Richard Bennett

Terrorist flips-off Congress

— Irish terrorist Gerry Adams refused to answer questions about the IRA and Sinn Fein’s role in training terrorists in Columbia and Cuba at a Congressional hearing Tuesday (FT.com): The Irish Republican Army has formed part of a global terror network based in Colombia, training Marxist guerrillas alongside Iranian and Cuban officials as well as … Continue reading “Terrorist flips-off Congress”

— Irish terrorist Gerry Adams refused to answer questions about the IRA and Sinn Fein’s role in training terrorists in Columbia and Cuba at a Congressional hearing Tuesday (FT.com):

The Irish Republican Army has formed part of a global terror network based in Colombia, training Marxist guerrillas alongside Iranian and Cuban officials as well as Basque terrorists, according to a nine-month congressional investigation…

On Tuesday Gerry Adams, the Sinn F?in leader, declined a request by the committee to explain the IRA’s involvement in Colombian terrorism at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday. But he predicted the party’s US support would be unaffected by his refusal to explain the arrest of three leading republicans in Colombia. He said the party was just back from one its most extensive fundraising tours in the US.

A spokesman for the Republican-controlled committee said its invitation to Sinn F?in “was an opportunity for Mr Adams to offer some explanation about why two IRA explosives experts and the Sinn F?in political officer stationed in Cuba were arrested in August following a visit to a safe haven controlled by the Farc, a designated foreign terrorist organisation.

“Terrorism imperils Colombian democracy, and the alleged IRA role in helping groups like the Farc perpetuate the violence poses a direct threat to US national interests.”

I really don’t see how we can make headway in the war on terror as long as people like Gerry Adams are allowed to freely raise money in the United States to support his heinous activities. Not only is he allowed to raise money for terror, they named a street after him in Oakland. The double standard has to go – this man has bombed and murdered school children and other innocent people in the UK, and still he walks around free as a bird.

Update: here’s another link on the IRA/Columbia connection, gleaned from Instapundit during a rare moment of Blogspot uptime. I won’t link Insty since Blogspot will probably be down if you try and go there.

The new asylum

— Kathleen Parker sez: “Two thoughts: Americans have too much time on their hands; the Internet is the new asylum.” Priceless. Link from LGF.

All aboard

— John Dvorak’s takedown of the The Cluetrain Manifesto for PC Magazine brings tears to my eyes: A site to visit is www.cluetrain.com. There you can read a chapter from the book where we learn bromides such as “life is too short” or read cute mumbo jumbo such as “knowledge worth having comes from turned-on … Continue reading “All aboard”

— John Dvorak’s takedown of the The Cluetrain Manifesto for PC Magazine brings tears to my eyes:

A site to visit is www.cluetrain.com. There you can read a chapter from the book where we learn bromides such as “life is too short” or read cute mumbo jumbo such as “knowledge worth having comes from turned-on volitional attention, not from slavishly following someone else’s orders.” I rolled my eyes so much that my vision is now 20/20 from the exercise. More interesting on the site is the massive list of well-wishers, ding-dongs, and so-called signatories to the so-called Manifesto itself. I’m sure many of them petition for the legalization of marijuana too. Throw a dart at this list and you’ll find one dot-com failure after another.

The only thing to take issue with, other than it’s not biting enough, is John’s conflation of the Cluetrain group with bloggers in general, which is kind of understandable since many ‘Trainers blog, after a fashion, but basically they’re giving us a bad name.

Well, it’s time for me to go subvert hierarchy with hyperlinks, just to stay busy until the Revolution comes.

Europe’s right shift

— This op-ed in OpinionJournal fleshes-out some of the details of the center-right forces achieving dominance in Europe: In any event, we will not have to worry about Mr. Le Pen for more than the two weeks until the runoff. When Mr. Chirac is re-elected, he will have to lead his country in a very … Continue reading “Europe’s right shift”

— This op-ed in OpinionJournal fleshes-out some of the details of the center-right forces achieving dominance in Europe:

In any event, we will not have to worry about Mr. Le Pen for more than the two weeks until the runoff. When Mr. Chirac is re-elected, he will have to lead his country in a very new Europe, but not the center-left Europe so long imagined by most of the intellectuals and fashionable politicians. Through no particular merit of his own, Mr. Chirac will be a major player in a center-right Europe that will be more suspicious of the mounting power of the European bureaucracy in Brussels, less inclined to dissolve national identities in a new continental union, and keen on retaining more initiative in national legislatures.

One of the predictable responses to globalization is a resurgence of tribalism. In the third world, this takes the form of religious zealotry, and in the first world, nationalism. It’s an interesting deal.

Never mind

— After reading this, I’m having my doubts that Matt’s going to have time to write Green Fudge and Spam: (Los Angeles Business Journal – News Front Page) Riordan said there would be a staff of about 40 and that he plans to start the publication with Matt Welch, co-founder of LAExaminer.com, a local media … Continue reading “Never mind”

— After reading this, I’m having my doubts that Matt’s going to have time to write Green Fudge and Spam: (Los Angeles Business Journal – News Front Page)

Riordan said there would be a staff of about 40 and that he plans to start the publication with Matt Welch, co-founder of LAExaminer.com, a local media Web site that provides local news and analysis — much of it biting — about the heretofore ignored L.A. media scene.

Otis Chander would approve.

Ribbet

— I found a couple of things striking about the French election, being basically ignorant of amphibian politics:

* Chirac, the candidate with the most votes, only polled 19% of the vote. While all the media are saying Chirac is the heavy favorite to take the run-off, the difference between 19 and 51 isn’t much less than the difference between 17 and 51, so Jean-Marie Le Pen might just take it all; a little mold on the wheat, and anything can happen.

* Left parties are taking a beating all over Europe. Although the elites and the media say that Europe doesn’t approve of our war on terrorists, the people themselves are saying something very different, and refusing to return their Chomskyites to power.

* The French have a run-off system. What a change it would make in America if we held a run-off every time there’s no clear winner in the presidential election. Minor parties like the reforms and the Greens could run vigorous campaigns without having to deal with the vote-siphoning question, and the level of debate would probably be a lot higher. I don’t assume this means that Al Gore would be in the White House now (scary thought, that) because Bush had Libertarians and Reforms draining his votes down, but a reform like that would be most worthwhile if we could ditch the electoral college as well. But election reform in America today means checking IDs at the polls, an issue that’s still a hot potato due to illegally registered Democrats who swing elections in California. But I can dream.

OK, so that’s three things, shoot me.

Nader fudge

— Matt Welch’s review of Nader’s book in Reason is first rate: September 11 showed that when it comes to foreign policy and critical thinking, the Naderite left is not yet ready for prime time. Which is a shame, because the consumer advocate and his followers have many useful things to say about corporate welfare, … Continue reading “Nader fudge”

— Matt Welch’s review of Nader’s book in Reason is first rate:

September 11 showed that when it comes to foreign policy and critical thinking, the Naderite left is not yet ready for prime time. Which is a shame, because the consumer advocate and his followers have many useful things to say about corporate welfare, third-party access, political hypocrisy, civil liberties, drug legalization, and a host of other issues the Democrats and Republicans largely ignore. And for all its excesses, the leftist foreign policy critique about supporting dictators and addressing “root causes” has found new resonance in the past months. Nader is clearly licking his chops at the Enron collapse, and all signs point to an even more vigorous run for the presidency in 2004.

Now Matt, get that proposal for your Nader book (“Green Fudge and Spam”) to your agent, and do it right now. No more blogging until it’s in the mail.

Correction

I said below that Geoff Nunberg “fudged his numbers.” That wasn’t nice – I should have said that Boyd was unable to replicate the results of Nunberg’s survey. Nunberg engages in spin, but that’s not the same as outright lying (except about NOW, where he seems to be involved in wishful thinking.) Civility is very … Continue reading “Correction”

I tend to give people more credit for knowing what they’re doing than others might, I’ve learned. When Richard Peterson examined the data Lenore Weitzman collected on post-divorce incomes and found that they didn’t support her argument that women suffer a 73% decline in standard of living whle men increased theirs by 42% (in reality, Weitzman’s figures showed that including tax effects, both had the same decline, about 10%), I said she lied and he said she erred. Take your pick.

Nunberg’s study is suspect on several methodoligical grounds, especially the small sample size and the short distance between noun and adjective he requires. It would seem that he had a point to prove, and chose a set of variables that appeared to prove it; that’s spin.

No nouns, please

— Doc Searls wants an end to ideological labels, and toward that end he quotes this unfortunate statement of Photo Dude’s: And on the other side of the coin, there are indeed people who may not have been First Wavers like Jason but were veteran bloggers long before 9-11, who consider themselves generally left of … Continue reading “No nouns, please”

— Doc Searls wants an end to ideological labels, and toward that end he quotes this unfortunate statement of Photo Dude’s:

And on the other side of the coin, there are indeed people who may not have been First Wavers like Jason but were veteran bloggers long before 9-11, who consider themselves generally left of center, yet fully support the war on terrorism.
And don’t care if they are published in a book or not.

So build me my own cubbyhole. No label, please.

Labels like “First-Waver” are good, even when applied to late adopters, but labels like “fuzzy-headed pacifist” or “warblogger” are bad. I see now, sorry I missed the memo.

Nunberg number three on Blogdex

— ( blogdex ) shows a lot of links to Nunberg: “3.Geoffrey Nunberg – Media Bias – 8.1 points NOW cannot be accurately labeled as liberal www-csli.stanford.edu/~nunberg/response.html – more info – sources” That statement about NOW will go down in history as one of the all-time gaffes, just like “Singapore is a good starting point” … Continue reading “Nunberg number three on Blogdex”

That statement about NOW will go down in history as one of the all-time gaffes, just like “Singapore is a good starting point” and “the people of Poland are free.”