Linux Hurts Apple More Than Microsoft

Linux has the power to push Apple to #3 if it can gain a little more traction on the desktop.

"Linux was Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds' response to Sun's pricing, but many more techies saw it as the ultimate weapon for their all-out software jihad against Microsoft (which, of course, owns Slate). But like another holy war, the Linux-Microsoft fight has resulted mostly in collateral damage. Instead of wiping out Windows, Linux evangelists have driven one after another of Microsoft's competitors out of the operating system business. IBM, DEC, SCO, and finally Sun have lost the non-Windows portion of the server market to Linux, and no wonder: Linux is basically a better version of their Unix products, for free."

...But with technology budgets frozen or slashed in most offices and homes, it's getting harder to compete with free—unless you're Microsoft. Every field in software seems to thin out to Microsoft and Someone Else. Usually, it's Microsoft and Second Place, but this year's game console wars illustrate the point, too: The entry of Microsoft's Xbox hasn't hurt first-place PlayStation 2. Instead, it bumped second-place Nintendo to third.

As the Unix wars proved, the software biz doesn't have time for No. 3...Apple still has software applications not available on Linux—such as Quark for publishing, or Photoshop for graphics—but if Salkever's analyst buddies step forth and pronounce Linux the No. 2 platform, software companies will re-evaluate their commitments. No doubt the graphic designers and multimedia artists who have remained loyal to Macs will continue to buy them, but to grow Apple needs more Switchers to abandon Windows—and not for Linux.

Is the new Mac the fastest personal computer ever? Maybe, but that was Sun's line, too.

IT Moving Overseas

Offshore outsourcing is relentless - Computerworld: "The way we look at it, the industrialization of IT is a reality, and we have to embrace that."

Clear Thinking Down Under

LGF pointed out the changes to Australian foreign policy, in essence telling the UN to take a flying leap.

The Australian government on Thursday branded multilateral forums such as the United Nations "ineffective and unfocused" and said its foreign policy will increasingly rely on "coalitions of the willing" like the one that waged war in Iraq.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer also said that in Canberra's view, other nations' sovereignty was "not absolute."
...
"Some multilateral institutions will remain important to our interests," he said. "But increasingly multilateralism is a synonym for an ineffective and unfocused policy involving internationalism of the lowest common denominator."

He added: "We are prepared to join coalitions of the willing that can bring focus and purpose to addressing the urgent security and other challenges we face. ... Sovereignty in our view is not absolute. Acting for the benefit of humanity is more important."

Basic Characteristics of Fascism

Thanks to LGF for the tip on this article from Free Inquiry. I'm not sure that I agree with this list, but it's a place to start a conversation.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism

5. Rampant sexism

6. A controlled mass media

7. Obsession with national security

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together

9. Power of corporations protected

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts

12. Obsession with crime and punishment

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption

14. Fraudulent elections

A Lone Voice of Moral Clarity

This Arab-Israeli knows that the murdering of innocent people is wrong---and you don't even have to clarify what "innocent" means.

Environment Becoming BETTER

The WSJ relates on a new EPA report on the state of the environment in the US.

The air is cleaner, for example, with major pollutants declining 25% over 30 years despite more people, cars and a larger economy. Of 260 U.S. metropolitan areas, 212 have pollution levels that are trending down. The days across the country in which air quality violated a health standard fell to 3% in 2001 from 10% in 1988.

The volume of toxic chemicals released in the environment has declined by nearly half in 15 years. The U.S. has addressed the threats at 846 of its 1,498 most toxic waste sites...Forests still cover one-third of America, with acreage increasing by two million from 1997-99. Just 4.3% of the nation's total land area is developed (no, that's not a typo).

There are areas that need improvement. While 94% of the nation drinks water that meets all health standards (up from 79% in 1993), water quality is still poor in certain rivers and lakes. But the main lesson of the report is that Americans have never lived in a cleaner, healthier country.

If cornered by the truth, the green lobby will even drop its veil of woe and admit this good news. But then it will attribute all progress to the power of government regulation and its attendant lawsuits. This is also a mistake. Those of us who believe in free markets understand that pollution is an "externality" that isn't factored into normal transaction costs; even Milton Friedman endorses effluent taxes.

But the point the lefties miss is that only a prosperous country can afford to pay for those externalities. America only developed the political consensus to clean up the environment in the 1970s, after it had become a society of two-car garages. The key to future green progress is maintaining the free-market growth and innovation that can produce hydrogen cars or find a way to turn wind into cheap power. Our main beef with the greens -- other than that they make depressing dinner companions -- is that their household remedies are always the kind of regulation that will stifle this growth.

Another Tax Plague Inflicted on California by Gray Davis

I agree with this decision, even though it will cost California billions for years and years. You sign a stupid contract, make stupid regulations, make even worse deregulation decisions, you live with the results.

As evidence uncovered by FERC showed, Mr. Davis thought he was getting a steal at the time, locking in more than $12 billion in contracts when energy supplies were uncertain. But when prices later fell, Mr. Davis did his typical buck-passing routine by trying to weasel out of the deal...

Mr. Davis could have signed long-term contracts for much less months earlier, but for political reasons he preferred to buy all of his electricity through the short-term spot market. Only when those prices soared did he decide to lock in the contracts, which he hailed at the time as "the bedrock of a long-term energy solution."

It's a shame that California residents are now having to pay for Mr. Davis's fecklessness. But then again, they re-elected him even after watching him pull these energy stunts. If they now want to make amends for that expensive mistake, they are going to have to recall him.

More Disgusting Moral Equivalence by Reuters

Reuters, in lumping together the statistics of the murderers and their victims, is guilty of the worst kind of moral equivalence. [Emphasis mine]

Palestinians have also accused Sharon of trying to sabotage any deal by launching "track-and-kill" operations against militants in a current burst of violence in which more than 60 people have been killed on both sides.

A Hudna Is Not Peace

A hudna (an Islamic temporary peace) is only, by their own admission, a temporary quiet period that will enable the Islamo-Nazis to regroup, rebuild, and turn world attention away from their activities.

Experience shows that the Arabs have exploited cease-fires in the past to accumulate strength for the next round of conflict. In August 1970 Israel and Egypt accepted the cease-fire initiated by the United States after a three-year war of attrition. The Egyptians hastened to bring their anti-aircraft missiles closer to the canal to restrict the Israel Air Force's freedom of movement, and to prepare for the future crossing of the canal and getting Sinai back.

Israel protested in vain to the U.S. The missiles remained, enabling Egypt to attack Israel on Yom Kippur of 1973 and neutralize the IDF's air supremacy. After the withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, the Hezbollah took advantage of the quiet to build up an infrastructure of Katyusha rockets.

The Core Problem Is Ideology

The core problem in the Middle East is not terrorism, it is ideology. Terrorism is just a natural outgrowth of the philosophy. Until this is recognized, nothing will change.

Interview with Anjem Choudary, UK leader and spokesman of Al-Muhajiroun...

What about killing civilians?
In Israel there are no civilians. You have to remember that they are occupying Muslim land.

Including babies and old women who get blown up in the marketplace?
Those people in the land are occupiers and aggressors and are part of the atrocities which, as far as we're concerned, are as bad - if not worse - as in Nazi Germany. As far as women are concerned, they are a part of the army. By and large the operations are targeted at people who are part of the army, but invariably innocent people will be caught up in the explosions but this is what we call collateral damage.

Are all Zionists fair game?
We would not target anyone who supports Zionism as such; we believe in a healthy debate and dialogue with anyone. But it is one thing having a view and another giving money to kill someone or occupy someone's land. Anyone involved in killing Muslims or organizing to displace Muslims is part of the enemy.

Is Islam a peaceful religion?
No, we can't say that, because the roots of the word Islam is not peace, but submission---to have complete submission to the Creator.

What are your feelings about the Briton who carried out the suicide attack in Tel Aviv?
One must be happy for fellow Muslims when they fulfill their obligations. It is a very noble thing. Whenever a Muslim goes to a battlefield and performs a legitimate operation sanctioned by the sharia (Islamic law), this is something that should bring pleasure to the heart of all Muslims. I pray to Allah that he did this sincerely and had no other objectives but to please Him. If so, then he will get to Paradise.

Is there a conflict between being British and Muslim?
A Muslim can only have one identity. However, the fact that I have a British passport does mean that I have a covenant with the British government. This means that I will not violate the sanctity of any individual here and they will not violate the sanctity of my life. Britain is an aggressor in Iraq and it makes them a target only for people from outside.

Muslims in Afghanistan or in Iraq have the legitimate right to retaliate. Hence the attack on 9/11 was justifiable under sharia because they had been attacked in 1998. Under sharia law, for a Muslim from outside to bomb the Israeli embassy in London, would be acceptable.

Do you have any Jewish friends?
Muslims are not allowed to have friends who are not Muslims, but it does not mean you should be unjust to them. A Jew once asked the messenger Muhammad saying: Do you like me? Muhammad answered: "No I don't like you, I hate you for your belief, but I will not be unjust to you."

Bias In Reporting

Excellent letter-to-the-editor at the LA Times.

EU Releasing Terrorists Back Into Disputed Territories

Nothing is surprising, not even this bit from Amish Tech Support on the EU releasing terrorists into the West Bank and Gaza.

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Nabil Sha'ath says he has a commitment from the EU to return to the territories Palestinians expelled from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem over a year ago, reports Israel Radio.

After a five-week standoff in May 2002, the 123 Palestinian gunmen who had been holed up inside the church were released.

Thirteen Palestinians described by Israel as 'having blood on their hands' were flown on a British military plane to Larnaca in Cyprus, which served as a transit port to six European nations that agreed to accept the fugitives.

Twenty-six Palestinians were taken by bus to Gaza City, where they returned to a heroes' welcome. The remaining 84 Palestinians were released to their homes.

Nabil Sha'ath claims that the arrangement reached with the European Union are set to expire after one year.

The New Anti-Semitism Is Not That New To Me

Solomonia carries this piece in The Observer on antisemitism in the Arab world.

The Unfortunate State of the Arab World

For all their oil wealth, the Arab world has suprisingly little economic development.

This year, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) released its first-ever Arab Human Development Report, and it could not be more damning. Specifically:

• With a GDP of $531 billion in 1999, the report's Arab authors note, the 280 million citizens and 22 nations of the Arab League produced less than Spain.

• Adjusted for purchasing power parity, the income of the average Arab citizen was just 14 percent of the average citizen of an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country.

• If the Arab world's per capita growth rate of 0.5 percent annually over the past two decades continues, it will take the average Arab citizen 140 years to double his income, while citizens of other regions are on track to achieve that in less than 10 years.

Meanwhile, Arabs lack access to the knowledge that might enable them to compete in the modern economy. They lag behind sub-Saharan Africa even in the number of Internet connections per capita, while fewer books have been translated into Arabic over the past millennium than Spain translates in an average year.

Even more shocking are the report's policy conclusions. Rather than blame a lack of aid from the First World, as both the Arabs and the UNDP have been wont to do in the past, the report identifies the lack of democratic and efficient governance as a major obstacle to economic growth. The Arab Region needs to abandon the vestiges of the old dirigiste approach and foster private enterprise with "beneficial regulation" to curb both public and private monopolies. To do so, the Arab states need a transparent rule of law, a fair and fast legal system with a professional judiciary.

Mismanagement Responsible for States' Budget Woes

Dennis Cauchon in USA Today analyzes the root causes of state budget woes.

The financial problems racking many state governments this year have less to do with the weak national economy than with the ability of governors and legislators to manage money wisely...

Utah, Georgia and Delaware are the best financial stewards, according to the USA TODAY analysis of the states' financial performance. The key to their success: restraint. During the economic boom of the late 1990s, these states limited both spending growth and tax cuts. After the economy weakened in early 2001, they acted swiftly and decisively to keep their finances sound.

California, the worst-performing state in the analysis, did the opposite. It approved huge spending increases and tax cuts during the boom. When the economy soured, the state began borrowing money and using accounting gimmicks to avoid its day of reckoning. Today, it continues to spend $1 billion a month more than it takes in...

In California, Illinois and other states that have managed money poorly, residents will be paying off added debt for decades. Tax increases and spending cuts will be more severe than they would have been had the states addressed financial difficulties quickly...

The principles of good financial management at the state level are the same as those for a household: Balance what you spend with what you make, or you're headed for trouble. A state that spends too much or suffers a drop in tax revenue has to raise tax rates, cut spending or borrow.

The longer it delays, the worse the problem gets...

Spending growth during the boom years haunts some states today. State spending was 38% higher in 2002 than in 1997 —$983 billion vs. $710 billion. That was 18 percentage points higher than inflation and population growth combined during the period. This shows that policy decisions — not just higher costs and more people — drove spending to record levels...

Powerful governors manage money better. States in the best financial shape have governors with broad constitutional powers over spending. Forty-three governors have line-item vetoes, which allow them to reject individual programs within legislation.

Here they summarize the state of the state of California.

California

Fiscal management: Poor

Annual spending change: +9.1%

Annual tax rate change: -1.0%

2002 budget: $133.1 billion

The state borrowed $11 billion last week to cover its 2003 deficit. It will borrow another $2 billion to make a required contribution to the state employees' retirement system. Democrats, who control the Legislature and the governor's mansion, have been spending $1 billion a month more than the state takes in for two years.

California had the absolute worst rating by far. States wound up being rated between 2 to 12 stars. California achieved only 2 stars! The next lowest state was rated 4 stars!
Spending Restraint: 1 out of 4 stars
Bond Rating: 0 out of 4 stars
Tax System: 1 out of 4 stars

See also here for a more extensive analysis.

Of Course It Will Come to This

Farmers to Be Taxed on Livestock Flatulence. The title almost says it all...

Farmers will be taxed on the flatulence of their livestock in an attempt to slow New Zealand's contribution to global warming.

The levy could cost a typical family farmer up to $300 a year. Larger corporate farmers could pay up to $10,000.

Sheep will be levied at nine cents each and cows at up to 72 cents under the Government's proposals.

The money will be used for research on emission reductions needed to meet New Zealand's commitment to lower greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto protocol.

The Settlements Are Legal

Israpundit carries a great synopsys of the case that building and expanding "settlements" in the West Bank and Gaza are legal.

Another Occupation?

You may have heard of Hebron, a small city in the West Bank. There are 120K Arabs and ~7000 Jews (only 500 actually in the city, 6500 next door in Kiryat Arba). There were no Jews there in 1968, and settlement of the city didn't start (illegally) until 1972. The Israeli army must be deployed there to protect them. (Both areas are now legal.)

On the surface this seems like an injustice. Why are Israelis moving into an Arab area?

First, Hebron is one of the 4 holy cities of Judaism, second to Jerusalem.

Hebron is first mentioned in the book of Genesis (13:18), where Abraham is found pitching his tent. Later when Sara, his wife, dies - in Kiryat Arba that is Hebron, Genesis 23:2 - he buys a field and the burial cave of Machpela for her (Genesis 23:9, 17-20). In fact all the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and - three of the four - mothers, Sara, Rebecca, and Leah lived there, and were buried there in the Caveof Machpela. It was so important to Jacob, that seeing his end nearing, he called his 12 sons to gather around him, and promise that when he dies, they will leave Egypt to bring his body back to Hebron for burial (Genesis 49:29-31).

Second, there have always been Jews there until modern times.

After the expulsion of Jews from Spain(1492), Hebron's Jewish population began to grow; Spanish Jewish exiles resettling in Hebron became evident by the beginning of the 16th century. In the second half of the 16th century, you find the rising power of the Hebron, on the one hand, and the decline of Safed as a spiritual and economic center, on the other. Toward the end of the 16th and at the beginning of the 17th centuries some of the most important kabbalists - Jewish mystics - of Safed moved to Hebron. Kabbala and mysticism made a deep impression on the Jewish life of Hebron. By the 17th-18th centuries, a large flourishing community lived in Hebron, whose main economy was grape growing and wine production. But the Arab-Muslim hordes, as they so often would do, went on a religiously inspired rampage - Islam forbids wine or any alcohol - and they killed, forcibly converted, or drove out many from the Jewish community. But Jews continued to live there, eventually recovering, and by the end of the 19th century, the Jewish population reached 1,500. There was even a hospital in Hebronby 1895.

Third, for many of them, their parents or grandparents or great-grandparents were murdered there or forced to flee.

As to the last point, was this because of the 1948 war for Israel's independence? No. It happened TWO decades before.

Pierre Van Paassen was in Palestine and provides a graphic account of the 1929 pogrom against the Jews of Hebron in his book Days of Our Years, from which the following comes. Van Paasen shows that the Mufti of Jerusalem was behind the riots and slaughter and accuses the British administration of aiding and abetting the Mufti.

Falsified photographs showing the Omar mosque of Jerusalem in ruins, with an inscription that the edifice had been bombed by the Zionists, were handed out to the Arabs of Hebron as they were leaving their place of worship on Friday evening, August the twenty-third. A Jew passing by on his way to the synagogue was stabbed to death. When he heard of the murder, Rabbi Slonim, a man born and bred in the city and a friend of the Arab notables, notified the British police commander that the Arabs seemed to be strangely excited. He was told to mind his own business. An hour later the synagogue was attacked by a mob, and the Jews at prayer were slaughtered. On the Saturday morning following, the Yeshiva...was put to the sack, and the students were slain. A delegation of Jewish citizens thereupon set out to visit the police station, but was met by the lynchers. The Jews returned and took refuge in the house of Rabbi Slonim where they remained until evening, when the mob appeared before the door. Unable to batter it down, the Arabs climbed up the trees at the rear of the house and, dropping onto the balcony, entered through the windows on the first floor.

Mounted police--Arab troopers in the service of the government-- had appeared outside by this time, and some of the Jews ran down the stairs of Slonim's house and out into the roadway. They implored the policemen to dismount and protect their friends and relatives inside the house and clung around the necks of the horses. From the upper windows came the terrifying screams of the old people, but the police galloped off, leaving the boys in the road to be cut down by Arabs arriving from all sides for the orgy of blood.

What occurred in the upper chambers of Slonim's house could be seen when we found the twelve-foot-high ceiling splashed with blood. The rooms looked like a slaughterhouse. When I visited the place in the company of Captain Marek Schwartz, a former Austrian artillery officer, Mr. Abraham Goldberg of New York, and Mr. Ernst Davies, correspondent of the old Berliner Tageblatt, the blood stood in a huge pool on the slightly sagging stone floor of the house. Clocks, crockery, tables and windows had been smashed to smithereens. Of the unlooted articles, not a single item had been left intact except a large black-and-white photograph of Dr. Theodore Herzl, the founder of political Zionism. Around the picture's frame the murderers had draped the blood-drenched underwear of a woman.

We stood silently contemplating the scene of slaughter when the door was flung open by a British solder with fixed bayonet. In strolled Mr. Keith-Roach, governor of the Jaffa district, followed by a colonel of the Green Howards battalion of the King's African Rifles. They took a hasty glance around that awful room, and Mr. Roach remarked to his companion, "Shall we have lunch now or drive to Jerusalem first?"

In Jerusalem the Government published a refutation of the rumors that the dead Jews of Hebron had been tortured before they had their throats slit. This made me rush back to that city accompanied by two medical men, Dr. Dantziger and Dr. Ticho. I intended to gather up the severed sexual organs and the cut-off women's breasts we had seen lying scattered over the floor and in the beds. But when we came to Hebron a telephone call from Jerusalem had ordered our access barred to the Slonim house. A heavy guard had been placed before the door. Only then did I recall that I had inadvertently told a fellow newspaperman in Jerusalem about our gruesome discoveries.

On the same day of the Hebron massacre, the Arabs had rioted in Jerusalem, crying: "Death to the Jews! The government is with us!" The fact that the attacks on Jewish communities in different parts of the country had occurred simultaneously was interpreted by the Mufti's newspaper Falastin as irrefutable evidence of the spontaneity of the outburst of Arab indignation. The Acting High Commissioner, Mr. H.C. Luke, had informed newspapermen that the government had been completely taken unawares. Yet a full ten days earlier it was he who had ordered the various hospitals, and especially the Rothschild clinic of which Dr. Dantziger was chief surgeon, to have a large number of beds in readiness in view of the government's expectation of a riotous outbreak.

Here's how he described the British actions. (Source: Pierre Van Paassen, The Forgotten Ally, New York, 1943; Dial Press)

...the Holy Land was in turmoil. Life came to a standstill as the ordinary safeguards of government ceased to function. The mob, in itself not very numerous or impressive, dominated the scene. Sir John Chancellor, the High Commissioner, was on leave of absence, and his place at the top had been taken by Harry Luke, the Chief Secretary, as Acting High Commissioner.

This gentleman appeared to be in a blue funk (disappointed, nervous) in the first days of the rioting, when I called on him at Government House in Jerusalem. ``The situation has gotten out of hand,'' he repeated over and over again, ``and just at a moment when there are no troops within easy call.''

I asked him if there were no arms on hand either.

"Plenty,'' he said.

"Well, then there is nothing to be afraid of,'' I suggested. ``Give me a gun and give a few more British subjects a gun, and we can keep order. If need be, you could arm a few thousand Jews. They are being attacked by people who seem to have plenty of arms. It would be logical, in view of the fact that the government does not possess the means to protect them, that they be allowed to defend themselves.''

"But that would mean civil war,'' objected Mr. Luke.

"Well, you pretty well have a civil war on your hands as it is.''

"We, the government, would merely become a third party of disorder if I carried out your suggestion,'' he said.

"Disorder? By suppressing disorder you do not become disorderly,'' I remarked. ``The Mufti's clique is the party of disorder, The Jews, whatever your objection to them may be, are the party of order. I have looked at the Arab rioters in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and elsewhere. They are the lowest dregs of the population, uncouth hooligans, gangsters and cutthroats. As against them the Jews represent civilization here.''

"Ah,'' he objected again, ``but you must keep in mind that the government is neutral, must be impartial in this quarrel between Jews and Arabs. We are the watchdog...''

"Neutral and impartial when it is a question of barbarism versus civilization, when it is a case of gangsters attacking peaceful innocent citizens as those whose bodies I just saw piled up in a house in Hebron? .... Can one be neutral in a case like that? Isn't being neutral in such a case, tantamount to taking sides, if one leaves the way open for more attacks, more murders of women and children?''

"By the way,'' Mr. Luke broke in, "are you a Jew?''

"No,'' I answered, "must one be a Jew to want fair play?''

"What then do you suggest?'' he asked.

"I can suggest nothing,'' I replied, "I am only a newspaperman looking on ....''

"Quite so,'' he came back, ``But you could be immensely useful to the government of Palestine. You represent a great liberal journal in America (the late New York Evening World), and we are very sensitive to American public opinion. I want you to have full facilities to probe the matter, to find out what really happened here, and to tell in what a grave predicament the government of Palestine was placed, caught between two fires, as it were...''

"But I cannot say that,'' I returned. ``You have just said the government is neutral. I can never hope to explain to the American newspaper reader that in the presence of an unprovoked attack by gangs of hoodlums on a peaceful community, the government looked on as an impartial spectator. Americans won't understand that. They expect something else from a government.''

"What, for instance?''

"Well, a whiff of grapeshot, for instance - a few volleys fired into the air by the police ... you can't be neutral in a case like that.''

"Well, no, but impartial we are...''

"You call that impartiality when a man like Captain Caffaretta of Hebron comes in and calmly relates how he watched the mob invade a rabbi's home and slaughter twenty-seven persons there.''

"There were only twenty-six killed,'' interrupted Mr. Luke.

"Yes, twenty-six adults and one baby of three months, that makes twenty-seven by my count .... Watch human beings being killed, he an officer in the British army, with a police guard at his beck and call and a service revolver in his pocket. One or two shots in the air by Caffaretta, and the mob would never have entered Rabbi Slonim's house.''

The truth is often different from first appearances.

Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, Hand in Hand

Alyssa Lappan makes the case in Front Page Magazine that there is no real difference between Hamas and the PA/PLO for all intents and purposes.

Hamas is not at war with the Palestinian Authority, despite a PR campaign to the contrary. The PA has worked actively with Hamas for years. In 1995, it wrote a pact with the Islamist terrorists in Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas’ protests are evidently for show. On March 3 of this year, Abbas urged that violence continue.

A draft of the Hamas-PA pact, appended below, ran on Sept. 20, 1995 in Egypt’s Al-Ahram government weekly. Article 12 requires the PA to cease all preventive security and let Hamas operate without PA interference. The agreement gives Hamas a role in the PA government, which Abu Mazen fulfilled by naming a Hamas partisan as education minister.

Indeed, PLO political chief Farouq Al-Qaddoumi confirmed on Jan. 3, 2003, Fatah was “never different from Hamas… Strategically, we are no different from it.”

Here is the money quote on where the US keeps going wrong.

Mr. President, you resolved after September 11th that the U.S. would defeat terrorism globally. I’m a New Yorker, and this earned you my unwavering support.

The Road Map, however, defeats this wise policy by:

Rewarding terrorists whose deceitful regime has murdered more than 1,300 civilians since 1993, maimed more than seven thousand, and sponsored 20,000 attacks on civilians over the past three years. It rewards the inventors of suicide bombing, airline hijacking, kidnapping and mass murder for political gain.

Overlooking the Palestinian National Charter’s open call for genocide—never revised. Thirty of its clauses seek Israel’s political, military, intellectual and cultural destruction by any and all means.

Defeating democracy. The PA Constitution proposes an undemocratic, racist, Islamist state—denying basic freedoms to non-Muslim minorities. This reinforces Islam’s worst characteristics, a history of subjugating non-Muslims revealed by Bat Ye’or, Ann Elizabeth Meyer, Raphael Israeli, Frederick P. Isaac , Tudor Parfitt, H.Z. Hirschberg, V.S. Naipaul and Patrick Sookdheo, among others. Israeli’s forthcoming Islamikaze should be required State Department reading.

Illustrating U.S. failure of conviction, a perceived weakness inviting Islamists to mount larger attacks on Israeli and U.S. civilians—and intensify their advanced ideological, intellectual, political, and religious assaults on foundational Western values.

Ignoring a central tenet of Islam, which permits no permanent peace between Muslims and “infidel” states (such as Israel). Under Islamic law, the only treaty possible between Muslims and “infidels” is a “truce” modeled on Muhammad’s Al-Hudabiyyah Treaty with the Meccans in 628, according to Islamic scholar Hugh Fitzgerald. This may not exceed 10 years, and may be renewed briefly, but only if Muslims could thereby gather strength to renew their assault or defeat the Infidels in question.

What Is Sharon Doing?

Saul Singer relates an interesting theory of why Sharon is taking the path that he is.

In style, the road map repeats all the mistakes of Oslo. In structure it makes one critical change: In Oslo, Palestinian statehood was to be the end result; in the road map, the state comes in the middle.

What difference does this make? In essence, it means a choice has been made between the gradualist and the "big bang" schools...

As David Ben-Gurion put it in 1919, "Everybody sees the problem in the relations between the Jews and the [Palestinian] Arabs. But not everybody sees that there's no solution to it. There is no solution! ... I don't know any Arabs who would agree to Palestine being ours even if we learn Arabic ... and I have no need to learn Arabic. On the other hand, I don't see why "Mustafa" should learn Hebrew. ... There's a national question here. We want the country to be ours. The Arabs want the country to be theirs."

Ariel Sharon is a disciple of Ben-Gurion and sees the conflict in roughly these terms. This does not mean that Sharon is being dishonest when he talks about peace. It means that the peace Sharon is talking about is not a full "solution" to the conflict, but a form of livable cold war.

The "big bang" school, by contrast, believes the Arab world has fundamentally decided to accept Israel, and therefore a peace agreement simply awaits granting the Palestinians the right terms. The Oslo agreement was built according to this paradigm. Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton were its ultimate practitioners, in that they believed the Palestinians could be induced to drop all further claims and make a full peace with Israel.
...
Sharon's real objective is to get to the middle phase of the road map and park there until the Arab world is ready for peace, which may or may not ever happen. It is a reasonably comfortable place for a gradualist to be. Palestine may choose to be belligerent, but Israel will have a provisional border to defend and a state to hold accountable.

The risk of this plan is that statehood will be no more of a firewall against pressure to fulfill Palestinian demands than all the other agreements that the Palestinians sign and the world ignores. Eventually, the Palestinians will use terror again to force their next objective: a full Israeli unilateral withdrawal, without having to concede the demand of "return" to Israel.

The protections against this dangerous scenario are Israeli will and the trust of the United States. Sharon feels that he and Bush can be trusted to ensure that the dates in the road map do not mean that Israel will be forced to fill out Palestine's borders even if it turns out to be a terrorist state. Whether future Israeli and American leaders can be so trusted is another question.

As a good gradualist, Sharon is not troubled by the fact that a full peace is not obtainable in the near future. In 1938, Ben-Gurion said, "The conflict had lasted 30 years, and is liable to continue for perhaps hundreds more."

Not a Pretty Future

Dr. Moshe Rosenblatt has a few primitive predictions for Ariel Sharon.

Now, my dear prime minister, if the road map you’ve endorsed will be implemented, my primitive mind tells me that the Arabs will learn anew that the more violence they apply to us, the more rewards they’ll get. As a result, we`ll see mega-attacks like the one that struck the U.S. on September 11, 2001. Terrorists will likely bring down on Tel Aviv an El Al Jumbo jet after its lift-off from Ben Gurion Airport. Thousands will die, burned and crushed beyond recognition.

The road map`s Palestinian state will have its own airport and seaport. A Palestinian plane, full of bombs and fuel, will lift off from Gaza and act like a Kamikaze in the center of Ashkelon, Ashdod or perhaps even the nuclear center of Nahal Sorek. Ships filled with weapons of mass destruction and Katyusha long-range rockets (like those Hizbullah has in Lebanon) will arrive at the Palestinians’ port. As a result, mega-attacks could become a daily occurrence.

Slicing the MP3 dollar

Business 2.0 shows how the revenue for each MP3 sold, typically for $1 today, gets divided amongst all the players with their fingers in the pie.

The Site's Cut - 40%
The biggest chunk of your dollar goes to the online music provider. This explains why sites like Rhapsody can offer promotional discounts: When you buy a song for 49 cents, the site sacrifices its profit but the label still gets paid.

The Publisher's Cut - 8%
This sliver goes to the music publisher in the form of "mechanical royalties," the amount paid to license the written music. While other fees can vary from artist to artist, mechanical royalties are always a flat-fee transaction.

The Label's Cut - 30%
The record company receives "performance royalties" that are paid to license an actual recording (not the written music). That explains why some performers, like alt-rocker Aimee Mann, run their own labels -- it allows them to keep a larger share of these royalties for themselves.

The Middlemen's Cut - 10%
A small portion is reserved for various other intermediaries. Sites like Liquid Audio, MusicNet, and Rhapsody often sell their services through secondary distributors like Amazon and AOL, so they, too, get a cut.

The Artist's Cut 12%
Twelve percent is average, but successful bands often hammer out better contracts. In many major-label contracts, charges for "packaging" and promotional copies are subtracted from the artist's cut, leaving the talent with a measly 8 percent. BMG, Universal, and Warner have announced plans to do away with such deductions for digital downloads

Superfish!

The Guardian carries this story on genetically modified fish, Night Pearls, that glow.

Scientists have created the ultimate pet: genetically modified fish that glow in the dark.
...
The Night Pearls glow in different red and green patterns thanks to genes from jellyfish and marine coral. Now the team is working on a glowing dragon fish, which many Asians believe is a lucky species.

Bastards, Part II

The London Times features this report from Iraq on Saddam's torture.

The UN could have gone on passing resolutions and sending in inspectors and rapporteurs for the next 50 years, but in the end there was no realistic alternative to war. Those who bleat about weapons of mass destruction or question the legality of war should talk to the Iraqi people. They are irritated. They ask, “Don’t they care about us? About mass graves? About torture?” Stand at the mass grave at al-Hillah where up to 15,000 people are buried, hands tied behind their backs, bullets through their brains.
...
Stand at the mass grave near Kirkuk, where huge mechanised trucks churn the earth in clouds of dust. Look at the skeletons now tenderly reburied in simple wooden coffins. Talk to Nasir al-Hussein, who was only 12 at the time of the 1991 mass arrests. He, his mother, uncle and cousins were piled on buses. They turned off on to a farm road and the executions started. People were thrown into a pit, machinegunned and then buried with a bulldozer. Nasir crawled out of the mass grave, leaving his dead relatives behind.

The killing fields of al-Hillah and Kirkuk look unremarkable. Shepherds graze their sheep, children play on bikes. But also here are some of the hundreds and thousands of the perhaps 800,000 of the dead of this country. Saddam’s victims: Shias, Kurds, Communists, the people of Iraq. Now the secrets of this evil and despotic regime are being revealed. How much more killing could there have been?
...
On the streets of Baghdad, WMD is not an issue. “Thanks to Bush and Blair,” they cry. I ask what would have happened if they had spoken to me like this in the past on the streets of Baghdad. One man slowly drew his hand, palm down, across his throat.

Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires

Patrick Moore, a co-founder and former president of Greenpeace of all things, writes about how Greens opposition to logging actually harms forests. [Emphasis mine]

The root of the problem is that when we protect our forests from wildfires, over time they become susceptible to disease and to catastrophic wildfires as fuel loads build up. The only way to prevent this is to actively remove dead trees and to thin the forest. The active management of these forests is necessary to protect human life and property, along with air, water and wildlife. This does not prevent us from also maintaining a world-class system of parks and wilderness areas where industrial activity is restricted or banned.

Many activists have a mindset that is simply opposed to forestry. These groups favor policies that involve reducing the use of wood instead of encouraging its use as a renewable resource. We have been led to believe that when we use wood we are causing a bit of forest to be lost. This is not the case. When we buy wood we send a signal into the marketplace to plant more trees, and produce more wood. One of the main reasons there is still about the same area of forested land in the U.S. today as there was 100 years ago is because we use so much wood. Agriculture and urbanization cause forest loss, not forestry.

Trees are just a commodity crop that can be harvested like any other. "Old growth" forests are only more useful than "old growth" corn fields because it appeals to our love of G-d's nature. If the Greens do not want forests logged, they should buy them and do with them what they want. But that would take using their own time and money. They'd rather get the strong arm of the government and use other people's money to do otherwise.

Hamas's Ceasefires

Assessing the Record of Hamas Ceasefires by Shoshanah Haberman is summarized by Daily Alert of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

* If the past is any indication, a ceasefire agreement is likely; such ceasefires have been regular occurrences in PA-Hamas relations.
* Ten ceasefires have been declared or offered by Hamas since 1993. In some cases, they followed periods of PA-Hamas confrontation; at other times, they came on the heels of intense pressure placed on the PA after particularly egregious acts of terrorism committed by Hamas or other groups. All ceasefire offers were presented at a time when Hamas needed a moment to step back and regroup after an exhausting confrontation with a more powerful foe (either Israel or the PA).
* Throughout each of these ceasefire episodes, Hamas leaders continued to support the creation, through religiously sanctioned violence, of an Islamic state in all of Palestine, suggesting that Hamas ceasefires have served as "breathers," allowing the organization to consolidate before undertaking another set of attacks.

Without PA efforts to dismantle the considerable military infrastructure built by Hamas, to deprive its leaders of broadcast and print media outlets, to shut down training and operational facilities, and to collect weapons, there is nothing to prevent any new ceasefire from going the way of previous ones.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=304476&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=304829&displayTypeCd=1&sideCd=1&contrassID=2

Europer: The Bigger the Bureaucracy The Better

Boing Boing quotes a News.com article on the Council of Europe, an influential quasi-governmental body that drafts conventions and treaties, finalizing a proposal that will require websites to offer "equal time" for opposing views when people are criticized.

The all-but-final proposal draft says that Internet news organizations, individual Web sites, moderated mailing lists and even Web logs (or "blogs"), must offer a "right of reply" to those who have been criticized by a person or organization.

With clinical precision, the council's bureaucracy had decided exactly what would be required. Some excerpts from its proposal:

• "The reply should be made publicly available in a prominent place for a period of time (that) is at least equal to the period of time during which the contested information was publicly available, but, in any case, no less than for 24 hours."

• Hyperlinking to a reply is acceptable. "It may be considered sufficient to publish (the reply) or make available a link to it" from the spot of the original mention.

• "So long as the contested information is available online, the reply should be attached to it, for example through a clearly visible link."

• Long replies are fine. "There should be flexibility regarding the length of the reply, since there are (fewer) capacity limits for content than (there are) in off-line media."

Hamas Application

The Jerusalem Post article contains this quote from Dick Cheney about Al Qaida.

"With such an enemy, no peace treaty is possible, no policy of containment or deterrent will prove effective. The only way to deal with this threat is to destroy it completely and utterly."

It should apply equally for Israel and the Islamo-fascists that want to destroy her.

Roadmap Roadkill

Israpundit points out this Ruth Wisse article in the WSJ. She clearly lays out the central problem of the Roadmap.

...the White House still cannot bring itself to admit the true nature of the aggression against Israel. It still tends to treat the regional crisis as "a conflict of two people over one land" that can be resolved by the creation of a Palestinian state. According to this view, since Jews and Arabs both lay claim to the same territory of Israel-Palestine, some division of the territory between will bring about a peaceful resolution. This is the assumption behind the "road map" the president presented at the recent meetings in Egypt and Jordan, inviting the Palestinians to halt their terror and Israel to withdraw some of its settlements from the disputed lands.

Unfortunately, the Arab war against Israel is no more a territorial conflict than was al Qaeda's strike against America, and it can no more be resolved by the "road map" than anti-Americanism could be appeased by ceding part of the U.S. to an Islamist enclave. From the moment in 1947 when Jewish leaders accepted and Arab rulers rejected the U.N. partition plan of Palestine, the Arab-Israeli conflict bore no further likeness to more conventional territorial struggles. Arab rulers defied the U.N. charter by denying the legitimacy of a member state. Arab countries refused to acknowledge the existence of a single Jewish land. Arab rulers did not object to Israel because it rendered the Palestinians homeless. Rather, they ensured that the Palestinians should remain homeless so that they could organize their politics around opposition to Israel.

At any point during the past 55 years, Arab governments could have helped the Palestinian Arabs settle down to a decent life. They could have created the infrastructure of an autonomous Palestine on the West Bank of the Jordan and the Gaza territory that Egypt controlled until 1967, or encouraged the resettlement of Palestinians in Jordan, which constitutes the lion's share of the original mandate of Palestine. Rather than fund the Palestine Liberation Organization to foment terror against Israel they could have endowed Palestinian schools of architecture, engineering, medicine and law. What Israel did for its refugees from Arab lands, Arabs could have done much more sumptuously for the Palestinians displaced by the same conflict. Instead, Arab rulers cultivated generations of refugees in order to justify their ongoing campaign against the "usurper."

She brings in a comparison of the Nazi's use of the Jews as a foil to justify creating an fascist state to the Arabs similar use of the Israel in particular and Jews in general as a similar foil to deny freedom in their own countries. Worth a read.

Zero-sum Game

Israpundit quotes this article by Joseph Farah from WND [Emphasis Israpundit]. Unfortunately, I have come to largely the same conclusion.

There is such a thing in life as an irreconcilable difference. That is what stands in the way of peace talks between these two parties. Israel is all-too willing to give up territory in exchange for peace. Arafat and Hamas are not willing to accept such terms – and never will be.

So, what's the solution? How do we bring about peace and justice in the Middle East?

I'm afraid the only answer, ultimately, is war.

Sooner or later, the attacks by Hamas, Arafat's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Islamic Jihad and other terrorists are going to push Israel too far. It's inevitable. Israel cannot endure an endless series of terrorist attacks on its civilians forever – no nation could.

At some point, Israel is going to have to move beyond the impotent, tit-for-tat retaliatory strikes that only serve to enflame passions in the Arab world and create this impression of a "cycle of violence."

It's true. It is time to stop the cycle of violence. Sometimes, the only way to stop it is with more violence. Sometimes, the only way to stop it is with victory – as the United States showed in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are rapidly nearing one of those times.

Israel is outnumbered by its enemies in the Middle East. It is out-resourced by its enemies in the Middle East. It is out-financed by its enemies in the Middle East. It is out-maneuvered in the public relations war by its enemies in the Middle East. There are only two advantages Israel has over its enemies: It is right, and it has military might.

If Israel doesn't utilize those two strengths – and soon – the world will soon witness another Jewish holocaust. It will be too late. If Israel tries to buy its way out of its current turmoil by yielding to demands for more strategic land concessions, it will be making a fatal mistake.

The "road map" is only a blueprint for murder and mayhem. It is a prescription for more terrorism. It is a plan for disaster in the Middle East. The U.S. must stop coercing Israel. And Israel must not accept the arm-twisting any longer.

Israpundit also picks up this article by Dianne West on Townhall that cries out for the same [Emphasis mine].

Here are some of the Hamas leader's choicer words: "I swear we will not leave a single Jew in Palestine" -- which, in terror-speak, means "not a single Jew in Israel." This statement appeared in the Washington Times. "I am telling Sharon and all the Israeli murderers, you don't have any security unless you leave the country" (i.e., leave Israel), the Washington Post reported.

Such statements strike me more as conversation-enders than dialogue-openers. These sentiments don't promise "revenge" as much as they reaffirm the same old strategy of annihilation by terrorism that imperils Israel in the modern age -- now to a calamitous degree. Indeed, Internet news service IslamOnline.net characterized Rantisi's words as having "reaffirmed" the strategy of "resistance and rifle" -- terror-speak, it seems, for donning Orthodox garb and self-detonating a bus filled with office-bound commuters. That's exactly what a Hamas terrorist did the day after Rantisi spoke. Sixteen Israelis were killed during the afternoon rush hour on Wednesday, leaving scores maimed and wounded on a sunny Jerusalem thoroughfare.

"You have no option but Jihad and martyrdom," Rantisi told IslamOnline.net. "By Allah Almighty, we will pursue Jihad until we bring back all Palestinian refugees to their homeland and restore every inch of our usurped land" -- terror-speak, of course, for every inch of Israel. This wasn't Rantisi's first rant (and, regrettably, won't be his last). A few months back, Rantisi justified the loss of the space shuttle Columbia as "part of the divine punishment of America and, together with it, Zionism." Before that, the good doctor was calling for "thousands of squads of martyrs" to be equipped with "thousands of sophisticated explosives belts" to kill themselves, along with as many Americans and British troops as possible, for the greater glory of Saddam Hussein.

Roadmap To Peace

David Warren

"Roadmap to peace" is one of those sayings, like "the cycle of violence", so fatuous that it blocks thought entirely, let alone clear thought. Such expressions deny the very reality they pretend to describe. If a cliché is to be insisted upon, I would choose "fight to the death" to describe the present tussle between Israel and Palestinian terrorism. Both cannot survive.

Beautiful Pictures of Gaza

Link

Do Not Forget the American Victims of Arab Terrorist Attacks

This site's list start with Robert Kennedy and ends in the summer of 2002. Hopefully, that was the last American death, but more likely the site hasn't been updated in a while.

Zero-Sum War

Israpundit carries this excellent piece by Ze'ev Chafets with this highlight. [Emphasis Israpundit]

When President Bush puts together the photo album of his recent peacemaking junket to the Middle East, he should include pictures of the twisted bus and charred bodies in the streets of Jerusalem.

Bush's little holiday didn't cause the carnage. But it also did nothing to prevent it, or to move the sides even an inch closer to peace. There was never a chance that it would. That's because Israel and the Palestinians are not caught up in a dispute that can be mediated by American diplomacy. They are engaged in a zero-sum war.

The simple truth is that this conflict will continue until one side or the other is defeated. Zero sum.

No talking cure

Hamas and Islamic Jihad say this out loud at every opportunity. They don't want compromise. They don't want peace. They want an Islamic nation in all of Palestine, from Tel Aviv to the Jordan River. Period.

Yasser Arafat shares that goal. The Palestinian president walked out of peace talks at Camp David in the summer of 2000 precisely because he was offered a Palestinian state next to Israel. He insisted then, and still insists, on something else. He calls it the Palestinian right to return, which is a euphemism for two Palestinian states - and no Israel.

Tim Allen / Donald Rumsfeld SUV

What a Father's Day present!

Paying Dividends

The Motley Fool covers how hurdle rate can effect which projects companies choose to fund. A direct effect of lowering interest rates is to lower the hurdle rate for companies to fund more projects. This helps to stimulate the economy.

The truth is that dividends require a successful company to make more efficient use of its capital. For example, let's assume a company called DivPayer Corp (Ticker: CHEK) is doing very well, generating a great deal of free cash flow from operations.

DivPayer is currently evaluating three projects that are available for investment. Projects A, B, and C offer returns of 10%, 8%, and 4% respectively. The fact that DivPayer must pay out a cash dividend each quarter means that it only has enough free cash to invest in two of the three projects.

In this example, DivPayer would choose projects A and B because of their higher returns. A company that pays no dividend, however, may have enough funds left over to also invest in project C, despite it being an inferior investment.

This is a simple example, but you'd be surprised at how accurately it can depict a company's decision-making process. The projects available to a given firm will generally have diminishing returns, and companies that pay a dividend are less likely to choose inferior projects simply because they have the money lying around to invest in them.

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi

For Those Who Think the Battle for Iraq Was Easy

Two email vignettes written by an insider interviewing troops from the 3rd ID.

A must read.

Permits? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Permits

Instapundit carries this article on Alaska's doing away with requiring permits for concealed carry of firearms.

It does not change prohibitions against carrying firearms into courthouses, school yards, bars and domestic violence shelters.

Good Going!

Software As Production Work

Very interesting assessment of the future of software development in the United States along with many insightful comments, both pro and con.
Software Development Goes Abroad - For Good -- How efficient is it to pay a software engineer in Silicon Valley a loaded salary of $170,000 when Asian engineers provide a much better value?

LAT Reporting On Israel

LAT-Early has a hillarious (unfortunately) parody of the LA Times rules on reporting about Israel. Check out the article for the full text.

LOS ANGELES TIMES REPORTER’S HANDBOOK:
National Desk, Palestine Dateline

Welcome to the Los Angeles Times National Desk! Your assignment is the Palestine dateline. You will find yourself right at home here, if you can follow these simple rules:

RULE ONE: The word “terrorist” should be applied to people and groups who carry out deliberate non-military attacks against civilians, in places such as America, Europe, the Philippines, and most everywhere else. But not in Israel.

RULE TWO: Never mention failed attempts to carry out a suicide bombing.

RULE THREE: The Palestinian leadership’s failure to meet their responsibilities under the road map must never be mentioned.

RULE FOUR: Israeli compliance with its responsibilities of the road map must not be mentioned. Only nitpicking of Israeli failures is allowed.

RULE FIVE: The unhindered operation of militant groups must be accepted by Israel as a fundamental part of the peace process, but any attacks on these groups by Israel are a violation of the process. Anything Israel does to defend itself beyond passively waiting for the next attack is “provocative.”

RULE SIX: No matter what goes wrong, it was Ariel Sharon’s fault.

RULE SEVEN: No matter what the situation is, it could be improved if Israel would just make more concessions.

RULE EIGHT: Don’t mention that Hamas is completely opposed to the peace process and to Israel’s existence.

RULE NINE: The subject of political education of Palestinians is not an uncontroversial one.

A Kurdish State?

Shlomo Avineri echoes my feelings on the situation in Iraq vis-a-vis the Kurds.

There is nothing holy in the commitment to "preserve the territorial integrity of Iraq." Preserving the territorial integrity of a country makes sense only so long as the country itself remains a coherent entity. When this is no longer the case as turned out in the last decades with the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia legitimacy disappears and other alternatives have to be sought.

The only thing that stands in the way of Kurdish self determination is realpolitik: Turkey, with its repressive policies toward its own Kurdish minority, would not tolerate a Kurdish state carved out of northern Iraq.

But just as Israeli claims cannot trump Palestinian rights to self-determination, so Turkish claims should not allowed to trump the rights of the Kurds of Northern Iraq to a polity of their own.

And after its ambivalent role in the Iraq war, Turkey carries much less weight with the US than before.

The Stand

Thanks to Israpundit for pointing out this Stand. It's amazing for a guy from Dumas Arkansas (population: 6400). A must read!

Natan Explains The Difference

Natan Sharansky has a very short, pithy explanation as to why the Middle East conflict is not a "cycle of violence".

Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident now a minister in the government of the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, explained to reporters with the confidence of a politician the difference between the innocent dead in Jerusalem and in Gaza.

"None of our operations target innocent people. If we harm the innocent, it is a failure for us. But the terrorists target the innocent.

"For them, this is a success - the goal of the operation," Mr Sharansky said. "There is no choice but to pursue the war on terror."

Of course, the few Palestinians against the murders seem to do so for tactical, rather than moral and ethical reasons.

Abdel-Hayy Abd-Rabbo, a farmer, said after burying the three that the Hamas military wing should not fire their missiles from populated areas, since this was bound to bring Israeli retaliation down on the innocent. "We are asking them to stop firing rockets from areas near our houses, because Israel uses this as an excuse to shell us and causes daily tragedies," he said.

"We support the jihad and the resistance but not shelling from around our homes. Hamas must fire its rockets from other areas."

Ocular Inversion => Morality Inversion

The May 31st edition of The Jerusalem Post carried this stunning article.

The US administration prepared a list of sanctions it would impose against Israel if Israel refuses to implement the 'road map'.

US officials said the sanctions list includes a reevaluation of Israel's use of US-made weapons in the Palestnian territories, and the withholding of emergency aid, reported Army Radio.

The threat of sanctions was delivered to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bureau chief Dov Weisglass during his talks in Washington.

According to Army Radio, a top US Congressional source said that the US administration was angry about the delays in implementing the 'road map' because it sees success in Mideast peacemaking as an important element in George W. Bush's reelection campaign.

What is the administration thinking?! This moral ambiguity only hurts Bush's stance in other parts of the world. This will only hurt Bush in his reelection campaign. The people he is counting on as his bedrock support will stay away from the polls. And he won't pickup any additional support from the left either. As we know, those who will be kind when they should be cruel will be cruel when they should be kind.

UPDATE: The WP carries this quote:

One pro-Israeli source in touch with administration officials attributed the initial White House criticism of Israel to a "human reaction" after administration officials awoke to discover that the glow of last week's Middle East summits attended by Bush had been shattered by the Israeli strike against Hamas official Abdel Aziz Rantisi. "But by Wednesday they realized it was not the natural place of the United States to rush to the defense of Rantisi," he said.

Let's hope so.

Total Recall

John Fund reports on the growing movement to recall California Governor Gray Davis.

While I do not agree with Davis's policies and think that his fiscal performance is driving the state into the ground, I do not necessarily support the recall. A recall of a sitting government official should take place only in the case of extreme malfeasance or gross negligence/incompetence in my opinion. In this case, perhaps the latter is true.

Carl DeMaio of the San Diego-based Performance Institute notes that California's general budget grew by an average of 9.4% a year from fiscal 1997 through 2002. Revenues grew dramatically too--by 27% during Mr. Davis's first term. But spending went up 36% during the same period. If the state had only held spending growth to the increase in population and inflation, it would be enjoying a $5.5 billion surplus now.

The Republicans lost the last gubernatorial election fair and square. Their candidate, Bill Simon, ran a terrible campaign against Davis. With the hurdle for a recall being so low (900K signatures), my fear is that the losing party in elections will turn around and start a recall campaign the moment that they lose an election. I'm much more in favor of the process described here.

A group of fiscal conservatives hope to avoid that kind of runaway spending in the future by making the recall effort a referendum not on Mr. Davis personally but on a constitutional amendment to limit taxes and spending. California had such a limit from 1979 until 1990, when a union-backed measure emasculating it narrowly passed. A new limit would be modeled after Colorado's 1994 Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which limits the growth of government to increases in population and inflation growth, rebates all extra revenue back to the taxpayers, and requires a referendum on all tax and fee hikes. As a result, Colorado is one of the few states without a severe budget crunch today.

Listing of All Terror Attacks Since September 2000

The Jerusalem Post has a horrifying list of all the attacks since September 2000.

Britain and France Bombed!

Must read article from Ha'aretz.

Blatant NPR Bias

NRO carries a detailed article that compares the language NPR uses when discussing terrorism committed against Israel versus when it is committed against other countries. NPR labels it for what it is when the attacks are in Saudi Arabia or the Phillipines, but they absolutely trip over themselves to avoid using the term "terrorist" when it comes to Israel.

Even in this age of journalistic dereliction, NPR's coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict stands out as a parody of journalism. It can hardly be an accident that terrorism in the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Yemen, and New York, is labeled precisely that by NPR — terrorism, but when identical attacks are unleashed against Israelis, NPR reporters move heaven and earth to avoid any use of the word terror. Of course, NPR's coverage of the Middle East also deserves criticism on many other grounds — for example, its numerous material errors and misstatements that seem always to tilt against Israel, and its refusal to forthrightly correct those material errors. Or its peculiar version of "balance" — balancing Israeli critics of Israel with Arab critics of Israel. Or its continual use of loaded words such as "hardline" and "rightwing" to characterize many Israeli politicians, while calling the head of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a "spiritual leader," as if he were the Dalai Lama.

Would it be unfair to say that NPR is to honest journalism as Sheikh Yassin is to the Dalai Lama? Well, maybe a bit unfair — but only a bit.

UPDATE (6/22/03): NPR has responded to the article in usual way.

NPR’s Terror Problem, published last week on National Review Online, documented National Public Radio’s refusal to use any form of the word terror in reporting recent murderous attacks by Palestinians against Israelis, despite the network’s regular use of the terror word in reporting the recent al-Qaeda attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Rather than referring to Hamas and Islamic Jihad as terrorists, NPR instead termed them Palestinian “factions,” perhaps the most neutral word for terrorists one could imagine.

The article also pointed out NPR’s own definition of the word terror, in a styleguide for journalists on the network’s webpage. That definition is incriminating, to say the least, on the question of how NPR reports attacks against Israelis:

terrorism, terrorist — Terrorism is the act of causing terror, usually for political purposes, and it connotes that the terror is perpetrated on innocents. Thus, the bombing of a civilian airliner clearly is a terrorist act, but an attack on an army convoy, even if away from the battlefield, is not. Do not ape government usage. The Israeli government, for instance, routinely refers to PLO actions as terrorist. A journalist should use independent criteria to judge whether the term is accurate. [Emphasis added.]

So, if in NPR’s estimation an attack is not against “innocents,” then it is not terror, suggesting that the network refuses to use the word terror when covering Israel because it does not consider as “innocents” the numerous Israeli civilian victims of, say, suicide bombers. And is it just happenstance that of all the countries in the world, NPR singles out Israel, and instructs that in the case of attacks against Israelis, journalists should be especially wary of using the terror word?

Now, in response to the article, has NPR apologized for failing to report as terror suicide bombings and other bloody attacks against Israelis? Has the network announced that it has changed its policy, and from now on will refer to such attacks as terror? No on both counts.

But let it not be said that NPR’s publicly-funded bureaucrats are afraid to take decisive action. Indeed they have acted decisively – by simply deleting their webpage embarrassment. NPR removed, with no explanation, the entire quite extensive styleguide from their website! Clicking on the address that worked just a week ago (www.npr.org/inside/styleguide2/pugptoz.html) now returns “page not found.”

NPR, which loves to interview and cite Israeli revisionist historians, is apparently not above revising its own history. But unfortunately for those at NPR who tried to erase the damning evidence, the page is still available via Google’s cache.

We're Disappointed, Mr. President

The Jerusalem Post carries an opinion piece on Bush's recent U-turn on the Roadmap regarding Israel's attempt to assassinate Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi. [Emphasis mine below]

After sentencing al-Qaida shoe-bomber Richard Reid last January, US District Court Judge William Young turned to Reid and said, "You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. We do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice."

Abdel Aziz Rantisi is a terrorist. As one of the senior leaders of Hamas, he is a senior terrorist. He has for years been involved in all aspects of Hamas's terrorist infrastructure. Rantisi incites Muslims to become suicide bombers. He raises funds for weapons. He mobilizes operatives to strike. And after each successful bombing he acts as a terrorist spokesman and apologist.
...
We also do not doubt the Defense Ministry's statement that Rantisi shares the criminal responsibility for the murder of 227 Israelis and the wounding of 1,393 others since the beginning of the Palestinian terrorist war three years ago.
...
Following the air force's unsuccessful attempt to kill Rantisi yesterday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was quick to say that US President George W. Bush is "deeply troubled" by the IDF's action. The president apparently believes that, by taking out Rantisi, the government is somehow harming the chances for peace.

To this we can only comment that we were unaware the US believes that Hamas is an organization worthy of protecting. We would also point out that Rantisi is an enemy of the US. Ahead of the US operation to destroy Saddam Hussein's regime, Rantisi called on the Iraqis to carry out suicide bombings against US forces in Iraq.
...
All of this of course brings us to the blatant hypocrisy of the US when considering Palestinian terrorists. While it is clear that anyone in any way related to al-Qaida is a terrorist, we are told that there is a distinction between "political" and "military" wings of the terrorist organizations that are mainly dedicated to killing Israelis. The only thing "political" about a killer like Rantisi is that he orders others to do the dirty work for him.

While the US can take out anyone related to al-Qaida, it expects Israel to protect bin Laden's Palestinian counterparts in the terrorism business. We must by this logic allow them to freely congregate to plan attacks, appear on television to incite attacks in Arabic and justify them in English, and watch quietly as they conduct "negotiations" with Egypt and the EU.

Like Bush, we too are deeply troubled by yesterday's attempt to take out a mass murderer of our fellow citizens. We are troubled because Rantisi has lived to murder another day. We wish the air force better luck in the future in carrying out its mission of safeguarding the lives of Israeli citizens from the murderous likes of Rantisi.

We, Too, Please

BOTW points out this article that goes to show how popular our operations are throughout the world with people who want to be free.

Just one missile could help Burmese

A letter to US President Bush and British Prime Minister Blair: Many people accused you of waging the war over Iraq mainly because of your own benefits (oil).

However, I (a Burmese girl) strongly believe that the main purpose of this war was to eradicate "the dictator" Saddam Hussein.

If you wish to prove that the Iraq war was just for "the liberation of the Iraqi people" not for "your own benefits", please eliminate the Burmese dictators immediately. We need only one missile. Help us, please.

Thank you very much.

Konmari (exiled Burmese)
BANGKOK

Reporting, Equating Good and Evil

Reuters equates the deaths from the homicide bombing in Jerusalem and the targeted killings from Israeli operations in Gaza to prevent those bombings in summarizing their death counts in the same headline, Attacks in Jerusalem, Gaza Kill 23, Injure Scores.

Even the Iranians Know There Were WMD

Iran knows, too.

An Iranian government official with ties to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says Tehran sides with the Americans on one big issue — Saddam Hussein's weapons.

"Yes, we agree with the Americans. Our intelligence indicated that Iraq did possess weapons of mass destruction and was hiding them from the U.N.," the official said.

Palestinians Favor Death

The "Palestine" "Information" Center (whoever they are) has these poll results which reveal why this war is nowhere near an end.

Gaza - A recent opinion poll conducted in the Gaza Strip has displayed that 94.9% of those polled were in favor of the continuation of the Palestinian resistance attacks against Zionist targets.

The Future Research Center has conducted the poll in the Gaza Strip in the period 28-30 May 2003 and approached 761 persons who were above 18 years old in 30 residential areas.

The results displayed that 94.9% supported armed operations against settlers and Zionist soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip while 92.9% supported martyrdom operations in the Hebrew state. [That is murdering civilians who live in Tel Aviv, Haifa, etc.]

The results also showed that 83.7% were against granting confidence to the Palestinian Authority government of Mahmoud Abbas while 90.3% opposed disarming the Palestinian resistance factions.

95.1% refused the establishment of a Palestinian state in return for giving up the Palestinian refugees’ right of return.

The poll indicated that the Gazans did not have confidence in Abbas’ ability to achieve a settlement meeting the people’s aspirations, introduce political reforms, fight corruption or improve economic conditions.

Israel Finally Going After Sheik Yassin

LGF carries this article on Israel finally going for the head of the vulture instead of pulling the feathers out one by one.

Israeli television is reporting that in addition to Rantisi, Hamas “religious leader” Sheik Yassin is also in the crosshairs.

Israel Television Channel 2 correspondent Udi Segal reported this evening that Israeli officials say that in addition to Hamas leader Rantissi, Israel has been decided to kill the top man in the Hamas, Sheik Yassin.

Speaking earlier on Channel 2, MK Yuval Steinitz, the head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that the Government of Israel would be shirking its duty and obligation to the citizens of Israel if it stood by with its arms folded just because the Palestinians are thinking about talking about having some kind of time out.

Steinitz said that President Bush would never take such a stand regarding American citizens facing terror, noting that the difference between Israeli and American operations is that while Israel waited for an opportunity to hit Rantissi with a minimum of peripheral damage, an American operation would have simply dropped a bomb on the top of Rantissi's house, killing everyone there.
He’s right about that. Recall that when we believed Saddam Hussein was having dinner at a restaurant in a residential area of Baghdad, we bombed the living hell out of that building and didn’t care whether there were innocent people around. Note: I’m not saying this was wrong either; but we have no right to hold Israel to such a blatant double standard.

Also note that these actions by Israel against the top leadership of Hamas come only after:

1) Abu Mazen stated that he absolutely would not take any action against the terror gangs, and

2) The terror gangs stated that they absolutely would not stop their attacks against Israel.

According to the terms of the “road trap,” the PA was supposed to have already taken steps to halt the terrorism by June 1st. No one should be surprised by this latest turn of events.

This Week's Poll Results

Here is a selection of Israeli poll results reported by Yated Ne'eman of a poll by New Wave for Ma’ariv.
7. Do you support the following measures that are included in the road map?
A. Removing all the outposts erected in the territories since March 2001
Yes 56%; No 37%; Don’t know 7%
[Percent yes - Likud voters 41%; Right 30%]
B. Freeze on settlement construction including natural growth
Yes 59%; No 37%; Don’t know 4%
[Percent yes - Likud voters 45% Right 37%]
C. End of Israeli occupation of the territories
Yes 62%; No 32%; Don’t know 6%
[Percent yes - Likud voters 54% Right 43%]
D. Establishment of independent Palestinian state
Yes 57%; No 38%; Don’t know 5%
[Percent yes - Likud voters 41% Right 34%]
15. On a scale of 1 for extreme left and 7 extreme right where do you place yourself and the following:
Eitam 5.9; Netanyahu 5.5; Mofaz 5.4; Sharon 5.1; Shalom 4.7; Meridor 4.3;Yourself 4.2;
Lapid 3.9; Vilnai 3.4; Burg 2.9; Peres 2.5; Sarid 1.9
Self rating by group:
Jews 4.6; Arabs 2.0;
New immigrants 4.9;
Religious 5.4; Shas 5.4; Likud 5.2; Ultra-orthodox 5.1; Traditional 4.8; Shinui 4.3; Secular 4.1; Labor 3.3;
Vote right 5.5; Center 4.1; Right 2.3 [Not sure what these 3 mean]

Bush Losing Moral Focus

Cold Fury has excellent coverage of Israel's attempt to kill Hamas Islamo-fascist scumbag Abdel Aziz Rantisi. For some strange reason, President Bush is "troubled" by it.

"What’s important in this new environment is for Palestinians and Israelis to find ways to work together on the path to peace," [Ari] Fleischer said. "This is going to require both the Palestinian Authority and Israel to find new ways to protect the road map so it can advance to face terrorism."

No, Ari, what’s really important is to end terrorism now, and killing the bastards responsible is generally acknowledge by your boss as being the only real way to do that. At least, it’s acknowledged as long as Israel isn’t the one doing it. It actually says so in that road map you’re all so enamored of, you know.

Hamas has openly called for the murder of Americans. America or Israel should take all these guys out before another few hundred Marines have to die as they did in Lebanon (via Hezbollah).

Kosher Outlaws

In Britain, Kosher and Halal slaughtering has been exempt from a government requirement to stun the animals first. Now, Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC), a government agency, is advising the government to end the exemptions. The "Humanists" and "Compassion in World Farming" organizations [don't you love those names] are backing the FAWC. The Humanists movement spokesman Roy Saich had this to say:

"There is no reason why they should not simply abstain from eating meat altogether if they do not wish to eat the same meat as the rest of us."

IDF Statistics on Innocents Killed in Last 3 Weeks

Thanks to LGF for pointing out this stunning graph.

Drive an SUV; Make the Planet Greener

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has long said that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels, airosols, and burning rainforests are causing the earth to warm up and that someday, in the far future, we're all likely to die. WND reports on an article in New Scientist in which the IPCC has found that airosols actually counteract the greenhouse effect.

Now the news out of the Berlin workshop is the aerosols thwart 75 percent of the warming effect. That would mean they prevented the planet from becoming almost two degrees warmer than it is now.

WND reviews some of the opposition to the mass hysteria over global warming.

The IPCC's global-warming theory has been widely disputed.

WorldNetDaily has reported that Dr. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, maintains there has been little or no warming since about 1940.

In 1998, 17,000 scientists signed a petition circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, saying, in part, "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."

Then in January 2002, the journal Science published the findings of scientists who had been measuring the vast West Antarctic ice sheet. The researchers found that the ice sheet is growing thicker, not melting.

The journal Nature published similar findings by scientist Peter Doran and his colleagues at the University of Illinois. Rather than using the U.N.'s computer models, the researchers took actual temperature readings and discovered temperatures in the Antarctic have been getting slightly colder – not warmer – for the last 30 years.

Last September, U.S. scientists based at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station announced that, finally, they have been able to measure the temperature of the atmosphere 18 to 68 miles over the pole. They found it to be 68 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the computer models used to predict global warming showed.

Even if we are warming, according to a study funded by NASA and the U.S. Energy Department, global warming is making the planet greener.

Plants have flourished in many areas -- especially in the tropics and the far northern forests - because they variously received more sun, water, heat or carbon dioxide, said the study.
...
It was uncertain whether the 6 per cent increase in total global plant biomass was due to man-made or natural climate fluctuations, said the study published in Science magazine.

Simply Amazing

How small can you get?

America Explained To Non-Americans

Not complete, but a good start.

Anyone See Where This Train Is Heading

AP (via LGF) reveals exactly how Abbas could not be more blunt.

The Palestinian prime minister said Monday he will not use force against militant groups under any circumstances.

...Abbas said he has coordinated every move with Yasser Arafat.

Lefties

Education News reports on a ban by Harcourt/Steck-Vaughn on showing left-hands in text books. Diane Ravitch believes that this is probably related to dislike of lefthandedness by Muslims.

Let me give you some examples that I shared with Diane when she asked about whether the Harcourt/Steck-Vaughn "don't-depict-lefties" directive could, indeed, aim at appeasing the Muslim community.

/1/ Whenever left-hander H. Norman Schwartzkopf attends diplomatic banquets in Muslim nations, he has to make himself a rule to SIT on his own left hand so that he doesn't forget and start using it, which would seriously "gross out" his hosts.

/2/ Saudi Arabia has an actual LAW against using one's left hand in public.

I'd say "Unbelievable", but unfortunately it is not any longer.

Tort Reform Update

The WSJ delves into the latest in tort reform in Texas. It is remarkable in its scope.

When a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey ranked state liability systems according to "fairness and reasonableness," Texas finished 46th. But thanks to a slew of tort reforms that passed the state legislature this week, Texans can expect their Lone Star to rise in future rankings.

Texas is not the first or the only state to do something about the heavy toll frivolous lawsuits are taking on everything from jobs to health-care accessibility. A bill sent last month to Missouri Governor Bob Holden and awaiting his signature would, among other things, allow for an immediate appeal of class-action certifications and put a $50 million limit on appeal bonds. It's a start.

In March, West Virginia passed a set of laws that caps medical malpractice non-economic damages and will reduce class-action filings. Lawmakers acted after a study showed that some 10,000 jobs were lost in 2001 as businesses either fled the state or entrepreneurs chose to set up shop in less antagonistic environs. South Carolina, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and several other states have all taken various steps in recent months to rein in the trial lawyers.

But even against this backdrop, Texas's omnibus bill stands out for its sheer scope. The reforms -- to be signed into law presently by Republican Governor Rick Perry -- cover everything from class-action certification and appeal bonds to product liability and proportionate responsibility.

The legislation limits multidistrict litigation, ends venue shopping (this was prohibited back in 1995, but plaintiffs' attorneys found loopholes) and establishes a single standard based on federal law for determining whether a case should be dismissed and tried in another state or country. A modified version of "loser pays" has even been included, the better to nudge litigants toward making and accepting reasonable settlement offers instead of pursuing costly trials.

Why is reform so necessary in Texas?

The numbers tell the story. Texas is down to three medical liability insurers. Fourteen of 17 have disappeared in the past two years alone. In some parts of the state, there are 300 lawsuits for every 100 doctors. No matter that 85% of these suits fail; at $20,000-$40,000 a pop to put up a defense, doctors can't afford the sky-high insurance rates. Thank the trial lawyers. Of the state's 254 counties, 154 have no obstetrician. Wide swaths of Texas, the nation's second most populous state, have neither a neurosurgeon nor an orthopedic surgeon.

That said, legal reform didn't happen in Texas because its politically powerful and well-heeled plaintiffs' attorneys developed a conscience. It happened in large part because Texans started putting Republicans in office. The Democratic Party/trial attorney co-dependency is well-known in Washington. But in Texas, their coziness is legendary. For decades the Texas tort bar had its way with the Democrat-controlled legislature and many courts around the state, which elects its judges.

Why is this legislation being passed now?

Things started to change some in the mid-1990s when George W. Bush replaced Democrat Ann Richards as Governor. It was the election last November, however, that finally made real tort reform possible. For the first time in 130 years, the GOP found itself in control of the legislature. A similar scenario has played out in other places, such as Arkansas and Georgia, where serious reform efforts have followed party changeover. Tort reform is now one of the sharpest dividing lines between our two major parties.

...Texas not only provides an example for other states but also for Republicans in Congress. The lesson is how the right leadership on an issue can change the political climate. Republicans in Washington, and especially in the filibustering Senate, need to display the same will as their state counterparts. President Bush says he's serious about federal tort reform. His party could help by giving him some bills to sign.