the answer

the other day i wondered whether bush's speech last tuesday really could be expected to help his sinking poll numbers.

well, it didn't:

President Bush’s televised address to the nation produced no noticeable bounce in his approval numbers, with his job approval rating slipping a point from a week ago, to 43%, in the latest Zogby International poll.

(via atrios)

who gets the bronze?

Canada is third country to legalize gay marriage

Spain Becomes Third Nation to Legalise Gay Marriage

i guess it's a photo finish

ahmadinejad in 1979

so yesterday there were various reports that mahmoud ahmadinejad, the newly elected president of iran, was involved in the 1979 takeover of the u.s. embassy. one of the former hostages thinks he was there and claims he took part in the interrogations, though ahmadinejad and acknowledged leaders of the takeover are denying it. we also have a black and white photo of some iranian hostage takers, one of whom looks like ahmadinejad. although it could just be that the guy in the photo has the same beard as the current iranian president.

i don't know whether ahmadinejad was involved or not, but it seems to me that it would be easy to find out. for years the hostage takers were considered to be heroes in iran. i have heard that their names are written on the wall of the old american embassy in tehran. indeed, quite a few of them are politicians now (the hostage takers were university students in 1979) and many are leaders of the current anti-mullah reformist movement in iran. another former hostage taker, abbas abdi, went to prison for publishing a poll showing that most iranian wanted a dialogue with the u.s.

who was or was not involved has been quite public in iran for years. as i have followed iranian politics it seems to be quite common to read about someone and have a small note about that person's role in 1979. given how open the records is on who was and was not there, it's hard for me to imagine that a politician as prominent the mayor of tehran would have been part of the hostage taking and not have it mentioned in his official biography. (what the biography does say is that he was present at the meetings that formed the student group that later took the american hostages, and that ahmadinejad proposed seizing the soviet embassy as well but he was voted down). if it turns out that ahmadinejad actually did interrogate american hostages, i wonder why it didn't come up before now like it has with virtually everyone else.

speech

so mrs. noz and i missed the speech last night, but i read the transcript this morning.

i never understood how a speech like that is supposed to save bush from his sinking poll numbers. it didn't really say anything different from what bush has been saying lately in other statements and announced no policy changes (indeed, it looks mostly designed to rule that out). other than political wonks like me, probably most people in the general public didn't bother to watch the speech. and us wonks are least likely to change our minds based on such empty rhetoric.

of course, the press will pick out their favorite sound bites and broadcast them as part of their news reports today. i guess that could cause the president's message to seep into a wider audience. but even that probably doesn't have much of an effect on overall public opinion.

i guess after reading the whole thing, i am just wondering what exactly is the point of having a prime time address like that? was anyone really on the edge of their seat wondering whether bush thought invading iraq was worth it?

the just desserts cafe

obviously, this is a slow posting day. as it is i'm just back from court and i'm about to leave again for my secret mission. nevertheless, i feel i must feed the blog. so i submit this for your amusement:

freestar media press release

read the whole thing (as they say)

(via CE)

...and before everyone gets all excited at me. i am not actually advocating harassing supreme court justices, or necessarily endorsing everything these freestar folks are into. i just think they're funny. i can be amused by the press release and still maintain that ayn rand's philosophy is ultimately incoherent.

drinking liberally

i won't be at drinking liberally tomorrow (i'm on a top secret mission instead). if anyone wants to go pose as upyernoz, you have my blessing. but i should warn you; the philly DL is moving. so don't go to ten stone unless you're purposely trying to avoid the DL crowd. from now on we will be at tangier, 18th and lombard. it's still every tuesday night 6 until whenever. and i will still usually be there. just not this week.

and thanks to dragon ball yee for posting about this so i didn't end up going to the wrong place next week.

WMDs aren't always bad

is it even worth reminding us that if any other nation on the earth decided to do this, our political leaders would be up in arms:

The Bush administration is planning the government's first production of plutonium 238 since the cold war, stirring debate over the risks and benefits of the deadly material. The substance, valued as a power source, is so radioactive that a speck can cause cancer.

Plutonium 238 is used in radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which convert the heat of radioactive decay into electricity to power long-distance spacecraft. The Cassini spacecraft, shown above in an artist’s illustration, has three generators, one of which is circled.

Up Close, a Plutonium Pellet and a Minor Slip of the Tongs (June 27, 2005) Federal officials say the program would produce a total of 330 pounds over 30 years at the Idaho National Laboratory, a sprawling site outside Idaho Falls some 100 miles to the west and upwind of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Officials say the program could cost $1.5 billion and generate more than 50,000 drums of hazardous and radioactive waste.

Project managers say that most if not all of the new plutonium is intended for secret missions and they declined to divulge any details. But in the past, it has powered espionage devices.

"The real reason we're starting production is for national security," Timothy A. Frazier, head of radioisotope power systems at the Energy Department, said in a recent interview.

the iranians, at least try to pretend that their nuclear facilities are for peaceful purposes. i don't see how this announcement and its "no nukes for you, but we do whatever the fuck we want" implications can do anything but further destroy our country's credibility. i mean, we are a nation that invades other countries allegedly to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

raising kelo (and more!)

i've seen raising arizona a hundred million times. it's officially my favorite movie. and yet somehow i always missed that scene that addresses the kelo decision. how could i have gone this long without noticing?

(via explananda)

...and in other news, i was just messing with my blogroll again. the liberal coalition had some membership changes, plus i messed with a couple of other things. once upon a time, i would feel obligated to highlight in detail each and every change i make to that thing. i guess i don't feel that way anymore. so you're just gonna hafta figure it out yourself. life is hard sometimes.

negotiating with terrorists

go read billmon. he says it better than i could.

packing

as i catalogue and box everything me and mrs. noz own i keep going back and forth between wondering why i accumulated all this shit, and then being amazed by all the cool things i forgot i own. half the time i want to throw everything out and the other half of the time i want to keep and treasure everything. and the third half of the time i take breaks to check my email and otherwise and goof around on the computer.

okay okay, i'm getting back to work.

راس الغول

mrs. noz and i saw batman begins last night. it was pretty good for a super hero movie (over the years i have developed a general prejudice against super heroes. why is a long story, one i don't feel like writing yet).

of course the thing that most jumped out at me was the name: ra's al ghul. like the various vocabulary from dune, ra's al ghul is a name i knew from years ago when i was collecting comics. back then i knew nothing about arabic. which is why it's funny when i heard his name uttered on the screen last night. it is so obviously an arabic name. why didn't that ever occur to me before?

it means "head of the monster." the word "ghul" for "monster" has even migrated into english. it's where we get the word "ghoul" and describes a creature from arabic folklore that eats corpses. as for the first half, "ras" means head (it's like hebrew. the jewish new year, rosh hashana, in arabic is "ras as-sana") the "al" is the definite article on "ghul" (i.e. "the monster"). the two nouns in "ras al ghul" are put together is in what is called an اضافة (iDaafa); a grammatical construction that is used to show possession and which is designed to torment first year arabic students.* in this case, it gets translated as "of" in "head of the monster."

so are you bored yet? i don't know why these arabic bits i find in everyday culture fascinate me so much. but they do. so i will blog about them now and then. deal with it.
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* at least it once tormented me. but now that i'm used to it, i don't remember what the big deal was anymore.

blight

yesterday, started to put my thoughts together for a post about how shitty i think the kelo v. new london decision is. then i got really busy and so my brilliant post never quite got written. now it's a bit later and i've mellowed a bit so now all i think all i have in me is something shorter.

it's still a shitty decision. this is one of those rare occasions that i'm on the side of the conservative dissenters. the issue was never really about private property rights vs. public use, it was about the property rights of the rich and influential vs. the property rights of everyone else. it is a pleasant surprise to see that a justice like thomas is willing to look at the real world application of his ruling to see which interpretation squashes the little guy. if only he and his co-dissenters would be willing to do that on every issue.

meanwhile, right in my own backyard, there's a simmering eminent domain issue. a large hunk of downtown ardmore, pa is about to be seized to effectuate the master plan of some commercial developer. most of the the businesses that will be seized are actually quite popular and profitable, they just happen to be in the way of the developer's plan. and so, the developer has gotten the local downship to declare the block in question a "blighted area", which is a total joke. ardmore sits in the "main line" a collection of the richest suburbs of philadelphia. indeed, the main line contains the third richest zip code in the nation (and the wealthiest zip in the country outside of california). if not for the wonders of faculty housing, mrs. noz and i probably couldn't afford to live where we live. the idea that lancaster avenue is "blighted" is simply a sham designed to allow the developer to get its greedy paws on some prime real estate.

and thanks to kelo they probably will get away with it too. (for more info on the ardmore matter see the save ardmore coalition web site).

bang for your buck

i've never understood the appeal of the british monarchy, or any monarchy for that matter. maybe it's just a cultural thing, being raised as an american the words "king" and "queen" do not evoke any cultural history or heritage for me. maybe if i grew up in a different place i would get the appeal.

but i don't. so could someone who does please explain why this isn't completely ridiculous:

Taxpayers paid the equivalent of $1.12 each last year to support Queen Elizabeth II and the royal family, a "good value," Buckingham Palace said. The palace said in its annual financial report that the royal family's expenses were the lowest since 2001 and totaled $67.1 million. Entertainment cost $4 million, including $914,600 for six garden parties attended by 39,000 people, and royal travel expenses were $9.15 million, including $1.3 million for 19 trips on the royal train. Alan Reid, keeper of the privy purse, said of the figures: "We believe this represents a value-for-money monarchy. We're not looking to provide the cheapest monarchy. We're looking at one of good value and good quality."

what exactly is a "good value" monarchy? how can publicly financed social occasions for a small group of inbred rich people ever be considered to be a good idea? to my american eyes, giving them even £1 from the government treasury seems like a complete waste of money.

but then, i'm just an american. anyone who isn't, please let me know what i am missing.

get to work!

via heinrich i found this quote:

"Asked what the next step for Durbin would be, an aide to Frist told FOX News, 'Well, when you say something that appears all over Al Jazeera, you have a lot of work to do.'"

just for chuckles, i went over to the al jazeera's page and did a search for فريست ("frist"). twenty articles appeared.

i guess frist has a lot of work to do.

UPDATE: as terry points out in the comments, the yahoo article i linked to above cut the bit i quoted. but you can still find the frist aide's quote at the bottom of this fox news story.

boot camp

this article has got to be the most frustrating and depressing thing i have read all morning. it doesn't say anything particularly new, there have been plenty of signs over the past two years that iraq is turning into a huge training ground for terrorists. it's just that this was completely foreseeable. indeed, this was one of the major reason i was against invading iraq in the first place. even if we pulled out of iraq tomorrow, we will probably be suffering the consequences of invasion for decades to come.

the other big iraq article in today's times only pounds the point further home. insurgent's improvised explosive devices are getting better. maybe "flypaper" isn't the proper metaphor for iraq. maybe it should be "boot camp."

offense spending

according to this article more than 2/3 of the federal budget is a military expenditure. officially, only 19% of the total federal budget is allocated for the department of defense, but many military budget items are hidden in other lines of the federal budget (as an example the article notes that nuclear weapon systems are budgeted under the department of energy).

if the article's calculations are correct, that means that only about 28% of all military spending in this country is "defense spending" i.e. spending directed to the department of defense. given how this country has been using its military power lately, 28% of it for defense sounds about right.

(via paul from explananda)

drinking liberally

i already got an email about it. jim has already blogged about it. and so has duncan. still, on the off chance you haven't heard yet, chuck pennacchio will be at the philadelphia drinking liberally tonight. chuck is a candidate for rick santorum's senate seat and is no stranger to the philly DL crowd.

as it is every tuesday, drinking liberally is at ten stone, 21st and south street. from 6 pm until everyone leaves.

in related news, the spin dentist has hinted that a republican challenger for the same senate seat could also show up. what fun that would be!

out out!

hey, did juan cole just out billmon? i had no idea what his real name was, even though he's apparently local. was his identity some kind of open secret on the internet that no one told me about?

but if it wasn't an open secret, that wasn't very nice, juan. there have been a couple of posts recently about the value of anonymity. ever since south knox bubba was outed earlier in the week.

all this outing is just not cool. if someone is anonymous they usually are on purpose. i am kind of anonymous and i have all kinds of bad reasons for it. plus, most of my friends like to refer to me with my real name. but just because i don't give that much of a shit, doesn't mean we should pull the covers off of everyone's head. can't we all just play nice?

iaaca

this morning's new york times has a story about the business of selling stolen credit card numbers over the internet:

"Want drive fast cars?" asks an advertisement, in broken English, atop the Web site iaaca.com. "Want live in premium hotels? Want own beautiful girls? It's possible with dumps from Zo0mer." A "dump," in the blunt vernacular of a relentlessly flourishing online black market, is a credit card number. And what Zo0mer is peddling is stolen account information - name, billing address, phone - for Gold Visa cards and MasterCards at $100 apiece.

"iaaca" apparently stands for "International Association for the Advancement of Criminal Activity."

so here's the question: if you're in the market to buy a stolen credit card, would you actually give the iaaca your credit card number over the internet to purchase the stolen card?

(alright, so the article does mention that the transactions are done in "WMZ's, electronic monetary units equivalent to American dollars and issued by WebMoney Transfer, a company based in Moscow." but at some point, you're paying real money to get the WMZs. they money might not be paid directly to the iaaca, but why should i trust WebMoneyTransfer?)

foreigners

sez the prez:

We've got some in custody -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a classic example. The mastermind of the September the 11th attack that killed over 3,000 of our citizens," Bush said at a press conference after meeting with European Union leaders.

i know this is kind of quibbling, but "over 3,000" u.s. citizens did not die in the september 11th attack. i know the attack is viewed as an "attack against america", but if we're going to honor all the victims it's worth remembering that some 119 non-americans were killed as well.

success

bush again rejected the calls for the u.s. to withdraw from iraq. the call, in this case, came from u.s. lawmakers, but this is a cause with a lot of other potential callers.

last january, just before the iraqi election, a zogby poll found that a clear majority of iraqis wanted the u.s. to immediately withdraw from the country. indeed, the united iraqi alliance's party platform originally called for a timetable to withdraw foreign forces from iraq. the UIA was the big winner in the january 30th elections, but a couple of days before before the vote, the party quietly deleted that line from it's platform without telling anyone. it was a nice bait-and-switch on the iraqi public, but in the end they may live to regret it. the reason why they were so sneaky about it is precisely because they knew that a pullout is very popular in iraq.

if there ever is a real democratic government in iraq, one that really reflects the views of the iraqi public, it would almost certainly demand that u.s. forces leave the country. so maybe it's a good sign that 82 members of the iraqi parliament, including UIA party members, are now publicly demanding the withdrawal of american troops. it's a good sign because it suggests that these UIA MPs expect to be held accountable for their flip-flop.

a truly democratic and sovereign country will inevitably disagree with the u.s. president on some policy issue. the only way to resolve the clash is to either have the president compromise on his policies or have iraq compromise on on its sovereignty and democracy. the clash is coming. it's inevitable. the more i think about it, the more i am sure that the resolution of that issue will decide whether iraq was a success or failure. if the u.s. backs down and tolerates an iraq that does not always do what it wants, i would be willing to call it a success. i'm just not sure that the present administration is willing to allow that kind of success to happen.

UPDATE: J-Lo mentioned in the comments this quote from richard clarke:

Maybe it is time to at least begin a public dialogue about "staying the course." Opponents of an "early" departure of American forces say it would result in chaos in Iraq. Yet we already have chaos, and how sure can we be that sectarian fighting will not follow our departure whenever we leave? Is it unpatriotic to ask if the major reason for the fighting in Iraq is that we are still there?

it's not exactly the same as what this post was about (clarke is asking about withdrawal from the american side, not the iraqi side, of the fence). but the questions clarke is asking of americans are similar to the ones that iraqis will be asking of their own government when they debate whether u.s. forces should stay.

promises promises

sorry for the low-posting week. i had a bunch of hearings last week, then i went away (again), and then came home to more packing-hell.

but things are looking up in the week ahead. i'm finally done with these weekend trips and my hearing schedule is getting a little bit more manageable. mrs. noz and i still have to pack everything we own into boxes, but we also have two more weeks to work on it. so it will be busy, but do-able.

the long and short of this is that i will quite possibly have something to say here later on. not now, of course. right now all i have to say is that later i might have something to say; which is another way of saying nothing much. but it is a promise to be better in the future. a vague unenforceable promise, but still a promise.* if nothing else, you got this vapid post to show for it.

here at rubber hose, we aim to please.
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* note: this should not be taken as an actual promise.

like santa claus

somehow this doesn't sound like precision weapontry to me.

FYI: a 500 lb. bomb officially has a blast radius of 400 meters--or about 1/4 mile. luckily, these bombs are so smart, they can tell who is good and who is evil.

ticketed

i bought them, i'm officially going (assuming there's no problems with my visa application)

pipe dream

yeah right.

has anyone bothered to ask the jordanians about this plan? i can't imagine them ever agreeing to it (or, to put it another way, i can't imagine that the jordanian government would be willing to face the predictable backlash that would follow if they agreed to let a pipeline from iraq to israel run through their territory)

drinking liberally

after missing the last two weeks, i will be at drinking liberally tonight. if you've been trying to throw a pie at my face each tuesday but had your fiendish plot foiled when i failed to show, you can finally get me tonight from 6:00 until whenever at ten stone, 21st and south street in philadelphia. just make sure the pie is something with chocolate.

a nation at war

one evening last week i attended a school board meeting in a small town. i had to give a speech at the "open mike" bit at the end of the agenda as part of my work. it was the last school board meeting of the academic year and so it was a particularly long meeting. it began with children's performances, awards ceremonies for gifted students, and teachers awards. after that, the school board did all of its business, approving budgets and resolutions before i finally got my opportunity to speak.

needless to say, i was there a very long time. i got home 6 and a half hours after i got into my car to drive out to the meeting. during the performances at the very beginning i couldn't even cram myself in the room where the board was meeting--it was so packed with proud parents and video equipment. so i hung out in the hallway instead. on the walls hung various memorabilia the school district had collected over the past century and a half: old photos of school houses and the town around it, american flags with fewer stars than we're used to, pictures of long-dead principals and teachers, and two framed front pages of the new york times. each page was from a different date, but both were from wartime. one was from world war one and the other was from world war two. as i waited for the hearing room to empty enough to give me a seat, i stood in the sweaty un-air conditioned hallway reading the headlines and stories of these old newspapers. there really wasn't much else to do.

neither newspaper page was from a particularly famous day during either war; there were no assassinated archdukes, pearl harbor attacks, or storming of normandy in the headlines. the papers were not saved because something big happened on that date, but rather it seemed they were saved and displayed to be a representative snapshot of a time when the nation was at war.

it was surprising to see just how much detail about the wars were reported. there were long articles stretching down the side of each front page about battles that i had never heard of before, giving details of who won or lost which territory and quoting generals talking in grandiose terms about what it all means for the overall war effort.

the war completely dominated each front page. the world war one page had no non-war related headlines. the world war two page had a single non-war story in small print crammed at the very bottom beneath the fold. there were a couple of stories that could have been reported as purely domestic matters, but each headlined linked the issue directly to the war effort. e.g. a headline about economic output put it in terms of wartime production.

i thought about those papers from last week as i looked at the front page of today's new york times. about 1/3 of the page was taken up by a story about a washed up pop star's acquittal. the "war against terror" was no where to be found at all--except for a small photo of saddam hussein in the lower-left corner and directions to turn to page A10 to read about saddam hussein's subdued appearance in court yesterday. if you open up to page A10 and read the hussein article all the way to the last three paragraphs you finally learn that over 50 war-related deaths were reported yesterday in iraq, most due to 45 people who were executed by insurgents and the remaining deaths from at least four suicide bombings. also on page A10 were the names of four american soldiers whose deaths were confirmed yesterday by the military.

with all the rhetoric about how we are a "nation at war" the contrast between the front page of today's new york times* and those two framed front pages i saw last week is really remarkable. we might be shooting and bombing people in other countries, but we're not really at war right now. at least not in the all-encompassing manner the term "at war" evokes when we think about the world wars. i wasn't alive during either of those conflicts, but comparing the pages of the "newspaper of record" makes the differences between then and now quite clear.

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*and, to be fair, of all the newspapers lined up in vending machines along my train platform this morning, the NYT probably had the smallest photo of michael jackson. in new york, mr. jackson had to share the glory with a story about new york's bid to host the 2012 olympics.

tipping movers

does anyone know how much you're supposed to tip your movers? what is a good tip? what is a medium one? how is it calculated? is it a percentage of the total cost? or just some fixed amount? do you pay per moving guy who shows up? or do they share one big tip for the company?

we last moved in 1999. the college where mrs. noz teaches paid moving expenses and for the first time in our lives we hired professional movers. they did a great job, but no one ever told mrs. noz and i that we were supposed to tip them until after it was over. we felt like total cheapskates and don't want to make the same mistake this time around. but we have no idea what is reasonable.

our last move was from chicago to philadelphia. this time, it's just a couple of doors down the street. does that make a difference in calculating the tip?

inquiring minds wanna know.

pie

i haven't commented on the "pie" controversy yet (if you don't know what i am talking about see this post to get a good idea of what it is about).

but i have to say that lauren's post is just brilliant.

the cabinet memo

the times of london has published that cabinet memo. a document which corroborates the downing street memo and thus further supports the what richard clark and paul o'neill told us a year ago: that bush decided to go into iraq long before he claimed he did--and indeed when he was publicly insisting that he had no such plans--and that intelligence was used creatively to build a case for war where there wasn't one.

more corroboration is probably on the way. congressman conyers has scheduled a hearing before the house judiciary committee to address the issue on thursday and promises to "introduce new documents that corroborate the Downing Street Memo."

who knows what will come of all of this. but it will at least be fun to watch. i actually have rather modest hopes. all i ask is that the media begin to finally question out loud whether iraq was worth invading and whether it is worth staying there now. it's not quite as sexy as impeachment, but it's a little more likely to happen. but only just a little.

...oh, and this is really late. i was sick last weekend when various sites were inviting their readers to sign congressman conyer's letter to president bush. if you still haven't heard about it or signed it yet here's your chance. congressman conyers will present the letter and signatures to president bush on thursday when he opens the hearings.

howl's moving castle

on saturday mrs. noz and i took a break from packing to see howl's moving castle. it gets a hearty noz recommendation. even though the plot doesn't completely make sense, it was lots of fun and beautiful on the big screen (like every hayoa miyazaki film is)

i still think one of miyazaki's prior movies, princess mononoke, is best attempt by any film to deal with the tough question at the heart of the environmental movement--how do you preserve the advances that have come at the expense of the environment, while still preserving the natural world. howl, at its heart, is an anti-war picture. but it doesn't deal with that issue as well as mononoke did with the environment. the reasons for the war in howl are distant and unexplained. maybe that was the point. but when the motive for going to war is unexplored, being against it is easy and really dodging the harder question.

but still. ya just gotta see it. and all miyazaki's work, for that matter. the pretty pictures alone are worth the price of admission.

packing

i'm actually at home this saturday morning. after almost two months of weekend trips, it's nice to finally stay home and sit on my ass.

that is, if i could sit on my ass. while i can sorta declare the "noz 2005 early summer victory tour" over*, we got a lot of stuff to do. as i cryptically alluded to a couple of months ago, we're moving. somehow in the remaining weeks of june, mrs. noz and i must take the entire contents of our life and encase it in cardboard containers. (does anyone out there have any extra cardboard containers lying around?) the ass sitting will have to wait until july.
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* next weekend we're going away, just saturday night, for a short car trip. it may be a little premature, but i'm sick of life on the road so i'm declaring the tour over. don't look for next week's journey on the back of your official 2005 noz tour t-shirt.

noise

chris has posted a chart showing the number of blog posts each day about the downing street memo since may 31st and comparing it with the daily number of news articles that mention the DSM. (chris actually got his data from PSoTD who explains that the news article count comes from google news and the blog count comes from technorati)

for some time there's a debate about how influential blogistan is on the outside world. i'm usually pretty skeptical of highfalutin' claims of how blogs are changing the world. while they have nudged news cycles a bit in the past few years, i really think their influence has been overhyped. anyway, this data at least suggests a correlation between blogistan noise and media noise. correlation doesn't necessarily mean cause. but on the other hand, i think it does mean something. and on the off chance it might work, i'm all for making noise.

syria: reformer or hit man

as i've mentioned before, i've been quietly planning a trip to syria next fall. by "planning" i mean: (1) talking about it a lot, and (2) buying a single guide book. i haven't gotten around to a more serious commitment to the trip (e.g. buying a plane ticket) because i wanted to see what happened at this week's baath party conference in damascus.

the conference ended yesterday and heralded the announcement of several reforms: the legalization of independent opposition parties, citizenship for syrian kurds, scaling back some of the more sweeping criminal provisions of syria's state of emergency law, and the election of a new generation of party leaders. the reforms were pretty modest, but they still are significant for an authoritarian place like syria. and, as i mentioned, i have been waiting to see what came out of this conference for some time so that i could start getting my own plans in order.

but in the american press news of all of those political developments were buried this morning by the bush administration's announcement that syria had a "hit list" of lebanese political figures.

is there really a hit list? who knows. the administration is quoting anonymous lebanese sources who probably have an incentive to talk trash about syria (and how would lebanese people know about a secret syrian list of lebanese targets?) the article further notes that "word of a 'hit list' had been 'circulating among the Lebanese,' but that no one in the administration had actually seen such a list and that its existence could not be independently verified."

if it's been circulating for some time, why make this announcement today? because of these unverified reports released by the bush administration, reports of syria's political reforms were much harder to find. i only found them because i was looking specifically for it in foreign news sources. and if i wasn't aware that something was scheduled to be announced today, i would not have known to look.

is this an intentional ploy to bury potentially positive news about syria? if so, it's an odd choice. normally the bush administration backers would be all over this stuff. they usually like to attribute any political reforms in the middle east as fall-out of the american invasion of iraq (as if political changes never occurred in the region prior to 2003). but maybe the bush administration is more committed to marginalizing syria than to crowing about marching freedom. at least when the marching is in a place as eeeeeevil as syria.

woe is me

the liberal avenger emailed me this article from slate about the frustrations of learning arabic.

we arabic students all feel that we've gotten ourselves into something that is mind-bendingly difficult. and so, naturally, we all like to complain about it to our friends and loved ones. but we're not really complaining--i actually enjoy the challenge of studying such a difficult language--we're looking for sympathy. and yet, as i get deeper and deeper into my studies, it gets more and more complicated to complain about my woes to anyone who is not already familiar with the language. just laying the groundwork for my complaint sometimes requires detailed explanations of how arabic grammar works, to build up to the new complication that is the subject of my latest complaint. usually before i get there, i can tell by the blank expression of mrs. noz's face (and make no mistake, she's the one who gets the brunt of my sympathy-fishing), that i have lost her somewhere along the way

anyway, go read the slate article, keep in mind that it only mentions a small fraction of my woes, and then come back here and give me the sympathy i deserve. i've earned it dammit.

bloody chain saw

very very odd:

On April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood. U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres. Then they let him into the United States.

...

Anthony said Despres was questioned for two hours before he was released. During that time, he said, customs agents employed "every conceivable method" to check for warrants or see if Despres had broken any laws in trying to re-enter the country.

"Nobody asked us to detain him," Anthony said. "Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up. … We are governed by laws and regulations, and he did not violate any regulations."

Anthony conceded it "sounds stupid" that a man wielding what appeared to be a bloody chain saw could not be detained. But he added: "Our people don't have a crime lab up there. They can't look at a chain saw and decide if it's blood or rust or red paint."

of course if despres' name was "hamid" or "hussein" i'm sure the border guards would have had no problem finding a way to detain him, grounds or no. it's funny how in this day and age you can still waltz over the border with a bloody chain saw in your hand, provided you're a gringo.

and, for the record, i'm not saying that they should have declared despres an unlawful combatant or anything. but i question whether there really were no grounds to hold him--the article notes that he failed to show up for a sentencing hearing the day he crossed the border. i wonder if the u.s. border authorities called anyone on the canadian side of the border when they employed "every conceivable method" to hold him.

(via mustang bobby)

rent a german

a friend emailed me this morning about rent a german.

who doesn't want the companionship of someone german? apparently, the american military does. a u.s. colonel contacted the service and asked for 1500 to send to iraq. (listen to the BBC story here).

personal life update: i'm back in philly but crazy-busy with work. maybe i should rent one of those germans to dig me out of this hole.

stuck not dead

i'm feeling better now. unfortunately, i'm stuck in minneapolis. we spent a frustrating day at the airport today, watching every flight to philadelphia get canceled one-by-one. i'm gonna be incommunicado again as i try to get home, and once i get there, i expect what i find on my desk will be a mess. missing this much work always has a price

so the blog forecast look grim, worse than whatever storm screwed up our plans today. in any case, rest assured that i'm not dead even though i might disappear for a couple more days

i got a fever

i spent most of today in bed, slipping in and out of lucidity. i made it here to minnesota, but my flu, or whatever it is, took advantage of my travels and ran roughshod over my body's defenses. by this morning, i was really a mess. i spent the day in bed hoping i would get better by evening. well, it's evening. i am slightly better, but i'm still a little feverish.

so here i am in bed again, tapping a wifi signal from somewhere off to my left. i'm missing my brother-in-law's graduation ceremony, which was actually the reason i came here in the first place.

anyway, i thought i would take this opportunity to check in here. if i don't check in every now and then the blog gets worried and calls the police. i just dosed up on some nyquil. i have about 15 minutes before it knocks me out. whoever invented that stuff was a genius.

duff gardens hurrah!

i'm still pretty sick; i've been dizzy all day. but sick or not, the noz tour continues i'm off to minnesota for a couple of days. maybe i'll post from there. who knows. crazier things have happened.

brooks on europe

from the middle of david brooks' screed against europe in this morning's new york times:

Anybody who has lived in Europe knows how delicious European life can be. But it is not the absolute standard of living that determines a people's morale, but the momentum. It is happier to live in a poor country that is moving forward - where expectations are high - than it is to live in an affluent country that is looking back.

anybody who has been to a developing country* knows that this is absolutely positively false. i have been to several poor countries, all were very different from one another. but the only thing that all of them had in common was most people i met wanted to get out.

in 2001 i visited mali. mali always gets high marks in freedom house's annual rankings. and although it is among one of the poorest countries in the world, it had a healthy 5% growth between 1996 and 2002. but 5% of almost nothing is still almost nothing. the people i met there didn't give a shit about whether their country had "momentum" they wanted a comfortable lifestyle for themselves and their families. virtually everyone i met there asked me to help them get out. some of them still write to me, almost four years later, begging for help. indeed, my very first real post on this site was about a malian friend who pleaded with me for help getting his sister a visa.

but it's not just mali. just this morning, i got an email--hardly my first--from a friend in uzbekistan asking for help leaving the country. actually, every one of my uzbek friends has, at one point or another, asked for help in leaving. people who's names i never learned would pepper me with questions about the american green card lottery during casual conversations on the street. the other day i mentioned that i met an uzbek while i was at wiscon. she's an american citizen now and told me how she was under tremendous pressure from her family to marry a distant cousin so he could get a green card. ("my girlfriend wouldn't like that" she added with a smile). and yet uzbekistan is another country whose economy is growing.

and there's more. in 1995 i visited kenya and uganda and experienced the same thing. in vietnam women would throw themselves at me because of my passport and the possibility of marriage to someone from the first world. in tunis, mrs. noz and i saw a line people of camping out in front of the french embassy, waiting for the visa office to open. we couldn't even tell how many people were there, the line of people snaked around the block and out of our view.

and yes, they wanted to go to france. as did most malians i spoke to. the uzbeks and ugandans and kenyans would probably be happy with europe as well. they seemed more concerned with getting to the first world than with where exactly in the developed world the ultimate destination would be.

that's just it. one of the main reasons the EU constitutional referenda failed to pass in france and the netherlands this week is because of european concerns about immigration. the reason they are concerned about that is because lots of people want to go to europe.

brooks' overall point is that the european economic model is not attractive because it is economically stagnant. but the votes this week indicate precisely the opposite. the european model is very attractive to people. that's why the french and dutch cast votes this week to preserve it.

_______________________
*i'm excluding people who have only been to resorts in the third world. you get a really warped view of a country when you only stay in those things.

انا مريض

i've been getting sicker and sicker as the day progresses. if i weren't leaving tomorrow and didn't have a shitload of stuff to do before then, i would have gone home by now. i've even canceled my arabic tutoring tonight--something i almost never do. i hope my three wiscon roomates are getting lots of vitamin c! not to mention all those poor unsuspecting minnesota-bound fliers who will be trapped in a box of my recirculated diseased breath tomorrow evening.

in other news, i just realized that i actually know one of the head honchos of the afterdowningstreet.org site i mentioned below in my big brass alliance post. john bonifaz went to my high school. actually, it was his high school, my middle school at that time. my school went from pre-k all the way to 12th grade. when bonifaz was a high school senior, i was a seventh grader. but he was so outspoken, everyone knew who he was. back then, i'm pretty sure he knew who i was too (i was in the middle-school version of a club he founded), but i doubt if he remembers me now. still, i remember him well. i blame my fever addled brain for not noticing yesterday when i first linked to his site.

black wednesday

egyptian women are calling for all egyptians to wear black today to protest last week's violence.

although, according to SP's comment on this abu aardvark post, there were protesters today but not many people in black.

8

i skipped drinking liberally last night because it was my weeding anniversary yesterday. my real one, don't be confused by our anniversary celebration 10 days ago. i'm also slightly sick. somehow not getting any sleep all weekend at wiscon was not good for me. who would have guessed?

i'm also busy at work. very busy. i leave town again tomorrow, which means that five days of work are compressed into three measly days. that does not mean i won't post more later. i probably shouldn't. but i find that when i am really busy, the rants still find a way to bubble to the surface. but they will probably be shorter and less rambling. maybe. no promises

eight years ago today me and mrs noz were boarding a plane to istanbul. what a long time ago that was