South Dakota Politics

VDH

A must read this morning from Victor Davis Hanson:

Once the ancient Mediterranean was brought under Roman sway - mare nostrum (”our sea”) - in the first century B.C., a new homogeneous economy, from England to the Sahara, and from Spain to the Euphrates, replaced the old system of local barter. An improved standard of living among diverse peoples followed, a standard not seen again until the 18th century. Libya’s Leptis Magna, for example, was as wealthy as any city in Italy, and its local son, Septimius Severus, once sat as emperor in Rome.

A common language (or, rather, two languages - Latin in the west, Greek to the east), habeas corpus, sophisticated aqueducts and good roads ensured a certain uniformity to millions of people for nearly 500 years. This Roman culture was spread not just by the military. It endured because indigenous peoples believed such imported civilization had become their own and offered them more than any past alternatives.

We are currently witnessing a second globalization of sorts. International commerce, instant global communications and high technology have created a thin veneer of sameness that has spread among millions across the world. Yet, so far, the Middle East has been largely immune to the accompanying liberalization of politics and freedom that has slowly followed open trade and free markets elsewhere.
...

And even as Americans tire of the costs of reconstructing Iraq, millions of Arabs, who may not like interlopers in the ancient caliphate, are nevertheless curious to see Iraq’s new politicians bicker and debate freely on television in a manner unseen in the past.

Look at what’s been happening in the Middle East. True, the megaphones of the Arab state-run press are, as always, attacking the United States. But the Lebanese people are in a fury against their former occupiers, the Syrians. Tens of thousands of Jordanians took to the street to protest against the terror of fundamentalist Islam. Revolutionary Hamas is already looking ridiculous, as it tries to beg or cajole enough petty cash to keep its garbage collectors on the job.

Read the whole thing.

CIA Leaker

Washington Post:

The CIA fired a long-serving intelligence officer for sharing classified information with The Washington Post and other news organizations, officials said yesterday, as the agency continued an aggressive internal search for anyone who may have discussed intelligence with the news media.

Michelle Malkin and Gateway Pundit have round-ups.  I'd expect to see more people in the intelligence community losing their jobs over leaks as well. 

UPDATE:  Morrissey: Was this a sting operation?

UPDATE II:  More here, here, and here.

Dayton says he'd give himself an 'F'

See this AP story on Senator Dayton of Minnesota:

RENVILLE, Minn. - Mark Dayton told a group of students that if he was going to grade himself on his accomplishments as a U.S. senator, he'd give himself an "F."

But it wasn't for a lack of trying, the Minnesota Democrat told students at Renville County West High School on Thursday. He said being part of the minority party in Congress had much to do with keeping him from achieving his goals.

Asked by a student whether he was satisfied with his accomplishments in the Senate, Dayton replied, "Definitely not." And he added that he'll be leaving office "frustrated."

Dayton announced in February 2005 he would not seek re-election for a second term.

Speaking in general terms, Dayton told the students he feels the country "is going in the wrong direction.

"I can't do anything about that and it bothers me," he said.

However, Dayton said he "respects the will of the American electorate" and its decision to elect a federal government dominated by Republicans.

In somewhat related news, the whole "culture of corruption" issue seems to be bipartisan: "Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va.) stepped down temporarily from his post as ranking Democrat on the House ethics committee, amid accusations that he used his congressional position to funnel money to his own home-state foundations, possibly enriching himself in the process."

NYT

I missed this on Sunday, but the New York Times examined the abortion ban and its effects on South Dakota in "Ripples From Law Banning Abortion Spread Through South Dakota."

Hussein and Terrorism Continued

Captain's Quarters is reporting on another batch of translations from captured Iraqi files by Joseph Shahda, who I have reported on before.  The memo described the goals for the year 2000 that involved the development and improvement of improvised explosive devices (IEDs)*, which have been the weapon of choice for the insurgence in Iraq since Saddam's fall:

In the Name of God the Most Merciful the Most Compassionate The Presidency of the Republic The Intelligence Apparatus Mr: The Respected Director

Subject: Projects of a Plan

Below are projects of the plan for the year 2000 and according to the budget suggested for it in the spending budget of the year 2000 and as follow:

1. Prepare an armored brief case to protect the VIPs 180 days.

2. Study on the Epoxy used currently in preparing the IEDs and the possibility of finding another type that will not affect the explosive.

3. Studies and researches of the materials that increase the intensity of the explosive.

4. Prepare theoretical and applied lessons on the popular explosives 120 days.

5. Training of the Arab Fedayeens- within the plan of the year 2000.

Establish tournaments specialized in the explosives 30 days.

Please review and your command with regards.

Signature…

Khaled Ibrahim Ismail
Senior Chemist
22/11/99

Still nothing here on weapons of mass destruction, but it does make one wonder why the Iraqi military would spend time researching IEDs.  The U.S. was not planning any sort of military engagement short of Bill Clinton's retaliatory strikes to force Hussein to comply with the UN.  IEDs are also a useless waste of resources: the shells used for their construction are much better suited for being fired normally at an enemy.   For some reason, though, the Iraqis found investigating these explosives very important. 

Interestingly, the document also references "Arab fedayeens."  You may recall the irregular Ba'athist forces called the Saddam Fedayeen,  who formed the major insurgency after Baghdad fell.  So what are "Arab fedayeens?"  One could conclude that since the Saddam Fedayeen was the native resistance, the Arab fedayeen refers to the non-native forces and irregulars from outside the country, which Morrissey concludes to be Arab terrorists.  If the Iraqi military wanted to train Iraqi soldiers about the construction and use of IEDs, why would they refer to them as Arab fedayeen in a secret memo?  Like us, they would have referred to their unit or deployment or simply the Saddam Fedayeen.  That they did not refer to them in this way is very telling. 

What we have, then, is Iraq planned to train and equip Arab terrorists with IEDs.  Research was being conducted to make these weapons as deadly as possible before the end of 2000.  They may not have realized the need for it, but they certainly considered it important enough to complete within a year.  Making IEDs does not inherently imply terrorism, but it does raise a lot of questions.

* It should be noted, for clarification, that the word used for IED was ibwat, which means "explosive devices," for anybody that has any dubious questions about the translation.

Seeber on Direct Democracy

My colleague Jim Seeber and I have been in agreement way too often lately.  I would like to think he is coming around.  Surely it can't be me?  Anyway he makes an argument against direct democracy (and in favor of Madisonian republicanism) that is similar to my own.  I disagree on one point: I don't think that the problem with the initiative process is that the people are not well-informed.  It's rather than the process presents questions in isolation from one another.  Jim's example of proposition 13 in California is very good.  Putting a limit on property taxes sounded like a great idea.  But how do we fund education and other state priorities?  The initiative allowed the voters to consider the one thing without having to think about the other.  That leads to bad government. 

China

New York Times:

The Chinese economy grew 9.9 percent last year, the third year in a row of roughly 10 percent growth, government statisticians announced in Beijing on Wednesday.    

The Chinese statistics, showing a national economic output of $2.26 trillion, sent China soaring past France, Britain and Italy to become the world's fourth-largest economy, after the United States, Japan and Germany.

Some economists adjust China's figures for the low value of its currency and low domestic prices to suggest that if valued at Western prices, China's output has surpassed Germany's as well.

The United States' economy is still well out in front, but it's very interesting to watch the Chinese economy grow as it has.  I'll try to get in an analysis of this later today explaining what this means for the U.S. and world economies.  Just as a comparative statistic, the U.S. GDP values around $13 trillion, Japan around $8 trillion, and Germany around $5 trillion.  China is not too far behind.

Marxist Marriage

Augie Prof: Marriage is "ownership" and an "oppressive institution."

UPDATE:  Our left-leaning colleague Todd Epp seems to think I contradict myself with this post and my earlier post on university free speech.  Epp missed the point of this post, which is to say that Ms. Nathanson's statement seems a bit off the wall.  Sort of like a conservative suggesting that we should poison a Supreme Court justice would be off the wall.  I never made the inference that she did not have the right to say what she said; of course she does, just as I have the right to disagree with her statement.  However, to suggest I am implying that free speech is acceptable only when it expresses conservative views is a great leap of logic.

History

Via Powerline, Germany as opted to open its Bad Arolsen archives, which contains records of the Nazi era and records those who were imprisoned or sent to concentration camps:

Germany announced Tuesday it has agreed to open the Nazi archive of 50 million records that have been stored since the end of World War II.

The Bad Arolsen archive covers 17 million people who were executed or sent to concentration camps or prisons. German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries announced the government's change of heart in a news conference at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, The New York Times reported.

The Jerusalem Post has more.

University Free Speech

USA Today:

The [prophet Mohammed] cartoons aside, on many campuses, the right to free speech, however contentious, is under siege. The politically correct "speech codes" — forbidding speech that might offend one's race, sexual orientation, religion, et al. — have been folded into codes of conduct under the continuing assumption by some students and administrators that there is a constitutional right not to be offended.

Bush is almost as unpopular as John Kerry

Here's one of those things that almost tempts me into feeling better.  But not quite, because I don't quite understand it.  Its no secret that Bush's approval ratings are not what he would like them to be, which is rather like saying that the maiden voyage of the Titanic didn't meet projections.   But Survey USA did something innovative and interesting.  They measured Bush's popularity in all the states that he won in 2004, and Kerry's popularity in all the states that went blue. I confess I never thought of doing that. 

Bush's approval rating beats disapproval in just four states: Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Nebraska.  Oklahoma is evenly divided, while the Commander in Chief is 15 points down in South Dakota.  It must be hard for Karl Rove, free now to concentrate his mind on November, to find any good news in that. 

But if Bush should be glum, Kerry has to be in a pit of despair.  The survey ranks the fifty states from the best to the worst approval/disapproval margins.  Bush holds the first 21 places, and ties at North Carolina/Wisconsin, where Bush and Kerry are both down by 19 points.   But Kerry is least unpopular in Wisconsin, of all the states he won.  The thirteen worst disapproval/approval ratings are all Kerry states.  In Michigan, place 38, almost a third of the respondents approve of Kerry while 65% disapprove.  In New York, Kerry is down by 48 points, and in Rhode Island, the bottom, the approval/disapproval polls show 24% vs. 74%, a margin apparently representing half the voters!  That puts him just ahead, I suspect, of recession and the bubonic plague. 

There are two probable explanations.  One is that blue state voters are mad at Kerry precisely because he lost.  That's what I would be arguing if I were a Democrat, and there is something to it.  Both Al Gore and John Kerry are held responsible for eight years of Dubya.  Since I am not a Democrat I will argue that Bush's unpopularity has not translated into any increased affection for the Democratic alternatives.  Bush won in 2004 not because his positions enjoyed strong support.  They didn't.  He won because he had positions.  Stop the average voter in Rhode Island and ask her what Kerry stood for when he ran for the White House.  I predict she will be stumped. 

The Angels were winning . . .

Right up until they lost.  The Twins played a marvelous game in the Methadome tonight.  It was exactly the opposite of what the season is supposed to look like: vulnerable pitching saved by lots of stick.  The Twins went to the plate in the fifth inning down 9 to 4, and in the ninth inning down 10 to 9.  They proceeded to load the bases, and Lew Ford sweet talked Francisco Rodriquez into walking in the tieing run.  Cuddyer hit a two run homer in the tenth to take the ball game. 

VDH

The inimitable Victor Davis Hanson predicted that Europe would eventually confront terrorism.  The New York Times reports that's exactly what is happening:

Four and a half years after the Sept. 11 attacks, and after deadly bombings in Madrid and London since then, the troubled debate within Western democracies over how to weigh security against basic freedoms has only grown and spread, as the legal tools for dealing with terrorism suspects multiply.

The clashing of priorities has been clear in the United States, in the domestic debates preceding the renewal of the Patriot Act, and in the international uproar over prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib and the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay.

But many European governments, including some that had criticized the United States for its antiterrorism measures, have been extending their own surveillance and prosecution powers. Officials, lawyers and human rights experts say that Europe, too, is experiencing a slow erosion of civil liberties as governments increasingly put the prevention of possible terrorist actions ahead of concerns to protect the rights of people suspected, but not convicted, of a crime.

Instapundit comments:

As I've suggested before, perhaps Bush should mollify his critics by promising to take a "more European" approach.

Anti-Terrorism

Here's an AP story about an anti-terrorism victory for the Department of Justice:

Seven Los Angeles area residents indicted on accusations of raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for a terror organization lost a federal court challenge in a bid to prove their innocence.

The seven wanted to challenge a determination by the State Department that a group they funded was a terror organization.

The seven allegedly provided money to the Mujahedin-e Khalq, which "participated in various terrorist activities against the Iranian regime" and "carried out terrorist activities with the support of Saddam Hussein's regime," according to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The San Francisco-based appeals court in 2004 first ruled against the seven and on Monday let the decision stand without a rehearing.

What would it take to add up to a whole accident?

Aberdeen man injured in motorcycle vs. semi accident

Anti-semitism on the Left

When I was about ten years old I told a neighbor, who was a teacher at my Jonesboro, Arkansas elementary school, that I was a Methodist.  She replied: "I thought your family was Jewish."  She misinterpreted my confusion as alarm, and quickly announced that she was joking.  I think her joke was largely innocent, but I didn't get it for the simple reason that I didn't know what a Jew was.  Arkansas was famous for its resistance to the civil rights movement-a beloved great uncle of mine was a fervent supporter of Orval Faubus, who called out the national guard to defend Little Rock High School against a handful of Black teenagers.  I later learned that one of my high school buddies and his dad were members of the Ku Klux Klan.  Some fraternities and sororities at Arkansas State University, I have read, once had restrictions on Jewish membership; but they also had Jewish members, a sure sign that no one was checking. In fact anti-semitism was so far below the radar screen as to be less visible than the incredible shrinking Invisible Empire of the Klan. 

Contemporary American antisemitism is more visible on the left than on the right.  This is due, I think, less to any inherited prejudice than to the historical accident of the State of Israel.  The left, along with communist regimes like the Soviet Union, were originally strong supporters of the state of Israel.  But the left eventually switched sides, favoring the Palestinians who fit better with the anti-colonial paradigm.  The right, and especially the religious, has moved to favor Israel.  The Jews are more recognizable to Pat Robertson as a Biblical people and he probably prefers to have them remain in custody of Jerusalem.  This is not to mention prophetic interpretations of recent history. It is also worth noting that many of the guiding lights in the conservative movement, including my own teacher Harry Jaffa, and his teacher, Leo Strauss, were Jews. 

Master Heppler post below on the comments of James Abourezk, former U.S. Senator from South Dakota.  Abourezk's interview may be found at Democracy Rising, a vehemently left wing anti-war site.  He gives full support to the ridiculous idea that Israel's occupation of the disputed territories is the cause of terrorism.  So whose fault is it when terrorist blow up innocent people?  Its the Jew's fault of course.   Abourezk also supports the idea of a domestic Jewish conspiracy that maintains support for Israel in the U.S. Congress. 

The latter idea has also be expressed in a famous, and now infamous, paper by Stephen Walt, academic dean of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago.  In "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," they warn us about the influence of the one on the other.  Martin Peretz, publisher of the New Republic, points out a few things about this essay and its authors.

This paper is not research in any serious sense, although its academic paraphernalia--211 scholia, most with more than one reference--are intended to lend it an undeserved seriousness. But the apparatus deployed in this tendentious work is the labor of obsessives with dark and conspiratorial minds. Have you ever received a letter from a crackpot in which every stray fact fits together in a coherent whole? Sometimes the academy produces genuine theories-of-everything, such as those of Spengler and Sorel, Sorokin and B.F. Skinner, men of immense learning. Ingenuous and suggestive, yes. Still, even these serious men were touched by maniacal fantasies.

Mearsheimer and Walt, despite their standing as exemplars of the realist school of international politics, know ironically little about reality. They are abstractionists, constructing imaginary solutions to real conflict. Mearsheimer, for instance, has argued that nuclear proliferation is the best guarantee of peace. Germany should have the bomb--also Japan and Ukraine. This, he maintains, is not simply manageable, but preferable. What's so dangerous if Iraq and Iran have it, too?

Of course there is a pro-Israel lobby, just as there is a pro-Palestinian lobby, and lobbyists for every conceivable foreign interest.  But apparently this is only sinister when it involves Jews controlling the U.S. government.  Josef Joffe, also writing in the New Republic, argues that the essay is not so much antisemetic as anti-American:

The gravest indictment is that the screed is anti-American. For campaigning on behalf of this or that U.S. foreign policy is as American as apple pie. It started during the Revolution when pro-British "Tories" fought their colonial brethren over independence. A few decades later, sectional interests slugged it out over the War of 1812. During the Civil War, both sides sought help from various European powers. Thirty years later, another "lobby," the Hearst press, whipped the country into war against Spain, which left the United States with a tidy little empire in Cuba and in the Philippines.

There is nothing wrong with the left expressing concern for the plight of Muslims in general or Palestinians in particular.  That is what is supposed to happen when a Republic does foreign policy.  But as the old saying goes, when there is an enemy behind every tree, one must be careful in his choice of friends.  Bold antisemitism is deep and pervasive among the enemies of Israel.  If the left wishes to avoid association with the worst political currents of the last century, it must be very careful in the arguments it makes.  Abourezk, Walt, and Mearsheimer are oblivious when it comes to this problem.

Twins Stadium

In the most important news of the day, Hennipen County has approved funding for a stadium for the Minnesota Twins.  One problem, though, is I understand this will be an open air stadium.  Anything but a retractable roof is foolish, in this one man's opinion. 

This Makes Me Feel Uncomfortable

Julie Neidlinger has some tough words regarding what it is to be a Christian. 

The message of Christ is offensive; Christ said it would be, because it was more than just about love, but about repenting and denying self and eventual judgment. If you find yourself hearing a "christian" message and aren't offended by it, it's very likely something that will market well in a christian bookstore and maybe even make a church grow by thousands. WalMart will probably sell the book. And if you have a strong BS detector, whether you are a Christian or not, it should turn your stomach.

I can't believe I am saying this, but read the whole thing.  I don't know what I make of it, but Julie is certainly challenging. 

Those Dead Israelis Were Just Asking For It

Jason beats me to the punch on the asinine comments by former Senator Abourezk.  The most damnable comments are these:

Terrorism does not exist in a vacuum. It does not come from thin air. It is a result of people who believe that their lives cannot be improved by occupation and that there is nothing left for them to do except to commit acts of terrorism. Professor Robert Pape has written a book, "Dying to Win," in which he displays the results of his study of suicide bombing. It is driven, not by religion, but by the presence of occupation troops in their lands.

The original terrorist groups in the Middle East were the Jewish terrorist groups,In the Arab world such groups are seen as freedom fighters, principally the Irgun and the Stern Gang. Interesting, the leaders of those groups, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, were elected as Prime Ministers of Israel. That proves that it all depends on who the terrorists are if we are to approve or disapprove of terrorism. Further, the U.S. government designates resistance fighters – such as Hizbollah and Hamas – in the Middle East as terrorists if Israel asks us to do so. That makes it easier to propagandize against the resistance when they are labeled as such.  resisting an illegal occupation.

I will not argue with Abourezk that Begin and Shamir belonged to terrorist organizations.  But if I may go back to third grade, I recall that two wrongs don't make a right.  Either purposefully targeting civilians for death is wrong or it isn't.  Abourezk clearly thinks that targeting of civilians is an appropriate tactic.  In particular he believes that when terrorists kill Israeli civilians, those civilians deserve to die simply because, in Abourezk's view, their government has committed unjust acts.  I will leave the question of the justice of Israel's actions regarding occupied lands for another day. For now I will only point out that Abourezk's views are are in direct contradiction to one of the fundamental doctrines of just war theory: to fight a war justly (jus in bello) one must not directly target civilians (the principle is known as "discrimintion"). 

Recent pieces that might put Abourezk's rantings in perspective are Elliot Cohen's take on the Mearsheimer-Walt controversy and Bernard Lewis on Anti-Semitism. 

James Abourezk: Congress Relies on Money from Radical Zionists

Our readers mailed this in.  You can't make this stuff up:

To stop the occupation, one must put an end to the incentives provided to Israel that keep them occupying. Those incentives are the financial and political support provided to that occupation by the United States Congress and president, and the radical Zionists throughout the country. When American taxpayers' money stops flowing to Israel, Israel will stop the occupation and pull back inside the 1967 borders, which will put an end to the conflict there. I am realistic enough to know that, because the Congress is pretty much reliant on money from radical Zionists, stopping the flow of American taxpayers' money to Israel will not come soon. But the sooner it does end, the sooner the violence will stop.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

The Free Press

This is a must read story in the New York Times about a 1918 essay by Hilaire Belloc entitled "The Free Press," which seems to parallel the advent of blogs and their fight against the "Official Press" (or, the "Old Guard" or MSM).  The author concludes:

There are whole paragraphs in Belloc's essay where, if you substitute "blogs" for "the Free Press," you will be struck by the parallels. He notes that the journals of the free press seldom pay their way and that they often suffer from the impediment of "imperfect information," simply because it is not in the politicians' interests to speak to them. They tend to preach to the converted. And they are limited by the founder's vision. "It is difficult," Belloc writes, "to see how any of the papers I have named would long survive a loss of their present editorship."

Belloc's point is not to expose the limitations of bloggers — excuse me, the Free Press. It is to show how, imperfect as they are, they can contribute enormously to our ability to learn what's going on. Anyone who spends much time reading political blogs will hear a familiar note — in far greater prose — among Belloc's certainties. He writes, in short, as a blogger of his own time.

Pot And The Kettle

Tim Johnson calls Tom Tancredo "obscure."  I don't want to dump on Tim  Johnson, but outside of South Dakota, he might as well be Mike Enzi. 

SF Mayor's Race

Turns out Bruce Halverson is helping himself to the non-political Augustana Alumni mailing list.

I was contacted by several Augustana Alumni members who live in the city of Sioux Falls, who have all recieved letters asking for their votes on the days of the mayoral elections. Now, this may not be illegal, but certainly this is extremely unethical behavior.

Bruce Halverson has also stuffed nearly every mailbox here on campus with volunteer requests, vote requests, and even requests for money.

Check out SD War College's post on this too

AL

Argus Leader letter to the editor:

In his March 28 column  about Sen. John Thune, David Kranz states that the senator's veterans positions are "controversial." Who does he go on to quote to make this claim? Roger Andal, a partisan political hack for the Democratic Party. He has used his position, as commander of the DAV, to make partisan attacks on Sen. Thune ever since the senator got into running for national office.

As a 10-year Army vet and a Vietnam vet, I have no respect for that organization here in South Dakota, as long as he is their spokesman. He is using that organization for political purposes and I wish the members would see through that. When he and Sen. Tim Johnson and/or Rep. Stephanie Herseth go public about the VA, all they do is badmouth a great organization. I have dealt with the VA here in Aberdeen and in Sioux Falls, and it does a great job. Of course there will be glitches in an organization with millions of members.

I wish the media would go to the clinics and hospitals to survey the everyday patients, and ask the VFW and American Legion, which work with the VA, how things are. It's time to get another view. I salute the VA and its people.

SF Race Update

Bruce Halverson, challenger to Mayor Dave Munson, has "raised the level of rhetoric" by being the first to publicly criticize Munson's management and leadership skills.  Argus Leader excerpt:

Bruce Halverson raised the level of rhetoric in the mayor's race on Monday by criticizing Mayor Dave Munson's management and leadership skills.

It was the first time that Halverson - or any other candidate - publicly criticized Munson for some of the issues that dogged him during the past year.

"I agree that Dave Munson is a good man," Halverson said. "He is a kind man, he is a gentle man."

But, Halverson said, the next mayor of Sioux Falls will face a number of complex issues. And Halverson argued that he possesses the best background to lead Sioux Falls for the next four years.
...
Munson continued to pound away on the successes he oversaw from City Hall, a central piece of his campaign.

He acknowledged that questions about his leadership and communication "have been circulating around Sioux Falls."

But he said that under his leadership, department directors and the city's police force have become more public-friendly.

Intellectual Diversity

Eugene Volokh takes a look at intellectual diversity at Ohio State:

Interesting Tidbit About the Ohio State (Mansfield) Controversy:

It turns out that Scott Savage, the librarian who is charged with sexual orientation harassment because he had recommended that the school assign to freshmen an apparently anti-gay book, is a conservative Quaker who has given up many modern things, including conventional schooling — his wife home-schools (or at least home-schooled) their five children — and cars; he takes a horse and buggy to work.

This has little to do with the specific legal and academic freedom issues raised by the complaint against him, but I just thought the juxtaposition of Scott Savage's e-mail-born controversy and his horse and buggy was interesting. And perhaps there is also a broader connection to the persistent talk about "diversity" on campus. I suspect that Scott Savage's presence and participation adds more to the cultural diversity of the campus than does the presence and participation of most other faculty, students, and staff. But of course one aspect of cultural diversity is that people who belong to some cultures might not share the dominant university culture's view on some aspects, such as sexual behavior, and might even say things that some see as offensive. What a surprise.

Nastiness on Left II

Michelle Malkin has some examples of hate mail.  Its remarkably misogynistic, considering the source.  Michelle attracked their attention by publicizing the Students Against War, and their actions against military recruiters on campus at U.C. Santa Cruz. 

Governor's Race Update

Democratic Gubernatiroal candidate Dennis Wiese was blaming Governor Rounds for not doing enough to boost ethanol sales.  His solution: ethanol will be mandated everywhere in South Dakota with the logic that it will increase ethanol sales (and telling gas stations what they must sell).  Of course, he admits he's still "working out the details."  In other words, he doesn't have a plan.  Not to mention that ethanol is already sold everywhere in South Dakota.  For the whole story, read "Candidate for governor stresses ethanol plan."  Also of topical interest is that Jack Billion, the other challenger to Governor Rounds, has launched his campaign against the "extremism" and "narrow focus" of "a few ultra conservatives."

UPDATE: It looks like we actually have a race for governor.  Jack Billion has launched his website.

Weather

One constant on the High Plains is weather.  Here's a New York Times story about a series of twisters in Iowa the other day.

The End of Omaha Public Schools

Dan of tdaxp was on top of this before I was, so check out his observations.  From the New York Times:

Ernie Chambers is Nebraska's only African-American state senator, a man who has fought for causes including the abolition of capital punishment and the end of apartheid in South Africa. A magazine writer once described him as the "angriest black man in Nebraska."

He was also a driving force behind a measure passed by the Legislature on Thursday and signed into law by the governor that calls for dividing the Omaha public schools into three racially identifiable districts, one largely black, one white and one mostly Hispanic.

The law, which opponents are calling state-sponsored segregation, has thrown Nebraska into an uproar, prompting fierce debate about the value of integration versus what Mr. Chambers calls a desire by blacks to control a school district in which their children are a majority.

Steyn: Policy Towards Iran Nukes "off-target"

The always-insightful Mark Steyn, writing in today's Chicago Sun-Times, argues that the current policy towards Iran is "off-target":

You know what's great fun to do if you're on, say, a flight from Chicago to New York and you're getting a little bored? Why not play being President Ahmadinejad? Stand up and yell in a loud voice, "I've got a bomb!" Next thing you know the air marshal will be telling people, "It's OK, folks. Nothing to worry about. He hasn't got a bomb." And then the second marshal would say, "And even if he did have a bomb it's highly unlikely he'd ever use it." And then you threaten to kill the two Jews in row 12 and the stewardess says, "Relax, everyone. That's just a harmless rhetorical flourish." And then a group of passengers in rows 4 to 7 point out, "Yes, but it's entirely reasonable of him to have a bomb given the threatening behavior of the marshals and the cabin crew."

That's how it goes with the Iranians. The more they claim they've gone nuclear, the more U.S. intelligence experts -- oops, where are my quote marks? -- the more U.S. intelligence "experts" insist no, no, it won't be for another 10 years yet. The more they conclusively demonstrate their non-compliance with the IAEA, the more the international community warns sternly that, if it were proved that Iran were in non-compliance, that could have very grave consequences. But, fortunately, no matter how thoroughly the Iranians non-comply it's never quite non-compliant enough to rise to the level of grave consequences. You can't blame Ahmadinejad for thinking "our enemies cannot do a damned thing."

It's not the world's job to prove that the Iranians are bluffing. The braggadocio itself is reason enough to act, and prolonged negotiations with a regime that openly admits it's negotiating just for the laughs only damages us further. The perfect summation of the Iranian approach to negotiations came in this gem of a sentence from the New York Times on July 13 last year:

"Iran will resume uranium enrichment if the European Union does not recognize its right to do so, two Iranian nuclear negotiators said in an interview published Thursday."

Got that? If we don't let Iran go nuclear, they'll go nuclear. That position might tax even the nuanced detecting skills of John Kerry.

By comparison, the Tehran press has a clear-sightedness American readers can only envy. A couple of months back, the newspaper Kayhan, owned by Ayatollah Khamenei, ran an editorial called "Our Immortality And The West's Disability," with which it was hard to disagree: Even if one subscribes to the view that sanctions are a sufficient response to states that threaten to nuke their neighbors, Mohammad Jafar Behdad correctly pointed out that they would have no serious impact on Iran but would inflict greater damage on those Western economies that take them seriously (which France certainly won't).

Meanwhile, the Washington Post offers the likes of Ronald D. Asmus, former deputy assistant secretary of state under President Clinton, arguing "Contain Iran: Admit Israel to NATO." "Containment" is a word that should have died with the Cold War, and certainly after the oil-for-food revelations: Aside from the minimal bang for huge numbers of bucks, you can't "contain" a state. Under the illusion of "containment," events are always moving, and usually in favor of the fellow you're trying to contain. But the idea that the way to "contain" Iran is to admit Israel to NATO elevates "containment" from an obsolescent striped-pants reflex to the realm of insanity.

All the doom-mongers want to know why we went into Iraq "without a plan." Well, one reason is surely that, for a year before the invasion, the energy of the U.S. government was primarily devoted to the pointless tap-dance through the United Nations, culminating in the absurd situation of Western foreign ministers chasing each other through Africa to bend the ear of the president of Guinea, who happened to be on the Security Council that week but whose witch doctor had advised against supporting Washington. Allowing the Guinean tail to wag the French rectum of the British hindquarters of the American dog was a huge waste of resources. To go through it all again in order to prevent whichever global colossus chances to be on the Security Council this time (Haiti? The South Sandwich Islands?) from siding with the Russo-Chinese obstructionists would show that the United States had learned nothing.

Bill Clinton, the Sultan of Swing, gave an interesting speech last week, apropos foreign policy: "Anytime somebody said in my presidency, 'If you don't do this, people will think you're weak,' I always asked the same question for eight years: 'Can we kill 'em tomorrow?' If we can kill 'em tomorrow, then we're not weak, and we might be wise enough to try to find an alternative way."

The trouble was tomorrow never came -- from the first World Trade Center attack to Khobar Towers to the African Embassy bombings to the USS Cole. Manana is not a policy. The Iranians are merely the latest to understand that.

Read the whole thing.

Hildebrand Now Spokesman for MT Senate Candidate

Here's an excerpt from a Roll Call article today about Democratic hopeful John Morrison and his campaign consultant Steve Hildebrand, Tom Daschle's former campaign manager.  Roll Call excerpt:

The Democratic Party has spent more than a year trying to convince voters that Congressional Republicans are corrupt.

While they have succeeded in making ethics a central 2006 campaign issue, the strategy may have raised the bar for all candidates and now two Democratic hopefuls in highly targeted Senate races are under the microscope for both official and personal actions.

Montana state Auditor John Morrison, who hopes to secure the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), seems to be weathering his storm better than Rhode Island Secretary of State Matt Brown, who faces an uphill battle with former state Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse for the Democratic nod.

The winner of the Rhode Island Democratic showdown will face either Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R) or Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey in November.

Morrison, who faces state Senate President Jon Tester in the Democratic primary, admitted earlier this month to an extramarital affair eight years ago. Subsequently, the woman became engaged to a man Morrison's office ended up investigating for securities fraud.

Morrison ultimately hired an outside lawyer to conduct the investigation so that there could be no conflict-of-interest charges and the man, now the woman's husband, was sentenced to prison and ordered to pay restitution of almost $1 million.

Brown, meanwhile, became embroiled in a controversy that gave the appearance he was attempting to circumvent campaign finance laws.

Three state Democratic parties in Maine, Massachusetts and Hawaii all contributed to Brown's campaign, while donors who had given the maximum amount allowed to Brown in turn contributed to those state parties.

Morrison's campaign and supporters have sought to downplay the revelation.

"I think the situation is such where John was very forthright in describing the situation," said Steve Hildebrand, Morrison's political consultant, adding that little has been written since the initial story broke. "It was a personal situation between he and his wife . . . there's really not anything more to say about it."

Hildebrand said the issue has not dampened enthusiasm for Morrison's candidacy.

"He's had a great week in terms of supporters reaffirming their support, his fundraising calls have been as successful this week as in previous weeks," Hildebrand added.  "There are no signs that donors are going to walk away from him."

Mayoral Musings

South Dakota Straight Talk has this observation on the Sioux Falls mayor's race:

Last year at this time it was generally assumed that Mayor Munson would easily cruise to reelection without much opposition – what happened?

Two things – Dave Munson became a big bulls eye on a target in the sights of a hostile local newspaper and a young councilman with grand political aspirations who joined in a cabal with other councilors to undermine and embarrass the Mayor.

SD History

Jomay Steen of the Rapid City Journal has this article entitled "Preserving the past: Historians worry that S.D. losing its history."  Excerpt:

Despite scores of public libraries, private and public museums and a variety of historical societies throughout South Dakota, some historians and archivists worry that the state is losing an irreplaceable amount of history and heritage.

Experts attributed those losses to the lack of outreach and the lack of general awareness that family records, documents, diaries, journals, letters and maps inherited from family members may be deemed historical and are valuable to a variety of private and public museums and archives.

Others say people cleaning out storage closets, nooks and crannies are tossing out mementos that they later wish they had kept, and many others are selling the mementos on Internet auctions.

Reid Riner, director of the Minnelusa Historical Association and curator of the Minnelusa Pioneer Museum at The Journey Museum, said that the state loses its unique history whenever those historical pieces wind up on the Internet or in the archives of another state. “These items are what make us unique. When they’re gone, that history is lost forever,” he said.

Be sure to read this entire article.

Unfortunate Wording

Seen at the Aberdeen Ramada Inn:

Evidently the bunny is going to be quite rare.   

Happy Easter

From Jesus: The Man Who Lives, by Malcolm Muggeridge:

Either Jesus never was or he still is.  As a typical product of these confused times, with a sceptical mind and sensual disposition, diffidently and unworthily, but with the utmost certainty, I assert that he still is.  If the story of Jesus had ended on Golgotha, it would indeed be of a Man Who dies, but as two thousand years later the Man's promise that where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them, manifestly still holds, it is actually the story of a Man Who Lives.

Rounds

Getting to the Sunday morning newspapers, Dave Kranz is reporting on the likelihood of Governor Rounds' defeat via Hotline editior Chuck Todd:

Gov. Mike Rounds ranks at the bottom, and it is a great place to be. Hotline editor Chuck Todd looked at the condition of the nation’s 36 governors’ races and put South Dakota last – meaning the outcome is most predictable.

“Well, Rounds finally has foes, and he’s actually paying some price in his approval rating due to his abortion decision. Still, it’s hard to imagine him losing or even getting that competitive,” Todd said.

Rounds said last week this gubernatorial race could be his last statewide bid. Should that make Sen. Tim Johnson comfortable?

No. Rounds is like any other politician with a prerogative to change his mind in a minute.

The Left Blogs of Darkness

Master Heppler notes below on David Finkel's piece in the Washington Post, "The Left: Online and Outraged."  I think this story deserves further comment.  Allow me to begin by making a provocative statement: the contemporary left blogosphere is, today and on the whole, nastier than the right blogosphere.  Now allow me to apologize on behalf of my provocation.  I am not saying that the right is innocent of nastiness.  Nor am I saying that all left or liberal bloggers are nasty.  I am saying that if we had device that measured nastiness, nuttiness, and zealotry, lets call it a zealotrometer, the left blogosophere would swing the needle considerably further than the right wing blogs.  Of course we have no such device, and my judgment may well be biased.  So I modify my provocative statement.  The American left, at present, is heavily and disturbingly prone to nastiness and extreme views.  This exercise in being reasonable (or, if you doubt my motives, trying to appear reasonable) explains in part why the blogosphere is so prone to excess.  Reasonableness takes a lot of work.  You have to add all these cautious qualifiers and admit a lot of counter-arguments.  Its just easier to call the French cheese eating surrender monkeys, and be done with it. 

Mr. Finkel's article in the WaPo, not an organ of right wing opinion, provides a lot of support for my view.  Finkel focuses mostly on Maryscott O'Connor, patron saint it would appear, of the angry left.  A couple of examples:

From My Left Wing:

The people she's connected to include Shanikka, who decides one day to post on O'Connor's Web site a 737-word "open letter to President George W. Bush" that says in part: "You can't hide from the truth, Dubbya. You also can't hide from yourself. And it is YOU, Mr. President, that you need to run from. Because you are the problem. You destroy everything you touch professionally when you're left to do what you want. Everything."

To which another of O'Connor's connections, Bill, responds, "A most excelentest rant, shanikka, but don't you think you should distill this down to twenty-five words or less if you want [Bush] to read it? Or have it read to him. I'm sure he has ADD."

To which Nite74 responds, "ADD implies that some attention span is already present to be deficient."

To which Linnaeus responds, "I might say, though, that saying he has ADD is an insult to those who actually have it."

To which Bill, responding to his responders, writes, "It was rather though[t]less of me to compare the most asinine, brutal, criminal, disgusting, enraging, felonious, gross, horrendous, incompetent, jaundiced, kleptocratic, lazy, malicious, nefarious, objectional, psychopathic, quarrelsome, repulsive, sanctimonious, treasonous, unfit, vindictive, wasteful, xenophobic, yahooish, zealotic piece of [expletive] inhabiting the White House and the planet to persons suffering with a neurobiological disorder."

And then there are these gems, eaten up by the legions who read the Daily KOS. 

It also felt good, she says, transforming even, and soon she was posting regularly to Daily Kos, where she became one of the more widely read diarists with attention-getters such as "Go [expletive] Yourself, Mrs. Cheney" and "Bush Must Be HIV Positive By Now (you can't [expletive] 500 million people and not get infected)."

What is most disturbing about this kind of rhetoric is the sheer numbers it attracts.  Okay, so I'm jealous.  I would love it if SDP was getting 3000 visitors a day, like Ms. O'Connor, or 30,000 people an hour like KOS.  But these numbers do suggest a large appetite on the left for the crudest political speech. 

Finkle has a sort of apology for the material he produces. 

Not that long ago, it was the right that was angry and the left that was, at least comparatively, polite. But after years of being the targets of inflammatory rhetoric, not only from fringe groups but also from such mainstream conservative politicians as Newt Gingrich, the left has gone on the attack. And with Republicans in control of Washington, they have much more to be angry about.

This seems like rationalizing to me, but its not completely off base.  There is no question that Bill Clinton inspired a hatred on the right that was all out of proportion to anything he did or was.  Maybe if the blogosphere had expanded a little earlier, we would have seen the same level of nastiness on the right.  But just right now the major left wing blocks are making their counterparts, like Powerline, or Michelle Malkin, or Hugh Hewitt, look like paragons of reasonableness.