Month: July 2008

Sometimes, not-so-funny.

Interrogation video of detainee Omar Khadr, who was arrested at 15, was just released. Here’s Al Jazeera International’s coverage:

And here’s a Rolling Stone profile of Omar Khadr from 2006.

British swimmer and explorer Lewis Gordon Pugh is pictured with his kayak on the River Thames, in central London, as he announces his plans to become the first person to kayak to the North Pole, on July 15, 2008. He will undertake this expedition to show the loss of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. By Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty Images.

Edward Winkleman’s aside:

My personal take on political correctness is that it’s an artificial construct that has benefits in the short run, but will outlast its usefulness and eventually become harmful. What I mean by that is shaming people into considering others’ feelings (or at least keep their hurtful opinions silent) long enough for those others to gain some power socially is a good thing, but for everyone to truly be on an equal playing field, that pseudo-politeness eventually has to end. It’s foolish to think you’ll ever get everyone to like/accept each other. The only practical thing you can hope for is that people have equal opportunity and equal protection under the law and that with those protections they can fairly fend for themselves.

The director of the Helsinki talks that concluded July 5 in Baghdad achieved an agreement on how the various factions and parties can move forward. It was a positive step. But O’Malley also witnessed some ominous cultural trends reasserting themselves:

What is most disturbing is that this is not the first time, we learned, that Maliki has acted with such capricious disregard for all institutions of governance with no explanation provided. When his mood hearkens, action follows, rational or irrational, and no one questions his behavior. He is, for all the propaganda about the advances of democratization, a despot in the making with all the appurtenances of power under lock and key.

It seems that the psychological pathology that pervades Iraq five years after Saddam Hussein’s toppling is the same: instantaneous capitulation to the whims of the most powerful, with orders from the top implemented unquestioningly. Bowing to authoritarian diktats is still embedded in the national psyche because the consequences of not doing so are unclear and memories of what has happened in the past are too clear.

Political culture does not change overnight. Or even in five years. More like fifty.

Beagle news:

Rocco, a beagle that strayed from a New York City yard five years ago, has been reunited with his owners — after being found 850 miles (1,370 kilometers) away in Georgia. Randy Durrence, the supervisor at the Liberty County Animal Control in Hinseville, Georgia, told the New York Post that someone dropped off the pooch on July 5. A microchip embedded under Rocco’s skin helped trace him to his family in New York — Jorge and Cristina Villacis.

Richard J. Bishirjian posits:

Ask that question of a British Tory and you’ll get a reply that is different from one given by an American—even if the Tory you query is a Thatcherite Conservative. And the same will be the case of Spanish, Italian, German and French conservatives. These differences tell us that conservatism is an attitude—not an “ism”—and a disposition of mind toward government, politics, and tradition, not a philosophy of government or a systematic political theory. If not an ideology, a philosophy nor a political theory, then there is no universal conservatism about which to write. What we are discussing is an artifact, a cultural development, that in the case of those participating in this symposium began in America in response to the growth of the administrative state and which we can address by reflection on its history and the problems it addresses.

Most horse-race polls at this point are somewhat useless, but they do contain some interesting internal information:

Independent voters split 44 – 44 percent, the independent Quinnipiac University poll finds. Sen. McCain has a slight 47 – 44 percent edge among men voters and a larger 49 – 42 percent lead among white voters. But black voters back Sen. Obama 94 – 1 percent, while women support him 55 – 36 percent. Obama leads 63 – 31 percent among voters 18 to 34 years old and 48 – 44 percent among voters 35 to 54, while voters over 55 split with 45 percent for McCain and 44 percent for Obama.

Cornstarch mixed with water and a major woofer:

Or something like that.