of universal truths against postmodern excuses, and of political leadership over appeasement. Celebrate it. Don't let the whiners take this away from you or from the people of Iraq.Not surprisingly, Glenn Reynolds and The Corner each have extensive roundups of the coverage.
Posted
4/9/2003 12:38:45 AM
by Edward Driscoll
THE SPECULATION ABOUT THE RUMORS MAY BE TRUE, according to Scott Ott...
Posted
4/8/2003 08:14:34 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"HAND-OUT CITY" is the title of this Debra Saunders essay that sums up, as she puts it, "the slow but steady spread of blight across this otherwise stunningly beautiful city", San Francisco. Saunders quotes Gavin Newsom, a city supervisor who sponsored Care Not Cash, a homeless reform measure:
Newsom remembers a local panhandler who recently died from a drug overdose. "The person who gave Joe that last dollar probably drove away feeling good about themselves."Naturally of course, as she notes, "city politicians contrived to undermine the voters' will by throwing up bureaucratic roadblocks."
Posted
4/8/2003 03:19:19 PM
by Edward Driscoll
CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER DEPARTMENT: My wife, who's an attorney, just complemented Ruth Bader Ginsberg--for defending states' rights--in an email to me:
The Supreme Court today dealt the Trial Lawyers (aka ambulance chasers) a blow in State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell. The Court not only cut back a 145 million dollar punitive damages award, but finally gave more clear cut guidelines as to what can be considered in awarding punitives (which are what the Trial Lawyers feed off of, and which no longer include the wealth of the defendant) and as to what is a reasonable amount of punitive damages. Not surprisingly, the oddly named Center for Constitutional Litigation (aka, the Trial Lawyers) tried to downplay the importance of the case. But for those who have been unhappy about the trend towards huge judgments solely because the defendant's resources, and away from any personal responibility (ie, having the sense not to balance hot cups of coffee in your crotch) - this is a good decision. As a little federalist action, Judge Ruth (Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg) dissented saying this is all a matter for state courts.Just passing on a link from the legal department here at EdDriscoll.com.
Posted
4/8/2003 03:10:13 PM
by Edward Driscoll
INTERESTING DOUBLE STANDARD: Brent Bozell observes that the left want "more war gore" (as he titled his weekly column):
Last week, CNN anchor Aaron Brown, the supposed top face of that old Ted Turner channel, devoted a half-hour of his day to the far-left Pacifica radio network, absorbing some old-fashioned socialist abuse on its program "Democracy Now." The greatest complaint of the Pacifica hard-liners, and every other frenzied anti-war protester inside and outside the press is: why don’t we see more death? More gore? Apparently, most Americans are so stupid they have no idea that people actually die in wars. Apparently, the public sees American troops actually dropping bombs on abstractions, not enemy positions and human beings. Leftist Susan Sontag complained in the New York Times that being a spectator to "calamities" like the American war effort is the right and privilege of every citizen in this modern age.Bozell also quotes Walter Cronkite (from 1991) as saying, "It ought to be almost compulsory [for Americans] to sit in front of the television set and have to view the horror that they're enduring. The military and the politicians don't like that kind of domestic exposure. If we start seeing, live, on the air, people dying in combat, it's going to have one terrible effect." What would Sontag or Cronkite think about showing the gore from the attack on the World Trade Center on television more? Shots of people jumping out of the windows of the WTC to their certain deaths rather than be burned in the fire or smashed by collapsing rubble? I doubt they'd be in favor it. And certainly the media has downplayed--practically eliminated--those images from its library of stock footage because, as ABC News chief David Westin told the New York Times, it was " disturbing". To paraphrase Jonah Goldberg, I don't mind being disturbed, as long as it works both ways. Show me the horror of war--both on their soil--and ours. UPDATE: Al Barger agrees. He's asking, "Where are the bodies?"
Posted
4/8/2003 12:13:56 PM
by Edward Driscoll
NEW HARVARD STUDY heats up 'Global Warming' debate:
A team of Harvard University scientists examined 1,000 years of global temperatures and reviewed more than 240 scientific journals from the past 40 years and concluded that despite man's influence on our environment, current temperatures are not as warm as during the Middle Ages. "This new study merely affirms the obvious: climate alarmism based on a few years' or even a century's data is sheer folly, reminding us again that geological cycles spanning millennia do not share the rush of agenda-driven scientists or activists," Chris Horner, a senior fellow at the free-market environmental think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute, told CNSNews.com. The Harvard study is set to be published this spring in the journal Energy and Environment. According to the study, a global medieval warming period lasting from about 800 to 1300 A.D. was followed by a Little Ice Age between the years 1300 to 1900. The study also states that the earth has been warming slightly since 1900.Or as Dennis Miller recently said:
There's a lot of differing data, but as far as I can gather, over the last hundred years the temperature on this planet has gone up 1.8 degrees. Am I the only one who finds that amazingly stable? I could go back to my hotel room tonight and futz with the thermostat for three to four hours. I could not detect that difference.Exactly.
Posted
4/8/2003 12:02:16 PM
by Edward Driscoll
SOMEONE SET UP US THE BOMB: All your base are belong to us!
(Via InstaPundit.)
Posted
4/8/2003 10:30:45 AM
by Edward Driscoll
THE MEDIA: If last night's bombing was successful, it should be interesting to see the slant that the media takes. I wouldn't be surprised to see the media start calling it something like "a heavy-handed end to the war", comparing it to the atomic bomb blasts that ended World War II, or something equally hyperbolic. (Remember the Dresden riff from the first Friday of the war?)
It's already started, courtesy of CBS's Lara Logan, live from Baghdad, on The Early Show.
Backseat drivers, indeed.
Posted
4/8/2003 10:08:44 AM
by Edward Driscoll
BUSH, BLAIR, AND THE UN: It looks like there will be some role for the UN in post-war Iraq, if only to placate Tony Blair:
Bush has said he supports a U.N. role and the creation of an interim governing authority for Iraq. But he has not provided key details, such as the exact nature of the U.N.'s role and the makeup of the authority. "There will be a vital role for the U.N. in the reconstruction of Iraq," Blair said. "But the key is that Iraq in the end will be run by the Iraqi people." Questioned for details on that "vital role," Bush said the body could provide humanitarian assistance, collect donations and make suggestions about the makeup of the interim authority. It was far from the broad mandate sought by some allies, and could undermine Blair's efforts.Fortunately, it sounds like the UN will be kept on a short leash by President Bush and the US. UPDATE: Steven Den Beste agrees:
What that doesn't mean is that the UN actually will control the interim administration. And it doesn't mean that the UN bureaucracy gets to decide who gets post-war reconstruction contracts, so that it can assign the majority of them to French companies. What it means is that the British and Americans are going to set up interim governments and get on with the job, UNSC action or no UNSC action. Which means that Bush didn't budge. Which means that TotalFinaElf is going to be out on its ear. Watch for major moves on the French stock market today.Den Beste adds, "Bush has all the cards". Read the whole thing, as somebody once said.
Posted
4/8/2003 09:46:45 AM
by Edward Driscoll
MY GOD, THEY TOOK OUT FRED SANFORD AS WELL! "Saddam Strike Plane Told: 'This Is the Big One'".
"Elizabeth...I'm coming to join you. Elizabeth..."
Posted
4/7/2003 09:26:41 PM
by Edward Driscoll
LILEKS: "If he’s dead, what a Monday: Saddam dead, WMD found, and US forces swipe the ashtrays at a Presidential palace. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, men."
Posted
4/7/2003 08:37:53 PM
by Edward Driscoll
DID WE GET HIM? Rowan Scarborough and Bill Gertz on the most recent strike against Saddam.
Posted
4/7/2003 04:09:54 PM
by Edward Driscoll
WHERE HAVE YOU GONE WORLD B. FREE, OUR NATION TURNS ITS LONELY EYES TO YOU: Steven Den Beste had a dream. He had an awesome dream.
(Sorry to butcher both Paul Simon and Lionel Richie in the above post, however. And if you don't remember the NBA's World B. Free, click here.)
Posted
4/7/2003 01:43:57 AM
by Edward Driscoll
IRAQ'S TERRORIST TRAINING CAMP: In an article with the terrible headline of "Linkage cache trail" in The Washington Times, Deroy Murdock writes about Salman Pak, Saddam Hussein's terrorist training camp, which is equipped with a parked airliner, for practice hijackings.
Posted
4/7/2003 12:41:11 AM
by Edward Driscoll
"I DO BELIEVE THIS CITY IS FREAKIN' OURS", said Capt. Chris Carter of Watkinsville Georgia, quoted by the Everett Washington Herald, which also quotes an intelligence report that says, "Regime collapse is a matter of days, not weeks."
Posted
4/7/2003 12:38:29 AM
by Edward Driscoll
BODY OF "CHEMICAL ALI" IDENTIFIED BY BRITISH TROOPS, according to AP (CNN just announced it as well).
Posted
4/6/2003 12:23:24 PM
by Edward Driscoll
C-130 LANDS AT BAGHDAD AIRPORT, "the first known U.S. aircraft to arrive in the Iraqi capital", AP reports.
Posted
4/6/2003 12:21:13 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THE MEDIA WILL CALL IT "THE SIEGE OF BAGHDAD", but it's not, Steven Den Beste says, placing the fighting there in historical perspective.
Posted
4/6/2003 12:19:07 PM
by Edward Driscoll
HOW'S THE WAR GOING? Glenn Reynolds has a nice roundup of links from the Blogosphere and beyond, as well as this quote, which sums everything up quite nicely:
Meanwhile, a guy in the bar last night observed that you can tell how the war is going just from glancing at the television -- they used to be showing maps of Iraq, but now they're showing maps of Baghdad.Be sure and read the excerpt from Mark Steyn that Glenn quotes.
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