United Press International: Bush issues new warning

Contrary to all the handwringing about upsetting the world with talk of the Evil Axis, Bush is pretty cagy here. He knows that the victory in Afghanistan gives him more than political capital at home--it gives him a credibility in these countries that we haven't had for some time. They have felt free to pursue WOMDs without fear of being opposed in any serious way. He is calling their bluff, and there are signs that it is working.

United Press International: UC lawyer predicts Enron asset recovery

I guess one reckless hype deserves another.

Silicon Valley | 02/16/2002 | Microsoft Must Show Source

I couldn't help noticing the irony of seeing Ken Lay on the news weeklies as the new Bin Laden, while Bill Gates, et ux. get a glowing report about their philanthropy, having donated $24 billion of the bucks he made by violating federal law and destroying other companies (presumably also their employees' 401(k) plans) with strong arm business practices.

Whose legacy will have greater impact on American society in the long run, the failed promoter or the successful monopolist?

I think what the Enron executives and accountants are alleged to have done was wrong, but it looks to me that they will be dealt with as they deserve. I can't say the same for the monopolistic practices at Microsoft.

Chris Matthes -- Who Hijacked Our War of Righteous Outrage and Left Us With This?

I used to like Chris Matthews, but he seems to have been given the message that he is supposed to out-O'Reilly Bill O'Reilly. He's had a couple of popular books that can't match the sales of his rival's and the taste of success seems to have made him a little tipsy. He's no longer thoughtful and nuanced. It's all shoot from the hip, and overstating his case.

Here he writes, "They (the Bush Administration) have diverted the hunt for bin Laden much as the Crusades of a millennium ago were diverted from saving the Holy Land to idiotic conquests of Belgrade, Constantinople and any number of targets along the way." Something tells me that Don Rumsfeld and George Bush are not as hyperactive and easily distracted as Matthews thinks. The "Axis of Evil" speech was not written for the purpose of rabble rousing. It was intended to 1. let the American People know that it won't be all over with Afghanistan and 2. let the regimes he mentioned know that we haven't forgotten them.

At the same time, it is stupid to interpret the speech as a change of focus away from bin Laden and al Qaeda. If our European critics can't think about more than one idea at a time, our military is quite capable of doing so. They probably are good chess players, too.

The Salt Lake Tribune's take on the Enron debacle

What should we learn from Enron?

1. The market giveth and the market taketh away, blessed be the market.

2. Some businessmen lie and have poor judgement. Surprise!

3. Hype and P.R. cannot replace good management.

4. Politicians are shameless, and every bit as untrustworthy as business leaders.

5. The media love scandals and will find them and overplay them and lecture to us all about them ad nauseum, but keep your powder dry, do your homework and don't trust everything you hear without checking it out.

6. Political contributions don't guarantee influence.

7. Corporate and political bailouts are more likely to come from Democrat administrations than Republican ones. (Remember "Ford to New York City: Drop Dead!")

8. Don't trust your money to something you don't fully understand. If you can't interpret financial reports, diversify and don't bet the rent.

Victor Davis Hanson has nailed the stupidity of the Left when it comes to terrorism with this piece on National Review Online.

Secret Service trio questioned about alleged sexual assault, public intoxication at party.

I'm sure that NONE of them were Arab-Americans, so they'll get what they deserve.

ABCNEWS.com : Political News Summary: Feb. 14: {Shays-Meahan passed in the House] The Earth Moved...

Was it good for you?

If you think this war is over and won, read this. Anybody trying to be "tolerant" and helpful to the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, should remember that not all illegal aliens are here looking for a better life. I've seen my share of illegal aliens in my years as a public defender, such as Mexicans who get caught hauling drugs, but some aliens are more alien than you want to mess with.

Today's Best of the Web Today quotes Bonnie Erbe who is shocked, shocked, that some journalists made money working for Enron. What I find interesting, besides BOTW's point that Erbe isn't exactly pure herself, is her line that she "chose to work as a journalist for the chance to right wrongs and enlighten the public." BOTW says "Good for you, Bonnie!" I say this is what's wrong with journalism today. Too many of these people have appointed themselves as the guardians of the rest of us when they should be content to just report the facts on both sides of every issue, get them right, and let the readers decide what to think about them. We really don't need people like Bonnie Erbe, Daniel Shore and the rest to talk down to us and "right wrongs" for us. When they do, it usually costs us more than if we did it ourselves.

I also note that there is no feedback link on the Scripps Howard website which delivers Ms. Erbe's outrage.

kausfiles.com

How about everybody who bought McCain's book, "Faith of My Fathers," send it back to him. He is really a big letdown to conservatives and libertarians.

Crazier Than Thou

Tom Friedman again cuts to the heart of the matter. The Arabs don't think like Westerners. When we react with measured responses, they see it as weakness. When they lionize bin Laden, we wonder why they hate us.

The fact is that it is ingrained in their culture to respect and trust those who show strength and resolve. Europeans, in contrast, view such people as Hitler as a man they can do business with. "We don't want to judge anyone unfairly," and search for "peace in our time." When this all fails, they shake their heads and wonder why men like Churchill and De Gaulle become heroes instead of Neville Chamberlain.

Most Americans think differently from their academics and intellectuals who pander to European "thought." We are religious and we all know the Sermon on the Mount, but we also resonate to Sean Connery in "The Untouchables" when he says:

"You wanna get Capone? Here's how you get Capone...

He pulls a knife, you pull a gun.

He puts one of yours in the hospital, you put one of his in the morgue.

We know the difference between a slap on the cheek and a punch in the gut.

And so do most Muslims.

The Unforgiving Edge of Sports

Funny. There's no mention of score trading among judges in this.

Spinsanity - Countering rhetoric with reason is "thrilled to announce that we've entered a distribution agreement with Salon.com."

That's like being thrilled to announce you got the last tickets on the Titanic. Salon has lost $76 million, more or less, and affiliating with Spinsanity is a great example of why. To me, Spinsanity is a misnomer on par with People for the American Way. They equate liberalism with sanity and anti-religion, especially anti-christianity, with the American Way.

Politics is all spin. Any attempt to remove the spin is to like taking clowns and elephants out of the circus.

Pairs' judging merits investigation

It's the bribery scandal all over again, and the real culprits will "skate" once again.

The reason the first scandal occurred was because IOC officials had offered their votes for sale and made it clear that merit didn't count as much as the quantity and quality of personal "gifts" to member of the
selection committee. But they weren't the ones put on trial.

Despite all the ugliness in the past, these games began gloriously, full of the spirit of sportsmanship, good will and cheering for the great performances. Until Monday night.

Then the corruption within the international Olympics organization raised its ugly head again and muddied the spirit and thrills of these games. Nationalism asserts itself, and winning medals for ones country by hook or crook becomes the goal.

Judging figure skating is subjective, and everybody has to accept that there will be differences of opinion about matters of grace and beauty. But when it comes out that judges' votes were traded for nationalistic
purposes, the basic point of the Olympics is violated. Peace and good will becomes secondary to winning medals at any cost.

There has been a lot of cynicism about these games. I felt it, and had pretty much decided that it was all about big money and hype. But the athletes and the efforts of the volunteers and experts had overcome that
impression. I felt a real desire to get back to the sense of celebration of sport and clean competition. Now, the International Skating Union has blown it to smithereens, and there is no way to recover it, at least as it regards figure skating.

The medals awarded to the Russians will be forever tainted, and if the results were changed, the gold medal given to the Sale and Pelletier would be, as well. Ottavio Cinquanta, the ISU president, reacts
haughtily and testily to the accusations, and says the judges are unaccountable to anyone. He seems offended that anyone questions their decisions, regardless of whether they were dishonest.

Apparently the ISU hasn't figured out that its prestige and the prestige of the Olympics is threatened by even the hint of such practices. Of course, they don't have to take orders from anybody. They are, as one writer put it, the Olympic gods. But they must realize that this all depends on the public perception of complete fairness and best judgment, free of favoritism or back room deals. Once they lose that perception, they are done. The audience will be gone, and they can rail against us, the uninitiated amateurs, all they want, but nobody will care.

It appears to me that the Olympics and the skaters themselves need to create a new body to conduct these competitions and to provide honest judges, who do not represent nations, but the highest standards of the
sport.

Taiwan flags in S.L. ruffle a few feelings
Red China sends officials to demand that the Taiwan flag hung on a private residence be taken down!

I think we need to add another member to the Axis of Evil.

Pioneer Press | 02/10/2002 | Too much security is scarier than dirtbags
Link provided by InstaPundit.Com.

Good points here about why we're not getting more more secure in the air. We need a system run by tough minded people with good sense--not a bunch of rentacops who confiscate tweezers and nail clippers why allowing shoebombers to board planes.

This is why I have proposed letting passengers search each others' luggage. Nobody would be more careful. Anybody who still didn't like the looks of his fellow passengers should be free to pass and take the next flight.
And if three-fourths of the passengers refuse to fly with someone who creeps them out, they should be allowed to bump that person, no questions asked.
If we have to be there three hours early, we should be given something to do other than stand in line.
If this offends someone's "right to privacy," tough. They can take the bus. The right to life trumps the right of privacy.

Blunt Question, Blunt Answer
This column points to some bad thinking that harms everyone who indulges in it. It's effects go far beyond just Arabs and Muslims. Conspiracy thinking is running riot in America today, with every group trying to blame its problems on discrimination.
There is discrimination. There always has been. But blaming all our problems on someone else, puts them beyond solution and excuses us from doing all we can.
I posted the following on the NYTimes forum: I would apply the wisdom here not only to Arabs and Israelis, but to every group trying to improve its lot. I used to be a Public Defender, and I noted that frequently my clients had the attitude that they were the victims of an unfair system. Sometimes this was true, but most of the time they had brought their problems on themselves, and would continue to do so, because they never would admit to themselves that they had any responsibility for their own actions--it was always someone else's fault. Mine, because a "good lawyer" would have gotten them off. The police, the prosecutor, the jury or the judge, because they were all out to get these defendant's. It was never the fact that they were, in fact, guilty.

The same principle applies in the case of American blacks who are angry with white society, because the rights guaranteed by the civil rights laws have not resulted in instant prosperity and happiness. They think it must be because whites are holding them down, because American society is racist. Whether this is true or not, it does not, in Mr. Friedman's words, "absolve [them] and [their] leaders of any responsibility for [their] its predicament � and any need for self-examination. No civilization [or individual, race, religion or nationality] has ever prospered with that approach."

This is precisely why racism itself is wrong. It justifies discrimination and provides an excuse for failure. We all need to be wary of this kind of thinking and resist its siren call.

Blunt Question, Blunt Answer
This column points to some bad thinking that harms everyone who indulges in it. It's effects go far beyond just Arabs and Muslims. Conspiracy thinking is running riot in America today, with every group trying to blame its problems on discrimination.
There is discrimination. There always has been. But blaming all our problems on someone else, puts them beyond solution and excuses us from doing all we can.
I posted the following on the NYTimes forum: I would apply the wisdom here not only to Arabs and Israelis, but to every group trying to improve its lot. I used to be a Public Defender, and I noted that frequently my clients had the attitude that they were the victims of an unfair system. Sometimes this was true, but most of the time they had brought their problems on themselves, and would continue to do so, because they never would admit to themselves that they had any responsibility for their own actions--it was always someone else's fault. Mine, because a "good lawyer" would have gotten them off. The police, the prosecutor, the jury or the judge, because they were all out to get these defendant's. It was never the fact that they were, in fact, guilty.

The same principle applies in the case of American blacks who are angry with white society, because the rights guaranteed by the civil rights laws have not resulted in instant prosperity and happiness. They think it must be because whites are holding them down, because American society is racist. Whether this is true or not, it does not, in Mr. Friedman's words, "absolve [them] and [their] leaders of any responsibility for [their] its predicament � and any need for self-examination. No civilization [or individual, race, religion or nationality] has ever prospered with that approach."

This is precisely why racism itself is wrong. It justifies discrimination and provides an excuse for failure. We all need to be wary of this kind of thinking and resist its siren call.