Today's Links and Minifeatures 2005 07 19 Tuesday

Well, this marks one month since official launch!

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I got an email back from Senator Boxer's Office. If you'll remember a couple of days ago, I said I'd emailed my senators and representative on the status (In Limbo) of an Iraqi blogger. I got back a form email today on why we need to set a timetable to get out of Iraq. A) I don't expect a personal reply, but an irrelevant form letter is worse than being ignored. B) Setting a timetable to get out is slitting our own throats, as any number of real experts have pointed out C) I was hoping the senator or her staffer might actually have the courage of her alleged political convictions, rather than just trying to tear down the opposition. No such luck.



All in all, rather a metaphor for the Donkeys.



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Speaking of stupid Donkey tricks, I got a call today on my Do-Not-Call cell number. I know that political organizations are exempt from do not call, but an automated call without someone on the line is illegal in California. So State Treasurer Phil Angelides, how does it feel to be committing crimes statewide? Even if I were minded to help small minded twits like you continue to sabotage the state government, this call would not make me any more likely to help.



(I learned the telecom regs a couple years ago when I was considering telemarketing my business. Despite the obvious economic incentive, I decided against it. I don't like people who do it to me - so decided not to do it to anyone else, despite the fact it's far and away more effective, and more quickly effective, than other forms of marketing. If you want to figure out a way to do away with telemarketing or spam, make them cost more than other alternatives).



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Dean's World has the newest Carnival of the Liberated up, which includes news about Khalid Jarrar, who was the reason I sent the above referenced email to Senator Boxer.



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13 Riskiest real estate markets according to PMI Group. I can think of markets that are at least as precariously balanced.



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More PC run amok. The Washington Post on the strains illegal immigration brings to one community. Only they're "immigrants", there is only one reference to the fact that one of them is the country illegally (Pretty much all of them are, but it's not clear from the article).



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Volokh Conspiracy has more on the FBI collecting data on the ACLU. So far, it seems to confirm what I wrote yesterday.



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Chrenkoff has codeified the UN Alert System. But these guys still want to take over the internet. Maybe so they'll be in a position to replace their Oil For Food Revenues with bribe revenue from a much bigger business: internet porn!



(I used to think the UN was a good idea, really I did. The UN changed my mind)



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What has this got to do with being a librarian? Now suppose some largely conservative group, like financial planners, accountants, or bankers, came out with the opposite opinion? They would expect to be crucified in the court of public opinon. Dissenting members would claim coercion and hijacking by Evil Republican Theocratic Forces. It has nothing to do with their reason for existing. Why do similar left wing groups expect and receive a pass on this?



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Captain's Quarters has a must read on the assassination of a Sunni delegate to the Iraqi constitutional committee. Two of the 15 Sunni delegates have quit under threats and now a third is dead. Could it be that Zarqawi and his terrorist organization want a large minority to feel disenfranchised by cutting them out of the constitutional process?



Dean's World hits a home run on the erosion of excessive tolerance! Comparing terrorists to pirates is good, but piracy is still far more prevalent than I'm comfortable with. See here and also here and here as well as here



We need to eradicate terrorists. Pirates aren't nearly rare enough. On the other hand, nobody romanticizes them any more. They are murdering, plundering gangster thugs. Which is a start.



Mark Steyn with more.



I signed the Iraqi Freedom Petition. Have you? (HT: Jawa Report)



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Ann Althouse demolishes a NY Times Editorial that tried to cut the ground out from under originalism.



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Indepundit has an article on San Diego politics I just can't ignore anymore. I wish any one of a number of people was running. But the choice of front runners seems to be between Frye, a Certified Moonbat™ and Saunders, Yet Another Machine Candidate®. The election is one week away and I have yet to find anyone with rational concrete proposals to deal with the problems in America's Finest Banana Republic. Everybody seems to be speaking in generalities as vague as they can make them and really saying nothing. If you don't tell us what you intend to do if elected, how can we believe you'll have the political capital to make it happen? I forsee another short period of business as usual, then municipal bankruptcy so that the courts rather than the politicians will have to do all the dirty work.



(Who, me? Disgusted?)



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Finally, Hat tip to Vodkapundit for finding and discussing this: Rove Plame possibly about bureaucratic warfare (at least on the part of the CIA). Much as I find conspiracy theories farcical for the most part, this account does mesh with a) known facts, b) my memory of events and the sequence they happened in c) my experiences with government bureaucracies. I don't think that this one hasn't gotten over the bar into credibility yet, but it's clearly something to bear in mind as a potential hypothesis for later events.



At this point I still think the most likely explanation for the overblown nature of the whole Rove/Plame thing is overzealous partisanry. There is no there there, and there never was. If Karl Rove sucessfully rope-a-doped the Donkeys, they have only their own blindness to blame.



links politics Plame San Diego terrorism iraq united nations FBI illegal immigration real estate