Category: Old Dish

How else to interpret the Orwellian provision in the mammoth spending bill that gave a couple of powerful Republicans the chance to snoop on anyone’s tax returns? First, they re-write ethics procedures to get their leader off the hook. Now they’re snooping. Note especially Congressman Istook’s blatant lie about the whole affair.

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “It’s time to put down our pusillanimous poodle proclivities and start taking onboard a pitbull-esque tenacity … you know, like the Christians of old, like Peter, like Paul, like Timothy, and Stephen. We need a breed of believers with the courage to stand proudly for their faith in God and their place in society. How about looking at scripture through the eyes of the Pit Bull?” – Doug Giles, on how Jesus fought back against his opponents like an attack-dog.

If you haven’t read Dexter Filkin’s harrowing, extraordinary account of the bravery, ingenuity and commitment of the young Marines who re-took Falluja, then do yourself a favor and read it. It’s Pulitzer material. Just one story:

Cpl. Nick Ziolkowski, nicknamed Ski, was a Bravo Company sniper. For hours at a stretch, Corporal Ziolkowski would sit on a rooftop, looking through the scope on his bolt-action M-40 rifle, waiting for guerrillas to step into his sights. The scope was big and wide, and Corporal Ziolkowski often took off his helmet to get a better look.
Tall, good-looking and gregarious, Corporal Ziolkowski was one of Bravo Company’s most popular soldiers. Unlike most snipers, who learned to shoot growing up in the countryside, Corporal Ziolkowski grew up near Baltimore, unfamiliar with guns. Though Baltimore boasts no beach front, Corporal Ziolkowski’s passion was surfing; at Camp Lejeune, N.C., Bravo Company’s base, he would often organize his entire day around the tides. “All I need now is a beach with some waves,” Corporal Ziolkowski said, during a break from his sniper duties at Falluja’s Grand Mosque, where he killed three men in a single day.
During that same break, Corporal Ziolkowski foretold his own death. The snipers, he said, were now among the most hunted of American soldiers. In the first battle for Falluja, in April, American snipers had been especially lethal, Corporal Ziolkowski said, and intelligence officers had warned him that this time, the snipers would be targets. “They are trying to take us out,” Corporal Ziolkowski said.
The bullet knocked Corporal Ziolkowski backward and onto the roof. He had been sitting there on the outskirts of the Shuhada neighborhood, an area controlled by insurgents, peering through his wide scope. He had taken his helmet off to get a better view. The bullet hit him in the head.

This week is Thanksgiving week. We should dedicate it more emphatically than ever to the young men and women making such great sacrifices in a war-plan that has pushed them into operations they never anticipated. We shouldn’t give up until they do. And they never will.

“In response to the “defense of the pill” posting. Under Catholic teaching, it is always permissible to prescribe the pill for non-contraceptive, i.e., medical reasons. And as it turns out, endometriosis is regarded by Catholic natural family (NFP) ob/gyns as the only condition for which the pill is a useful medical treatment. (I am not a physician but did once conduct research into this question.) The objection of Catholic pharmacists is to prescribing it for lifestyle/contraceptive reasons — non-medical reasons. I don’t see why it is so objectionable for Catholic providers to have the right to decline involvement in elective care.
NFP, promoted by the Church, has its medical benefits, too. My charting revealed something a little odd in my cycles and, as it turns, out — hormone testing confirmed that I had a problem (an estrogen dominance). I know of an NFP teacher who discovered a tumor based on the the readings of her client’s NFP chart. Unfortunately, most physicians are too quick to discount the benefits of NFP and put patients on the pill without discovering the underlying problems in cycles.
The problem today is in finding providers respectful of NFP. Visit any ob/gyn office and one is bombarded with contraceptive literature and gimmicks. A friend’s ob/gyn was totally dismissive of her once my friend indicated that she was not wanting to go on the pill but rather was interested in NFP following the birth of her son. There is not a lack of providers and pharmacists willing to distribute the pill. Why not protect the innovative minority ob/gyns and pharmacists who don’t want the pill to be a part of their professional practice?” All fair points. I have a particular fondness for Natural Family Planning, since I am one its unintended consequences. My mother read the calendar the wrong way and – voila! Or as my mom put it to me: ‘You sister was an accident; but you were a mistake.” Awww. More feedback on the Letters Page.

A big rally in Cologne protesting the use of violence under the name of Islam.

WHO’S FUNDING DELAY? Who are the corporate donors pouring money into Tom DeLay’s legal defense fund? Newsweek has the details.

THREE NEW POSTS: On the post-11/2 future of marriage equality, Bush’s cabinet re-shuffle, and the political lessons of “The Incredibles” and “Team America.” They’re all posted on the upper left.

They’re selling a “Passion of the Christ” video game? Does Jesus try to get away or something?

The trouble with letting anti-Western fascists take root in your society is that the backlash that is delayed can be all the more powerful when unleashed. Even in Holland, the sentiment in favor of cracking down on Jihadist immigrants is getting close to irresistible. Money quote from a fascinating AP story:

“We are a Dutch democratic society. We have our own norms and values,” right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders told The Associated Press in an interview. “If you chose radical Islam you can leave, and if you don’t leave voluntarily then we will send you away. This is the only message possible.”… Wilders said that without swift, bold action, Islamic fundamentalism will topple the country’s democratic system. “The Netherlands has been too tolerant to intolerant people for too long,” he said. “We should not import a retarded political Islamic society to our country. There is nothing to be ashamed of to say this. It’s not Islam. I speak out against the facts.”

Intolerance for the intolerant: the big liberal internal conflict begins. And we hear this after the U.S. storms a Jihadist mosque in Baghdad. Things are changing, aren’t they?

BACKLASH IN GOP-LAND: The Pod and Brooks. As Stephen Bainbridge points out, only the truly partisan right are defending DeLay now.

CAMBRIDGE POSTCARD: “My wife and I were in New York on 9/11. We had walked the city streets the afternoon after the destruction of the twin towers. Walking the streets of Cambridge the day after this election we found an eerily similar atmosphere. There were fewer people out than normally, and they were walking quietly, unsmilingly, looking shell-shocked, heads down, grim and preoccupied.” – Erik Tarloff, Prospect magazine. Apart from 3,000 deaths, it was roughly as bad, wasn’t it?

IN DEFENSE OF THE PILL: An emailer worries about the idea of “Catholic healthcare,” where doctors and pharmacists might abstain from prescribing birth control medication:

I have no intention of getting into an abortion debate or to discuss the value of contraception. I want simply to discuss the medical value of the pill outside of its contraceptive uses. I will not bore or disgust you with the details, but let’s say that since I was 17 I have had … female troubles which going on the pill tempered. When I was 24, after going off the pill for 2 years, I developed endometriosis. I have additional issues as well. Guess what makes my life free from monthly agony? Guess what will make it even possible for me to conceive in the future? That’s right, it is the monthly regulation of my hormones by the pill. There are millions of women with similar health problems not cured, but managed by taking the pill. This aspect of the contraception debate is never addressed in the public forum. How do we change that?

Well, this is a start.

A LIBERAL ON VAN GOGH: Here’s a liberal column on van Gogh from the Aspen Times. Not exactly national, but it’s strong.

Has anyone else noticed how Lou Dobbs has become a complete crank on the issue of free trade and illegal immigration? Every day, he bangs on and on about it in the most hysterical and xenophobic terms. It’s pretty good television for a few minutes, but, after a while, it’s like listening to the bar bore after one too many drinks. I’m sure it’s also good for the ratings. But the distinction between CNN and Fox has been narrowing a little of late.

DELAY ENABLERS: I have to say Josh Marshall has been having a great deal of fun at the expense of all those Republican Congressmen who have been loosening the ethics rules so that Tom DeLay can stay in charge. Check out the squirming.

The one thing I really feared about the necessary cleaning out of Falluja was that it might spawn a national uprising. It didn’t. The good news is obvious; the worrying news is that the ethnic divisions of Iraq may be reasserting themselves, as the Kurds and Shi’a happily watch the Sunnis get clobbered. Still, it seems to me the good news outweighs the worries. Yes, we may now have a situation in which the Sunnis boycott the January elections. So be it. That would be preferable to a postonement; and preferable to restricting the elections to the Shiite and Kurdish areas. Juan Cole suggests the following emergency idea:

If elections are held in January, I see only one way to avoid disaster. This would be some sort of emergency decree by the current government that sets aside, say, 20% of seats in parliament for the Sunni Arabs. This procedure would seat Sunni Arab candidates in order of the popularity of their lists and in order of their rank within the lists on which they run. But the results would essentially be “graded on a curve.” In a way, this procedure is already being followed for women, who are guaranteed 30% of seats. This solution is Lebanon-like and is not optimal, but it might be the best course if long-term sectarian and ethnic conflict is to be avoided. Remember, the first thing the new parliament will do is craft a permanent constitution. You want Sunni Arabs sitting at that table, or else.

Maybe insisting that elections will happen and that this will be the fallback may tempt a few more Sunnis to participate. But that will be up to them.

A good column by John Podhoretz on the latest DeLay maneuver lays it all out:

The message it sends is this: Party, not principle. And that is a terrible message, because when parties sacrifice principle for power, they begin to eat away at their own legitimacy.
DeLay and others may imagine that the GOP control of the House is all but permanent because of demographic and national trends. That may be true – for one more election, in 2006. By 2008, though, all bets will be off. And more behavior like the DeLay rule change will cause wise gamblers to place heavy bets against an arrogant and power-blinded GOP.

Yep. It’s beginning.