Month: April 2011

David Rothkopf reiterates that we should get out of the country ASAP:

[W]aging a war that cannot be won on behalf of an ally who is flirting with our enemies, undermining our goals, and hurting his own people is neither something America can or should be engaged in no matter how accomplished, distinguished, or worthy the advocates for a prolonged involvement may be.

(Photo: Afghan National Army officers march during a graduation ceremony at the Ghazi Military Training Centre in Kabul on March 31, 2011. Afghanistan's police and army are due to take control of security in the war-torn country in some more peaceful areas from July and across the nation by 2014. By Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images)

Brian Wilson gives you a virtual rub. He seems fine with Just For Men. And I'm going wobbly again on the Santa issue.

Scott Horton takes down John Yoo and Robert Delahunty.

There's no real change in long-term unemployment – with the labor participation rate at record lows (hence Gallup's higher readings). But there's equally little doubt now, with today's unemplyoment numbers, that the recovery is real, if not spectacular. It's hard to disagree with Mataconis:

Since November, the Unemployment Rate has fallen a full percentage point, a sign that this is more than just a minor recovery. More important, U-6, the broadest measure of unemployment, has fallen along with the overall rate over the past four months and is now below 16%, not good but a heck of a lot better than it was even six months ago. Politically, this is obviously good news for the Obama Administration and, if it holds up, the possibility of the unemployment rate being belong 8% by Election Day 2012 seems pretty likely at this point.

Meep, meep.

Al Jazeera reports:

Bahrain has stepped up the arrests of Shia Muslims, including many cyber activists, with more than 300 detained and dozens missing since it launched a crackdown on pro-democracy protests, the opposition has said. Activists and politicians said on Thursday that a growing number of reform campaigners are going into hiding, after the country's most prominent blogger was arrested on Wednesday. "The situation is critical … Almost all the bloggers and activists who aren't in jail are now in hiding," Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, said.

Justin Gengler, who runs a great blog on Bahrain, zooms out:

While the United States is busy providing air cover for government opponents in Libya, its friends in the Arab Gulf have nearly finished mopping the floor with theirs.

Backed by some 2,000 ground troops from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, along with a Kuwaiti naval detachment, the Bahraini government has all but stamped out the Shi‘a-led pro-democracy movement that had brought this small island nation to a standstill since mid-February. …

While no one is likely soon to forget the patch of barren land that just two weeks ago was “Martyrs’ Square,” life in Bahrain is indeed slowly returning to normal. Curfews have been shortened. Roads have been reopened. First elementary and now middle school students have returned to classes. Malls, hit hard by the turmoil as has Bahrain’s entire economy, have been keen to bring back shoppers, advertising their hours on Twitter and Facebook. And, most telling of all, the thousands who gathered last Friday for the sermon of Bahrain’s highest Shi‘a religious authority, Sheikh ‘Isa Qasim, did not continue on to a customary post-prayer rally; they simply returned home.

(Hat tip: 3QD; Photo: Bahraini Shiites women attend the funeral of Bahiya al-Aradi, holding portraits of her, in central Manama on March 22, 2011. Aradi, 51, went missing on March 16 evening, and a car that she drove was found the day after in al-Qadam village, west of Manama, with bloodstains on the driver's seat. She was pronounced dead on March 21 after being shot in the head. By Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images)

Who needs Jay Carney when we've got David Brooks?

This was the phrase used by the president in his speech justifying a war he had already started. I wonder if by that he meant the inhabitants of Surt:

Fresh intelligence this week showed that Libyan government forces were supplying assault rifles to civilians in the town of Surt, which is populated largely by Qaddafi loyalists. These civilian Qaddafi sympathizers were seen chasing rebel forces in nonmilitary vehicles like sedans and trucks, accompanied by Libyan troops, according to American military officers.

And that's why NATO is now policing a civil war in which it is almost impossible to tell who is a civilian and who isn't, who is a rebel and who isn't, and which pick-up trucks are Qaddafi's and which ones are the rebels'. For these reasons, arming the rebels is a total crap shoot. On what grounds do the people of the United States have a reason to arm one side in a civil war, when we have no idea who they are? Doesn't the fact that NATO has already warned them not to attack "civilians" tell you something?

I remember Iraq when we spent months not believing there was an insurgency. How could the Iraqi people defend the dictator who oppressed them? It didn't compute. And then we realized things were not quite as simple as Bill Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz had told us – and we are still there ten years and a trillion dollars later.

This is a dumb war, Mr President. And you are supposed to be against those. Remember?

A reader writes:

Speaking of obese goalies, this Amstel Light spot, from about six years ago, ponders the same thing.

Another writes:

I'm sure I'm not the only one to send a link to the children's book "Porko von Popbutton", but I remember it vividly from childhood (it was actually published in Sports Illustrated back in the '60s, which I did not know). The hero is a bullied fat boy who gets sent to a hockey-mad boarding school.

Another:

I don't know about hockey, but obese athletes already changed Olympic bobsled. 

In the 1952 Olympics, "[t]here were no weight restrictions on the bobsleigh athletes, consequently the average weight for each member of the winning German four-man team was 117 kg (260 lb)". Here's a photo of the German two-man team.

Another:

In response to the fat goalie article: It's been covered!  In song no less!

Another:

The West Wing got there first – Sam Seaborn, "Stirred," Season Three:

Sam: "You know what I'd do if I owned a hockey team? I'd hire a sumo wrestler. I'd give him a uniform, transportation, 500 bucks a week to sit in the goal, eat a ham sandwich, and enjoy the game. My team would never get scored on."

A reader writes:

I want to bring to your attention the detention of my friend and Middlebury College classmate, Pathik "Tik" Root, by the Syrian government 13 days ago.  Tik is, like myself, an Arabic student, and after being evacuated from his study abroad program in Alexandria, Egypt in January, he returned to the Middle East to continue his language studies at Damascus University.  On March 18th, Tik was heading across the Old City to meet a friend and it is believed that while on his way he was arrested by Syrian authorities in the vicinity of a protest at the Umayyed Mosque.  Tik was not participating in the protest, nor is he a political activist, he is simply a 21-year-old student who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  

For almost two weeks no word has been heard from Tik.

He has been denied contact with his family, no consular or international aid workers have been allowed to confirm his well-being, and the Syrian government has released
no specific information as to his location or health.  He has been charged with no crime, and no reason has been offered for his initial arrest or the continuation of his detention.  Such treatment is in direct violation of the Geneva Protocols and international standards of conduct, and on a more human scale, has been a source of immense concern for his family and friends. His parents have hit dead end after dead end in trying to confirm anything about their son's status and the possibility of his release.

Thus, I'm writing to ask you to use your power as a member of the press to raise awareness of Tik's story. As a fan of your blog and writings, I know how many others like myself check in with The Dish regularly and depend upon it for important updates and perspectives.  To have you call attention to Tik's plight would immensely help the cause of an American citizen who has done nothing wrong and yet is being held without any sign of release in sight, and whose parents and siblings just want to him to come home safe and sound.  

Here is a link to the Facebook page, where the articles and updates about Tik are getting posted, in case you want more information or want to check out some of the coverage.  His mom is posting on the site as well – Andi Lloyd – and her posts have the most up-to-date and specific information, since so very little on Tik's situation is getting through.