August 18, 2004
Just and Unjust Wars, and some Llama-Razzing
Jeff over at Beautiful Atrocities has an excellent review of Michael Walzer's new book out about the Iraq War.
The funny thing is, I found Jeff's site via sitemeter, as he linked to us razzing us about moving to the evil collective that is moo.knew. I hadn't seen his site before, and it's absolutely fabulous, elegantly laid out, lots of quirky little pshops, and it's going on our blogroll. That's the funny thing about razzing....
UPDATE: Scroll down for his quiz on whether you are the laziest person on the planet. The sad thing is that I have indeed had croutons for breakfast......
UPDATE PART DEUX: Jeff has a little thing for his original razzing showing a scientist being strangled by a vicious looking alien, symbolizing what would happen to us unsuspecting llamas by Pixy Misa. Of course, the REAL picture is closer to this:
The Justice Files
Jordanian court commutes death sentence of girl accused of killing her father.
Her motivation? He was beating her with a large stick because someone in the family bought a color tee-vee.
He became enraged and started cursing everyone in the house, then insulted the defendant and grabbed a wooden stick and attempted to hit her with it but she stopped him.He then started cursing his wife and blaming her for her daughter's “ill-manners,” court transcripts added.
During that time, the court added, Fadia got hold of a meat cleaver that was in the room and struck her father once in the back of the head.
Were's COPS when you need them?
WHAT THE.....?????????
This just in: the Sydney Morning Herald reports that our old pal Muqtada al-Sadr has asked Pope John Paul II to mediate the "standoff" in Najaf.
For "standoff" insert "Muqtada's imminent arrival in hell."
Let's go to the tape:
The radical Shiite preacher Moqtada al-Sadr has invited the Pope to help solve the conflict between his militia and US-led Iraqi government forces in the holy city of Najaf."We welcome the offer from the Pope at the Vatican and we invite him to solve the crisis," a Sadr spokesman, Ahmed al-Shaibani, said yesterday.
The Vatican offered on Monday to mediate to avoid further bloodshed and destruction in Najaf, where Sadr's militia are holed up in the centre of the city around the Imam Ali shrine, one of the holiest sites in Shiite Islam.
"If asked, John Paul II would gladly accept a mediation role," the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, told Italian public radio.
Intense fighting broke out again yesterday between US-led forces and militants in Najaf, while in Baghdad insurgents fired mortar bombs into a crowded street near a police station, killing at least seven people and wounding 42, the Interior Ministry said.
Heavy gunfire and mortar bombs boomed around the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf as 70 political and religious delegates from a national conference in Baghdad were due to arrive to meet Sadr and urge him to leave.
The convoy delayed travelling to the city amid security fears. "We received reports that there would be ambushes on the way to Najaf targeting the delegation," said Fawzi Hamza, an independent politician leading the team.
He said the mission had not been cancelled, adding that for security reasons he could not say when the team would leave. The delegation intends to present Sadr and his forces with a list of demands: leave the shrine, disarm and join the political process.
In exchange, Sadr and members of his Mahdi Army militia will receive amnesty and safe passage out of the shrine.
Although Sadr has agreed to meet the delegation, there are no signs that he would abandon his fight to drive US forces out of Iraq - one he has vowed to pursue until "victory or martyrdom".
All I know is that THIS guy is going to have a field day with this.
I'm speechless....well, almost.
The TOP TEN REASONS MUQTADA AL-SADR WANTS THE POPE TO MEDIATE IN NAJAF:10. Jonesing for a ride in the Popemobile
9. Needs some spiritual guidance after getting all confused reading "Angels and Demons"
8. Wants to personally issue a fatwah against "The DaVinci Code"
7. Is hoping the Pope can get him Reese Whitherspoon's home phone number
6. "John Paul? I told you to get me Sean John, you son of a camel!"
5. Heard the one about the Pope, Hillary Clinton, and Ariel Sharon in a plane with two parachutes and a backpack, and wanted to know if it was true
4. Wants to congratulate the Pope on his brave stand against feminism in the modern world, and maybe after that catch a little Olympic beach volleyball on the Pope's plasma wide-screen
3. Got a funny feeling in his pants watching the Sound of Music and needs forgiveness
2. "Seriously, Achmed---he's the Pope! And all those infidel American Catholics do everything the Pope tells them to!"And the number one reason Muqtada al-Sadr is inviting the Pope to Najaf
1. It's a plot by Bushitlermcsmirkychimp and his evil Sith Masters as Harkenbechtelhalliburton to steal the election!
UPDATE: Quite possible the most offensive thing I've ever done goes into the extended entry section....
Interesting Economic News from Europe
One of the standard lines I get at work from my colleagues is about how "unfair" and "structurally misguided" our economy--and therefore our society--is, and how we need to shape our economy to be more like Europe.
Because, of course, a PhD in the humanities gives you keen insight to be a critic of economic policy.
So, just to be a pain, I'm forwarding this article from the IHT to a couple of my usual sparring partners, and it should be enough to get them to gag over their falafel and biscotti:
From the IHT:
When it comes to the economy, Europeans are worried. Growth may be good this year, but neither politicians, nor business executives nor consumers appear to have much confidence that the good news can last. If there is a crisis, it may be as much psychological as economic.Perhaps the most revealing illustration of official pessimism came in France this year, after President Jacques Chirac's party suffered a humiliating rebuff in local elections.
Under pressure to shake up his government, Chirac moved the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, to the finance ministry.
Sarkozy was widely perceived to be the most popular politician in Chirac's party, but he was also seen as a rival to Chirac if the president seeks a third term in 2007.
The move was seen as an effort to put Sarkozy in a post where his popularity was bound to atrophy. It may not have been Chirac's best move.
In office, Sarkozy has steered a complicated course of talking of reform, including efforts to increase working hours in France, while also pushing through a state bailout of Alstom, the large engineering firm, and blasting German companies that have threatened to move operations out of Europe if workers did not agree to longer hours.
His popularity does not appear to have fallen, and Chirac now seems to be trying to force Sarkozy to leave the government.
But the fact that Chirac saw the finance portfolio as a way to dent his rival's appeal to voters reflected a reality of Europe, circa 2004.
The economic medicine widely prescribed for the major countries of Western Europe is fraught with political perils.
It calls for forcing through reforms that will reduce public pensions in the future, making people work longer before they retire and then get lower pensions when they do.
It also calls for making labor markets more "flexible" - that is, making it easier to fire workers.
Asked recently how he expected politicians to push through such measures, one European corporate leader, speaking on condition he not be quoted, painted a picture of governments enacting unpopular but needed reforms before being voted out of office. Then their successors could pass more reforms before they, too, felt the wrath of voters. He conceded that such a plan might not appeal to politicians.
The western European countries---in particular France and Germany--are in trouble. Ever heard that somewhat dirty joke whose punchline is, "Sorry, Saturday's your night in the barrel" ? Well, France and Germany's time in the barrel is about to begin. The article continues:
The causes of concern in Europe are basically that it has not kept up with the United States in terms of growth and that there is a demographic time bomb on the horizon, as an aging generation retires while expecting benefits that are far more generous than governments will be able to afford, in part because working populations are likely to shrink. . The newly expanded European Union, which now has 25 members, boasts that it has a larger economy than that of the United States. But the prevailing attitude about the new members from Eastern Europe appears to be fear. Many of the old members have delayed the day when workers from those countries will be allowed to emigrate to other parts of Europe. The new members themselves are seen as threats to export cheap goods and take jobs away. .
All bad news? Hardly: this is the IHT afterall.
But amid the gloom, there are signs of success. European economies are on track to grow reasonably well this year, even if they are trailing the United States and much of Asia. European productivity growth has trailed that of the United States, but the gap narrows substantially when expressed in terms of hours worked. It can be argued that the difference reflects a quite reasonable preference for leisure over additional income. No doubt that is true for some, but many of the persistently unemployed in Europe would no doubt prefer less leisure and more income.The demographic horror story - in which the structure crumbles because there are too few workers being forced to pay taxes to support too many retirees - may be oversold. There is an ample supply of extra workers available via immigration, and while there is great reluctance to let them in, and more than a little discrimination against hiring those that are already in Europe, that can be seen as an untapped resource.
Here's the problem with their silver lining: how long can you continue to trade leisure for income without seriously constraining your ability to create new income? I'd much rather emphasize long term income growth, and take a smaller percentage of leisure as a function of income if income would continue to grow over time. And their breezy reliance on "extra workers" is the demographic horror story, as long as immigrants are not encourage to assimilate, as increasingly the problem on the continent. Headscarves, Jacques?
Blog Swingers
A number of blogs that I like have been noting a similar mid-August blog ennui--Ted has a hilarious post to that point. Maybe the answer is some sort of decadent 1970s-esque blog-swingers thing, where we get a group of naughty blog neighbors together and toss our keys in a bowl and swing into each others blogs for a couple of days to spice things up a little. Kind of like a group guest-blogging thing. Just a thought--anyone interested?
I'll be heading down to the "Jungle Room" myself....
Sawdust/Style Issues, Part Deux-Deux
Our regulars seem to have followed us over, as traffic is about where it normally is as of late, but our TLLB thing-ee is screwed up at the moment as they are processing our new address, I guess. For the life of me, I can't really figure out how their whole process works; but then again, I guess that's good, because if I understood it, I'd try to mess with it to artificially inflate. As if doping scandals are unknown in the blogosphere!
One reader reports that the site loads screwy with firefox: I'm unfamiliar with that browser (I know what it is, but don't have it on my machine), and would appreciate it if anyone had any advice or suggestions.
The big tweaks to come over the next day or so are with the widths of the two columns, the left and the center. Eventually, I want to add a right hand column for additional links and stuff.
I'm hoping that in another day or so the whole MT format will seem less novel to me and I can settle into normal blogging posture. The past couple of days have been kind of weird because I'm feeling very self-conscious about posting, and therefore haven't been hitting the rythym I like. I think having Rob back from vacation will help with that. I also think I'm going to steal a page from the Commissar's playbook and bring in a guest blogger or two the next time one or both of us is on vacation.