"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
Apparently he’s my grandma. (His prom tuxedo?!?)
I hereby endorse Howard Dean for the Democratic nomination for President.
This may not surprise you. (Oh come on, at least pretend to be surprised.) But I thought I’d give my reasons.
An Obsidian Wings World Exclusive!
The Fafblog is in crisis! As many of you know, the Fafblog — my only source for traffic information, agribusiness news, and manna — consists of Fafnir, Giblets, and The Medium Lobster. Last week, Fafnir announced that the Fafblog would endorse Howard Dean for President. Only Dean, said Fafnir, can “confront the katana-wielding shadow-warriors of mounting national debt, rising health care costs, the war on Iraq and the specter of international terrorism.”
Now, both Giblets and The Medium Lobster have dissented from the Fafblog’s endorsement!
A story just broke in Canada that, if confirmed, may explain how this whole mess started: In late August, 2001, U.S. border guards discovered a single sheet of paper — a schematic map of Ottawa marking government buildings and nuclear research facilities — in an 18-wheeler driven by a man named Ahmad Abou El-Maati. During … Read more
… as in, “I may get one or two more in before bedtime and then see you all in a few days”. By this time tomorrow I’ll be in Boston at the Arisia SF convention and won’t be back home until Sunday, and I seem to have misjudged just how much free time I have … Read more
(10th in a series on a Canadian citizen who was deported by the United States to Syria and apparently tortured there. Previous posts in the series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.)
When I first heard about the Maher Arar case, sometime in November, I assumed it was a low level screw-up with tragic consequences, that went something like this: This guy is on a terrorism watch list for some reason, we don’t have enough evidence to arrest him, there is some miscommunication or spat with Canada, and he has dual citizenship. An immigration or homeland security official sends him to Syria because he can, and because it’s the easiest way to “fix” the problem (perhaps there’s an element of racism in this, too). And the administration goes into its customary “we are infallible so therefore we didn’t do anything wrong” mode.
This is not what happened. For reasons I cannot understand (I’ll take my best guess in the next post) the United States government seems to have gone to a great deal of trouble to deport Arar to Syria, and the decision was made by high ranking officials at the Department of Justice, the INS, and possibly the intelligence services. Evidence of this:
Andrew Sullivan hits it right on the head: LET THE KIDS PAY FOR IT: I’m talking about this $170 billion foray into space. After all, the next generation will be paying for a collapsed social security system, a bankrupted Medicare program, soaring interest on the public debt, as well as coughing up far higher taxes … Read more
Um, the budget of this marriage strengthening proposal that Moe mocks here is about as much money as we spend securing nuclear weapons, plutonium, and highly enriched uranium in Russia so that it cannot fall into the hands of terrorists every year. I think it’s actually more money. (And it’s not because we’re almost done … Read more
In an update to this post, Reuters is reporting that the Danish army has checked out the mortar rounds foundl initial tests have determined them to be not chemical gas rounds. We’ll get them next for followup tests, but I doubt that this finding will be reversed. End result, updated? Again, nothing much in regards … Read more
Vodkapundit’s running through some electoral vote calculations, ranging from a Republican win to a Democratic one. I love fiddling with stuff like that: if I can find one of those electoral map calculators to link to it’s going up on the side over there (yeah, I know about the one at dKos already). I’m also … Read more
Short version: the hardliners in Iran decided to ban quite a lot of reformist candidates from running from office, which was naturally enough objected to: it looks like said objections had gotten enough support to resolve this particular crisis. But just this one: the problems haven’t gone away. I think I got that all right. … Read more
… that Derbyshire is going to catch sixteen kinds of hell for this National Review article: The Irish of the World. I mean, the title alone is going to piss a lot of people off, simply because there’s a little voice in the back of the head of every Irish-American who’s made his or her … Read more
… to hear that a certain python recently reported as being the longest in the world didn’t, um, measure up to expectations. The truly sad part is that Reuters and I both thought up the bad joke independently of each other. Who should be more chagrined about this is still up in the air. (Via … Read more
Outside the Beltway pointed out this Matt Yglesias post on what we should really do with this $1.5 Billion that we’re apparently spending because it’s an election year to ‘strengthen marriage’: I think the president really ought to consider establishing a Cabinet-level Federal Dating Service or something. It could be like Friendster and a goofy … Read more
Could someone define “Islamofascism” for me? The words gets used a lot, especially on pro-war blogs. Here’s what I don’t understand. Is it supposed to be: 1) a unified ideology or movement to some degree, in the way that Communism and Naziism and Fascism were? Or 2) Arab/Muslim + violent atrocities + enemy of the … Read more
Via Instapundit, USA Today has published a letter from Howard Dean to Bill Clinton in 1995 urging him to take unilateral action in Bosnia. I think your policy up to this date has been absolutely correct. We must give, and have given, this policy with our allies and with the United Nations every opportunity to … Read more
(9th in a series on a Canadian citizen who was deported by the United States to Syria and apparently tortured there. Previous posts in the series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.) Obviously, Arar has not been proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and could never be proved guilty on the evidence listed … Read more
Preliminary question: does it even matter whether Arar was guilty or innocent? If his allegations are true, what the government did was illegal and immoral regardless of guilt or innocence. But I think if he’s innocent it’s that much worse, and that much more likely that this has happened before and will happen again.
So, let me summarize the evidence as best I can. I’m listing the claims and counter-claims in the order they appeared in press accounts, since that may be relevant in determining sources’ credibility.
This is a very very long post, so I’m going to leave my conclusions about Arar’s guilt/innocence and about why he might have been suspected even if innocent for a separate post. And if you don’t have time to read the whole thing I recommend items #3, #7, #8, and 9.
Not so long ago, I wrote:
Dean has a strong base, but he turns a heckova lot of people off (myself included). It’s not at all clear that he can overcome this insta-hate, and reach out beyond his current followers. . . . The polls tell the story: Dean, more than probably any other candidate, depends on grass-roots momentum. But his momentum is fading . . . Dean’s playing defense for the first time, and I’m not sure he has it in him.
In comments, I added:
Frankly, Dean hasn’t really been tested yet. The easiest place in the world to be as a candidate is to be the up-and-coming outsider (Wes Clark, I’m looking at you). Until recently, Dean has had the luxury of being in that position. . . . Now that Dean has had a couple weeks as the clear front runner, we’ve seen him either stumble or crack (depending on your personal view of the man). It hasn’t been pretty.
I went out on a limb, and predicted that “[t]he worm has turned. Dean has peaked. Clark is going to be the Democratic nominee[.]” Now, I could very well be wrong about Clark being the nominee. But there’s growing evidence that Dean may, in fact, have peaked.
You saw it here first, folks.
It won’t last, but it looks like the links generated by Katherine’s excellent Maher Arar posts have pushed us over into Marauding Marsupial territory for the first time. Katherine rules! (pause) OK, question for the more experienced bloggers reading this: it’s been two months since we started, more or less. Average daily traffic 948, last … Read more
I contemplated posting on the increasing chaos in Southern Iraq, but thought better of it. I mean, really, Iraq is sooo November 2003. Onward to the things that really matter: From Slashdot (which cites Reuters): “the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien won a cybersquatting case against Alberta Hot Rods, a Canadian-based operator which registered jrrtolkien.com and linked it to its commercial celebrity Web site[,] before an ICANN arbitration panel.”
The Slashdotters, of course, don’t link to the panel’s actual decision. We Obwingers, however, revel in pointless detail. So here it is, in all its ICANNy goodness.
Now, for the meaningless digression: The Tolkein arbitration was handled under the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Organization, which has quasi-sorta-jurisdiction over many domain name disputes. WIPO’s rules allow the holder of a valid trademark to seek relief against a cybersquatter through a quick-and-dirty arbitration proceeding.*
Doesn’t always work as planned, though. Because WIPO is an international organization, an arbitration panel can consist of people from around the world. Many of these people don’t speak English as a first language (shocking!). This can lead to some, well, unusual decisions. Such as: Tata Sons Limited v. D&V Enterprises.
Tata Sons, Ltd. is a large Indian utility company. D&V Enterprises owned a website named “bodacious-tatas.com,” which provided (one presumes) all manner of bodacious tatas for one’s viewing enjoyment. Tata Sons, Ltd. claimed that a person seeking out its utility may confuse D&V’s bodacious tatas with its utilities. It sought to take control of D&V’s “bodacious tatas.com” domain name.
At this point, you may be thinking that one would have to be pretty damn drunk to confuse a utility with a purveyor of bodacious tatas. That thought, however, did not enter the mind of the WIPO arbitration panel. Its ruling reads, in part:
TATA, without any vestige of doubt, constitutes a famous (or, in international parlance, well known) mark . . . . As to goodwill, the Panel accepts the Complainant’s submission to the effect that the name “TATA” has consistently been associated with the goods and services of, the “House of Tata”. . . . the name “TATA” has acquired considerable goodwill.
. . . .
The Complainant contended that the use by the Respondent of the impugned Domain Name is aimed at taking a ‘cash-ride’ on the Complainant’s image and status. Thus, the unauthorized adoption of the Domain Name has resulted in the Respondent deriving, or attempting to derive, monetary benefit by trading on the reputation and goodwill held by the Complainant. The Panel accepts this contention . . . . [and awarded the domain name to the House of Tatas]
Erm, yes: when I think of Tatas, I think of the “House of Tatas,” an Indian utility company.
You can’t make this stuff up.
A random comment by Reader praktike reminded me to note that this Monitor-With-Obsessive,-Luskin-Like-Blog-Stalking,-Snarky-Emails-and-Carping-Criticism Adopt-A-Journalist program really does seem to be taking off (timeline here – some other info here). Just note which Democratic candidate you’re voting for with each email you send out, guys, that’s all I ask. Much obliged.
Added a reference sites sidebar and moved some things around for convenience and whatnot. Any suggestions about new sites to add to the first are welcome.
I thought that it was well past time that we took a look at this sucker: HR 4655, The Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998. This is either an inconvenient spike in the wheel for the BDS sufferers, or else an irrelevant side issue that doesn’t say what the warmongers claim it says, depending on who you ask.
Possibly it’s due to the two beers I’ve had tonight, but the only thing that pops into my head from this Kos Diary story that suggests that Dean is about to get the crucial Jimmy Carter endorsement is “Why the heck isn’t Dean getting endorsements from Democrats that have actually, like, won Presidential elections?” Granted, … Read more
Before I begin, here are the previous posts on this topic if you’ve not seen them: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. The question for today is, what is unusual about Arar’s case? Is it very unusual for the U.S. to knowingly deport someone to a country where they will be tortured? Or is it … Read more
M.C. Masterchef states: “looks like I need to start commenting more. Gimme another haiku thread to work with and I’ll reach my quota real fast.” Witness, now, the wish and the command becoming one. Cold January Bosses to warmer homes go I’m wearing no pants This is your depressed Haiku open thread.
Not that I’m the sort to agree with Max Sawicky on much (although I do try to be nice about disagreeing with him), but I can certainly see why he decided to title his post about the WaPo article on Norquist the way he did. Norquist’s kind of intensity is just a tad unnerving, and … Read more
…Argus is obviously much more on top of Uzbekistani affairs than I am right now. Go check him out. Moe *This is synthetic bitterness for comic effect. No actual bitter was used in the making of this post.
Fafblog endorsed Dean. I’ll call up Bush and tell him the bad news; somebody else call the other eight Democratic candidates, ‘kay? I can’t trust myself to not crank call Kuchinich out of spite. (pause) On the bright side, the Ninja googlebomb lives on. UPDATE: mc_masterchef asks for haiku’s warp and woof – Let us … Read more
Anne Cunningham’s One-Sided Wonder points out an article dealing with the fallout of France’s recent ban on religious symbols in public schools: French Sikhs Defend Their Turbans and Find Their Voice:
Via Red Letter Day comes the Neocon Quiz. Biased, no doubt, but what the heck. Moe “Neoconservative” Lane
Pretending I’m a reporter again was too fun, so I did one more Google News search. There’s an article about Jean Chretien in the National Review that mentions the Arar case. I was interested in what a right wing magazine’s take on it would be, wondering if they’d give a plausible defense of the administration … Read more
In an attempt to get the blogrolls under control, I have instituted the Commentator category, representing the blogs of those who regularly post to the threads here. I’ve moved some and added a couple, including Catsy’s and praktike’s; feel free to use this thread to point out if I haven’t moved your blog to this … Read more