A multi-denominational conference of clergy in favor of an amendment to the Minnesota constitution banning gay marriage was interrupted this morning by a bomb threat (story here). The conference is being held at Grace Church in Eden Prarie, and is described in this article.
A bomb threat (but no bomb) is a pretty mild response compared to what happened at this recent conference in Boston.
The following appeared yesterday in Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac newsletter. Does it sound familiar to you?
It was on this day in 1864 that Abraham Lincoln was elected to his second term as President of the United States, an election that helped ensure the preservation of the Union. It was one of the only times in history that an election was held by a nation in the middle of a civil war.
Lincoln had a lot of reasons to worry the election might not go his way. The summer before the election, most Americans were weary of war, and calls to end the conflict were becoming louder and louder. Then, at the beginning of July, 1864, Lincoln was confronted with the embarrassment of a Confederate battalion trying to invade and capture Washington D.C. itself. The Confederates were driven off but not captured, and everyone who knew Lincoln at the time said he was in a terrible mood for the rest of the month.
In August, Lincoln announced that he would only negotiate peace with the Southern states if they reintegrated with the Union and if they abandoned slavery. This was the most radical position he’d taken on slavery yet, and it was so controversial that he began to lose support among his few allies in the Democratic Party, as well as members of his own Republican Party. There was talk that the Republican Party might try to nominate someone else. Lincoln worried that he’d made a terrible mistake, and so he didn’t say anything else about slavery for the rest of the campaign.
The war continued to go badly. On July 30, 4000 Union soldiers were killed in a disastrous attempt to invade Petersburg, Virginia. The army needed 500,000 more soldiers, Lincoln would probably have to call for another draft, and the war debt was becoming unsustainable. Even moderate Republicans began to criticize the president’s policies. On August 23, Lincoln wrote a memorandum to his cabinet that said, “This morning, and for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected.”
The Democratic Party held their nominating convention in the last days of August, and they chose to run on a platform of ending hostilities with the Confederate States. This turned out to be a huge mistake when, on September 4th, General Sherman announced that his army had captured Atlanta. At the same time, Rear Admiral David G. Farragut announced that he had captured Mobile, Alabama, the last major Gulf port in Confederate hands.
Suddenly, the Democratic Party looked like the party of surrender when the Union was on the verge of winning the war. In the end, Lincoln carried every state except New Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky.
I’ve been following the rioting in France rather casually. Yesterday I played a little game where I read several MSM stories on the subject and counted how many paragraphs into each article you had to read before the word “Muslim” or “Islam” or a similar variant was mentioned (note: the average was 5-6 paragraphs in). I saw a different and interesting take last night, however, on Jay Reding’s Single Malt Pundit blog.
Jay links a post by Gregory Djerjian that describes the riots not as a rising of Arab militancy but the predictable and crashing fall of the Socialist model and attempts of class equality. After citing a very interesting passage in Djerjian’s post, Jay says:
While it’s certain that radical Muslims are taking advantage of this situation, it wasn’t radical Islam that started it – it was the failure of the French social model that provided a perfect breeding ground for this terrorism. A state with an unemployment rate in the double digits cannot expect to have a stable and prosperous society. A society in which enterprise is systematically stifled by paternalistic regulations cannot hope to keep their level of unemployment down. A state with a low birth rate cannot sustain its economic base, but importing foreign labor and not assimilating them into society creates tensions. Everything about the current French societal model has led to this breakdown, and after 11 days the government is still looking powerless and confused.
For all the Gallic moaning about the terrors of the “Anglo-Saxon” model, their supposedly more “humanistic” French model has produced vast concrete ghettoes with levels of unemployment that makes the American inner city look positively prosperous in comparison. The state socialist model is failing in France, it’s failing in Germany, and the most prosperous parts of Europe are that way precisely because they’re either too small to experience the shocks of their larger siblings, or they’ve abandoned state socialism for free market reform.
For myself, I’ve wondered about how well coordinated the riots appear to be and if the escalation in violence by the rioters might not be an effort to provoke a violent response from the French government that can be leveraged into an even greater rallying point. I’ve also wondered if the French reluctance to impose even a curfew might not be driven by memories of the 1961 Paris massacre where largely peaceful protests by Algerians against curfews led to as many as 200 people being killed by police (and then complicitly hushed up for 30-odd years).
There are lessons to be learned from all of this, I’m sure, and Jay Reding’s and Djerjian’s takes should be part of the curricula.
As Calvin would say, “I understand my tests are popular reading in the teachers’ lounge.”
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What Calvin & Hobbes character are you?
created with QuizFarm.com
| You scored as Calvin. You are Calvin! You are an obnoxious little six-year-old who knows way too much to be getting Fs in school. You know how to have the best time playing, and can annoy adults to no end. |
I saw this on the EckerNet (who got it from Kathy the Cake Eater) and couldn’t resist.
The Average American?
The Average American meets a number of criteria. Let’s see how I measure up.
Eats peanut butter at least once a week.
Heck no! Peanut butter is nasty!
Prefers smooth peanut butter over chunky.
Ok, if I have to eat peanut butter, it has to be chunky. I’m serious.
Can name all Three Stooges
Moe, Curly, and … that other one.
Lives within a 20-minute drive of a Wal-Mart.
Question: Does anyone not live within twenty minutes of a Walmart?
Eats at McDonald’s at least once a year.
Only if the alternative is starvation. Have you seen “Supersize Me”?
Takes a shower for approximately 10.4 minutes a day.
No comment.
Never sings in the shower.
I think that this question is wrong. It should be:
Never admits to singing in the shower.
Lives in a house, not an apartment or condominium. Has a home valued between $100,000 and $300,000
Yes, and no, respectively.
Has fired a gun.
Ooooohh, yeah.
Is between 5 feet and 6 feet tall.
Duh
Weighs 135 to 205.
Not even soaking wet, with my gun, in my boot.
Is between the ages of 18 and 53.
Haha!! Just shy.
Believes gambling is an acceptable entertainment option.
Actually, I think it’s really lame, though I do play poker with Starburst wrappers.
Grew up within 50 miles of current home.
Not grown up yet, but more mature than many!
So, I guess I am the very un-average American.
That’s fine with me. I’ve always known I was different.
The image above from epodunk.com shows where the 3.2 million Katrina evacuees have ended up so far. It’s kind of interesting; hit the link for more details.
HT: Z + Partners blog.
I usually leave the fisking of Nick Coleman, Doug Grow and the other StarTribune columnists to others. One reason is that I usually ignore their columns as part of my own “quality of life” commitment. A second reason is that I try to use outrage in modest doses as leavening in this blog rather than as a main course. And a third big reason, of course is that, as the Night Writer, by the time I’ve sat down at my computer to blog in the evening these columns have already been fisked to within an inch of their lives by others in the MOB so I turn to other topics.
Earlier this a.m., however, I grabbed a section of yesterday’s Strib to catch the debris as I trimmed my beard. It turned out to be the Metro section – or what they now call “twin cities + region”. Avid reader that I am, I found myself reading through the section before completing my grooming, which certainly made it easier to trim my hackles.
Mr. Coleman had a follow-up on the 11-year-old girl who died mysteriously last week; Mr. Grow was offering a tribute to a strip club doorman who died young. There was also a short AP article about a woman who just finished a 154-mile walk to the state capital to deliver petitions demanding a constitutional amendment requiring affordable health care. Oh, and there was an article about bars in Minneapolis trying to figure out how to hold onto what’s left of their smoking clientele in Minneapolis after the onset of the bar-smoking bans and winter.
Individually, each article had more than enough to get Mitch, Foot, Marcus and some others salivating. Taken as a whole, however, there was a certain ironic pattern that caused me to alter my pre-breakfast routine. Can you detect it?
I saw an article today in the StarTribune, Miami-based Cruise Ship Attacked by Pirates off Somalia, and it reminded me of a book I read last year by John S. Burnett entitled Dangerous Waters.
It’s an excellent and eye-opening read about a subject most people think has become quaint: high seas piracy. Burnett was motivated to research and write the book after his own small boat was boarded and robbed. While you won’t find much in the way of masted ships flying the Jolly Roger looking for easy pickings today, the reality is that the basics of piracy in the 17th century and today are still in place: slow-moving, lightly-guarded ships loaded with valuable cargo in international waters with little controlling authority — and a large, international pool of people greedy enough, or desperate enough, that have access to fast boats and weaponry and little fear of being caught. In fact, about all that’s changed is the technology. Galleons have been replaced by high-speed boats; cannons replaced with rocket-propelled grenades; cutlasses with Uzis.
While this (literally) cut-throat business has never really gone away, even in the age of high-tech navies, it is mostly invisible because it doesn’t affect our lives in many noticeable ways. As Burnett points out, however, piracy today can easily lead to a serious and confounding global problem.
One of the most pirate-infested areas today is the Malacca Straits. While the location might not be as colorful-sounding as, say, the Caribbean and you might be a little vague on the geography, the Malacca Straits are a very important little body of water. They link the Indian and Pacific Oceans and are the shortest sea route between India, China and Indonesia. They are filled with shallow reefs and tiny islands and there are only narrow channels available for the nearly 1000 ships – mostly cargo ships and oil tankers – that pass through each day like slow, fat fish in a barrel. Heavy traffic in narrow confines makes for relatively easy pickings for pirates in “smash and grab” types of raids (board, loot any crew and passengers, take electronics and other valuables from the bridge and beat it to a nearby hideout or fishing village). Sometimes, however, this results in tanker or cargo crews being tied up and their ships left to plow on out of control through a highly congested area. It doesn’t take much imagination to think of the effects that a grounding or sinking of a tanker in this area could have on this vital commercial thoroughfare. Here’s some of what the above link about the straits has to say:
The narrowest point of this shipping lane is the Phillips Channel in the Singapore Strait, which is only 1.5 miles wide at its narrowest point. This creates a natural bottleneck, with the potential for a collision, grounding, or oil spill (in addition, piracy has historically been a regular occurrence in the Singapore Strait, but over the past 15 years has grown alarmingly). Some 400 shipping lines and 700 ports worldwide rely on the Malacca and Singapore straits to get to the Singapore port. For example, 80% of Japan’s oil comes from the Middle East via the Malacca Straits. To skip the straits would force a ship to travel an extra 994 miles from the Gulf. All excess capacity of the world fleet might be absorbed, with the effect strongest for crude oil shipments and dry bulk such as coal. Closure of the Strait of Malacca would immediately raise freight rates worldwide. With Chinese oil imports from the Middle East increasing steadily, the Strait of Malacca is likely to grow in strategic importance in coming years.
Whether through criminal accident or premeditated terrorism (elements of Abu Sayaff and Al Quaida are active in this area), it may be just a matter of time before such an incident fills headlines around the world.
It’s not an unknown threat to people who’s business it is to be concerned with these things, Burnett’s book and others (see below) does a good job of describing the efforts cargo and passenger lines, governments and military forces are making to mitigate the problem while also describing the bureaucratic, political and logistical hurdles they face.
All in all, today’s news story (selected by the Strib perhaps because it was so unusual sounding) highlights an issue we often overlook. If you’re intrigued by this information, Dangerous Waters is a sobering but very interesting read. You might also find the following related books suggested by Amazon of interest:
Jolly Roger With an Uzi: The Rise and Threat of Modern Piracy by Jack A. Gottschalk
Pirates Aboard!: Forty Cases of Piracy Today and What Bluewater Cruisers Can Do About It by Klaus Hympendahl
Maritime Terror: Protecting Your Vessel and Your Crew Against Piracy by Jim Gray
Also while I was on Amy’s site (see post below) I saw this link to an LA Times article about the liberal lawyers and judges who have worked with Justice Alito and support his nomination, including this comment:
Former federal Judge Timothy K. Lewis said that when he joined the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in 1992, he consulted his mentor, Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. The late Higginbotham, a legendary liberal and a scholar of U.S. racial history, was the only other black judge on the Philadelphia-based court at the time.
“As he was going down the roster of colleagues, he got to Sam Alito. I expressed some concern about [him] being so conservative. He said, ‘No, no. Sam Alito is my favorite judge to sit with on this court. He is a wonderful judge and a terrific human being. Sam Alito is my kind of conservative. He is intellectually honest. He doesn’t have an agenda. He is not an ideologue,’ ” Higginbotham said, according to Lewis.
“I really was surprised to hear that, but my experience with him on the 3rd Circuit bore that out,” added Lewis, who had a liberal record during his seven years on the bench. “Alito does not have an agenda, contrary to what the Republican right is saying about him being a ‘home run.’ He is not result-oriented. He is an honest conservative judge who believes in judicial restraint and judicial deference.”
Hmmm. Intellectually honest. Doesn’t have an agenda. Not an idealogue. Has apparently read the Constitution. No wonder Teddy, Chuck and Harry don’t like him.
Thanks to Amy Ridenour I saw a post at Bizzy Blog detailing some of the WMDs that have been found in Iraq. What? You didn’t realize WMDs had been found? I wonder why that might be?
Bizzy Blog originally found the information at Atlas Shrugged (see link below) and posted it. When a commenter challenged the stories as being made up, Bizzy tracked down the links and included them:
Did you know this? From Atlas Shrugs (scroll to end of post), based on member-only information at Human Events Online (external links added in response to Comment 1 below):
Did you know WMDs have been found in Iraq?
* 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium
* 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons agents
* 17 chemical warheads containing cyclosarin (a nerve agent five times more deadly than sarin gas)
* Over 1,000 radioactive materials in powdered form meant for dispersal over populated areas
* Roadside bombs loaded with mustard and “conventional” sarin gas, assembled in binary chemical projectiles for maximum potencyThis is only a PARTIAL LIST of the horrific weapons verified to have been recovered in Iraq to date. Yet, Americans overwhelmingly believe U.S. and coalition forces found NO weapons of mass destruction.
Weapons of Media Distortion, anyone?