Fine? Why Fine?

Rosie O'Hypocrite

Rosie O'Donnell was so pissed at Bush's suggesting a Federal Amendment to define marriage that she went and got hitched in SF. Smash wonders "What About Love?"

From the SF Chronicle:

"We were both just trying to come here after the sitting president said the vile and vicious and hateful comments he did on Tuesday and inspired myself and my brand-new wife to fly here this morning," O'Donnell said.

We'll all hold our breath for Rosie to call John Kerry and John Edwards "vile and vicious."

From today's Democratic debate:

RATHER: ...So, let me, with your permission, change the subject very quickly. I do ask for brevity here. We'll try to work everybody in.

But, Senator Kerry, what's wrong with gay marriage?

KERRY: I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. It's a personal belief.

RATHER: Well, what's wrong with a man and a man committing to each other for life?

KERRY: What I think -- I think it's a distinction between what you believe the institution of marriage is, but what's important, Dan, is that you give people rights. I'm for rights, not for terminology or status -- rights.

RATHER: But who does it hurt, Senator?

KERRY: I think all -- that's not the issue. The issue is...

RATHER: Well, that's the question.

KERRY: ... are we prepared to provide rights to all Americans, so that they share the same rights as other people, not the same terminology or status?

I believe that the right, the spousal rights -- the right of inheritance, the right with respect to taxes, the right with respect to visitation in a hospital -- there are a whole series of rights. I am for those rights being afforded to every single American without distinction.

[...Kucinich interrupts for a while...]

KIRTZMAN: I'm kind of curious, Senator Kerry. If one of your children came to you and said, "First of all, I'm gay; second of all, I've met someone of the same gender that I want to marry," would you go to the wedding? Would you respect that relationship?

KERRY: I've been to the wedding of somebody who has gotten married who's gay, and I just happen to have a different opinion about what you call it and what the status is.

But I believe they deserve all the rights, all the support, all the love, all the affection, all of the rights that the state can afford. That's why...

(CROSSTALK)

KERRY: That's why I am for civil union. That's why I'm for partnership rights. That's why I'm for even the federal extension, with respect to tax code and other rights.

[...Sharpton interrupts for a while...]

BUMILLER: Do you see a difference between gay rights and civil rights? Why is one right a federal right, and the other one you're saying leave it to the states? What's the difference here?

EDWARDS: Here's what I say. I say that the federal government plays an important role in civil rights and in gay rights. I believe the federal government should recognize what the state, who has forever, now, decided what constitutes marriage...

BUMILLER: Why is there a different standard here?

EDWARDS: But wait a second, wait a second. We're talking about what the definition of marriage is, which is something that has always been decided by states, not rights. Now, see, this is one place that actually Senator Kerry and I largely agree. If we're talking about a bundle of rights, with what rights you'd get under federal law for partners, the problems with adoption...

[...More Sharpton...]

BUMILLER: But the answer?

EDWARDS: The answer is, I believe that gay and lesbian couples should be respected. I think they're entitled to rights. And that's what I think the role...

BUMILLER: But you just can't call it marriage.

EDWARDS: I think it's for the states to decide that.

C'mon Rosie, go after the Dems. What's so different from what they said and what the President said?

"If we are to prevent the meaning of marriage from being changed forever, our nation must enact a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in America," Bush said. "Decisive and democratic action is needed, because attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country."

In calling for a constitutional amendment, Bush did not express opposition to states allowing gays to enter into civil unions, and he did not offer specific support for legislation introduced by Representative Marilyn N. Musgrave, a Colorado Republican whose bill would limit marriage to unions of men and women.

"The amendment should fully protect marriage, while leaving the state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage," Bush said.

Rosie, I'm not crazy about the FMA either but "vile and vicious?" C'mon. Ugh, why am I arguing with Rosie O'Donnell?

It's Alive!

There are millions of reasons why people are still flocking to the U.S. to make their lives better. The OpinionJournal reports on a study that says the American Dream is still the reality for millions of immigrants. It just takes some time.

The immigration debate has long been the loudest in California, the destination of nearly one-third of foreign newcomers in the past 30 years. Where are they now? A study just out from the University of Southern California supplies an answer: in the middle class.

By looking at Census data going back to the 1960s, Dowell Myers and his team of demographers tracked the progress immigrants are making in the Golden State. They found that after about 10 years immigrants begin closing the economic gap with native-born Americans.

According to 1970 Census data, 17.7% of immigrants who arrived in California in the 1960s were living in poverty. Ten years later their poverty rate had dropped to 12.2%. By 1990 it had fallen to 9% and in 2000 it was 8.7%. This trend held true for immigrants who arrived in the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

The whole thing must be read to get the full context but here's one more excerpt.

All of this is why, Mr. Myers argues, it is important to distinguish between new arrivals and those who've been here more than a decade. The longer an immigrant is here the more he contributes. "Earnings, homeownership and voting participation all rise markedly with growing length of settlement," the study concludes.

This hasn't been obvious in recent years for two reasons. First, the number of new immigrants in California doubled between 1980 and 1990. About 1.8 million came in the 1970s, compared with the 3.5 million who moved in in the '80s. Lumping the new arrivals in with established immigrants swamped the data and made it appear that the poverty rate for the entire immigrant community was increasing.

Second, a relatively high percentage of immigrants who arrived since the 1970s were poor. In 1980, the poverty rate for new arrivals was 24.7%; in 1990 it reached 27.5%. But they don't stay poor. The USC study finds that nearly 90% of those who've been here more than 20 years have made it to the middle class.

Green

The Telegraph has a story on the massive troop rotation that is underway in Iraq.

A passing convoy of soldiers from an engineering unit, grizzled and weary veterans after a year in the country, stopped to help. "I've gotta get out of this country," one engineer said, shaking his head at the sight of the damaged Humvee.

It is a sentiment shared by the thousands of American soldiers who are nearing the end of their year-long duty in Iraq and preparing to make way for fresh units. In the biggest US troop movement since the Second World War, over the next three months 14 brigades will briefly overlap with, and then replace, 17 brigades now in Iraq, reducing the number of divisions from four to three, and the total US force from 130,000 to 110,000.

The rotation brings high risk as inexperienced soldiers grapple with their first real taste of combat in a complex, dangerous and alien country.

Despite intense training beforehand in simulated Iraqi towns and villages, nothing can fully prepare the new troops for the mixture of anti-terrorist action, defending civilians and policing Iraq, that they face.

Commanders know that relationships forged over many months with Iraqi officials, tribal chiefs, and religious leaders cannot be duplicated overnight.

His Record

Mark Steyn is keeping a tally of all the weapons systems John Kerry has tried to kill over the years. He is not a man who is at all serious about defending this country.

“We are continuing a defense buildup that is consuming our resources with weapons systems that we don’t need and can’t use.”
~ John Kerry, campaigning for the US Senate in 1984.

The Original GW

There are zillions of internet quizzes floating around and sometimes they're really transparent and easily rigged to get the desirable outcome. I felt this one to be pretty good though. I guess I'm easily flattered, as it told me I'm most like #1.

Which Founding Father Are You?

Festivus

Spring is in the air, and perhaps the joys of the season in the Kanto region are nowhere more lusciously expressed than in Kawasaki Daishi, Kanagawa Prefecture, which is bracing itself for its annual phallic festival.

While the event's purpose is to collect donations for HIV/AIDS causes, it's easy to forget all that and just enjoy the revelry. Such as:

...grandmas and grandpas sucking on carnal candy and sweetmeat replicas of this stupendous phallus...carving penises out of daikon (radish), children and young women sitting astride penis-shaped seesaws for good luck and fertility blessings, as well as a seated banquet in the compound of Kanamara Jinja (aka Wakamiya Hachiman-gu shrine) where the phallic radishes are auctioned.

Red (Crab) Army

(Via The Corner) Stalin's reach from beyond the grave. (Emphasis & pop-up mine.)

Millions of giant Pacific crabs, whose ancestors were brought to Europe by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s, are marching south along Norway's coast, devouring everything in their path.

The monster crabs, which can weigh up to 25lb and have a claw-span of more than three feet, are proving so resilient that scientists fear they could end up as far south as Gibraltar.

Energised by a mysterious population explosion a decade ago, whole armies of the crustaceans - known as the Kamchatka or Red King Crabs - have already advanced about 400 miles along the roof of Europe, overwhelming the ports of northern Norway.

They now number more than 10 million and have reached the Lofoten Islands off north-west Scandinavia, leaving in their wake what one expert described as "an underwater desert".

In a graphic display of the extent of the crab's submarine domination, some photographs of the ocean floor in Kirkenes in northern Norway show a writhing mass of the ugly, spiny animals.

The rest of the article details the environmental and economic impact of these crabs on the region.

More Camping

In my previous post I linked to Kim Jong Il's camps, but he's not the only evil mofo who believes in the educational experiences that can be learned at "camp."

President Robert Mugabe's government has set up secret camps across the country in which thousands of youths are taught how to torture and kill, the BBC has learned.

The Zimbabwean government says the camps are job training centres, but those who have escaped say they are part of a brutal plan to keep Mugabe in power.
Former recruits to the camps have spoken to the BBC's Panorama programme about a horrific training programme that breaks young teenagers down before encouraging them to commit atrocities.

Members of the youth militia are warned never to tell of their experiences inside the camps, and many refuse to be identified when talking about their experiences.

However one girl, Debbie, claims she was kidnapped and forced into a camp - where she was raped on her very first night.

[...]

Panorama has also learned that some of the recruits are taught to torture his opponents.

Daniel was plied with alcohol and drugs, and learned how to electrocute his victims.

He said: "I would just touch, krr, krr - tell us information."

Asked if he thought it was OK to torture people, he added that it was "nice", because "your mind is disturbed".

[...]

What is more frightening is that President Mugabe now wants every Zimbabwean youth to undergo training. We have been told they will be used to intimidate political opponents in next year's elections.

This ain't Meatballs folks.

Dear Leader's Camp

(Via Instapundit) The first video I know of a North Korean prison camp can be found here. The video itself is not that hideous until you realize these are politial prisoners and that whole families are sent there if one member transgresses.

Also this review of a new book on Dear Leader fills in the reality of life in NK.

No one who has visited North Korea is likely ever to forget the experience. It is an encounter with political evil in its most absolute and uncompromising guise. The inhabitants of the country are not, of course, themselves evil; but they are caught up in a regime in which everything that is not forbidden is compulsory, and what is compulsory is monstrous. For once, it really is the system that is at fault.

[...]

The regime is so secretive, and its leaders so reclusive, that it is difficult to distinguish between genuine information about North Korea and myth and speculation. Michael Breen is a journalist who has spent more than 20 years in South Korea, but has visited the North many times. His book is a breezy and gossipy account of the life of the Dear Leader, who has been variously portrayed in the West as a malignant narcissist, a drunken priapic playboy with a taste for pornography, and a psychotic madman. In the absence of more normal sources, even trivial information is included, such as that provided by the Italian chef, who went to North Korea to cook pizza (an exotic luxury) for the Dear Leader.

Mr Breen believes that Kim junior is the victim of his most unusual circumstances. He lives a life of grotesque luxury, even in the midst of catastrophic famine, with no sign of concern for, or even recognition of, the suffering of his countrymen; and he survives, as most tyrants do, by distributing largesse to his henchmen. He has displayed a low cunning in dealing with the outside world, knowledge of which he derives through the internet. He presents an almost insoluble problem to the Americans.

Of course, other Kim Jong Il has his own useful idiots here who only see evil in the Red, White & Blue.

Mr Breen, although not a scholar, is vastly more sensible and imaginative than Professor Bruce Cumings, a renowned historian at the University of Chicago, who has spent much of his career trying to prove what is not true, namely that the Korean War was started by the Americans and their allies in the South. Even he is now back-pedalling on this claim, but he still offers apologetics for the North [North Korea: Another Country, The New Press, £14.95]. He blames its paranoid isolation, its preposterous propaganda, and its virtual enslavement of its people on American conduct in the Korean war. This is the equivalent of blaming Nazism on the Treaty of Versailles.

Like every useful idiot before him, Professor Cumings is much impressed by free child-care and kindergartens, much more so than by gulags and famines. There is no Potemkin village so transparently a fraud that he would not be taken in by it. Such matters as collective family responsibility, whereby entire families are severely punished for the political dissent of one of its members, do not impinge on his imagination - a faculty with which he is not much blessed.

Where Have You Gone, Charlie Banks?

One of the best books I've ever read was The Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger. A friend told me about it and I read it in a day. I gave it to my dad, he read it in a day, then sent an e-mail to his friends telling them if they wanted to remain his friends they'd have to read it. One of those friends recently gave out copies to all the guests at his retirement dinner. A few of my friends have read it and they loved it too.

Part of that book makes me wish for the American spirit was 1941-2. The book is written solely in the format of correspondence between the characters, newspaper clippings, ticket stubs, telegraphs, and report cards. The epistolary makes for quick read and gives a rich texture to the story. This is turning into a book report--get on with it! OK, quick plot synopsis: Joey, a fatherless Jewish kid in Brooklyn, begins corresponding with Charlie Banks, a rookie third-baseman for the NY Giants. Joey is precocious, but wise beyond his years. He also writes letters to FDR cabinet warning of the evil brewing in Europe, i.e. Hitler. Charlie reluctantly becomes involved in Joey's life. Charlie argues that FDR is socialist and worse. He says a lot of nasty things about the President. Then December 7, 1941 comes and Charlie enlists. Charlie chooses to fight for his country. Just because he thought FDR was half-a-Commie, didn't mean that America wasn't worth defending.

While no historical analogy is 100% accurate and in this comparison is somewhat superficial, there are enough similarites between 12/7/41 and 9/11/01 to serve as illustration here. After the strike on Pearl Harbor, Charlie puts aside his animus towards FDR and joins the war because his country was attacked. Would it happen today? Did it happen today? Mark Steyn writes:

This is, when you think about it, a very odd situation. Generally speaking, when a nation’s at war, its citizens recognise it as such. In, say, 1944, even the conscientious objectors did not attempt to argue that there was, in fact, no war. But in 2004 America is divided between those who want to fight the war and those who want to fight the guy who invented the war as a means of distracting us from the tax cuts for his cronies and his plan to destroy the environment.

FDR did not only declare war on Japan, but also on our enemies in Europe. They had been our enemies for years and the time had come for the reckoning. Al-Qaeda attacked us, but we had other enemies who were to some arguable extent in league with them. It turns out confronting Iraq has lead to some other realizations about who our enemies are and what they're up to. Libya comes clean, Syria quakes and extends an admittedly half-hearted olive branch to Israel, Iran allows inspectors and reveals to the world what a sham their "democratic reforms" are, the Pakistani nuclear supermarket is exposed, NK renews overtures to stop their nuke program, and the UN is exposed as an institution with no moral authority. Is is not undeniable that these are all good things? OK, maybe some one-worlders are upset by the UN's exposure but any serious person would have to objectively say that the dominoes are falling.

Today we have an all volunteer, professional army; ballplayers don't have to enlist or get drafted like Charlies did in this work of fiction or like so many of that era did in real life. One the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, one of my friends said he didn't really feel he was a part of it. I think he was thinking of our parents era, where the draft hung over the heads of young Americans. I told him to be thankful that this country is so great that (at present) our generation is spared such things.

But that does not absolve us of all responsibility to our country. The minimum, I would think, is to acknowledge that are at war. And not just the actual fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the war against the nebulous enemy that is Islamofascism.

We need the debate about whether or not our policies are working. But when John Kerry recites over and over that "this administration has no plan," it's useless. In fact it's becoming worse than useless, it's become detrimental. It's detrimental to the country. If Kerry offered what I thought was a better plan, I'd vote for him. But the guy thinks the War on Terror is exaggerated! And do you really want to talk about not having a plan?

It's going pretty well, this audacious "neo-con" plan. We need to continue to help the Iraqis build their country and continue to hunt down OBL & Co. But the partisan politics we have to endure threaten all that and increasingly our national civility and maybe our national sanity.