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Thursday, June 23, 2005 More Quality from the NYT Op-Ed Pages: Fatina Abdrabboh, a student at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, has this ludicrous piece in the New York Times. I swear. Really. "I consider my appearance quite unremarkable. I'm 5 feet 8 inches, 150 pounds, fresh-faced and comfortably trendy - hardly, in my view, a look that should draw stares. Still, the Muslim headscarf, or hijab, that I wear makes me feel as if I am under a microscope. "I try to go to the gym just about every morning. Because I work out with my scarf on, people stare - just as they do on the streets of Cambridge. "The other day, though, I felt more self-conscious than usual. Every television in the gym highlighted some aspect of America's conflict with the Muslim world: the war in Iraq, allegations that American soldiers had desecrated the Koran, prisoner abuse at Guantánamo Bay, President Bush urging support of the Patriot Act. The stares just intensified my alienation as an Arab Muslim in what is supposed to be my country. I was not sure if the blood rushing to my head was caused by the elliptical trainer or by the news coverage. "Frustrated and angry, I moved to another part of the gym. I got on a treadmill and started running as hard as I could. As sweat dripped down my face, I reached for my towel, accidentally dropping my keys in the process. It was a small thing, I know, but as they slid down the rolling belt and fell to the carpet, my faith in the United States seemed to fall with them. I did not care to pick them up. I wanted to keep running. "Suddenly a man, out of breath, but still smiling and friendly, tapped me on my shoulder and said, 'Ma'am, here are your keys.' It was Al Gore, former vice president of the United States. Mr. Gore had gotten off his machine behind me, picked up my keys, handed them to me and then resumed his workout. "It was nothing more than a kind gesture, but at that moment Mr. Gore's act represented all that I yearned for - acceptance and acknowledgment." Yes, this piece was in the New York Times. And it was written by a student at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Consider for a moment that the NYT, Harvard, and a student at a graduate school of government are three elements to this piece. Seriously. I'm not kidding. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.... Update: The New Editor's Paul Geary weighs in: Generally at The New Editor we try to let the articles that we post speak for themselves. (OK, sometimes we can't help but interject.) But I can't let the "op-ed" by Harvard student Fatina Abdrabboh go unresponded to. Absent any evidence the contrary, I'll have to accept Abdrabboh's assertion that this event took place, though to me it sounds like a clumsy attempt at allegory. (I wonder if the NY Times called Gore's office to confirm that this happened, or accepted the story at face value.) She certainly has a right to feel the way she feels. However, I have to wonder about her grip on reality if she feels "under the microscope" in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For those of you unfamiliar with Cambridge, it is quite possibly the most liberal place in America, and not just in Harvard Yard. John Kerry got 35,241 votes to George Bush's 5,275 -- a 7-to-1 margin. If you go to the very popular Cambridgeside Galleria mall, the first thing you're struck by is the diversity of people -- just about every ethnic group imaginable is represented. Arabs, Indians, Asians, Africans, Europeans -- all waiting in line at The Gap and Starbucks. There is a popular Afghan restaurant right across the street if Cheescake Factory isn't to your liking. In fact, not only are women in hijab numerous there at any given time, but it's not unusual to see women in full burkas, despite the fact that Cambridge leans socialist rather than Taliban. The point of the headscarf, and in extreme cases the burkas, is modesty. Enforced modesty, expected only of the women of course. (In its zeal to show cultural sensitivity, the Left's silence on the painfully obvious sexism of this practice is deafening.) Which leads me to wonder: If Adbrabboh wears the headscarf, why does she not work out in a women-only gym? We have plenty of them in Boston. That leads me to believe that in her case, the headscarf is less about her faith, and more about making a statement. When you make statements, people sometimes look at you. Even in Cambridge. But for the most part, the Muslim women around Boston at the mall, or on the street, or on the subway, are so common that they barely warrant a second look. The underlying message here is -- and I think the editors at the NY Times know this -- if it's this bad in Cambridge, imagine how bad it is for Muslims in Topeka or Dallas. Miss Adbrabboh says all she wants is acceptance and acknowledgement. She was accepted by Harvard, and acknowledged by the NY Times. That's more of either than most people expect, or ever get. Posted by T. Elia @ 2:30PM CST Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes: What a bad decision. "A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights. The 5-4 ruling assailed by dissenting Justice Sanday Day O'Connor as handing 'disproportionate influence and power' to the well-heeled in America was a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex." Posted by T. Elia @ 1:40PM CST Hubble Spies Lord of the Stellar Rings: More cool stuff from the Hubble Telescope. Read the story here. See the picture here. (Via Vodkapundit) "A spectacular, luminous ring offers the best evidence yet that a nearby star is circled by a newly formed solar system. "The ring is composed of dust particles in orbit around Fomalhaut, a bright star located just 25 light years away in the constellation Pisces Austalis – or the Southern Fish. A recent image captured with the Hubble Space Telescope - which makes the system look uncannily like the Great Eye of Sauron from the blockbusting Lord of the Rings trilogy - confirms that Fomalhaut's ring is curiously offset with respect to the star." Posted by T. Elia @ 1:10PM CST Another Economic Myth from the Left: By now most of us have heard an oft-repeated refrain from the Left: 'People in the middle class are losing ground economically; upward mobility is a thing of the past.' Well EconoPundit illustrates how this is just not accurate, with ... I hope you are ready for this  ... empirical data. Go here for the numbers and charts. EconoPundit's Steve Antler writes: "It is simply false to say that on average any household in any but the top quintile ever rationally expected income to decline at any point during the past thirty years." ... "[Upward] [m]obility has not declined in America." Permalink Posted by T. Elia @ 12:30PM CST Jack Kurugu is a Free Man: Despite sloppy, unfair coverage by the Austin American- Statesman that indicated otherwise, Kurugu was found not guilty by Federal Judge Sam Sparks of the Western District Court of Texas this morning. We have written about Jack before here and here. Permalink Posted by D. Rogers @ 12:00 PM CST Supreme Court Speculation: First, we have a report from Chicago Tribune Supreme Court reporter Jan Crawford Greenburg reviewing the top candidates for the next open seat on the Supreme Court; next, we have a piece from William Kristol in the Weekly Standard speculating that it might be Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who will retire before Chief Justice William Rehnquist; and then we have a post from RedState.org that says it will be the Chief Justice who will retire next week. Here is Greenburg's Chicago Tribune report: "Stepping up preparations for the possible retirement of Chief Justice William Rehnquist--perhaps as early as next week--the White House has narrowed its list to a handful of federal appeals court judges and has conducted interviews with leading contenders, a senior administration official said Tuesday. "Senior White House officials and Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales have interviewed top candidates and briefed President Bush, but the president has not made a decision, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "White House officials also consider Gonzales to be a possible nominee, according to the official and other sources close to the administration. But the focus has been on the other judges, leaving Gonzales in a separate category because of the president's longstanding familiarity with him, the official said." ... "The White House has focused on several nominees with established conservative records: Judges J. Michael Luttig and J. Harvie Wilkinson of the Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Court of Appeals, and Judge Samuel Alito of the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Court of Appeals. "The official said the administration also has considered judges Bush has nominated to the federal appeals courts, including John Roberts of the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C.; Michael McConnell, of the Denver-based 10th U.S. Court of Appeals; and William Pryor, of the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Court of Appeals. "Of those nominees, Luttig, Alito and Roberts have emerged as leading contenders, sources close to the White House said. But Wilkinson remains very much in consideration, the administration official said." Here is Kristol's piece in the Weekly Standard: "Warning: THIS IS SPECULATION. Obviously, I think it's somewhat well-informed speculation, or else I wouldn't be writing this. But it is speculation. "(1) There will be a Supreme Court resignation within the next week. But it will be Justice O'Connor, not Chief Justice Rehnquist. There are several tea-leaf-like suggestions that O'Connor may be stepping down, including the fact that she has apparently arranged to spend much more time in Arizona beginning this fall. There are also recent intimations that Chief Justice Rehnquist may not resign. This would be consistent with Justice O'Connor having confided her plan to step down to the chief a while ago. Rehnquist probably believes that it wouldn't be good for the Court to have two resignations at once, so he would presumably stay on for as long as his health permits, and/or until after Justice O'Connor's replacement is confirmed. "(2) President Bush will appoint Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to replace O'Connor. Bush certainly wants to put Gonzales on the Supreme Court. Presidents usually find a way to do what they want to do. "And his aides will have an argument to make to conservatives (like me) who would be unhappy with a Gonzales pick: Bush would not, after all, be replacing a conservative stalwart like Rehnquist with Gonzales. Gonzales would be taking O'Connor's seat, and Gonzales is likely to be as conservative as, or even more conservative than, O'Connor. Indeed, Karl Rove will continue, Gonzales is as conservative a nominee to replace O'Connor as one could find who could overcome a threatened Democratic filibuster. Bush aides will also assure us privately that when Rehnquist does step down, Bush will nominate a strong conservative as his replacement. They might not tell us that nominee would be as an associate justice, for Bush would plan to then promote Gonzales to chief justice--thus creating a 'Gonzales Court,' a truly distinctive Bush legacy." Here is the post from RedState.org that says it is rumored that it will be Chief Justice Rehnquist who will retire next week: "RedState is now hearing from sources that the Bush adminstration does, in fact, expect Rehnquist to retire and probably to retire on Monday. "The unconfirmed rumor from a source that could safely be described as in or around the 1600 block of Pennsylvania Avenue says that this has been expected, then things went cold. I'm told it is now very hot. The White House is engaged on the issue. Sources are telling more than just RedState that Rehnquist is also engaged on the issue. "But, it's still just a rumor." I guess we'll soon see, won't we? Posted by T. Elia @ 1:30AM CST A Total Eclipse of Common Sense from the EU? This report in The Telegraph reads like a self-parody. "An EU directive that could force bosses to make daily risk assessments about the strength of the sun is being debated this week in the European Parliament.       "If it is passed, all employers with staff working outdoors would need to look every day at the levels of radiation to which their employees could be exposed and devise an action plan to minimise health risks. "The directive, which applies to all forms of optical radiation, is designed to control workers' exposure to ultraviolet light, visible and infrared radiation, and lasers. The Forum of Private Business said yesterday that the proposed directive was 'unworkable and absurd,' especially for smaller employers. "'Most businesses have neither the resources, nor, more importantly, the expertise to undertake such scientific analysis,' said chief executive Nick Goulding. "'Worryingly, it could also open a legal can of worms for employers by creating uncertainty about legal liability in cases of diseases caused by exposure to natural sources of radiation. "'Unless the directive is amended and natural sources of radiation, like sunlight, are removed from its scope, it will be impossible for small businesses to comply with its provisions.' The forum is calling on the European Parliament to remove natural sources of radiation from the scope of the directive." Permalink Posted by T. Elia @ @ 1:30AM CST Where Are the Democrats? This Washington Post editorial is worth reading. "The Democrats are positively giddy over their success in foiling President Bush's Social Security plan. As a political matter, perhaps they have reason to cheer: Polls show Americans dubious about his proposed changes, and the president appears suddenly open to solutions that do not include his signature personal accounts. Yesterday he blessed a plan by Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) to introduce a Social Security bill that tackles solvency and does not offer personal accounts. (He'll do that in a separate measure.) But after the confetti settles, Democrats need to ask themselves: Now what? Having beaten back private accounts, as it appears they have, is it enough to keep sticking their fingers in their ears while saying 'no'?" ... "No doubt Democrats' political instincts will be against engaging at this point: Why bail out Mr. Bush now, the strategists will argue, and let him claim that he led the way to putting Social Security on the path to solvency? Why endorse spinach when it's so much more fun -- and politically useful -- to point out the spinach in the other side's plan?" ... "But there is also the little matter of what's right for the country. Failing to act now will make the problem harder to fix down the road; cuts or tax increases will have to be steeper the longer the problem goes unaddressed. Yes, Medicare is a bigger, thornier problem, but that's a reason to get Social Security done, not to ignore the issue and let it fester. "Democratic lawmakers keep insisting that they take the Social Security problem seriously and want to deal with it. This seems a good time to start." Posted by T. Elia @ 1:30AM CST On This Day: June 23 ... In 1868 Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for his "Type-Writer." In 1888 abolitionist Frederick Douglass received one vote from the Kentucky delegation at the Republican convention in Chicago, effectively making him the first black candidate nominated for US president. (The nomination went to Benjamin Harrison.) In 1892 the Democratic national convention in Chicago nominated former President Cleveland on the first ballot. In 1931 aviators Wiley Post and Harold Gatty took off from New York on the first round-the-world flight in a single-engine plane. In 1947 the Senate joined the House in overriding President Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act. In 1956 Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected president of Egypt. In 1967 President Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin held the first of two meetings in Glassboro, NJ. In 1969 Warren E. Burger was sworn in as chief US justice by the man he was succeeding, Earl Warren. In 1972 President Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation. (Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation sparked Nixon's resignation in 1974.) In 1999 Dr. Jonas Salk, the medical pioneer who developed the first vaccine to halt the crippling rampage of polio, died in La Jolla, CA at age 80. Posted by T. Elia @ 1:30AM CST Wednesday, June 22, 2005 New Data Confirms Strong Earthquake Risk to Central US: The New Madrid fault might be more unstable than previously thought. Read it here. "A colossal earthquake that caused damage from South Carolina to Washington D.C. and temporarily reversed the course of the Mississippi River nearly two centuries ago could be repeated within the next 50 years, scientists said today. "Strain is building on a fault near Memphis, Tennessee that was the site of a magnitude 8.1 earthquake in 1812, according to new observations that settle a debate on the risk of another huge quake. "The odds of another 8.0 event within 50 years are between 7 and 10 percent, geologists said today. The assessment, based on new data from a recently installed array of sensors, puts to rest a 1990s claim that strain was not increasing. "Such a strong earthquake would rock the entire eastern half of the country and prove devastating to the local region. A lesser but still damaging quake of magnitude 6 or greater has a 90 percent chance of striking in the next five decades." Posted by T. Elia @ 8:55PM CST Common Virus Kills Cancer, Study Finds: Interesting stuff. Read it here. "A common virus that is harmless to people can destroy cancerous cells in the body and might be developed into a new cancer therapy, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. "The virus, called adeno-associated virus type 2, or AAV-2, infects an estimated 80 percent of the population. "'Our results suggest that adeno-associated virus type 2, which infects the majority of the population but has no known ill effects, kills multiple types of cancer cells yet has no effect on healthy cells,' said Craig Meyers, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania. "'We believe that AAV-2 recognizes that the cancer cells are abnormal and destroys them. This suggests that AAV-2 has great potential to be developed as an anti-cancer agent,' Meyers said in a statement." Permalink Posted by T. Elia @ 4:50PM CST The Left's "Word Deficit": Rick Moran has a good piece over at The American Thinker. He also has it posted over at his site. "All in all, the left thinks that they've got the Bush Administration on the run. But in all the celebratory encomiums and congratulatory backslapping, there's not a word about what they believe the enemy thinks about their campaign to deliberately undermine the war effort. This is no accident as there has been a 'word deficit' on the part of the left since the War on Terror and especially since the war in Iraq began. "The word 'enemy' has been removed from their lexicon – except as it relates to the President and their political foes on the right. Our enemies are called 'insurgents.' They're called 'rebels.' They're referred to as 'the opposition.' Some on the far left have gone so far as to call them 'freedom fighters.' Even al Qaeda fighters in our custody are called 'detainees.' But to call them 'the enemy' opens an intellectual chasm beneath their feet that the left simply cannot look into without blanching in horror. "If the left were to acknowledge that we're actually fighting an enemy, their entire rationale for opposing the war would disappear. As long as they don't acknowledge there's an enemy, the war is 'unnecessary.' But if they were to concede that there are people who want to kill our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, they would have to allow that there's a possibility that a military presence in those countries is essential. After all, the whole point of having a military in the first place is to protect us from, and wherever possible kill our enemies. "Thus, the left's fascination with Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and civilian casualties. By concentrating on our sins – both real and imagined – they can take the focus off what the enemy is doing both to our troops and the innocent civilians who are increasingly being targeted for death and place it on an impossibly high moral plane that if we were to live up to, our chances of winning in the end would be substantially diminished. Hence, their most recent argument that it's perfectly alright to refer to American soldiers and the American government as Nazis because we're not 'different enough' from Hitler's thugs. This kind of sophistry is impossible to answer. Since they never define what 'enough' means, the left can paint the military with the broadest brush possible. If an interrogator drops a Koran on the floor, we're no better than the Nazis. If we turn up the air conditioning, Pol Pot couldn't have done worse. "It's madness." Permalink Posted by T. Elia @ 3:45PM CST Another Example of Media Bias: As I was reading the Associated Press' daily feature, "Today in History" in the Washington Post, I came across this nugget: "One year ago: Islamic militants beheaded Kim Sun-il, a South Korean hostage who'd pleaded for his life in a heart-wrenching videotape; he was the third foreign hostage decapitated in the Middle East in little over a month." Come on. Those who would viciously chop off another's head and tape it for all the world to see are not "militants" ... they are terrorists. Why is this so hard for some in the press to understand? Permalink Posted by T. Elia @ 1:30PM CST Howard Dean Moves to the Center, Part 238: The Park Avenue-bred DNC chair is alleging "voter suppresion" in Ohio, writes Byron York. "Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean today said that 'It's clear that there was massive voter suppression' in Ohio in the 2004 presidential election. Dean pointed to an 'appearance of impropriety' in the actions of Republican election officials in Ohio, adding that, 'It's been widely reported over the last years that Republicans do target African-Americans for voter suppression.' Dean said that Democrats could 'not conclude one way or the other' whether John Kerry would have won if the alleged suppression had not taken place. Addressing possible Republican objections to his charges, Dean said that Republicans 'don't care what the facts are' and that 'blather and hot air' will not change the facts of the situation in Ohio. Dean made the statements this morning at a press conference in Washington unveiling a new DNC study of the Ohio vote." If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times. Permalink Posted by T. Elia @ 12:35PM CST Hiding Needles Among Needles: Sweden may be vastly under reporting its unemployment rate, writes Political Calculations. It's currently estimated around 5.5%, but it may be double or as much as four times that rate. Read it here. (Via This Blog is Full of Crap) "The concept of 'finding a needle in a haystack' is often used to illustrate the difficulty of finding an object among many other, somewhat similar objects. Of course, anyone really wanting to hide one particular needle successfully will hide it among a lot of other needles. That metaphor comes to mind after reading a recent report of how Sweden may be masking its true rate of unemployment: by putting the unemployed into benefit classifications other than unemployment itself." Posted by D. Rogers @ 12:00PM CST Some Norman Mailer Bashing: The pompous Mailer writes this, and is responded to here. (Via Instapundit and Roger Simon) Posted by T. Elia @ 11:35AM CST Conspiracy Theories: If you liked The Da Vinci Code, you'll love the Downing Street Memo, writes Christopher Hitchens in Slate. " ... the main Downing Street document does not introduce us to any hidden or arcane or occult knowledge. As Fred Kaplan wrote in Slate last week, it explains no mystery. As protagonist Jim Dixon observes in another context in Lucky Jim, it is remarkable for 'its niggling mindlessness, its funereal parade of yawn-enforcing facts, the pseudo-light it threw upon non-problems.' On a visit to Washington in the prelude to the Iraq war, some senior British officials formed the strong and correct impression that the Bush administration was bent upon an intervention. Their junior note- taker committed the literary and political solecism of saying that intelligence findings and 'facts' were being 'fixed' around this policy. "Well, if that doesn't prove it, I don't know what does. We apparently have an administration that can, on the word of a British clerk, 'fix' not just findings but also 'facts.' Never mind for now that the English employ the word 'fix' in a slightly different way—a better term might have been 'organized.' "We have been here before. In an interview with Sam Tanenhaus for Vanity Fair more than two years ago, Paul Wolfowitz allowed that, though there were many reasons to seek the removal of Saddam Hussein, the legal minimum basis for it was to be sought, inside the U.S. government bureaucracy and at the United Nations, in the unenforced resolutions concerning WMD. At the time, this mild observation was also hailed as a full confession of perfidy. "I am now forced to wonder: Who is there who does not know that the Bush administration decided after September 2001 to change the balance of power in the region and to enforce the Iraq Liberation Act, passed unanimously by the Senate in 1998, which made it overt American policy to change the government of Iraq? This was a fairly open conspiracy, and an open secret. Given that everyone from Hans Blix to Jacques Chirac believed that Saddam was hiding weapons from inspectors, it made legal sense to advance this case under the banner of international law and to treat Saddam 'as if' (and how else?) his strategy of concealment and deception were prima facie proof. The British attorney general—who has no jurisdiction in these 50 states—was worried that 'regime change' alone would not be a sufficient legal basis. One appreciates his concern. But the existence of the Saddam regime was itself a defiance of all known international laws, and we had before us the consequences of previous failures to act, in Bosnia and Rwanda, where action would have been another word for 'regime change.'" ... "If such a 'left' is not careful, it will end up consoling itself in futile bitterness and resentment in the way that the Old Right used to do: by brooding on the hellish manner in which FDR told the Japanese to 'bring it on' at Pearl Harbor." Posted by T. Elia 11:00AM CST On This Day: June 22 ... In 1611 English explorer Henry Hudson, his son and several other people were set adrift in present- day Hudson Bay by mutineers. In 1870 Congress created the Department of Justice. In 1911 Britain's King George V was crowned at Westminster Abbey. In 1938 heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling in the first round of their rematch at Yankee Stadium. In 1940 during World War II, Adolf Hitler gained a stunning victory as France was forced to sign an armistice eight days after German forces overran Paris. In 1944 President Roosevelt signed the Readjustment Act of 1944, more popularly known as the "GI Bill of Rights." In 1945 the World War II battle for Okinawa officially ended; 12,520 Americans and 110,000 Japanese were killed in the 81-day campaign. In 1970 President Nixon signed a measure lowering the voting age to 18. In 2004 Islamic terrorists beheaded Kim Sun-il, a South Korean hostage who'd pleaded for his life in a heart-wrenching videotape; he was the third foreign hostage decapitated in the Middle East in little over a month. Posted by T. Elia @ 1:15PM CST Tuesday, June 21, 2005 Chicago Mayor Daley Says Durbin Should Apologize for Remarks: Read it here. (Best of the Web) "Chicago Mayor Richard Daley says Senator Dick Durbin should apologize for comments comparing American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis. "Daley says Durbin -- a fellow Democrat -- is a good friend. But he says it's wrong to evoke comparisons to the horrors of the Holocaust or the millions of people killed in Russia under Stalin or in Cambodia under Pol Pot. "And Daley says it's a disgrace to accuse military men and women of such conduct." Update: Here's an AP report, carried by the Chicago Tribune, which quotes Mayor Daley: "'I think it's a disgrace to say that any man or woman in the military act like that,' Daley said." ... "'If you really believe that those men and women in Guantanamo Bay are Nazis, you better rethink what America is all about,' Daley said. '... You go and talk to some victims of the Holocaust and they will tell you horror stories. And there are not horror stories like that at Guantanamo Bay.'" Update II: Durbin apologizes again on the Senate floor. Update III: Here's the AP story, carried in the Washington Post, on Durbin's apology. Permalink Posted by T. Elia @ 4:00PM CST Mercy Bowcoops: Fired waiters claim anti-French discrimination. Read it here. "Three former waiters at New York's posh 21 Club, where a hamburger costs $30, have filed a $5 million discrimination lawsuit saying they were fired for being French. "In a civil suit made public on Monday at Manhattan Supreme Court, the three men, Rene Bordet, 68, Jean Claude Lesbre, 63 and Yves Thepault, 68, said the restaurant's management falsely accused them of drinking wine on the job and 'created and fostered an environment rife with anti-French sentiment.' "Both Bordet and Lesbre worked for 10 years as waiters and floor captains before being fired in 2004 after accusations of drinking on the job. Thepault, who worked for 14 years as a waiter, was fired in 2005 for gross insubordination after an argument with a chef over a hamburger, court papers said. "The suit accused 21 Club of engaging in 'a concerted and egregious course of action to rid (the restaurant) of its older and long-term employees of French national origin.'" ... "The suit also said that management of the restaurant 'made fun of Bordet's French accent' and 'expressed glee' that 'President Bush hated the French.'" Permalink Posted by T. Elia @ 3:15PM CST Al Qaeda Eschews Outsourcing of Suicide Bombers to Iraq: Al Qaeda announces that it has created an Iraqi-only suicide bomber group. Read it here. Yes, we're still trying to kill you, but only with Iraqi whack jobs, not some foreign substitute who may be trying to kill you because he's a xenophobic nut job. Can't have that now, can we? I don't know about you, but I would rather be killed by just a plain homegrown whack job, and not some xenophobic nut job from outside the country. I think this is universally felt everywhere, don't you? I'll tell ya, those al Qaeda boys are marketing geniuses. Permalink Posted by T. Elia @ 2:00PM CST On Criticizing Mistakes: Norman Geras makes this excellent observation about Iraq: (Via Instapundit) "Can you imagine any large and complex enterprise - and I'm talking enormously large and extremely complex, involving millions of people and a process of far-reaching change - in which those trying to carry it through don't make mistakes? No, nor can I." ... "I have never seen, in all the voluminous discussion since the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein's rule, anything from the anti-war camp (perhaps I just haven't read widely enough) that made a distinction between mistakes and avoidable mistakes, or mistakes and culpable mistakes. Plainly what happened at Abu Ghraib was culpable and was worse than a mistake. But on the sundry other matters, unless you have a distinction between avoidable and culpable mistakes and other kinds of mistake, including for example mistakes understandable in the circumstances, unless you allow that some of the mistakes may have been due to the scope and nature of the undertaking itself, it suggests one of two things: either that the undertaking could have been carried out altogether smoothly and unproblematically; or that the criticism of mistakes is motivated more by an impulse to oppose than by a desire for the undertaking to succeed." Posted by T. Elia @ 1:10PM CST Anti-Syrian Critic Killed in Lebanon Blast: Gosh, do you think the Syrians are involved? Read it here. "A bomb Tuesday killed a politician who was a harsh critic of Syria's power in Lebanon, police said, the second slaying of an anti-Syrian figure this month. "The explosion that killed former Communist Party chief George Hawi as he rode in his car came two days after elections that gave the anti-Syrian opposition a majority in Lebanon's parliament, breaking the hold of Damascus' allies. "Opposition figures quickly accused Syrian agents and their allies in the Lebanese security services in Hawi's assassination, as they did in the June 2 slayin