Junto Boyz: April 2004

Friday, April 30, 2004

MOOD OF IRAQI PEOPLE

From Daniel Drezner's blog... A Chicago Tribune interview of Yass Alkafaji, who went to Baghdad to "serve in the Coalition Provisional Authority as the director of finance for the Ministry of Higher Education."

"SENATE OKS FOUR-YEAR BAN ON NET ACCESS TAX"

By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
April 29, 2004, 5:07 PM PDT

The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to renew a four-year ban on taxes on Internet connections such as DSL and cable modems instead of a competing plan that would have made a moratorium permanent.

By a 93-3 vote, the Senate adopted a compromise proposal favored by state governments, which argued that a perpetual ban would deprive municipalities of vital tax revenue and amount to an unfair subsidy for telecommunications companies. (full article)

Thursday, April 29, 2004

SANDY BERGER LAYS OUT A PREVIEW OF KERRY'S FOREIGN POLICY

Berger is John Kerry's foreign policy advisor. I don't agree with his world view or policies, so I might post up a critique of this article later. At least Berger is articulate and clear, and obviously Kerry is not reading from Berger's notes because he sounds like he doesn't know what his positions are or doesn't want to commit to any of them.

Foreign Policy for a Democratic President

By Samuel R. Berger
Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004

Summary
"By stressing unilateralism over cooperation, preemption over prevention, and firepower over staying power, the Bush administration has alienated the United States' natural allies and disengaged from many of the world's most pressing problems. To restore U.S. global standing--which is essential in checking the spread of lethal weapons and winning the war on terrorism--the next Democratic president must recognize the obvious: that means are as important as ends." (full article)

FREE SPEECH IS BEAUTIFUL, UGLY, AND IDIOTIC... WHO IS RENE GONZALEZ?
The Price of Freedom... Pat Tillman is a Hero

From James Taranto's Best of the Web Today. Below is a quote by Rene Gonzalez on the death of Pat Tillman. It's amazing how moronic and incredibly stupid some people are in the world today. I can accept people not agreeing with the war in Iraqi, hating President Bush, angered at American arrogance in our foreign policy, or even the simplistic thinking that allows some to chat "No blood for oil." But to call a man, who gave up his life to protect the freedom of others (whether you agree with the method or not) and who took a principled or moral approach to life (e.g. not swayed by money), "an idiot" and to say that he "got what was coming to him" reflects such a low-level of thinking it is disturbing that the University of Massachusetts in Amherst accepted him as a graduate student.

To make such a statement shows his ignorance in world history and the very nature that separates human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom. Mr. Gonzalez ignores that tyranny has only ended by force throughout history and freedom was always at the cost of human lives. Tillman obviously was not "defending or serving his all-powerful country from a seventh-rate, Third World nation," but freeing a nation from a sadistic dictator and fighting against terrorist without boundaries. If you have power as an individual or nation, you will become corrupted by holding too fastly and consumed by it until it rots your soul as with the Roman Empire and many individuals throughout history. Or you can see through a selfless eye the betterment of the world by spreading the gift of freedom because when you think about what we all take for granted it only taste much sweeter, and you are compelled to share it with others. Again, you might not agree with the manner in how this principle is carried out, but I believe you should respect, appreciate, and not ignore the value of it. It is not arrogance that leads most people to such acts, but joy and fullfillment. Only qualities such as indifference, laziness, fear, and selfishness would hold people back in sharing such a gift. America is called "the land of the free and home of the brave" because it has sought to spread that freedom to the world and truly knows the price of freedom.

Mr. Gonzalez ignores the higher qualities and principles that make us human and separate us from animals. When he questioned Tillman's intelligence in joining the army and forgoing millions of dollars, he placed us back to the lowest levels of human development. He assumes we should be satisfied with three meals a day, having a nice home and car, or even the higher calling to have an education. Maybe it is ultimately satisfying for him to have a position of power in teaching the youth of our nation, or corrupting their intellectual capabilities as he might one day. There are higher principles of sacrifice and selflessness that he forgets or doesn't know about or care to know about. These are the ideals that truly changed the world and continue to make it a better place to live. For every John F. Kennedy we need a Mother Teresa, for every Bill Gates we need a Cesar E. Chavez, for every Bill Clinton we need a Nelson Mandela... For every leader that made an impact in the world today in the spotlight or for their own gain (not negating their accomplishments and selfless acts), there were people that sacrificed their comfort, worldly success, or potential personal achievements for the greater good of mankind. Only later in life were people such as these recognized, and Pat Tillman is of the same fiber.

When I read such words from people like Rene Gonzales, I fully understand and believe the statistic that 20%-30% (forgot exact percentage) of pro wrestling fans believe that what they are watching is real. This is the same fiber that he is from.

Best of the Web Today, April 29th
Free speech is one of the glories of American democracy, but every now and then you listen to what people are saying and you wonder for a moment if it's all worth it. This is one of those days...

And one Rene Gonzalez, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, weighed in on the combat death of Pat Tillman, the football star turned Army Ranger, in Afghanistan:

For people in the United States, who seem to be unable to admit the stupidity of both the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, such a trade-off in life standards (if not expectancy) is nothing short of heroic. Obviously, the man must be made of "stronger stuff" to have had decided to "serve" his country rather than take from it. It's the old JFK exhortation to citizen service to the nation, and it seems to strike an emotional chord. So, it's understandable why Americans automatically knee-jerk into hero worship.

However, in my neighborhood in Puerto Rico, Tillman would have been called a "pendejo," an idiot. Tillman, in the absurd belief that he was defending or serving his all-powerful country from a seventh-rate, Third World nation devastated by the previous conflicts it had endured, decided to give up a comfortable life to place himself in a combat situation that cost him his life. This was not "Ramon or Tyrone," who joined the military out of financial necessity, or to have a chance at education. This was a "G.I. Joe" guy who got what was coming to him.

Cheers to UMass president Jack Wilson, who, the Boston Globe reports, issued a statement calling Gonzalez's remarks "a disgusting, arrogant and intellectually immature attack on a human being who died in service to his country."

In case you're still wondering if free speech is worth it, yes, it is. But there are times when it would be better if people had the wisdom to remain silent.

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

THE VILLAGE VOICE SPEAKS UP... KERRY MUST GO!

James Ridgeway gives some practical advice to Dems nationwide. True. At this rate, Kerry's just going to sink himself. Maybe the Bush administration will trip and fall, but that is a horrible strategy to hope and wait. It's too early for Hillary to run since she needs a few more years to build up real momentum. Dean is a loon, so Edwards seems like the best candidate. Where are you Bill Bradley? Anyway, I posted the whole thing since it was short... like that makes a difference with me.

John Kerry Must Go
Note to Democrats: it's not too late to draft someone?anyone?else

The Village Voice
By James Ridgeway
April 27th, 2004

WASHINGTON, D.C.? With the air gushing out of John Kerry's balloon, it may be only a matter of time until political insiders in Washington face the dread reality that the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn't have what it takes to win and has got to go. As arrogant and out of it as the Democratic political establishment is, even these pols know the party's got to have someone to run against George Bush. They can't exactly expect the president to self-destruct into thin air.

With growing issues over his wealth (which makes fellow plutocrat Bush seem a charity case by comparison), the miasma over his medals and ribbons (or ribbons and medals), his uninspiring record in the Senate (yes war, no war), and wishy-washy efforts to mimic Bill Clinton's triangulation gimmickry (the protractor factor), Kerry sinks day by day. The pros all know that the candidate who starts each morning by having to explain himself is a goner.

What to do? Look for the Dem biggies, whoever they are these days, to sit down with the rich and arrogant presumptive nominee and try to persuade him to take a hike. Then they can return to business as usual?resurrecting John Edwards, who is still hanging around, or staging an open convention in Boston, or both.

If things proceed as they are, the dim-bulb Dem leaders are going to be very sorry they screwed Howard Dean.

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

"DA VINCI CODE" DEFIES HUMAN NATURE & REASON

I mentioned a while back that I would write something on Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code," but I guess it slipped my mind and now laziness has set in once I came across the review below. So my ambitions for a lengthy, critical review has become a post of another and a few sentences more.

Anyways, like Mr. Miller below, I enjoyed the book, but not as immensely as the first half of my reading. As I became engrossed in the story, a little more than halfway through the book a pin punctured the air of excitement and interest for me. This pin wasn't the "hogwash" as Mr. Miller describe it because I accepted that the book would contain twists of history or another perspective on Christianity. It was fiction and I treated it as such. What let out the steam was the idea that the Catholic Church and believers of this faith would fiercely hold a secret that proved the foundation of its religion a great deception.

My gut reaction and question was, "Why would anyone pretend to live such a lie? Their lives would be meaningless and no one would want to live such a life."

As I thought about all the major religions, whether the basis of it is true or not (yes, to each his own. i am a biased christian believing there is only true savior and road), the core leaders (e.g. pastors, priests, rabbis, monks) and its devout followers believe it to be the truth. This is why you have martyrs, suicide bombers, and others willing to go to extremes for their religious beliefs even to the point of death. They truly believe in the core of their religious doctrine.

So why would the Vatican care so much about the "truth" of Jesus and Mary becoming public? When and if these leaders of the Catholic Church found out the dark secret of their savior, I guarantee you that their heads would spin and their hearts would be crushed. Money did not bind them to their life-long commitment of priesthood. Not fame, sex, or drugs. Power? Not initially at least for some. So for some abstract ideal of "good" or "truth," they would fight and go to extremes to protect a lie? I would understand it better if it was a reason based on financial wealth or gain, such as the Enron scandal.

Another aspect of human nature Brown assumes we will take for granted is our inability to keep a secret. So for hundreds of years, not one soul told or wrote down this great deception of the Catholic Church? The best recent example is when Charles Colson, President Nixon's "Hatchet Man" during the time of the Watergate scandal, stated that a group of the most powerful people in the world could not keep quiet and hold it to themselves even though their careers and the presidency was at stake. Brown's book ignores basic human qualities that have been proven before the storyline in his book. Far before the birth of Christ.

Anyway, if you do a little research whether sourced from Christian researchers or secular institutions, you will also find Brown's "evidence" on very shaky ground. It still is a decent book. Not great writing, but it keeps you going at least until the midpoint of the book so I would recommend it.

Code Breakers
"The Da Vinci Code" and its discontents.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BY JOHN J. MILLER
Friday, April 23, 2004

The best thrillers are unputdownable--a word that many readers surely attach to Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." It's difficult to ride a subway or walk through an airport these days and not see somebody engrossed in its page-turning tale of murder and conspiracy. In 13 months since publication, the book has sold more than seven million copies.

But partway through reading "The Da Vinci Code," I did put it down. Then I logged onto the Web and summoned an image of "The Last Supper," Leonardo Da Vinci's famous painting. I wanted to take a long and hard look at it, because Mr. Brown's plot turns on something Da Vinci supposedly portrays.

The novel's claim is startling: The person seated to the immediate right of Jesus, it says, is not John the Evangelist but Mary Magdalene, who, by the way, is God's daughter-in-law--i.e., the wife of Jesus. "Sophie made her way closer to the painting, scanning the thirteen figures," writes Mr. Brown at a moment of revelation in his story. "The individual had flowing red hair, delicate folded hands, and the hint of a bosom. It was, without a doubt . . . female."

Now, "The Last Supper" may be grainy and imprecise, but the most that might be said is that John looks vaguely effeminate, like a biblical-era metrosexual. For Mr. Brown, however, the John-is-really-Mary observation is a jumping-off point for far grander claims. One of his characters insists that "almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false." Did you know, for instance, that Jesus and Mary had a daughter?

If it sounds like hogwash, well, that's because it is--the purest fantasy. By now, however, the book has become more than a mere diversion--its amazing popularity has made it a cultural phenomenon that has spawned magazine cover stories, an ABC News special and the inevitable forthcoming movie. More important, there is something in Mr. Brown's cabalistic earnestness that urges readers to take his flight of imagination seriously. That is the book's vexing subtext: Maybe this is true. Mary Magdalene may not be the wife of Jesus, but Dan Brown is a kindred spirit of Oliver Stone.
So it comes as no surprise that a half-dozen publishers are now issuing books to crack the code, so to speak. What they share, other than a desire to capitalize on Mr. Brown's success, is a notion that "The Da Vinci Code" raises more questions than it answers and a conviction that readers of the novel will want to know more.

The best of the bunch is "Breaking the Da Vinci Code" by Darrell L. Bock, a professor at the Dallas Theological Seminary. Grounding his arguments in scholarship and logic, Mr. Bock is concise and persuasive on all the key points: No, Jesus was not married; no, Jesus did not have children; no, the Council of Nicea was not a sham. Mr. Bock shows that Mr. Brown's central contentions are based on evidence so thin that calling them conjecture would be a compliment.

The fundamental problem with "The Da Vinci Code" is that it subjects the traditional story of Jesus to unforgiving scrutiny, like an inquisitor who simply won't accept what his tortured victim is screaming at him. Then it proposes an elaborate thesis based on wide-eyed speculation, claiming that a few scraps of ancient writing--e.g., the so-called Gospel of Philip, a Gnostic text written in the third century--assert things that they barely even hint at. If this represents an assault on two millennia of Christian thought, as some have claimed, then the faithful can rest easy. They've survived Galileo and Darwin; they'll outlast Dan Brown.

"The Da Vinci Code" may even perform a useful service to true believers if it compels them to explore the roots of their religion. Whatever else the book has done, it has taught many people--accurately--that Mary Magdalene wasn't a prostitute. Others are reading biographies of Leonardo Da Vinci and studying "The Last Supper." This is not a bad thing.

Maybe there is a deeper matter as well, though Mr. Brown almost certainly doesn't intend it. Readers of "Paradise Lost" usually fall for Satan. That's not heresy but part of Milton's higher purpose, which is to show that we're all vulnerable to the glamour of evil. The whole point is to feel its pull and then reject it.

Likewise, "The Da Vinci Code" is a seductive tale--and a rollicking good one. The challenge is to suspend your disbelief while you're enjoying it, then to set it down and remember that you can't put your faith in everything you read.

Mr. Miller is a writer for National Review.

GOOGLE'S EMAIL UNDER FIRE

One view on the controversy surrounding Google's new email system that is about to launch. It provides 1GB of memory for free (i.e. Hotmail gives 2MB and Yahoo! gives 4MB) in return for targeted ads based on the user's email content. Privacy advocates are going nuts on this.

I've been beta testing the service (thanks, anne!... friend at google) and I really don't care about the ads. I don't think they will be intrusive moving forward and the ads are definitely worth 1 GB of memory... 1000MB! Also the email system has some cool functions. When I sent out a mass email to about 50 people yesterday requesting their cellphone numbers since I lost my cellphone and their numbers this past Saturday, it grouped all their responses and my responses together. Similar to having the whole "discussion" in a file cabinet within your inbox. To explain it better, my initial email, all their responses, and my replies were grouped into one line within my inbox. You click on that line and it opens up the whole string of emails, which you could read by clicking through an indexed layer of emails. Sort of like a library card catalog. Very cool. Anyway, the article I was talking about is below:

Gmail and its discontents

CNET News.com
By Declan McCullagh
April 26, 2004

The sharp reaction to Google's announcement of the Gmail service earlier this month underscored a deep divide in the tactics and strategies employed by Internet privacy activists.

Privacy groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., and London-based Privacy International denounced Gmail as an intrusion that must not be permitted to exist. (full article)

Monday, April 26, 2004

RUDY GIULIANI, AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.?
From Best of the Web Today... James Taranto

Rudy Belongs at Turtle Bay
The position of U.S. ambassador to the U.N. is coming vacant, now that President Bush has appointed its current holder, John Negroponte, to the newly created post of ambassador to Baghdad. If President Bush wants to be bold, why doesn't he tap Rudolph Giuliani as Negroponte's replacement?

The New York Post floated the idea last week, and it deserves serious attention. Giuliani seems just the right man for the time--a time when America, the only country capable of doing the hard work of protecting Western civilization from Islamic terrorists, is constantly at risk of falling into the quagmire of U.N. diplomacy.

Not only would Giuliani be a bully-pulpiteer in the great tradition of Jeane Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, but he would bring the penetrating eye of a former prosecutor to the continuing Oil-for-Food scandal--which may well turn out to be the corrupt reason why countries like France and Russia fought so fiercely to keep Saddam Hussein's murderous dictatorship in power in Iraq. To be sure, some of Giuliani's critics, including our colleagues at The Wall Street Journal, are of the view that he was overzealous and unfair in prosecuting white-collar crimes. But that's all the more reason why he's a perfect fit for the U.N., which certainly doesn't suffer from an excess of prosecutorial fervor.

Apart from the president himself, it's hard to think of any more powerful spokesman and symbol for America's war on terror than Rudy Giuliani, and not only because of his inspired mayoral leadership after Sept. 11. Giuliani took a stand against terror even when it was unpopular. In 1995 he ordered security to eject Yasser Arafat from Lincoln Center, in an era when the terror boss was being feted at the White House and lavished with Nobel Peace Prizes.

The politics of a Giuliani appointment seem perfect for Bush as well. At the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Jeane Kirkpatrick gave a rousing foreign-policy speech in which she, a lifelong Democrat, denounced her party for abandoning its erstwhile policies of strength:

When the San Francisco Democrats treat foreign affairs as an afterthought, as they did, they behaved less like a dove or a hawk than like an ostrich--convinced it would shut out the world by hiding its head in the sand. . . .

When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control negotiations, and refused even to discuss the issues, the San Francisco Democrats didn't blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States. But then, they always blame America first.

When Marxist dictators shoot their way to power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies, they blame United States policies of 100 years ago. But then, they always blame America first.

The American people know better.

Imagine U.N. Ambassador Rudy Giuliani traveling across town to the Republican National Convention to deliver a speech on the "Boston Democrats," and you begin to see why this is such a brilliant idea.

DEMOCRACY BECOMING MORE SILENT IN HONG KONG
Beijing Tightening Its Fist... Reform Will Have to Wait

I guess democracy in China will take a little longer, and the tide of influence probably will not come from Hong Kong now.

China Rules Out Hong Kong 2007 Election

By MIN LEE
The Associated Press
April 26, 2004

HONG KONG (AP) - China's most powerful legislative committee ruled Monday that Hong Kong will not have direct elections for its next leader in 2007, crushing hopes in the Chinese territory for a quick move toward full democracy.

Under the ruling, the territory will be allowed to make changes to its electoral methods but only gradually, said Tsang Hin-chi, a Hong Kong delegate to the Chinese National People's Congress Standing Committee.

The decision, confirmed later by China's Xinhua News Agency, ruled out what many Hong Kong people have been demanding: the right to democratically elect a successor to the unpopular Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa in 2007 and all lawmakers in 2008.

Tung is seen as one of the biggest impediments to Hong Kong's achieving democracy. The former shipping tycoon was appointed to his position by an 800-member committee that tends to side with Beijing.

In remarks carried on Hong Kong television, Tsang said the mainland's Standing Committee voted almost unanimously to approve its latest guidelines for Hong Kong democracy, with 156 votes backing the ruling and one abstention.

Tsang said the Chinese lawmakers had acted "according to Hong Kong's actual situation'' and that they had listened to Hong Kong public opinion.

Hong Kong lawmaker Fred Li accused Beijing of "dictating Hong Kong policy'' without regard to public opinion. Li said the decision violated Beijing's promise to give Hong Kong a great deal of autonomy when it was returned from Britain to China in 1997.

Ordinary Hong Kong residents now have no say in choosing their leader and they pick only some lawmakers, although Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, holds out the possibility of direct elections of the leader in 2007 and all lawmakers in 2008. The Basic Law sets out full democracy as an eventual goal but sets no timetable.

"We will not give up the fight for democracy,'' Yeung Sum, the leader of Hong Kong's opposition Democratic Party, said at a news conference.

Tung said he realizes Beijing's decision will upset many of Hong Kong's 6.8 million people, but he urged them to "be calm and rational.''

Full democracy remains Hong Kong's goal, Tung insisted, but he would not offer any timetable.

Xinhua said Hong Kong's electoral methods could be changed in time for the 2007 and 2008 elections, although direct elections have been ruled out.

The Standing Committee shocked Hong Kong earlier this month by issuing a binding ruling that any electoral reforms must be approved in advance by Beijing. Hong Kong's unpopular leader Tung then proposed a set of nine guidelines that any reforms should meet, including keeping China's views in mind.

While Hong Kong residents will directly elect 30 of 60 lawmakers in the September elections - up from 24 last time - the other 30 will be chosen by elite voters from special interest groups, such as business leaders, doctors and bankers.

DIABETES WILL DOUBLE BY 2030
From the American Diabetes Association... Check Out Their Site

Thought I should post this up since some of my family members have diabetes.

Study Finds Diabetes Will Double in World by 2030:
Predicts Rapid U.S. Increase That Greatly Exceeds Prior CDC Projections

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 26 /PRNewswire/ -- The number of people with diabetes worldwide will continue to increase at record levels through 2030, with the greatest relative increase in prevalence expected in the Middle Eastern Crescent, sub-Saharan Africa and India, according to a study published in the May issue of Diabetes Care. Researchers predict the number of people with diabetes globally will actually double over the next three decades and that the United States will experience a far more rapid increase than previously expected.

"The human and economic costs of this epidemic are enormous," concluded the researchers, from the World Health Organization and universities in Scotland, Denmark, Australia. "A concerted, global initiative is required to address the diabetes epidemic."

The three countries with the highest prevalence are expected to remain India, China and the United States -- as they are today. This new study projects an even higher increase for the United States than a 2001 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That study projected the number of Americans with diagnosed diabetes would reach 29 million by 2050; this study estimates that there will be 30.3 million Americans with diabetes by as early as 2030. The most important explanation for the difference in these figures is that the CDC estimates were based on diagnosed diabetes (and therefore did not include the 33-50% of all people with diabetes whose diabetes is undiagnosed). The new study includes people with both diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes.

Italy and the Russian Federation are expected to drop from the top 10 countries with the highest prevalence; they will be replaced by Egypt and the Philippines, according to the study's projections.

While diabetes is expected to increase in developing countries, mortality from communicable disease and infant and maternal mortality are expected to drop during the next 30 years. The authors predict this change will lead to higher proportions of deaths from cardiovascular disease as well as a great incidence of other diabetes-related complications, which will be particularly marked in developing countries.

What's more, the authors conclude that their projections may be too low, because they are based upon the prevalence of obesity remaining stable worldwide. In fact, the prevalence of obesity has been climbing substantially in recent years, even among children. Obesity is the leading modifiable risk factor for type 2 diabetes and is associated with the increase of type 2 diabetes among children.

The researchers strongly urge a "wider introduction of preventive approaches" for diabetes, since studies over the past several years have found strong evidence that lifestyle changes (such as losing weight and increasing physical activity), along with improved pharmacological treatments, can help reduce the risk of developing diabetes by nearly 60 percent.

Diabetes Care, published by the American Diabetes Association, is the leading peer-reviewed journal of clinical research into the nation's fifth leading cause of death by disease. Diabetes also is a leading cause of heart disease and stroke, as well as the leading cause of adult blindness, kidney failure and non-traumatic amputations. For more information about diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association web site or call 1- 800-DIABETES (1-800-342-2383).

CHINA AND KOREA'S TECH PARTNERSHIP CONTINUES

Another joint venture between a Chinese and a Korean company. Chinese companies are hungry for technology, knowledge, and management skills, and many of the sources are from Korea. I believe some of it stems from a historical bond and a common bitterness by some against the Japanese. From FierceWireless:

SK Telecom, China Unicom launch mobile Internet portal

SK Telecom and China Unicom today officially launched a new mobile Internet portal joint venture called UNISK. UNISK offers 2,700 different types of mobile content in five categories for the Chinese wireless market including graphics, games, and mobile chat. UNISK has marketing partnerships with China's three leading wired Internet portals, SINA, SOHU, and Netease. The company plans to launch 10,000 titles by the end of this year. UNISK provides content from South Korean content providers including Neomtel, Danal, Mobile-on, Cynet, Mdata, Widerthan.Com, and U-angel. SK Telecom and China Unicom founded the company earlier this year. SK Telecom owns 49 percent of the joint venture while China Unicom owns 51 percent.

KERRY FLIPPING AGAIN... TO THROW OR NOT TO THROW
War Medals Coming Up Again... What is the Question?

Little Green Footballs refers to Drudge's scoop on the truth about to Kerry's actions about to be revealed by ABC's Good Morning Amerca.

I wish the Dems had someone at solid on his statements and convictions, so it wouldn't make this year's election process seems so stupid and trivial. How dumb can you be to flip-flop so much throughout your career in the age of video and the Internet? A fair amount of my Dem friends aren't excited about Kerry. For them it's more a vote against Bush. Only if Edwards was a bit more seasoned or Bradley had legs, then it would be an interesting and stimulating contest.

"GOOGLE OPENS TOKYO RESEARCH LAB"

An article of interest to me since the software company I'm helping out has multiple R&D centers too. I'm just wondering how Google maintains effective communications between all these centers and how they divide or allocate research projects.

OKAY, ANOTHER AWESOME GUY AT ESPN: BILL SIMMONS

I forgot if I ever posted Bill Simmons stuff here or not, but if I didn't I should have. His columns regularly crack me up and this one on the NBA playoffs and Stephon Marbury are so true. Sorry, Stephon, but I'm a Chicago boy not a New Yorker. Gotta post this section up for my readers who are bball fans:

And since there isn't much else to talk about other than ...

1. Kings-Mavs (hasn't played out yet)
2. Duncan-KG (ditto)
3. The Lakers (double ditto)

...and I'm not nearly drunk enough to write an entire column about Eduardo Najera ...

... let's discuss the Knicks.

They had Manhattan buzzing as recently as two months ago. That's the way it works in New York. They make the classic panic trade for Marbury, look good for a week in January and naturally everyone starts thinking about the Lakers in June.

You can guess where I stand. Right after Isiah Thomas was hired last December, I predicted in The Magazine that he would run the team into the ground. This franchise was already headed nowhere -- no cap space, no All-Stars, little hope. It was a situation thatcried for patience. Whomever took over for the Artist Formerly Known As Scott Layden needed to blow everything up, create cap room and start over. In other words, the Danny Ainge Approach -- clean house, make some panic trades, ignore the cap -- couldn't possibly work here.

The Jerry West Approach seemed like a much better plan. Take your time. Stockpile assets. Only deal from strength. Think four years instead of four months. And most importantly, don't panic.

Isiah? He panicked.

Unable to wait even three weeks after moving into his new office, Isiah pulled a Jim Fassel and pushed his chips to the middle of the table, dealing his few tradeable assets (two coveted Europeans, two first-rounders and cash) for Marbury and Penny Hardaway -- two more ghastly contracts -- in the process, blowing his long-term cap flexibility to smithereens and insuring that the 2006 Knicks would look exactly like the 2004 Knicks.

Seduced by Steph's pedigree and anxious for a change -- any change -- New York fans embraced the trade. It was like the current Bachelor becoming enamored with Trish, the trashy, conniving, homewrecking model who looks stunning in a cocktail dress. You can have a million warning signs, you can even have a friend planted in the house telling you this girl is sleaze ... and you still can't help picking her for the Final Six. Just to see what happens.

And yes, there's something about Marbury's game. He always makes you feel like his team has a puncher's chance, that he can catch fire at any moment, maybe even take over an entire game, win a series by himself, carry you a couple of rounds. Even though it hasn't happened yet. And may never will. But that potential gets people talking about the team. Gets the arena buzzing before games. Gets people calling into the Fan. Gets those blue No. 3 "MARBURY" jerseys moving out of the Pro Shop like hotcakes.

With all this commotion, it was easy to forget that, if this was a Texas Hold 'Em Tournament, Isiah had just gone "all-in" after two hands. Knicks fans happily chugged the Kool-Aid, conveniently ignoring the fact that their GM just mortgaged the next 3-4 years for someone who ...

A. Hadn't won a single playoff series.
B. Was playing for his fourth team in eight years.
C. Monopolizes the ball.
D. Didn't get along in New Jersey with one of the best players on the Knicks (Keith Van Horn), which meant there needed to be a second trade.
E. Only played unselfishly last season (when he was gunning for a contract extension).
F. Ditched a once-in-a-lifetime situation in Minnesota with KG.

Seems like a pretty big gamble just to sell some tickets and make the back page of the Post, right?

Again, New Yorkers didn't care. Back in January, I remember discussing the deal with my Knicks fan friends, spelling out exactly what had happened, then listening to them respond with the same thing: I don't care, I'm just happy they're interesting again. It was like watching a buddy who hadn't gotten lucky for a few months suddenly fall in love with a stripper.

They felt differerently after Isiah hired Lenny Wilkens -- apparently Red Holzman was the second choice -- then gave Van Horn away for Thomas and Mohammed, a classic "I'll give you a quarter for two dimes" trade. This had evolved into a soft, rudderless team built around a shoot-first point guard, flanked by mediocre defenders and guys who couldn't rebound or contend shots. I'm not even sure they run any plays. When Lenny holds up one finger, I think he's signalling that he needs to pee.

Anyway, the inevitable losing streak followed, along with the questions about Isiah and Marbury, as well as the birth of a new face: The Isiah Thomas "If I Look Angry Enough When I'm Watching This Blowout Loss, Maybe People Will Forget That I Brought Most Of These Guys In" Face. Well, you did.

Hey, we know about Isiah, who burned bridges in Detroit and Toronto, bankrupted the CBA and failed miserably with a talented Indiana team. Pretty cut and dry. But what about Marbury? How do you explain last year's remarkable season in Phoenix, when he reached his ceiling as a player and seemed poised to finish his career with the Suns? How could someone fall from "Franchise Player" to "Trading Block" in less than seven months? Could he ever regain the magic?

That's why, with the obvious exception of KG, Marbury was the most interesting player in Round One. Nobody knew what to expect. As Pierce and the C's proved last spring, the right player and the right crowd can be a pretty dangerous combination in Round One. You never know.

Alas, the Nets looked better than ever. And the Knicks looked downright dreadful. Especially Marbury. He spent the first half of Game 2 launching jumpers, rarely driving to the basket or getting his teammates involved. In the second half, with the game slipping away, he started penetrating and setting up Kurt Thomas and Shandon Anderson -- yikes -- who predictably couldn't hit anything. When he tried to take over the game again, it was too late. It was a kooky performance, one of those games that reminded people why he's been traded multiple times. Even the TNT announcers were calling him out.

Back at MSG for Game 3, Marbury pulled the same schizo routine, displaying little of the toughness he showed in that Spurs series last spring. And yet the Knicks kept hanging around; you could sense the fans clamoring for Marbury to take over the game. Never happened. He missed two threes in the final minutes that would have brought the house down. And that was that. On Sunday, the Nets arrive at MSG with brooms.

Here's the kicker: Thanks to Isiah, this same Knicks team will return intact next season. And the year after that. They don't have any choice. Everyone makes big money. The only tradeable commodity on the team is Marbury, heading into his ninth year, and he isn't going anywhere. So Knick fans will spend two more seasons being tantalized by a potential superstar, someone who should be one of the better players in the league, but he isn't, and there really isn't a definable reason why.

Did Isiah screw the Knicks for the foreseeable future? I think so. It's a not-quite-a-playoff-team led by a not-quite-a-superstar, with no real way of turning things around in the next three years, and the wrong guy calling the shots to boot. Not exactly a recipe for success. Then again, you could say the same thing about the Celtics.

In fact, I think I just did.

Bill Simmons is a columnist for Page 2 and ESPN The Magazine, as well as one of the writers for "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on ABC

ENTREPRENEURISM ABROAD... FROM ALWAYSON
My Two Cents... Still a Ways to Go

Interesting interview and discussions at AlwaysOn on comparing entrepreneurism in the U.S. and abroad. I posted it up here with my quick reply and some other comments, but check out the rest of the interview and sign up for the AlwaysOn community if you're interested in the world of technology and business.

Here vs. There: Foreign-Born Entrepreneurs Compare
Watch out Silicon Valley, entrepreneurialism is alive and well—and out to eat your lunch—in other parts of the world.
NewsTeam | AO [Always On] | POSTED: 04.22.04 @10:45

Stone: In Silicon Valley we pride ourselves on having what we think is a unique blend of elements that makes starting companies so beneficial here: the availability of capital, the history of the Valley, and the tolerance of failure. In a splendid coincidence you are all foreign-born, so I'm curious to know if you think that you could start your companies today in your native countries?

Landan: You can. And the cool thing is that the unique combination of elements this place had for many years is now gradually being replicated in other places. We shouldn't fool ourselves that it is any other way. That just tells you what the situation is in Israel, which is my home country. Sometimes governments make good decisions, and in the early 90s the government of Israel had the insight to basically subsidize venture capital. That created a huge boom of investment, which was just amazing. Because the technical work force was already there, a lot of technologies that were incubated in the military industry were there, and the entrepreneurial spirit was there—what was missing was money.

The result is that—I might be wrong but based on my data—Israel is the country with the second or third largest number of public companies, and most of those are high tech companies. The number of high tech companies in Israel is significant, as there are only six million people there. I'm less familiar with other areas, but people have observed the Silicon Valley and realized how it works and are trying to replicate this. I believe the only thing to make Silicon Valley stand out for a long time is its proximity to the markets, which element you miss in remote foreign countries.

Kola: Could I have done what I've done here in India? It's a personal answer, for me, it's 'No, I don't think so.' But it is not a question of whether entrepreneurialism exists in India and can exist in India, the answer to that is yes. For me, it was only when I moved to Silicon Valley that I actually equated the stories of even the biggest tech companies [with] 'They are ordinary people, and if they can do it, I can do it.' And I think it happened to me in Silicon Valley, to be able to translate that to myself, to the competency, the ability, the desire, the ambition to do what I did. It's a path not taken, you can never speculate on that, but I don't think I could have done this in India.

Stone: There is so much fear now surrounding the migration of technology jobs to India. Do you think that's wrong-headed?

Kola: Stealing the manufacturing, so what's new about software? I think there will be something else that we innovate here and will be the brain trust of.

Magistri: I think Silicon Valley will remain an effective place. What made Silicon Valley was the dream of the startup, with example of HP, Sun, etcetera. They were all here, and they somehow attracted a given kind of people here. What is changing is that now some of these dreams are being planted worldwide.

Another fundamental shift that is happening here is that we have a lot to lose. If you look at what makes a startup effective it's that you're a small group of people with nothing to lose. Look at my company, InVision for my taste is becoming slower, it's moving at a lesser speed than two years ago because some of our energy is being allocated to defend what we have. In Silicon Valley there was so much wealth extracted from the marketplace during the Bubble. I believe there are quite a lot of people that are a tiny bit too comfortable and are spending too much time to protect what they have, to do another startup.

Therefore, I think we fit in an area where people still have the willingness to go after the startup, and the incentive is there, and there is nothing to protect. Israel is a good place—you see these wonderful companies that have three or four guys who are calling you three times a day because they want to do business. They want help, they want money, whatever else they want.

And the former Eastern Block countries have a very good school system. They are training people, the culture is still so-so, but there is willingness to do something. Some of the Asian countries. But there is a disclaimer, we have a lot to lose here. There is a lot of accumulated money here, and in my opinion, that is making us less willing to take a risk.

These excepts are from a panel discussion held at the Churchill Club earlier this year, when Newsweek's Silicon Valley correspondent Brad Stone talked to Vani Kola of Nth Orbit, Amnon Landan of Mercury Interactive, and Sergio Magistri of InVision Technologies. Read part one and part two.

Comments:

I believe the only thing to make Silicon Valley stand out for a long time is its proximity to the markets, which element you miss in remote foreign countries. "

"What is changing is that now some of these dreams are being planted worldwide."

The above two comments say it all. having markets is the key driver. The rest of the entrepreneurial ecosystem is already global or can be acesses remotely . The successful Indian & Chinese diaspora, the adventuring VCs, the local entrepreneurs are creating hot spots in Bangalore & Shanghai. Bangalore has on offer multitude of skills at very competitve terms , China has it's huge markets growing at a stupendous rate. But soon both will have both and ad all three (SV, Bangalore & Shanghai) will have markets, skills & capital.

"Could I have done what I've done here in India? It's a personal answer, for me, it's 'No, I don't think so.'"

What Vani Kola alludes to was still true till 3 years back , but is history now.

Ajay | POSTED: 04.22.04 @17:56
__________________________

Gentlemen, please stop thinking that all technology and money can be found in the Silicon Valley only.
There are so many talents elsewhere even in countries you would not think of. I appreciate Silicon Valley and I have been a student at Stanford University.

However, I have been an entrepreneur for many years and I think that I could start a business everywhere. Of course, my project would be different according to the place where I am. Some environments favor some specific projects. What I do not like in the Silicon Valley is the "success story syndrom". Being a successful entrepreneur does not necessarily mean that you have succeeded in building a big public company.

You could build a profitable small company and be very satisfied. Nobody would talk about you. But is-it what is important? What is important is to remain free and creative according to me. And this achievement is possible in any native country or anywhere in the world where there is at least a democracy.

Paul | POSTED: 04.24.04 @11:08
__________________________

Of course you can be an entrepreneur anywhere. This discussion is a matter of degrees and definitions. The entrepreneurial environments differ in each country with the amount of available capital, engineers, skilled management, exit avenues, and a host of other issues. Silicon Valley and much of the U.S. is naturally far ahead of the game because they've been through many more cycles, and the overly reported benefit of having the essential elements of strong research institutions, venture capital, and a deep talent pool.

I agree that countries such as China have the some of these elements, but if you dig deeper it is still very immature. How much smart money are backing these entrepreneurial efforts? Are they just looking for a quick flip like in the boom times? Do entrepreneurs have the legal and government infrastructure in their countries to support their efforts?

On the issue of talent, I would tend to disagree that many of these countries have sufficient talent pools. This is one big problem in China today. Not engineering talent, but management talent. I know from my native friends and relatives living there it's difficult to find solid managers there even if there is a inflow of Chinese nationals abroad with their Standford MBAs or 10 years at Intel, Virgin, or Nokia. This is even a problem in Korea which followed the U.S. during the boom times and created several entrepreneurial success stories, but for every success there were hundreds of failures and scandals. The same is happening in China and will happen if you listen beyond the headline success stories.

There is also the difficulty of being an entrepreneur in an underdeveloped market. If you already have deep capital pool, strong government connections, or close underworld friends :) then you don't have to deal with the hundred palms of greed. Even establish multi-nationals in China have to work with the problems of corruption and bribery to get many deals done, and such headaches as trying to clean up misconstrued booking of revenues or dealing with corrupt methods of competition against your company.

I believe it's up to strong leadership within the entrepreneurial community and established corporations to lead the charge for change in nations with lesser developed environments. Change to encourage and train more entrepreneurs, fair and just legal systems to protect investors and entrepreneurs, pushing for more government funding in R&D, etc.

BernardMoon | POSTED: 04.26.04 @01:52

JOHN KRUK... ESPN'S NEW BASEBALL ANALYST

John Kruk is hilarious. I remember watching him during interviews when he was a baseball player and he would always say something witty or funny. He's like the Charles Barkley of baseball. Anyway, he just started a column at ESPN's Page 2, so here is his second column which I enjoyed: Where's the sportsmanship?

Friday, April 23, 2004

PAT TILLMAN... AMERICAN HERO

I always thought it was honorable and a great example of patriotism and courage when Pat Tillman left his NFL career to join the Army in response to 9/11. Here's an article, Ex-NFL star Tillman makes ‘ultimate sacrifice’, and Powerline already has a few links up.

Also great posts at ESPN's SportsNation. Good article by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

SMART MOVES BY CHINA... CHANGES HARDLINE POSITION ON WI-FI

As I wrote before on this issue, I do believe it is better for China and its companies to not take the route of creating a closed technical standard for its Wi-Fi industry or any for this matter. The fruits of this move will be seen when Chinese companies start expanding beyond its domestic borders.

China, U.S. strike trade accord

By Richard Shim, Michael Kanellos and Evan Hansen
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
April 21, 2004

China is softening efforts to establish its own Wi-Fi security standard and will adopt stringent new piracy prevention policies as part of a broad trade and technology agreement with the United States, the two countries announced Wednesday.

Chinese government officials had set June 1 as a deadline for gear makers to include its Wireless Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) standard into products sold in China. The specification would allow the government to decrypt any communications by its citizens over wireless networks.

WAPI is not compatible with current Wi-Fi security standards. Enforcing the inclusion of WAPI into gear would have limited the number of manufacturers that could sell products in the Asian country, setting the stage for a high-profile technology battle between China and the United States.

According to sources close to the negotiations, China agreed that it will not implement WAPI by its announced deadline and will indefinitely postpone enforcement of the WAPI directive. In the meantime, the country will work to revise and perfect the standard in collaboration with the international standards group IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).

China's WAPI decision is one of several agreements announced Wednesday, after a high-level meeting between U.S. trade officials and China's Vice Premier Wu Yi in Washington, D.C., convened as part of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade. (full article)

WOODWARD'S BUSH BASHING

From The American Thinker.

EXPENSE OR NOT TO EXPENSE... STOCK OPTIONS
Critical Issue for the Future of America's Growth

Very important issue that should get more attention. Definitely pro-stock options. Even Max would agree as a bleeding liberal businessman. Here's Kevin Hassett's testimony before the House Committee on Financial Services:

The FASB Stock Options Proposal
Its Effect on the U.S. Economy and Jobs

By Kevin A. Hassett
Wednesday, April 21, 2004

Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to appear before you today to discuss the impact of options policy on publicly traded firms and the economy. I should say at the outset that my testimony will draw heavily on a recent publication that I coauthored with my colleague Peter J. Wallison.

Overview
Since the Enron collapse in mid-2002, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has been pressed to require that companies include the hypothetical expense of their employee stock options in their Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) financial statements.

Many lawmakers and commentators on financial matters have made public statements to the effect that employee stock options are a form of compensation, and the failure to show the cost of these instruments results in misleading financial reports. In response, it appears that the FASB is set to require expensing despite significant disagreement among professionals on how to calculate that expense. (full testimony)

UPDATE/MORE FROM KNOWLEDGE@WHARTON & AMERICAN VENTURE CAPITAL EXCHANGE:

Expensing Stock Options: Can FASB Prevail?

When the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently announced it may require companies to recognize the value of stock option-based compensation by expensing the value on the income statement (current regulations permit footnote disclosure in financial reports), it appeared to be ready to resolve a contentious issue. But the proposal has generated a war of words, pitting heavyweights like Alan Greenspan and Warren Buffett – who favor the expense model – against powerful opponents like SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins and Louisiana Rep. Richard Baker, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises. The last FASB effort to require an options-expense treatment, back in 1994, foundered in the face of political and industry opposition that threatened the Board’s very existence. According to Wharton faculty and others however, FASB should be able to stand up to the pressure this time around.

Beginning in the 1990s, employee stock options – which generally give recipients the right to buy the related stock at a set price for a set period of time regardless of market fluctuations – appeared to be an easy path to wealth, as an estimated several thousand “Microsoft Millionaires” can testify. But critics charge that options also fueled corporate scandals like Enron Corp. and Worldcom Inc. by tempting executives to artificially pump up stock prices.

Some investors and others also argue that the underlying accounting treatment – which enabled companies to avoid expensing stock option-based compensation – is flawed because, for example, it gives some option-heavy sectors, like high-tech, a reporting edge over companies that utilize more traditional forms of compensation that are reflected on an income, or profit and loss statement (P&L).

Now a FASB Exposure Draft, Share-Based Payment, an Amendment of FASB Statements No. 123 and 95, seeks to “improve existing accounting rules and provides more complete, higher quality information for investors,” according to the Board. The comment period for the exposure draft ends June 30, and FASB plans to hold public roundtable meetings to gather additional input on the proposal.

“The Financial Accounting Standards Board wants companies to recognize the value of options used to purchase labor from employees,” observes Wharton accounting professor Wayne R. Guay. “Why should this be any different than issuing stock options for raw materials, supplies or other categories that are recognized as business expenses on the income statement when the items are used? Curiously, labor is the only item that’s not recognized.”

But not everyone agrees with that analysis. Rep. Baker, for example, recently said he was "significantly disappointed" over FASB’s plans, and planned to launch congressional moves to halt it, according to the Dow Jones Newswires service. And a January dispatch from Reuters reported that at an American Enterprise Institute think-tank conference, SEC Commissioner Atkins questioned the need to expense options, expressing concerns that the Board was moving towards the requirement for political reasons, instead of accounting ones. Atkins reportedly said, however, that he was speaking in a personal capacity, not an official one. In fact, according to published reports, Atkins’ boss, SEC Chairman William Donaldson, is in favor of expensing stock options.

Predictably perhaps, high-tech giants like Intel Corp. and Cisco Systems,, both of which have resisted calls to expense employee stock options, sounded an alarm over FASB’s proposal. In a recent proxy filing Intel urged shareholders to vote against a shareholder proposal to have the company expense the cost of all future stock options. Indeed the high-tech segment as a whole has traditionally argued that its earnings and competitive advantage could erode if the value of stock options – which have been heavily used to attract talent – were reflected on the P&L.

But even before FASB’s latest announcement, some cracks in the high-tech front were evident. Late last year for example, Microsoft modified its stock option compensation program to reward employees with actual shares of stock. At the time, some observers interpreted this as a tacit admission that management no longer expected huge run-ups in its stock price – and in fact Microsoft stock has declined from a peak of about $30 in late 2003 to about $25 in mid-April 2004. In addition, the company announced its intention to expense all equity-based compensation, including previously granted stock options. Another tech-based company, the online DVD rental service Netflix, also announced last year that it would expense options. Published reports quoted CFO Barry McCarthy as observing that the move gave the company “greater consistency” in its financial reporting.

FASB’s new proposal has the support of the “Big Four” CPA firms. In a joint letter dated March 17, addressed to Rep. Baker and to Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (the ranking member of Baker’s subcommittee), the titans of the accounting industry framed their arguments in the context of a need for FASB’s continued independence. “We continue to support the view that the fair value of all employee stock options should be reported as compensation expense,” reads part of the letter, which is signed by the Big Four chairmen and CEOs. It goes on to urge Congress to continue its recognition of the “critical contribution of an independent FASB to the effective operation of the capital markets.”

Politics aside, high-tech companies have also expressed fears that a sudden shift to option-expensing could lead to precipitous plunges in their P&Ls, potentially triggering crippling declines in their stock prices – the very tool that they have used to attract and retain talent. But Wharton’s Guay dismissed those concerns, and a pair of high-profile studies appears to support his position.

“Stock options represent a compensation tool and if they are effective, one would expect companies to continue to use them, regardless of the reporting mechanism,” he argues. “Also, the dollar amount of option expense is generally disclosed in footnote format already, so institutional investors and others know it, and analysts already consider it. Several hundred firms are already expensing their options, and their stock prices do not appear to have suffered from the approach.”

A similar conclusion was reached by the Congressional Budget Office, which recently released a study of the potential effects of expensing stock options. Titled “Accounting for Employee Stock Options” and dated April 2004, the report notes, among other conclusions, that if companies “do not recognize as an expense the fair value of employee stock options, measured when the options are granted, the firms’ reported net income will be overstated.”

Further, while acknowledging the complexity involved in calculating the fair value of employee stock options, the CBO says that they “may be estimated as reliably as many other expenses.” Under the FASB proposal, the expense of a stock-option award would generally be measured at fair value at the grant date. While the Board does not specifically say how the options are to be valued, the proposal does mention two permissible methods: the widely used Black-Scholes-Merton formula and a lesser-known binomial model.

Finally, adds the study, recognizing the fair value of employee stock options as an expense on a company’s reports isn’t likely to negatively affect the national economy, since the information has already been disclosed in footnotes. However, notes the report, it “could make fair value information more transparent to less-sophisticated investors.”

Another study, focusing on 335 companies, was conducted by the global professional services firm Towers Perrin. It too determined that companies are not penalized when their stock options are expensed. “Once adjusted for general market movement, the average stock price of announcing companies does not show any significant change during the 300 trading days surrounding the declaration,” according to the report, which was released on March 31.

“What we can learn from this study is that accounting treatment needn’t drive management incentives,” says Gary Locke, a Towers Perrin principal and leader of the firm’s executive compensation consulting practice. “Rather, incentives should be designed to drive corporate performance.”

Guay adds that FASB’s global counterpart, the London-based International Accounting Standards Board, has already issued a standard requiring companies to reflect, in their income statement, the effect of stock options. “If special interests try to pressure the SEC or FASB, those bodies can always reply that this is the direction in which the rest of the world is moving,” he says. “We need to move along with other countries in this effort.”

In fact, he adds, the task of developing standard metrics to accurately value stock options may not be all that daunting. “Valuation issues will be important, but remember that financial markets already value certain types of stock options (typically puts and calls, which give an owner the right, but not the obligation, to respectively sell or buy a specified amount of an underlying security at a specified price within a specified time),” he observes. “The trick here is that these compensation-related stock options are not the same as publicly traded options, so vesting and other unique features could make the job a bit tougher. But so are other valuations, like pensions, which require estimates of how long employees will work at a company, and how long they will live. The value assigned to stock options may not be perfect, but it will be reasonable. And since the current P&L valuation of stock-option expense is zero, any kind of value is better.”

An End to Sweat Equity

American Venture Magazine
By Tim O'Malley
April 8, 2004

Employee stock options of an emerging growth tech company are irrelevant and worthless if a liquidation opportunity is never presented. Options provide more than a financial windfall, but justify hard work and stellar execution in maturing a business idea into a bountiful company. If the dedication does not present a liquidation opportunity, stock options are only worth the paper they are written on. Why then is the Financial Accounting Standards Board mandating expensing options?

The FASB is a private sector organization that establishes standards for accounting in the US. The SEC is their authority as well as the American Institute of Certified Public accountants. Both governing agencies are more inclined with public companies and their dealings, not the underlying issues of building a new company on limited cash reserves. (full article)

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

BLOOD FOR OIL?... NAW, IT'S CASH FOR OIL
And the Blood of the Iraqi People

So many of these articles and commentaries lately. Someone is going down in the U.N. Maybe Kofi Annan should just step down and let someone have a fresh start to reform the ineffective U.N. Anyway, here's the whole article by Pete DuPont:

Oil Is Not Well
Kofi Annan can run, but he can't Hyde.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BY PETE DU PONT
Tuesday, April 20, 2004

"The U.N.'s mechanisms for controlling Oil-for-Food contracts were inadequate, transparency went by the wayside, and effective internal review of the program did not occur. . . . If the United Nations cannot be trusted to run a humanitarian program, its other activities, including peacekeeping, arms inspection regimes or development projects may be called into question."

--Sen. Richard Lugar, April 7

More than called into question. The United Nations' administration of the Oil-for-Food program was so ineffective, inadequate and corrupt that, in the words of OpinionJournal columnist Claudia Rosett, the U.N. "is an institution that should never be trusted to carry out missions requiring integrity or responsibility."

So should the U.N. be given control over Iraq's transition to a free and democratic nation, as John Kerry has demanded and President Bush is being politically pressured to do?

The U.N. began the Oil-for-Food program after the first Gulf War to provide humanitarian relief for the people of Iraq. Saddam Hussein was to sell Iraqi oil, two-thirds of the proceeds of which would be used to buy food and medicine, generate electricity, build houses and help the country recover. The U.N. would get a 2.2% fee on each barrel of oil sold.

But with Saddam running the program and the U.N. only pretending to pay attention, corruption quickly dominated the process. Saddam added a 20-cent kickback fee to every barrel sold, which soon became 30, then 50 and finally 70 cents a barrel. Add to that the profit from Iraqi oil smuggled to Syria, Turkey and Jordan, and kickbacks on the humanitarian materials shipped into Iraq, and Saddam was raking in as much as $2.5 billion each year in illicit revenue to build up his military, his palaces and his power. The U.S. General Accounting Office estimates Saddam's total illegal revenues from the Oil-for-Food program to have totaled more than $10 billion.

Why would the U.N. delegate total, unsupervised authority to run the program to Saddam? Perhaps because Iraq and the other nations whose companies were participating in the scam didn't want appropriate procedures and controls applied to their ventures. Teresa Raphael, the editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe, has seen a spreadsheet listing the companies Saddam had approved for oil purchases. It included 11 French middleman concerns, (150 million barrels sold to them), 14 companies in Syria (120 million) and dozens of Russian firms (more than a billion barrels), the president of Indonesia, the Palestine Liberation Organization, "the director of the Russian president's office" and former French foreign minister Charles Pasqua.

Most stunning is Benon Sevan, the U.N.'s assistant secretary-general, whom his boss, Kofi Annan, designated to run the Oil-for-Food program. Mr. Sevan was allocated 14 million barrels of oil and disposed of 7 million of them.

As all this information became public over the past year or so, U.N. lawyers refused to allow identification of the kickback firms; it was, they said, "privileged information which could not be made public." Mr. Annan then suggested "an independent high-level inquiry" to clean up the U.N.'s sordid image. Absolutely not, said France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sabiliere, for the U.N. Iraqi accounts were managed by a French company, BNP Paribas. The Russians didn't much like the idea of an investigation either. Last Friday they blocked a Security Council resolution giving an investigating commission headed by Paul Volcker authority to conduct a complete investigation. All of which may explain why France and Russia so vigorously opposed the liberation of Iraq a year ago: They didn't want their very lucrative and very illegal kickback scheme to come to an end.

The Oil-for-Food program involves U.N. oversight of about $15 billion a year, by far the largest program it administers and more than five times the U.N.'s annual core budget. So the $10 billion at issue is not small time-graft, but big-time corruption.

Why, after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and had been repulsed by U.S. and allied forces, would the U.N. have given him the power to manage the oil sale program, choose the agents, prevent the U.N. from viewing the agents' contracts, and set the price of oil? Perhaps because the French and Russians insisted upon it?

And why would the U.N. forbid Mr. Sevan to discuss the program he was responsible for running? He says there was no need for an investigation because nothing was wrong, and--incredibly--that it was not his responsibility to hold the Iraqi regime responsible for running an honest program because "we take our marching orders from the Security Council."

So why would any American think the U.N. should now run Iraq? Most Democrats and some Republicans are for it, the establishment media is for it, and Mr. Kerry wants a U.N. resolution to "turn the authority over to them."

But if Kofi Annan and the U.N are responsible for the corruption and the mismanagement of the Oil-for-Food program and the coverup of its illegalities, how can they be trusted to manage the government of Iraq? Won't Mr. Annan allow France and Russia (and others) to expand their less-than-honest behavior once the U.N. is fully in charge?

The House International Relations Committee is scheduled to hold hearings on all these matters. Chairman Henry Hyde feels much more strongly about U.N. corruption than his Senate colleagues do: he believes the Oil-for-Food program "represents a scandal without precedent in U.N. history," and so Mr. Annan's response "must be equally unprecedented."

Since the House appropriates the money that the U.S. contributes to the U.N.--about a quarter of its annual $1.5 billion base budget--Mr. Hyde might place the next quarterly U.N. check on his desk, to be exchanged for a full and accurate report on Oil-for-Food from Kofi Annan.

And then, depending on what we learn about the integrity of U.N. operations, we can decide what might be an appropriate role for the United Nations in Iraq and how we might be sure the international body fulfills it honestly.

Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is policy chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears once a month.

IRAQI BLOGGERS... BETTER THAN THE MEDIA
The Beauty of Free Speech in Action

Great article and great blogs, so check them out!

Iraqis enjoy new freedom of expression on Web journals

By César G. Soriano
USA TODAY
April 20, 2004

BAGHDAD — A year ago, few Iraqis had ever had access to a computer, much less used it to communicate to the outside world. Now, Internet cafes seemingly dot every block in Baghdad, and new ones open often. That has led to a new phenomenon here: bloggers.

"We suffered for years under Saddam Hussein, not being able to speak out," says Omar Fadhil, 24, a dentist. "Now, you can make your voice heard around the world."

Hence, the blog. Short for "web log," a blog is a diary or journal posted on the Internet for all the world to read. E-mails can be sent to the blog, so it's also interactive.

Salam Pax's blog made him something of an international celebrity. Pax, the pseudonym of an Iraqi architect and translator, launched his blog in June 2002 as a way to correspond with his friend Raed Jarrar in Amman. What started as an e-mail exchange became one of the most gripping war diaries of the Internet age. Pax's journal describes the emotional pain caused by the U.S. military's attack on Baghdad a year ago.

His blog, dear_raed.blogspot.com, has been published as a book, Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi. Pax, whose blog is among the most visited Iraqi sites, could not be reached for comment.

Fadhil's blog, iraqthemodel.blogspot.com, tells of his life and the lives of his two brothers. One brother also is a dentist, and the other is a pediatrician. "We wanted to help bridge the gap, not just between the U.S. and Iraq, but with the entire Islamic world," says Ali Fadhil, 34, the pediatrician. "The media is always taking a look at the bad stuff. We want to show the good progress in Iraq."

The brothers' blog is written with an unusually pro-American viewpoint, especially coming from three Sunni Muslims. Sunnis — among them, Saddam Hussein — dominated Iraq's majority Shiite Muslim population before the war.

"We get threatening e-mails from Palestinians and Arab-Americans who write, 'You are traitors. If I were in Iraq, I would shoot you,' " Ali says. Other e-mails accuse the brothers of being CIA agents who are writing from Washington, "as if the CIA didn't have anything better to do than run a blog," he says.

"My ideas are very shocking to people," Ali says. "I tell people I am a friend of America, a friend of Israel. Some of my colleagues at the hospital think I am an infidel. It's impossible to change a man's mind, but you can only make him consider other alternatives." (full article)

JOHN KERRY... WAR CRIMINAL
Flops Again on Past Comments... Amazing But No Bill Clinton

I meant to post this up a few days back, but just didn't get a chance to. From Powerline, here's Kerry walking on thin ice and breaking through a few times on "Meet the Press."

MR. RUSSERT: Before we take a break, I want to talk about Vietnam. You are a decorated war hero of Vietnam, prominently used in your advertising. You first appeared on MEET THE PRESS back in 1971, your first appearance. I want to roll what you told the country then and come back and talk about it:
(Videotape, MEET THE PRESS, April 18, 1971):

MR. KERRY (Vietnam Veterans Against the War): There are all kinds of atrocities and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free-fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50-caliber machine guns which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search-and-destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare. All of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free-fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant Calley, are war criminals.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: You committed atrocities.

SEN. KERRY: Where did all that dark hair go, Tim? That's a big question for me. You know, I thought a lot, for a long time, about that period of time, the things we said, and I think the word is a bad word. I think it's an inappropriate word. I mean, if you wanted to ask me have you ever made mistakes in your life, sure. I think some of the language that I used was a language that reflected an anger. It was honest, but it was in anger, it was a little bit excessive.

MR. RUSSERT: You used the word "war criminals."

SEN. KERRY: Well, let me just finish. Let me must finish. It was, I think, a reflection of the kind of times we found ourselves in and I don't like it when I hear it today. I don't like it, but I want you to notice that at the end, I wasn't talking about the soldiers and the soldiers' blame, and my great regret is, I hope no soldier--I mean, I think some soldiers were angry at me for that, and I understand that and I regret that, because I love them. But the words were honest but on the other hand, they were a little bit over the top. And I think that there were breaches of the Geneva Conventions. There were policies in place that were not acceptable according to the laws of warfare, and everybody knows that. I mean, books have chronicled that, so I'm not going to walk away from that. But I wish I had found a way to say it in a less abrasive way.

MR. RUSSERT: But, Senator, when you testified before the Senate, you talked about some of the hearings you had observed at the winter soldiers meeting and you said that people had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and on and on. A lot of those stories have been discredited, and in hindsight was your testimony... (read the whole thing and Powerline's comments)

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

NEW BLOGGER FOR A BALANCED VIEW... MAX YOW
"Blah Blah Bernard Blah Blah" Changing to "Junto Boyz"... A New Direction

It's been a little over a year since I started blogging without an idea of where this was going to lead. I started it because I've always enjoyed writing, discussing my social and political views, telling life stories, and since I'm easily amused at myself and the world around me.

Now I want to take the blog in a new direction. To make it a nesting place for various views and perspectives on politics, business, and life. I believe if you don't challenge your own ideas and listen to other viewpoints then there is no heart or room for improvement or change for the better. I believe there is always a "better" and no "best" in the world, so complacency in life and ideas is the worst hindrance to progress and innovation.

I have invited a few of my close friends and those I respect to start writing for this blog. For the reasons stated above and anticipation that I will get busier as I take another step forward in life with my complete move back to the U.S. in May and as I transition into a new position, I thought this was the best time to implement these changes. I will still be the primarily blogger, but these new writers will contribute anywhere from a few times a week to once a month depending on their schedules.

We also decided to change the name from "Blah Blah Bernard Blah Blah" to "JuntoBoyz." As some of you might know, Benjamin Franklin formed a group of his friends dedicated to mutual improvement, so they would discuss and debate various issues and ideals of their time. Franklin described it as:

"I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year (1727), I had formed most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the Junto; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positive opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties."

Or the simple dictionary definition: "a group of persons joined for a common purpose"

The common purpose of this blog will be to inform our readers of various viewpoints and articles on politics, business, and life; engage in thoughtful and thought-provoking discussions; generate new ideas and spur new thinking; and to have fun and a few good laughs during the process.

The first new blogger is a close friend who I respect in many ways and someone that will tip the scales to the left... maybe too far left. Anyway, more about him:

Max Yow
Max heads international corporate development for a leading Internet company in Asia. He focuses on extending their presence and brand throughout the region through partnerships and acquisitions. He has a graduate degree in Political Science and undergraduate degree in Political Science and Mathematics. Max thinks everyone should learn arithmetic from first principles and begin a life-long study and appreciation of Godel's theorem in elementary school.

Max says he is without a doubt the smartest liberal that Bernard has ever met.

Max enjoys:
Sports... combative sports, sports you play with a ball, sports with no swimming, sports you can play while drinking and smoking (pool, darts, bowling, video games).

Music... jazz (bop and post-bop), hip hop, classical, all popular music before the late-70's, don't like country music.

*Note by Bernard: Though I despise his politcal views since he's even left of Ted Kennedy and is fluent in French, he has become one of my closest friends I've made during my stay in Asia. We bond because we both enjoy cooking and eating. We connect because we like to play video games, drink together, and debate each other until our emotions boil over.

Monday, April 19, 2004

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S 250TH
New Face in Korean History for Me

Just got an email from my old graduate school on their 250th birthday celebration. This one was profiling various "Columbians Ahead of Their Time" and I came across a Korean woman, Helen Kim, who seemed to be an amazing individual... president of Ewha University, my mother's alma mata, and founder and publisher of The Korean Times, an English-language newspaper. Pretty cool.

"Freedom is not just a word here, not just a concept taken for granted. Its meaning is in the air we breathe, in our thoughts, in our hearts."

Helen Kim (1899-1970)
Educator, PhD 1931

Helen Kim broke down barriers for Korean women by expanding their educational opportunities. The first Korean woman to receive a doctorate, Kim transformed Ewha College, a women's school founded by an American Methodist missionary in 1886, into the largest women's university in the world, with more than 8,000 students by the time of her death in 1970. Graduating from Ewha in 1918, Kim took on the task of educating Korean women as her Christian mission. She became dean of the college in 1931 and president in 1939 - just before the eruption of World War II. She kept the school going despite wartime hardship and strict Japanese control of the curriculum and administration. In 1945, at war's end, Ewha College became Ewha Womans University. The outbreak of the Korean War less than five years later forced Ewha to evacuate its Sinchon campus and set up makeshift quarters in Pusan. While remaining Ewha's president, Kim served as South Korea's official government spokesman and as founder and publisher of The Korean Times, an English-language newspaper. After the armistice, Kim and the Ewha leaders rebuilt the campus, adding more schools and departments, and a hospital. When she retired as president in 1961, the University's enrollment stood at 7,000 undergraduate and 65 graduate students.

Kim attended Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1930 at the urging of Ewha's president, Alice Appenzeller, returning to Korea after completing her doctorate in 1931. In 1954, Columbia's Korean alumni gathered at a ceremony in Seoul to mark the University's bicentennial. The New York Times reported that Kim, the only women among the 30 attendees, was praised by her fellow alumni "for perpetuating the traditional policy of free inquiry, free speech and free press."

COOPERATE OR GO HEAD-TO-HEAD?
Depends on the Industry for Startups

Pretty good article.

Why Some Start-ups Choose Cooperation over Competition

Knowledge@Wharton
April 7, 2004

When faced with the challenge of commercializing its AIDS drug, Trimeris Inc., a small biotech company based in Durham, N.C., didn’t hire a sales force or sink money into marketing. Instead, it called in Hoffman-La Roche Inc., the Swiss pharmaceutical giant. In 1999, tiny Trimeris and burly Roche hammered out an agreement under which Roche agreed to put its production and marketing might behind Trimeris’ drug, called Fuzeon, in exchange for a piece of the profits. In January, the two companies announced that they were extending their partnership.

David Hsu, a Wharton management professor who specializes in studying entrepreneurship, says this sort of arrangement has become common in the drug industry. Small biotechs such as Trimeris innovate, creating promising drugs and vaccines, while big drug companies such as Roche look to partner with them, lending their heft to the biotechs’ promise.

In a co-authored paper entitled, When Does Start-up Innovation Spur the Gale of Creative Destruction, Hsu argues that this sort of cooperation belies the popular idea of technological innovation. In the usual formulation, start-ups sneak in with new products and swipe sales from incumbent leaders. As a result, the innovators grow, while the older companies stagnate, even shrink. That’s certainly been the case in the hard-drive industry, for example, and in online retailing.

But sometimes the market operates more benignly, with new entrants such as Trimeris cooperating with established players such as Roche. Suddenly, the gale of creation doesn’t look so destructive.

Understanding what leads some start-ups to choose cooperation over competition was the impetus for Hsu’s article, written with co-authors Joshua Gans at the University of Melbourne in Australia and Scott Stern at Northwestern University, and published in the RAND Journal of Economics. The researchers found that the likelihood of start-ups cooperating with established companies depends upon three factors: 1) the strength of the startups’ intellectual property rights; 2) whether they have relationships with intermediaries such as venture capitalists; and 3) whether their industry requires big investments in things such as manufacturing and distribution. To draw their conclusions, they surveyed 118 technology start-ups.

“In economic environments like the biotechnology industry – where patents are relatively effective in protecting [intellectual property rights], firms face high relative investment costs, and brokers are available to facilitate trade – start-up innovators tend to earn their returns from innovation through the market for ideas, acting as an upstream supplier of ‘technology’ rather than as a horizontal innovation-oriented competitor,” the authors write. “In contrast, when investment costs for the entrant are relatively low and the technological innovation is not protected by patents, as in the disk-drive industry, the disclosure threat tends to foreclose the ideas market. Start-up innovators in this environment are more likely to commercialize their innovations through product market competition.”

Intellectual property rights take many forms, the most obvious being patents. A patent gives its owner the exclusive right to commercialize an invention for a specified period. “Firms with at least one project-related patent are more than twice as likely to cooperate relative to those with no patents,” the authors write.

Patents protect start-ups from having their inventions stolen by incumbents. That, in turn, gives them greater leverage in negotiations. “Under cooperation, negotiating over the sale of an idea inevitably involves a disclosure risk, eroding the bargaining position of the start-up and reducing the incumbent’s willingness to pay,” the researchers explain. “Increasing the strength of [intellectual property rights] reduces the expropriation threat for either strategy, and thus it increases the absolute expected returns to start-up innovators.” Negotiations often lead to cooperative relationships such as joint ventures and even acquisitions.

It’s not only the small biotechs that have embraced the cooperative model of innovation, Hsu pointed out in an interview. Merck & Co., the giant drug maker based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., has made partnering a cornerstone of its strategy for bringing new drugs to the market. Two of its leading products – Fosamax, an osteoporosis drug, and Cozaar/Hyzaar, a hypertension medication – came to the company via license agreements.

Of course, negotiating, like marriage, requires a partner, and finding the right one can make the difference between happiness and divorce. But as a rule, start-ups aren’t well-suited to finding good partners. They tend to be small and thus stretched thin. What they need are matchmakers, that is, intermediaries such as venture capitalists, lawyers and accountants.

Intermediaries often specialize in particular industries, working mostly with, say, biotech or information-technology companies. As a result, they have a deep knowledge of the industry’s players; they know whether those players are looking for partners and whether they can be trusted in negotiations. Likewise, they can vouch for the value of a startup’s innovation and the ability of its founders. Hsu and his co-authors find that start-ups that work with intermediaries are more likely to choose cooperation over competition.

Finally, they find that start-ups will be less likely to cooperate if they have to devote a lot of money to gearing up to compete. “As the sunk costs of product-market entry increase, the gains from trade between start-up innovators and incumbents also increase, so start-ups will be more likely to forgo competition,” they point out.

For example, within the car manufacturing industry, an auto plant is massive and costly. The owner has to invest hundreds of millions of dollars before producing the first car. If a start-up develops a new motor, it therefore might be better off licensing its technology to an established carmaker rather than trying to build its own plant from scratch. The drug industry operates in much the same way. Bringing a new drug to market takes about a decade, and requires hundreds of scientists and safety and efficacy tests that last years. Once federal regulators deem a drug safe and effective, the manufacturer needs an army of sales people and a hefty marketing budget to reach out to doctors and their patients.

All this suggests that big, established players have a hefty advantage in making and selling drugs, except that they haven’t proved very good at developing new ones, at least not in the last decade. Biotech start-ups such as Trimeris have shown themselves to be more innovative, devising new drugs and techniques. And they have tended to license their inventions to big established players such as Roche. “The probability of cooperation is highest in biotechnology,” the researchers state.

What does all this mean if you are an entrepreneur with a company or a manager within a big, established firm? Ideally, it will help you pick the right path, cooperation or competition. But as Hsu points out, no formula fits all companies within an industry. Two of the best-known and biggest biotech companies – Amgen and Genentech, both based in California – partnered early on with established companies. But they invested the earnings from those partnerships in becoming fully integrated pharmaceutical companies.

“Not all biotechs earn their returns by partnering,” Hsu explains. “We’re not saying one thing is best for everyone. There’s variation in commercialization strategies. What we’re saying is, ‘This is the average behavior and here are the drivers.’”

ANA MARIE COX... WONKETTE ARTICLE
Shoutout to Debbie... Washington Party Thrower

I learned about the Wonkette blog a few weeks ago, which is a gossip blog for Washington insiders. Then today I was talking with my good friend, Debbie, and she mentioned that she was quoted in the NY Times in an article about the Wonkette so I checked it out. Anyway, this post is just a shoutout to a friend on the wrong side of the political spectrum. :)

First With the Scoop, if Not the Truth

The New York Times
By JULIE BOSMAN
April 18, 2004

WASHINGTON
When the notoriously unreliable Drudge Report blared the stunning headline in February that Senator John Kerry had had an affair with a woman on his staff, the gossip columns in Washington's newspapers did not print a word. Ana Marie Cox saw an opening.

Ms. Cox, writing in her new web log Wonkette, gleefully shared every unsubstantiated detail. That the story faded, unsupported by any evidence, seemed almost inconsequential to Ms. Cox. "It was just one of those things that people in Washington were talking about," Ms. Cox said later, by way of explanation.

With her gossipy, raunchy, potty-mouthed blog, Ms. Cox, a 31-year-old self-described failed journalist, has grabbed the attention of staid Washington, where gossip columns usually amount to little more than records of Capitol Hill staff changes and James Carville sightings. As she puts it, her mission for her blog (www.wonkette.com) is to write "a blend of gossip and satire and things I make up." It supports no party line, mixing gossip items from newspapers and Web sites with tips e-mailed from readers, which could be anything from guesses about which members of the Bush administration are gay to blind items on Washington luminaries. " `Famous for D.C.' should be the ultimate put-down," Ms. Cox said, drawing from her stockpile of oft-employed one-liners.

Her main competition in town, The Reliable Source, a regular feature in The Washington Post, has held a near monopoly since its debut in 1992. Richard Leiby, who took over from Lloyd Grove last fall, said on Friday that the newspaper's standards limit what he can write. "There really is not a gossip column at The Washington Post," he said. "We're really writing fairly rigorously sourced items of news interest, as opposed to who's sleeping with whom." Mr. Grove, who is now a gossip columnist for The New York Daily News, has said that when he was writing Reliable Source in the late 1990's he sat on the scoop that Newt Gingrich was being unfaithful to his wife. "I guess I'm just a wimp," he told the now defunct monthly Capital Style.
.....
"She pushes the envelope and goes where the other gossip columns don't go," said Debbie Berger, the director of media strategy for the liberal policy group Center for American Progress. Ms. Berger, a daughter of Sandy Berger, the former Clinton administration national security adviser, is noted for giving frequent parties. Ms. Cox "does a really good job at poking fun at the institution of Washington and the stiffness of Washington," Ms. Berger said.

Jake Tapper, the ABC News correspondent, said Ms. Cox's blog succeeds in part because of its lack of credentials. "The difficulty with writing a gossip column from the moss-covered towers of any established media organization is that one's bosses are more often than not likely to be golfing and sipping port with your choice subjects," he said. "So Ana Marie has an advantage there." (full article)

MARK CUBAN'S REBUTTAL TO TRUMP

Great indirect response to Trump's recent comments on how "The Benefactor" is a copycat of "The Apprentice." Indirect since it's more of a response to Trump's life and view on success versus his own.

Sunday, April 18, 2004

SCO'S WARCHEST DISAPPEARING?

Smart move by investor Baystar in trying to get back its $20 million from bottom-feeder business model company, SCO Group.

NYT REVIEW OF CHICAGO HOTSPOTS
Hot Doug's, Jim's, Fluky's... At Least They Get Food Right

My favorite hot dog place, Hot Doug's, was reviewed in the NY Times. After living, visiting, and eating in various cities, I still believe Chicago has the best tasting food. I loved NYC for the diversity and high-end food... love its delis, pizza joints, Chinese fast food, Japanese cuisine, various fusion restaurants, etc. Japanese and Korean restaurants in Los Angeles are unmatched in the U.S. Of course, I'm biased because I love meat and Chicago is a city of high-fat, high cholesterol foods, especially steaks, ribs, burgers, and by-products. Anyway, here's the article:

Stand-Up Food in a City of Big Appetites

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By R. W. APPLE Jr.
April 14, 2004

CHICAGO
WHEN Doug Sohn finished his culinary studies at Kendall College in suburban Evanston a few years ago, he decided to get into regional food. He might have opened a steakhouse — Chicago is one of the world's great beef towns — or a nostalgic meatloaf-and-mashed-potatoes palace, for that matter.

But instead he took a road much less traveled. He opened a hot-dog stand and called it Hot Doug's.

Mr. Sohn's place of business is more than it seems at first. In his irreverent moments, of which he has many, Mr. Sohn describes it as an encased-meats emporium. Rightly so. It serves a fine Chicago red hot, about which more in due course, but also what you might describe as canine nouvelle cuisine. At Doug's you can order a veggie dog or a kangaroo sausage if you like.

What, you might well ask if you don't know Chicago, is so regional about hot dogs? Pink's on La Brea in Los Angeles does a great dog, and people in Detroit swear by the chili dogs at the Lafayette. The corn dogs at the Texas State Fair are good, too, though not as good as Texans claim, naturally. Katz's and Gray's Papaya in New York serve classic kosher dogs, and a place in Mamaroneck called Walter's, which I used to frequent years ago while unsuccessfully courting one of the fairest damsels in nearby Larchmont, may top the whole list.

But no place else this side of Frankfurt has a frankfurter stand every three or four blocks, as Chicago does. And no other place anywhere has a catechism of condiments as rigorously defined as Chicago's. A proper Chicago hot dog must be served on a warmed poppy-seed bun (preferably from Rosen's bakery). It must be dressed with a crisp pickle spear, a sweetish fluorescent green relish, a slice or wedge of raw tomato, some chopped onions (or very occasionally grilled onions), a dab or two of yellow mustard, a dusting of celery salt and two or three hot little green chilies, which Chicagoans for some reason always call sport peppers.

All of the above. Absolutely no substitutions. And no ketchup, please. Ever. Your true Chicagoan recoils from a ketchup-smeared hot dog the way your true New Yorker loathes melted Swiss cheese on a pastrami or corned beef sandwich. There are at least 1,800 hot-dog stands in Chicago, according to the people at Vienna Beef, which supplies most of them.

This is a blue-collar city — "city of the big shoulders," as Carl Sandburg called it — and it loves its proletarian food: high-fat breakfasts, deep-dish pizzas, pork barbecue, Italian beef sandwiches and fried fresh-water fish. Hot dogs come first, however, partly for historical reasons, although price and portability are also factors.

My wife, Betsey, and I started a recent round of dog tasting at the Vienna Beef Factory Store on Damen Avenue. The company's principal product was introduced at the Columbian Exposition in 1893 by its founders, a pair of brothers newly arrived from Vienna, then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. That accounts for the hint of paprika that flavors Vienna Beef dogs, along with more than a hint of garlic. It also makes them wieners, strictly speaking, not frankfurters — a wiener being a sausage, or anything else, from Wien, or Vienna.

As she tonged a few prime specimens from a water-filled well, the server told Betsey, "Boil your water, turn it off, drop in the hot dogs and let them cook." That way, she explained, you will avoid the dreaded problem of burst casings.

To tell the truth, we had trouble finding a bad dog — there were none at Wiener's Circle, where rowdy late-night weekend crowds gather to soak up the beer consumed earlier; or at Fluky's, which claims to have invented the salad-laden dog on Maxwell Street in Depression-ridden 1929, when it sold for a nickel; or at Poochie's char-dog haven in Skokie, or at Doug's either.

The only real disappointment came at O'Hare Airport as we headed home. Betsey could not resist trying just one more dog (for breakfast). For her three bucks, she got a soggy, tasteless mess and heaved it into the garbage.

In the traditional category — poached sausage with the works — we gave the prize to the Factory Store, which served us a perfect self-basting sandwich, whose hot dog delivered a meaty burst of juice as its taut casing burst. The flavors of each condiment, and the red hot itself, danced in our mouths. Our friend Bill Rice, the esteemed Chicago food writer, who came along to navigate, announced after a bite or two, "It's like tasting Guinness in Dublin."

Doug's, of course, was hors classe. A converted storefront in Roscoe Village, a middle-class residential area on the North Side, it was jam-packed at 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, with a line out the door. Mr. Sohn, manning a counter at the back, scribbled order after order, calling them out to cooks staffing the stoves in a minuscule kitchen behind him. More than 250 people ate lunch that day before Mr. Sohn, who likes to spend the evenings with his family, closed down his shop at 4 p.m.

When I asked him how old he was, the slight, owlish proprietor replied, "I'm 42, but my knees are 60."

Betsey quickly decided on a Chicago classic, then busied herself with her duties as supply sergeant — collecting paper napkins for everyone, wiping the table clean, and rounding up salt and pepper shakers. Ever the Francophile, I went for a Calvados-infused smoked duck sausage with citrus-mustard cream (I'm not kidding here, folks). Mr. Rice couldn't decide between a roasted red pepper chicken sausage and a mint-garlic lamb dog adorned with tapenade and feta.

So he sought the expert counsel of Mr. Sohn, who answered, like a bistro-keeper pushing the gigot: "Hey, it's spring. Why not take the lamb?"

Delicious and instantly consumed as they all were, they were not quite as ravishing as the hand-cut French fries cooked in duck fat. Old gold in color, each fry was a different shape and a different texture. The little ones were crisp and chewy; the big ones were fleecy inside, almost soufflé-like.

The last stop on the sausage tour was a concrete-block building surrounded by rubble-filled lots, just yards from the roaring traffic on the Dan Ryan Expressway. This melancholy establishment, where the cooks inside pass the food out to customers through slit windows, is all that remains of Maxwell Street's once-thriving restaurant culture and of Jim's, where the famous Chicago Polish sausage was invented decades ago. The rest was bulldozed over the objections of neighbors to make way for University of Illinois-Chicago dorms and parking lots.

Happily, the Polish is as good as ever — a smoky, slightly leathery sausage, grilled to reddish-brown glory, topped with mustard and a jungle of ivory-colored onions, also grilled, on an oversize bun. A bit greasy, I will admit, but still incomparable. They stuff the thing into a paper sack, along with a small bag of fresh, exemplary fries and a well-iced can of soda.

That's it. It's your job to find a place to consume this mini-banquet. I devoured my Polish — more accurately, perhaps, my Slavic, since the inventor was a Yugoslav immigrant, Jim Stefanovic — on a park bench on the nearby campus.

NOT all Chicago's beef goes for steaks and sausages. Some of it finds its way into sandwiches like the monsters served at Al's #1 Italian Beef, a strictly utilitarian operation in River North that consists of a grill, a counter, a drive-through and several tables.

Al's, which was started by the Ferreri and Pacelli families in 1938, bakes lean sirloin butts for four hours with water and "secret special spices" — among them garlic and mustard seed, in the view of Detective Apple. The meat is cut extra-thin on a rotary machine and piled onto a sliced baguette. If you ask for yours "sweet," they add strips of roasted green bell peppers; if you specify "hot," they ladle on an incendiary concoction of chopped chilies, olives, celery and other vegetables, called giardiniera. Either way, you are honor-bound to ask that your sandwich be dipped into the savory, garlicky pan juices.

The juices moisten the meat and soak right into the bread to make a heroic sandwich. Eating the thing is messy, extremely messy. I would not even try to improve Al's beef recipe or its gruff countermen, but I would add a stall shower if I could. (full article / free registration)

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

NEWLY CROWNED MISS USA PRO-BUSH & PRO-IRAQI
Major Media Outlets Ignoring Her Voice... Where's AP & Reuters?

If she was condemning the war in Iraqi, it would have been all over the newspapers, CNN, and other outlets. More from Instapundit:

MISS USA PLANS TO USE HER POSITION to defend U.S. involvement in Iraq. ("A Republican, she told Reuters she would use her position to help explain America's involvement in Iraq. 'What needed to be done had to be done,' she said.") Joshua Claybourn has some doubts as to whether this will get much big-media attention. I don't.

X-PRIZE... PRIVATIZING SPACE

It's funny that I ran into this article. I remember the X-Prize when I lived in St. Louis for a year doing the Coro Fellowship. My colleague, KP, was doing a consulting project for them during their initial year, and had no clue they are still chugging along. The energy and excitement was tangible back in 1996, but I wonder how they kept it going this long. Kudos to them.

Fans of space tourism, and commercial space flight in general, were very excited at reports that Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites had been issued the first license for a manned suborbital rocket flight. There's been talk of such things for years, and space insiders had wondered whether the FAA would issue a license to Rutan in time for him to compete for the X-Prize, a $10 million private award for the first team that:

"Privately finances, builds & launches a spaceship, able to carry three people to 100 kilometers (62.5 miles); Returns safely to Earth; Repeats the launch with the same ship within 2 weeks."

The X-Prize approach is based on the historic role played by privately-funded prizes in developing aviation (Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic to win the $25,000 Orteig Prize). Its founders and organizers hope that private initiative, and lean budgets coupled with clear goals, will produce more rapid progress than the government-funded programs organized by space bureaucrats over the past five decades or so. (full article)

ANOTHER DEVELOPING DEMOCRACY... SOUTH AFRICA
Younger, More Immature... Facing More Basic Problems for Nations

It's really interesting how basic needs of people, cultural characteristics, economic development, and other factors affect the growth of a new or young democracy. It will be interesting to see how Iraqi develops as a democracy and how its prior political environment effects people's role and perception of their new government. Also how its regional and religious divides will shape the birth of Iraqi's democracy.

Free, but Crying

Tech Central Station
By Richard Tren
April 14, 2004

JOHANNESBURG -- Today South Africa goes to the polls in our third ever democratic election. The outcome is certain -- the African National Congress (ANC) will probably win at least 60% of the vote (perhaps even as much as 2/3rds). Thabo Mbeki will continue as President in his second and final term of office. Ten years after the first election, this has been a quiet and almost boring affair reflected perhaps in the reports of increased voter apathy. Yet this is an important election and, if we're fortunate, South Africa's voters will stop voting according to historic allegiances and will cast their ballot according to what matters to them now.

In so many ways, South Africa is immeasurably better off now than when I left the country shortly after I finished school in 1987. People are not arrested in the middle of the night and detained without trial because of their political beliefs. People are free to live wherever they can afford to live and are not confined to certain areas because of their skin colour. Black South Africans are free to go to the movies and restaurants without the fear of being thrown out. We have a press that is often highly critical of government and is free to express itself without fear of reprisals. We have also have a constitution which holds government to account. And of course every adult South African has the right to vote for the political party of his or her choice. It is because of these fundamental changes that I chose to move back here. (full article)

IMMATURE DEMOCRACIES... WHERE ARE THE ISSUES?
General Elections in South Korea on April 15th

It is interesting to be in South Korea during the time of its general elections, and as I prepare to soon leave for the U.S. for good in early May I'm reflecting on my time here. During the the past four years of my life in South Korea, I never went through an analysis of its political system or election system because I was consumed by my professional life and I just wanted to be an ignorant American. Obviously, I know the general facts of politics in this nation and hear various insider stories through my family members and native Korean friends, but I never went through an exercise of conducting researching and writing an analysis of South Korea's political system or the health of its democracy. And this post will not be it... light blogging as I typically do :)

Anyways, I was having dinner with my parents and girlfriend a few days ago and we were discussing various topics. We began talking about the upcoming elections and how immature South Korea's democracy was. One representative action was the recent effort by the GNP (opposition party) that impeached President Roh. As I wrote before, it was so stupid for them to react emotionally and move to such actions without planning for it or polling people to help calculate the potential consequences. Also the grounds on which they impeached Roh was weak and really had no leg to stand on.

The conversation shifted to the general elections, so I began thinking about what factors are important to the Korean people. Much of the elections are based on affinity and regionalism. When Kim Dae-jung got elected, he received almost 100% of the vote from his home province, Jeolla, which had been a region under scorn and unfair prejudice. His successful election somewhat changed the negative prejudices against people from that region, but the regionalism continued.

People in South Korea vote more on affinity and personal charactertistics rather than political and social issues. My mother stated that night that she's never seen a candidate run on an issues-based platform. While I don't know if this is completely true, it is reflective of the majority of election campaigns.

It's even funny, in the article below, how the parties position themselves during this upcoming election:

The parties' leading campaigners are downplaying their chances of victory in an apparent attempt to win sympathy votes.

Sympathy votes? Who votes out of sympathy when an election is at stake to determining how you would be represented in government and how the person would best serve any of your needs or concerns?

Also the election watchdog televised his wisdom to inform people to "take a close look at the information on candidates such as tax payments and any criminal history to see if you think they are suitable for the job." Tax payments? Criminal history? Of course this is basic in the U.S., but sometimes I forget how young South Korea's democratic system is.

A candidate should run on more than where he or she is from, what school he went to, what family, or whatever else. It should be more on the quality of his ideas, how he wants to change and improve the nation, and what systems he wants to change to improve the quality of life for his constituents.

On the flipside, the voters in Korea should be thinking about these things, but it really hasn't progressed to the point of the average voter caring about such issues. About how to their elected representative should work to improve their quality of life, fight to improve the healthcare system, eliminate corruption so their business runs better, sweat to improve their schools so all children get a quality election, etc. But do citizens in Korea believe this is the role of their elected officials? Are elected officials capable to initiate such changes? I really don't know the answers to these questions, and it would be interesting to see some statistical and objective analysis of the citizens in Korea and how their views are changing or stagnant.

I'm also wondering how the progression of a democratic system is affected or hindered by the culture of a people. One of the most common phrases I hear during my time in Korea is, "Oh, that won't change. It's just the Korean way." Resistance to change is natural for individuals and corporate cultures, but for such thinking to be embedded in the average citizen can affect how much people believe in change and progress. Also how much faith they have in their elected officials to initiate changes and whether they should even bother to try.

It will be interesting to see how democracy matures in South Korea. Of course, I'm going to keep a close eye from across the Pacific. Interesting how things can become more important once you're farther away.

Last-minute campaigns seek to lure undecided voters

The Korea Herald
By Joo Sang-min
April 13, 2004

In the home stretch for Thursday's general elections, the rival parties are concentrating their last-minute campaigns on the increasing number of undecided voters and hotly contested districts to raise their chances of success.

Media reports said the election battle between the majority Grand National Party and the pro-government Uri Party was becoming too close to call in many districts across the nation.
.....
"Some GNP supporters, who moved to support the Uri Party after the impeachment vote, apparently became undecided," Kim Hyun-ki, a pollster at the polling firm Research & Research told The Korea Herald.
.....
The parties' leading campaigners are downplaying their chances of victory in an apparent attempt to win sympathy votes.
.....
In a televised news conference, Yoo Ji-dam, head of the election watchdog, advised voters to take a close look at information on candidates such as tax payments and any criminal history to see if they think they are suitable for the job. (full article)

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

LETTER TO DAN RATHER... A MARKOS ZUNIGA WANNABE
From The American Thinker... From Major Doug Hanson

An Open Letter to Dan Rather and CBS News
April 5th, 2004

Dear Mr. Rather:

I was stunned when I read some of the language concerning civilian contractors who risk death in Iraq, which you reportedly used in a segment on your CBS Evening News March 31st. Like many other Americans, I stopped watching your broadcast some time ago, so I am relying on published reports of what you said, after reporting the murder and desecration of the bodies of four American civilian contractors in Fallujah.

If these are reports are accurate, Mr. Rather, I demand an apology on behalf of myself, the many other patriotic Americans who are working, or have worked as civilian contractors in Iraq and other danger zones, and especially on behalf of those contractors who have, as you put it, paid “the ultimate price.”

You reportedly said, “What drives American civilians to risk death in Iraq? In this economy, it may be, for some, the only job they can find,” while the screen displayed the heading “Risking Death” over a video of people standing in a job application line.

The so-called news segment which followed painted contractors in Iraq as perennial losers who are so desperate that they would “risk anything for a decent paycheck,” as your colleague Bob McNamara put it. You, Managing Editor Dan Rather, have slandered all Americans who voluntarily contribute their skills to dangerous missions around the world, be they in or out of uniform.
.....
For example, there is Scott Helvenston, a former Navy SEAL, who was among the four security guard contractors killed in Fallujah. After service in his elite branch of the Navy, Scott started a career as a fitness instructor. Once again, he rose to the pinnacle of his profession, as a trainer to Hollywood stars, and also as a stunt man. He personally trained Demi Moore for her role in the film G.I. Jane. Many critics were astonished at the extent to which she was able to develop her physique, under the training regimen Scott developed for her. I would hardly call him “desperate.”

Or, take the case of Mr. Art Linderman, the supply truck driver noted in your news segment. I never worked with him, but I have known other heavy equipment operators, skilled and experienced professionals, who could have at any time worked in the United States, who nevertheless made the decision to go and drive relief trucks in Somalia. They knew the risks. Some of the men I knew were beaten severely while in theatre in Somalia. But their sense of mission and purpose never faltered.
.....

Mr. Rather, I am afraid that what you seem to do best is spin the truth for political ends. This is your right. But it is not right with me when you dishonor some of America’s best. You owe us all an apology.

It is quite apparent that you are the desperate one, not my civilian compatriots.

Sincerely,

Douglas Hanson
Major (Ret.), USA
Gulf War I; 90-91

(full letter)

Monday, April 12, 2004

POWERFUL LETTER BY FRED FRIENDLY
Similar Reasons for Why We Must Prevail in Iraq

From LGF:

"... powerful letter by Fred Friendly, who would become the president of CBS News, written in 1945 when he was a master sergeant with the American Army unit that liberated the Mauthausen concentration camp."

May 19, 1945

Dear Mother,

In just a few days I will be in an airplane on my way back to the APO to which you write me. Before I leave Europe, I must write this letter and attempt to convey to you that which I saw, felt and gasped at as I saw a war and a frightened peace stagger into a perilous existence. I have seen a dead Germany. If it is not dead it is certainly ruptured beyond repair. I have seen the beer hall where the era of the inferno and hate began and as I stood there in the damp moist hall where Nazidom was spawned, I heard only the dripping of a bullet-pierced beer barrel and the ticking of a clock which had already run out the time of the bastard who made the Munich beer hall a landmark. I saw the retching vomiting of the stone and mortar which had once been listed on maps as Nurnheim, Regensberg, Munich, Frankfurt, Augusburg, Lintz, and wondered how a civilization could ever again spring from cities so utterly removed from the face of the earth by weapons the enemy taught us to use at Coventry and Canterbury. I have met the German, have examined the storm trooper, his wife and his heritage of hate, and I have learned to hate - almost with as much fury as the G.I. who saw his buddy killed at the Bulge, almost as much as the Pole from Bridgeport who lost 100 pounds at Mauthausen, Austria. I have learned now and only now that this war had to be fought. I wish I might have done more. I envy with a bottomless spirit the American soldier who may tell his grandchildren that with his hands he killed Germans.

That which is in my heart now I want you and those dear to us know and yet I find myself completely incapable of putting it into letter form. I think if I could sit down in our living room or the den at 11 President, I might be able to convey a poertion of the dismal, horrible and yet titanic mural which is Europe today. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do that for months or maybe a year, and by then the passing of time may dim the memory. Some of the senses will live just so long as I do - some of the sounds, like the dripping beer, like the firing of a Russian tommy gun, will always bring back the thought of something I may try to forget, but never will be able to do.

For example, when I go to the Boston Symphony, when I hear waves of applause, no matter what the music is, I shall be traveling back to a town near Lintz where I heard applause unequalled in history, and where I was allowed to see the ordeal which our fellow brothers and sisters of the human race have endured. To me Poland is no longer the place where Chopin composed, or where a radio station held out for three weeks - to me Poland is a place from which the prisoners of Mauthausen came. When I think of the Czechs, I will think of those who were butchered here, and that goes for the Jews, the Russians, Austrians, the people of 15 different lands, - yes, even the Germans who passsed through this Willow Run of death. This was Mauthausen. I want you to remember the word... I want you to know, I want you to never forget or let our disbelieving friends forget, that your flesh and blood saw this. This was no movie. No printed page. Your son saw this with his own eyes and in doing this aged 10 years.

Mauthausen was built with a half-million rocks which 150,000 prisoners - 18,000 was the capacity - carried up on their backs from a quarry 800 feet below. They carried it up steps so steep that a Captain and I walked it once and were winded, without a load. They carried granite and made 8 trips a day... and if they stumbled, the S.S. men pushed them into the quarry. There are 285 steps, covered with blood. They called it the steps of death. I saw the shower room (twice or three times the size of our bathroom), a chamber lined with tile and topped with sprinklers where 150 prisoners at a time were disrobed and ordered in for a shower which never gushed forth from the sprinklers because the chemical was gas. When they ran out of gas, they merely sucked all of the air out of the room. I talked to the Jews who worked in the crematory, one room adjacent, where six and seven bodies at a time were burned. They gave these jobs to the Jews because they all died anyhow, and they didn’t want the rest of the prisoners to know their own fate. The Jews knew theirs, you see.

I saw the living skeletons, some of whom regardless of our medical corps work, will die and be in piles like that in the next few days. Malnutrition doesn’t stop the day that food is administered. Don’t get the idea that these people here were all derelicts, all just masses of people... some of them were doctors, authors, some of them American citizens. A scattered few were G.I.s. A Navy lieutenant still lives to tell the story. I saw where they lived; I saw where the sick died, three and four in a bed, no toilets, no nothing. I saw the look in their eyes. I shall never stop seeing the expression in the eyes of the anti-Franco former prisoners who have been given the job of guarding the S.S. men who were captured.

And how does the applause fit in? Mother, I walked through countless cell blocks filled with sick, dying people - 300 in a room twice the size of our living room as as we walked in - there was a ripple of applause and then an inspiring burst of applause and cheers, and men who could not stand up sat and whispered - though they tried to shout it - Vive L’Americansky... Vive L’Americansky... the applause, the cheers, those faces of men with legs the size and shape of rope, with ulcerated bodies, weeping with a kind of joy you and I will never, I hope, know. Vive L’Americansky... I got a cousin in Milwaukee... We thought you guys would come... Vive L’Americansky... Applause... gaunt, hopeless faces at last filled with hope. One younger man asked something in Polish which I could not understand but I did detect the word “Yit”... I asked an interpreter what he said - The interpreter blushed and finally said, “He wants to know if you are a Jew.” When I smiled and stuck out my mitt and said “yes”... he was unable to speak or show the feeling that was in his heart. As I walked away, I suddenly realized that this had been the first time I had shaken hands with my right hand. That, my dear, was Mauthausen.

I will write more letter in days to come. I want to write one on the Russians. I want to write and tell you how I sat next to Patton and Tolbukhin at a banquet at the Castle of Franz Josef. I want to write and tell you how the Germans look in defeat, how Munich looked in death, but those things sparkle with excitement and make good reading. This is my Mauthausen letter. I hope you will see fit to let Bill Braude and the folks read it. I would like to think that all the Wachenheimers and all the Friendlys and all our good Providence friends would read it. Then I want you to put it away and every Yom Kippur I want you to take it out and make your grandchildren read it.

For, if there had been no America, we, all of us, might well have carried granite at Mauthausen.

All my love,
F.F.

AWESOME TONY BLAIR PIECE
Proving Again Why He's One of the Best Leaders in the World

Why we must never abandon this historic struggle in Iraq

Tony Blair
Sunday April 11, 2004
The Observer

We are locked in a historic struggle in Iraq. On its outcome hangs more than the fate of the Iraqi people. Were we to fail, which we will not, it is more than 'the power of America' that would be defeated. The hope of freedom and religious tolerance in Iraq would be snuffed out. Dictators would rejoice; fanatics and terrorists would be triumphant. Every nascent strand of moderate Arab opinion, knowing full well that the future should not belong to fundamentalist religion, would be set back in bitter disappointment.

If we succeed - if Iraq becomes a sovereign state, governed democratically by the Iraqi people; the wealth of that potentially rich country, their wealth; the oil, their oil; the police state replaced by the rule of law and respect for human rights - imagine the blow dealt to the poisonous propaganda of the extremists. Imagine the propulsion toward change it would inaugurate all over the Middle East.

In every country, including our own, the fanatics are preaching their gospel of hate, basing their doctrine on a wilful perversion of the true religion of Islam. At their fringe are groups of young men prepared to conduct terrorist attacks however and whenever they can. Thousands of victims the world over have now died, but the impact is worse than the death of innocent people.

The terrorists prey on ethnic or religious discord. From Kashmir to Chechnya, to Palestine and Israel, they foment hatred, they deter reconciliation. In Europe, they conducted the massacre in Madrid. They threaten France. They forced the cancellation of the President of Germany's visit to Djibouti. They have been foiled in Britain, but only for now.

Of course they use Iraq. It is vital to them. As each attack brings about American attempts to restore order, so they then characterise it as American brutality. As each piece of chaos menaces the very path toward peace and democracy along which most Iraqis want to travel, they use it to try to make the coalition lose heart, and bring about the retreat that is the fanatics' victory.

They know it is a historic struggle. They know their victory would do far more than defeat America or Britain. It would defeat civilisation and democracy everywhere. They know it, but do we? The truth is, faced with this struggle, on which our own fate hangs, a significant part of Western opinion is sitting back, if not half-hoping we fail, certainly replete with schadenfreude at the difficulty we find.

So what exactly is the nature of the battle inside Iraq itself? This is not a 'civil war', though the purpose of the terrorism is undoubtedly to try to provoke one. The current upsurge in violence has not spread throughout Iraq. Much of Iraq is unaffected and most Iraqis reject it. The insurgents are former Saddam sympathisers, angry that their status as 'boss' has been removed, terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda and, most recently, followers of the Shia cleric, Muqtada-al-Sadr.

The latter is not in any shape or form representative of majority Shia opinion. He is a fundamentalist, an extremist, an advocate of violence. He is wanted in connection with the murder of the moderate and much more senior cleric, Ayatollah al Khoei last year. The prosecutor, an Iraqi judge, who issued a warrant for his arrest, is the personification of how appallingly one-sided some of the Western reporting has become. Dismissed as an American stooge, he has braved assassination attempts and extraordinary intimidation in order to follow proper judicial process and has insisted on issuing the warrant despite direct threats to his life in doing so.

There you have it. On the one side, outside terrorists, an extremist who has created his own militia, and remnants of a brutal dictatorship which murdered hundreds of thousands of its own people and enslaved the rest. On the other side, people of immense courage and humanity who dare to believe that basic human rights and liberty are not alien to Arab and Middle Eastern culture, but are their salvation.

Over the past few weeks, I have met several people from the Iraqi government, the first genuine cross-community government Iraq had seen. People like Mrs Barwari, the Minister of Public Works, who has just survived a second assassination attempt that killed her bodyguard; people like Mr Zebari, the Foreign Minister. They are intelligent, forward-looking, tolerant, dedicated to their country. They know that 'the occupation' can be used to stir up anti-coalition feeling; they, too, want their country governed by its people and no one else. But they also know that if we cut and run, their country would be at the mercy of warring groups which are united only in their distaste for democracy.

The tragedy is that outside of the violence which dominated the coverage of Iraq, there are incredible possibilities of progress. There is a huge amount of reconstruction going on; the legacy of decades of neglect is slowly being repaired.

By 1 June, electricity will be 6,000MW, 50 per cent more than prewar, but short of the 7,500MW they now need because of the massive opening up of the economy, set to grow by 60 per cent this year and 25 per cent the next.

The first private banks are being opened. A new currency is in circulation. Those in work have seen their salaries trebled or quadrupled and unemployment is falling. One million cars have been imported. Thirty per cent now have satellite TV, once banned, where they can watch al-Jazeera, the radical Arab TV station, telling them how awful the Americans are.

The internet is no longer forbidden. Shrines are no longer shut. Groups of women and lawyers meet to discuss how they can make sure the new constitution genuinely promotes equality. The universities eagerly visit Western counterparts to see how a modern, higher-education system, free to study as it pleases, would help the new Iraq.

People in the West ask: why don't they speak up, these standard-bearers of the new Iraq? Why don't the Shia clerics denounce al-Sadr more strongly? I understand why the question is asked. But the answer is simple: they are worried. They remember 1991, when the West left them to their fate. They know their own street, unused to democratic debate, rife with every rumour, and know its volatility. They read the Western papers and hear its media. And they ask, as the terrorists do: have we the stomach to see it through?

I believe we do. And the rest of the world must hope that we do. None of this is to say we do not have to learn and listen. There is an agenda that could unite the majority of the world. It would be about pursuing terrorism and rogue states on the one hand and actively remedying the causes around which they flourish on the other: the Palestinian issue; poverty and development; democracy in the Middle East; dialogue between main religions.

I have come firmly to believe the only ultimate security lies in our values. The more people are free, the more tolerant they are of others; the more prosperous, the less inclined they are to squander that prosperity on pointless feuding and war.

But our greatest threat, apart from the immediate one of terrorism, is our complacency. When some ascribe, as they do, the upsurge in Islamic extremism to Iraq, do they really forget who killed whom on 11 September 2001? When they call on us to bring the troops home, do they seriously think that this would slake the thirst of these extremists, to say nothing of what it would do to the Iraqis?

Or if we scorned our American allies and told them to go and fight on their own, that somehow we would be spared? If we withdraw from Iraq, they will tell us to withdraw from Afghanistan and, after that, to withdraw from the Middle East completely and, after that, who knows? But one thing is for sure: they have faith in our weakness just as they have faith in their own religious fanaticism. And the weaker we are, the more they will come after us.

It is not easy to persuade people of all this; to say that terrorism and unstable states with WMD are just two sides of the same coin; to tell people what they don't want to hear; that, in a world in which we in the West enjoy all the pleasures, profound and trivial, of modern existence, we are in grave danger.

There is a battle we have to fight, a struggle we have to win and it is happening now in Iraq.

SURGE OF SPECIALITY PATENT FIRMS
Not Sure If This is a Good Thing

As long as it doesn't justify in anyway what the SCO Group is doing.

Patent payoffs fuel rush of new start-ups

News.com
April 11, 2004

The draw of lucrative patent licensing deals in the technology sector is swelling the ranks of specialty patent businesses that try to turn technical breakthroughs into big money.

These new companies, often run by former Silicon Valley executives, buy unused patents from companies, broker deals between buyers and sellers of patents, and act as patent "investment banks" to turn knowledge into new businesses. (full article)

MORE FROM JOE ROCHE... A SOLIDER'S VOICE FROM IRAQ
"My Battalion is Right in the Middle of Sadr's Challenge"

An E-Mail from Joe Roche
Joe Roche's essay giving us a soldier's view of what is going on in Iraq has now been run by several newspapers, cited on the RushLimbaugh.com main page (listed as "Great Letter to the Editor" in the "stack of stuff"), on the front page of Lucianne.com yesterday, on some blogs (for example, Blackfive), and elsewhere.

There's also an amusing discussion on Free Republic as to whether Joe is real and if he has a Master's Degree. I told Joe via e-mail about the Free Republic debate and he managed to see it (it is not easy for him to view things online because he has to rely on a weak satellite connection for his Internet access). He got quite a kick out of the thread there and has a message for the Freepers: yes, he is real, and no, he does not have a Master's Degree.

But on to the more important issue -- Joe's comments on what is going on in Iraq right now. An excerpt from his e-mail of this morning, U.S. Eastern time:

...Let me tell you, it is maddening to watch the news. Even now! I've told you this before, but I'll repeat it for clarity -- My unit, the 16th En Bn of the 1st AD, covers Sadr City and the bulk of the most intense areas of downtown, mostly east side of the Tigris. If you look at a map, pretty much everything north from the Palestine & Sheraton hotels north and east. My point is that my battalion is right in the middle of Sadr's challenge.

I would like to tell you a zillion things, but for the moment allow me to tell you that none of this here is a surprise or unplanned. We've been on these very current events for several months.

However, NONE OF THIS is the disaster bad news that you are seeing on CNN and others. Let me give you perhaps one of the best examples. A police station that we covered and set up last summer in Al-Shawla made the news yesterday because, SHOCKINGLY!!! it was attacked by two RPGs. Now, Amy, here is the reality....

Last summer that very police station was HIT 2-3 times every damn night for 20 consecutive days while my battalion and the 2nd LCR were working to secure it. In this current crisis, it wasn't even hit -- the RPGs flew over the bldg, and there were only 2 fired in one night.

Basically what I think is happening reminds me of Peter Breastrup's (sp?) book, The Big Story, about the press coverage of the Tet Offensive. CNN and most others are hold-up in the Palestine and Sheraton hotels (which my unit put the "blast deflectors" and hesco bastions around!) because they can't get around the city w/ us as they'd like. They get their two minutes on tv and make it seem like they are in the middle of Tet Two.

...Ok, I could go on. Just to give you a heads up, when Sadr is captured, there may be an initial explosion like happened after Israel took out Yassin. But it will pass and the most senior Shia clerics like Sistani will re-assert control.

I liken this to going in for an operation to remove a small cancer tumor. It is a painful and disruptive procedure, but it is necessary to make things better.

…getting an accurate picture showing the positive side of things is never more critical than now.

Take Care...

-Joe

LETTER FROM THE FRONTLINES OF IRAQ
Dems Hate Hearing About Realism

It's funny I got the email below a couple days after I read an op-ed in the NYTimes by Maureen Dowd:

Our troops in Iraq don't know who they're fighting and who they're saving. They don't know when they're coming home or when they're being forcibly re-upped by Rummy. Our diplomats in Baghdad don't know who they're handing the country over to next month. And Bush officials don't know where to go for help, since the military's tapped out, the allies have cold feet, the Arab world's angry and the rest of the globe is thinking, "You got what you deserved." (rest of the annoying op-ed, which i'll comment on after iraq is stabilized. it's just too annoying to reply to the whole thing right now:)

After I read Ms. Dowd's piece, the first thing I wanted to do is to find out what our troops are really thinking. What if a polling firm took the task to challenge and prove how wrong and off her comments are. I believe most of our troops do know who they are fighting and who they are saving. Do not belittle our nation's military, Ms. Dowd. It's funny because such truths scare the left and those so strongly against the war. After reading the letter below, check out Democrats.com's response to these letters. They actually challenged the validity of Mr. Roche's letters and his existence. Wow.

Keep the Faith: A Letter from Iraq

by Joe Roche
U.S. Army's 16th Combat Engineer Battalion
April 2004

I'm in Baghdad, Iraq.

I'm a soldier with the U.S. Army serving in the 16th Combat Engineer Battalion.

The news you are hearing stateside is awfully depressing and negative. The reality is we are accomplishing a tremendous amount here, and the Iraqi people are not only benefiting greatly, but are enthusiastically supportive.

My job is mostly to be the driver of my platoon's lead Humvee. I see the missions our Army is performing, and I interact closely with the Iraqi people. Because of this, I know how successful and important our work is.

My battalion carries out dozens of missions all over the city -- missions that are improving peoples' lives. We have restored schools and universities, hospitals, power plants and water systems. We have engineered new infrastructure projects and much more. We have also brought security and order to many of Baghdad's worst areas -- areas once afflicted with chaos and brutality.

Our efforts to train vast numbers of Iraqis to police and secure the city's basic law and order are bearing fruit.

Our mission is vital. We are transforming a once very sick society into a hopeful place. Dozens of newspapers and the concepts of freedom of religious worship and __expression are flowering here. So, too, are educational improvements.

This is the work of the U.S. military.

Our progress is amazing. Many people who knew only repression and terror now have hope in their heart and prosperity in their grasp.

Every day the Iraqi people stream out into the streets to cheer and wave at us as we drive by. When I'm on a foot patrol, walking among a crowd, countless people thank us --repeatedly.

I realize the shocking image of a dead soldier or a burning car is more sellable than boring, detailed accounts of our rebuilding efforts. This is why you hear bad news and may be receiving an incorrect picture.

Baghdad has more than 5 million inhabitants. If these people were in an uprising against the United States, which you might think is happening, we would be overwhelmed in hours. There are weapons everywhere, and though we are working hard to gather them all, we simply can't.

Our Army is carrying out approximately 1,700 convoys and patrols each day. Only a tiny percentage actually encounter hostile action. My unit covers some of the worst and most intense areas, and I have seen some of the most tragic attacks and hostility, such as the bombing of the United Nations headquarters. I'm not out of touch with the negative side of things. In fact, I think my unit has it harder than many other Army units in this whole operation.! That said, despite some attacks, the overall picture is one of extreme success and much thanks.

The various terrorist enemies we are facing in Iraq are really aiming at you back in the United States. This is a test of will for our country. We soldiers of yours are doing great and scoring victories in confronting the evil terrorists.

The reality is one of an ever-increasing defeat of the enemies we face. Our enemies are therefore more desperate. They are striking out more viciously and indiscriminately. I realize this is causing Americans stress, and I assure you it causes us stress, too.

When I was a civilian, I spent time as a volunteer with the Israeli army. I assure you we are not facing the hostility Israelis face. Here in Iraq, we Americans are welcomed by most Iraqis.

I'm not trying to sound like a big tough guy. I'm scared every day, and pray before every mission for our safety and success. This is a combat zone. We are in the heart of the world's leading terrorist birthing society. I remember well how families of suicide bombers who attacked in Israel received tens of thousands of dollars from Saddam for their kins' horrendous crimes. A generation of Iraqis was growing up in a Stalinist worship of such terrorism.

They are no longer.

Instead, Iraqis today are embracing freedom and the birth of democracy. With this comes hope for the future.

Yes, there are terrorists who wish to strike these things down, but this is a test of will we must win.

We can do this, as long as Americans at home keep faith with the soldiers in this war.

We are Americans, after all. We can and must win this test. That is all it is.

Joe Roche serves with the U.S. Army's 16th Combat Engineer Battalion in Iraq and is an adjunct fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, a Washington think-tank. Comments may be sent to him via info@nationalcenter.org

CHINA'S SEARCH ENGINE TO TOPPLE GOOGLE?
From Pacific Epoch... Time Will Tell

HUST's DRIS To Topple Google DRIS, Google, HUST, Wang Liang, Yahoo!

By Kevin Wu
April 12, 2004

Domain Resources Integrated System (DRIS), a distributed information search system developed by Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), will be able to replace Internet search engines Google and Yahoo!, Wang Liang HUST researcher told Sina. DRIS allows users to search Internet resources on web pages or in databases. In addition to basic search services, DRIS is able to work with external collaborative software and offer customized search functions. Once integrated with the Internet, the system will be able to provide tailored search solutions to any user. HUST hopes DRIS will eventually become an extension of domain name service and part of the wider Internet infrastructure.

LOUIS FREEH SPEAKS UP FOR THE WAR

Gotta post this whole thing up.

Before 9/11--and After
Only a nation at war can properly confront terrorism.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BY LOUIS J. FREEH
Monday, April 12, 2004 12:01 a.m.

Al Qaeda was at war with the U.S. even before Sept. 11, 2001. In August 1998, it attacked our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In December 1999, one of al Qaeda's soldiers, Ahmed Ressam, entered the U.S. to bomb Los Angeles airport. In October 2000, al Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in the port of Aden.

The question before the 9/11 Commission is why our political leadership declared war back on al Qaeda only after Sept. 11, 2001. Osama bin Laden had been indicted years before for blowing up American soldiers and embassies and was known as a clear and present danger to the U.S. So what would have happened had the U.S. declared war on al Qaeda before Sept. 11? Endless and ultimately useless speculation about "various threads and pieces of information," which are certainly "relevant and significant," at least in retrospect, will not take us very far in answering this central question.

On Jan. 26, 2001, at 8:45 a.m., I had my first meeting with President Bush and Vice President Cheney. They had been in office four days. We discussed terrorism, and in particular al Qaeda, the African embassy bombings, the Cole attack and the June 1996 Khobar bombing in Saudi Arabia. When I advised the president that Hezbollah and Iran were responsible for Khobar, he directed me to follow-up with Condoleezza Rice. I did so at 2:30 p.m. that day and she told me to pursue our investigation with the attorney general and to bring whatever charges possible. Within weeks, a new prosecutor was put in charge of the case and on June 21 an indictment was returned against 13 Hezbollah men who had been directed to bomb Khobar by senior officials of the Iranian government. I know that the families of the 19 murdered airmen were deeply grateful to President Bush and Ms. Rice for their prompt response and focus on terrorism.

I believe that any president and Congress faced with the reality of Sept. 11 would have acted swiftly and overwhelmingly as did President Bush and the 107th Congress. They are to be commended. However, those who came before President Bush can only be faulted if they had had the political means and the will of the nation to declare a war back then, but failed to do so. The fact that terrorism and the war being waged by al Qaeda was not even an issue in the 2000 presidential campaign strongly suggests that the political will to declare and fight this war didn't exist before Sept. 11.

All of this is not to say that the intelligence and law enforcement communities couldn't have done more to protect the nation from a Sept. 11. As FBI director I share in that responsibility. And I don't know of any FBI agents who would not have given their lives--two did--to prevent Sept. 11 from happening. The Joint Intelligence Committee and now the 9/11 Commission are properly seeking to understand how Sept. 11 was able to happen. But the grand failure to comprehend the contrast between the pre-9/11 fight against terrorism with the total war being waged since Sept. 11 blinds us to an immensely significant historical and political dialectic.

The 1993 attack on the World Trade Center by foreign-trained terrorists focused the FBI on homeland security and prevention as its counterterrorism priority. Excellent investigation and skillful prosecution effectively identified the terrorists involved. Those who were quickly captured were tried and convicted. Ramzi Yousef, a terrorist mastermind, fled to Pakistan along with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, now believed to be one of the architects of Sept. 11. The FBI's 1993 criminal investigation identified and stopped another plan by Sheik Rahman to blow up New York City tunnels, bridges and buildings (dubbed "Terrstop"). Important lesson learned: Good investigation is also good prevention. Two years later, FBI agents surprised Yousef at a guest house in Pakistan and brought him back to Foley Square, where he was convicted for two terrorist attacks. Besides the 1993 WTC murders, he was also convicted for his plot to blow up 11 U.S. airliners. His arrest and return to face justice was the result of long and painstaking investigation. Important lesson repeated: Investigation is prevention, and it also saves lives.

Yousef's arrest taught another valuable lesson. His apprehension was enabled by the fact that an FBI legal attach?, or "legat," was assigned to Islamabad in 1996. A legat is a "declared" FBI agent who serves as our liaison with the host country's law enforcement services. The expansion of our Legat Offices from 19 to 44 (from 1993-2001) was an integral part of the FBI's counterterrorism strategy. We determined in 1993 that the FBI needed legats in Tel Aviv, Cairo, Ankara, Riyadh, Amman, Tashkent and Almaty--to deter terrorists from murdering Americans. We later proposed legats in Tunis, Kuala Lampur, Jakarta, Rabat, Sana, Tbilisi and Abu Dhabi. The FBI and CIA narrowly missed grabbing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in 1996 as he was about to travel from Doha to the UAE. Only because we had an arrest warrant was capture an option. Legats in those countries would have improved our chances of success.

FBI terrorist "cases" are designed to collect maximum information, evidence and intelligence in order to prosecute and pre-empt such activities. U.S. v. bin Laden, et al., tried successfully in New York from January through May 2001, was just one byproduct of an international program that targeted bin Laden/al Qaeda, ongoing since the 1993 WTC bombing when his name first surfaced as an organizer and financier of military training camps in Afghanistan.

FBI investigators seek to pursue all leads to their logical end, and follow those leads wherever they take us. Leads are unfortunately developed in the wake of terrorist attacks; but more often they are developed proactively, through sources and cooperators. In multiple instances, FBI investigations have disrupted planned attacks in the U.S. Moreover, FBI investigation has significantly contributed to the identification of al Qaeda's leadership, organization, methods, training, finances, geographical reach and intent. Through the pursuit of leads, the FBI's investigation of bin Laden and al Qaeda can be credited with having "jump-started" investigations in other parts of the world, Europe in particular. The FBI is extremely effective in conducting interviews, and putting together both criminal and intelligence cases. Information obtained through law-enforcement channels--whether testimony, documents, records, photographs, forensic evidence or the results of interviews--provides the purest form of intelligence.

Short of total war, the FBI relentlessly did its job of pursuing terrorists, always with the goal of preventing their attacks. But the FBI's pre-9/11 Counter-Terrorism (CT) resources were finite and insufficient--3.5% of the entire government's CT budget. In 1993, we had fewer than 600 special agents and 500 support positions funded for CT. By 1999, we'd more than doubled our personnel and trebled the FBI's CT budget to $301 million. We knew it wasn't enough. For Fiscal Years 2000, 2001 and 2002 the FBI asked for 1,895 special agents, analysts and linguists to enhance our CT program. We got 76 people for those three critical years. FY 2000 was typical: 864 CT positions at a cost of $380.8 million requested--five people funded for $7.4 million. This isn't a criticism of the DoJ, White House or Congress--that's how Washington makes its budgets, balancing competing needs against limited resources. The point is: The FBI was intensely focused on its CT needs but antebellum politics was not yet there. By contrast, after Sept. 11, the FBI's FY 2002 Emergency Supplemental CT budget was increased overnight by 823 positions for $745 million. The al Qaeda threat was the same on Sept. 10 and Sept. 12. Nothing focuses a government quicker than a war.

Before Sept. 11, the FBI relentlessly pursued criminal investigations, renditions and prosecutions of terrorists, particularly bin Laden and al Qaeda. This was an integral part of two administrations' CT strategy. This course wasn't pursued because we believed indicting bin Laden and issuing warrants for al Qaeda leaders would stop their war against us. In fact, we always viewed this law-enforcement action as limited in scope and completely secondary in terms of national security. Yet aside from cruise missiles, armed Predators and invading countries which harbored terrorists, this was our chosen path.

Sometimes it worked. Yousef's arrest didn't happen without an active warrant. After Mir Aimal Kansi's murders of CIA personnel in Langley, Va., it was his indictment that led to his arrest by FBI agents in Pakistan and murder convictions back in Fairfax County. We continue to pursue the arrest of Hezbollah's military commander for the murders of our Marines in Lebanon and Navy diver Robert Stethem. His capture may rest on an FBI arrest warrant. The al Qaeda terrorists who destroyed our African embassies and almost sunk the Cole have all been indicted and are now hounded by FBI agents as well as by CIA officers and our armed services. Even the administrators in Iraq have gone after Muqtada al-Sadr with an arrest warrant.

The FBI was relentless in indicting and pursuing the terrorist agents of Iran who blew up Khobar Towers. Why were we pursuing this case? Certainly not because we thought that arrest warrants for 13 fugitives protected by Iran was the best way to stop that country from sponsoring terrorist attacks. A poll of FBI agents would show a preference for a military operation against Iran as the more effective action. But short of "warring back," there's a fundamental but misunderstood notion about why it's a good thing to at least have an arrest warrant. Experience has taught the FBI that we never know the place and time--it's not of our choosing--when one of these terrorists is suddenly found traversing an airport, or is within-the-grab of a country that will remit him to us or to a "friendly" place only because we have a warrant. Hence the FBI always wanted to be in a position where--as with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed--we could capture a high-value target in a rare chance because we'd taken the trouble to get an indictment and a warrant. We don't think the American judicial process is always the best defense against terrorism--it's not; but it does give terror victims another means for justice.

Pre-9/11, the FBI used all the means at its disposal to capture bin Laden and to prevent future attacks against America. The FBI and CIA actively targeted al Qaeda and bin Laden beginning one year before the East Africa embassy attacks on Aug. 7, 1998. Together, they were able to indict bin Laden prior to Aug. 7 for a plot to murder U.S. soldiers in Yemen. In November 1998, he was indicted a second time for the embassy bombings and put on the FBI's Top 10 list in April 1999. In 1999, a dedicated "bin Laden Unit" was established at FBIHQ and the CIA-FBI "bin Laden station" began to operate covertly on an international basis. Of course, our arrest warrants, by themselves, were pieces of paper. The U.S. armed forces provided a means to execute a warrant to the FBI and DEA in 1988 by invading Panama in order to allow agents to arrest Manuel Noriega. Similar means to capture bin Laden did not become available until October 2001, when Afghanistan was so successfully invaded by our forces.

Before then, diplomacy and other means were tried. The U.S. brought political pressure on the Taliban to turn over bin Laden--but to no avail. The CIA and FBI sorted through a series of proposed, covert actions designed to capture bin Laden in Afghanistan and bring him to justice. None of the plans appeared to have any chance of success and were not approved. Finally, on April 6, 2000, after consultation with the national security adviser and the State Department, I traveled to meet Pervez Musharraf and requested his personal assistance in capturing bin Laden. Gen. Musharraf was polite but unhelpful. He explained that he had personal assurances from Mullah Omar of the Taliban that bin Laden was innocent of the East African bombings and had abandoned terrorism. We gave Gen. Musharraf and his military leaders an extensive briefing of our evidence against bin Laden and al Qaeda and followed up our meeting by sending FBI agents and an assistant U.S. attorney from New York to Pakistan to make the case for arresting bin Laden. It was clear that short of the U.S. declaring war against bin Laden and his Taliban accessories, Pakistan was not going to help us get this terrorist out of Afghanistan.

Protecting our homeland from attacks by foreign terrorists had long been the FBI's priority. Back in September 1994, I recommended to Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick that the DoJ strengthen investigative powers against suspected "undesirable aliens," accelerating deportation appeal proceedings and limiting U.S. participation in a visa waiver pilot program under which 9.5 million foreigners entered the U.S. in 1994. I also recommended that we include provisions for the detention and removal of undesirable aliens, under a special, closed-court procedure. I also criticized alien deportation appeal procedures which often took years to conclude. Finally, I recommended legislation to provide the FBI with roving wiretap authority to investigate terrorist activities in the U.S. President Clinton requested that authority in 1996.

The FBI was also active in focusing on the terrorist threat to Americans overseas, our first line of defense. This was the centerpiece of the dramatic expansion of legat offices. The FBI must have this foreign capability to carry out effective CT, especially prevention. When I left the FBI, I'd proposed that we establish an FBI training facility in Central Asia, as we'd done in Budapest in 1995, and had begun in Dubai, to enhance our ability to establish liaison and critical points of contact in those important regions. There is absolutely no substitute for these liaisons. Without them we risk being blind.

The FBI's expansion overseas paid immense dividends. The U.S.'s rapid response after Sept. 11 was based in part on this infrastructure. And during our examination of the forensic evidence from the Cole case, it was discovered that the explosive used was possibly manufactured in Russia. Because the FBI had been working in Russia since 1994, I was able to call the FSB (Russian intelligence) director and ask for assistance. His response was immediate. Russian experts provided us with all the information requested, helping immensely.

Everyone understands why and how some of our basic rules, beginning with provisions of the Patriot Act, changed after Sept. 11. America declared war on al Qaeda and bin Laden, and the Congress and president put the country on a war footing. It's important to remember that war changed these rules and the FBI, CIA and the rest of the government can only be judged prior to Sept. 11 by the pre-existing rules.

The FBI and CIA working together have accomplished much in fighting terrorism, but it is a continuing battle. These agencies should remain the primary counterterrorism agencies. But al Qaeda-type organizations, state sponsors of terrorism like Iran, and the threats they pose to America, are ultimately beyond the competence of the FBI and the CIA to address. America must maintain the will to use its political, military and economic power when acts of war are threatened or committed against our nation by terrorists or their state sponsors. We have now seen how war is declared and waged against terrorists who attack our nation. The painful lesson is that fighting terrorism without such a declaration of war is unlikely to be successful.

Mr. Freeh, a former FBI director, is scheduled to testify before the 9/11 Commission tomorrow.

KERRY AND 'WAFFLES' HITS USA TODAY
Kudos to Ken Jacobson... Hilarious and Truthful Exercise

If you remember my prior post on Esoteric-Diatribe's site, it was a prank to Google-Bomb John Kerry's campaign so that "waffles" brings up his campaign site each time someone searches for "waffles." Well, it got press today in USA Today:

Kerry gets served up with 'waffles'

By Mark Memmott
USA TODAY
April 11, 2004

Some jokers who don't like the Democratic presidential candidate are trying to make his campaign Web site, johnkerry.com, the first answer to a search of the word "waffles" on Google, the No. 1 Internet search engine.

They've nearly succeeded on the No. 2 search engine, Yahoo. By Sunday, eight days after the prank began, johnkerry.com was listed second among 703,000 results of a Yahoo search of the word "waffles." (full article)

Sunday, April 11, 2004

U.S. ECONOMY BOUNCING BACK... OR IT ALREADY DID
Did You Miss it?

The Dangerfield Economy

The Wall Street Journal
Review and Outlook
April 5, 2004

Friday's report of roaring job numbers for March … was good news that even the chattering classes couldn't deny. Then again, give them a day or two and they'll have us back in Hooverville. Like Rodney Dangerfield, this is the recovery that can't get no respect.

By nearly every objective measure, the U.S. economy is strong ... Just look at the Misery Index … it's indicating that … the U.S. economy is doing very well.

Today's unemployment rate of 5.7% is close to the level Bill Clinton boasted about … in 1996. Meanwhile, inflation has fallen by a full percentage point over the past eight years. … President Bush's policies should be enjoying at least a modicum of respect.

Instead, the media have done a terrific job of convincing everybody that these are the worst of times. A poll … by the American Research Group in mid-March found that 44% of Americans believed that the country was still in a recession. That's … strange when you consider that the last recession ended … in November of 2001, and for the last two quarters of 2003 the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 6.1%, the fastest in 20 years. … the percentage of gloomsters was higher in March, when we now know 308,000 new jobs were being created ...

The angst is also hard to fathom given that Americans are richer than they've ever been before. Household wealth recently hit $44.4 trillion, an all-time high. … [A] record 68.6% of households own their own homes ...

Household income is up 4.1% … Corporate profits … hit a record level in the fourth quarter of last year, and are expected to rise at a more than 15% clip in the first quarter of this year.

So why are Americans feeling so peevish? One … explanation is that globalization has brought on increased job turnover ... The only problem with this theory is that the "churn rate” … has been falling since the middle of 2001.

That leaves the inescapable conclusion that the problem is perception. This pessimism is … fed by Democrats who want to retake the White House. But it's also flogged by a media that can't seem to admit that the real news of the past three years is how well the U.S. economy has weathered the shocks of a huge stock-market blowoff, September 11, business scandals and the long prelude to war in Iraq. …

Still and all, by November the American people will have had ample time to figure out the good news behind this smokescreen of negativity. … (full article / subscription required)

HAPPY EASTER!

Thoughts on Easter by Doug Bandow. Some more good thoughts by Philip Yancey in Christianity Today here, and a good overview by the magazine here.

Friday, April 09, 2004

ASIAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY RALLYING
Another Google-Bomb... Whitney Mcnally & Details Getting Hit

So if your Asian American and concerned about Ms. McNally's racist article, post www.whitneymcnally.com on your website or blog. Also you can link the URL to Details Magazine or Details, so when people Google them this website comes up.

LEFT-WING LOSERS... 'WHATEVER'WATCH
League of WatchBlogs on Right-Leaning Bloggers

This totally cracks me up! I randomly came across this site. A Little Green Footballs Watch Blog! Then I saw that there were watch sites of Instapundit, Lucianne, Andrew Sullivan, and others. Reflective of the whole bunch, the site "Smarter Andrew Sullivan" cracks me up! After visiting his site, he is clearly not smarter than Andrew Sullivan. It's funny that members of the left-wing set up these sites. It shows how they cannot generate their own credible content, so they have to leech off these bloggers... use their content has a springboard for their blogging. Pretty weak if you ask me. They should go back to school and expand their knowledge, or take a few writing lessons from Kevin Drum or the guys at Winds of Change.

Also if you're going to try to discredit bloggers from the right, you have to get all the prominent ones. Where's PowerlineWatch? And HughHewittWatch? And TheAmericanThinkerWatch?

Thursday, April 08, 2004

JOHN "WAFFLES" KERRY
Google-Bombing Kerry... Esoteric-Diatribe Leads the Charge

Pretty funny exercise led by Esoteric-Diatribe to associate John Kerry with waffles in a google search. Especially this pic on his site with the White House as a "Waffle House." Reminds me of the political cartoon during the Clinton days when Clinton's main foreign policy experience was stated to be from the International House of Pancakes and it showed him stuffing his face with flapjacks.

EIGHT KOREAN MINISTERS HELD HOSTAGE
3 Japanese and 8 South Koreans Kidnapped

Definitely these Saddam loyalists, terrorists, Iranian-backed extremists, and other fringe groups are getting desparate. The drums of democracy are getting louder and louder, so I would have expected the reactions to get more rash and irrational. If you can, please pray for the safety, well-being, and return of these hostages.

Japanese, Koreans Held Hostage in Iraq
Thursday, April 08, 2004
FOX NEWS

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Three Japanese and seven South Koreans were being held hostage Thursday by various Iraqi groups, according to news reports, and two Arab residents of Jerusalem and one Briton were reported kidnapped.
.....
"We offer you two choices: Either pull out your forces, or we will burn them alive. We give you three days starting the day this tape is broadcast."
.....
In a separate report, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that seven South Korean evangelical Christian ministers were being held in Iraq by an armed group. (full article)

DR. RICE'S OPENING REMARKS BEFORE THE 9/11 COMMISSION

The first shots fired across the bow:

"The terrorists were at war with us, but we were not yet at war with them. For more than 20 years, the terrorist threat gathered, and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient. Historically, democratic societies have been slow to react to gathering threats, tending instead to wait to confront threats until they are too dangerous to ignore or until it is too late. Despite the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and continued German harassment of American shipping, the United States did not enter the First World War until two years later. Despite Nazi Germany's repeated violations of the Versailles Treaty and its string of provocations throughout the mid-1930s, the Western democracies did not take action until 1939. The U.S. Government did not act against the growing threat from Imperial Japan until the threat became all too evident at Pearl Harbor. And, tragically, for all the language of war spoken before September 11th, this country simply was not on a war footing.

Since then, America has been at war. And under President Bush's leadership, we will remain at war until the terrorist threat to our Nation is ended. The world has changed so much that it is hard to remember what our lives were like before that day. But I do want to describe the actions this Administration was taking to fight terrorism before September 11th, 2001." (full remarks)

"ALGERIANS VOTE IN WATERSHED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION"
Democracy Slowly Spreading within Muslim Nations

"Algerians voted on Thursday in a presidential election seen as a key test for the Muslim country's emerging democracy after a civil war between Islamist guerrillas and a secular government spread terror and chaos." (full article)

BBC LIES AND THE HIDDEN WMD STORY
More Great Articles From The American Thinker

BBC lies again.
April 7th, 2004

The BBC is paid $5bn per year by British taxpayers to provide supposedly high-brow news analysis. But when you read BBC-published rubbish such as: “Analysis: Growing Shia discontent”, one has to wonder whether we are dealing with bias or just plain stupidity.

This report, by Paul Wood, appeared on the BBC News website Monday 5th of April, 2004.

(Just as an aside, Paul Wood was one of the BBC journalists in Iraq during the last days of the war. He clearly exhibited “bunker syndrome” mentality during the fall of Baghdad, naively soaking up almost every outrageously deceitful word spoken by Saddam’s favourite comedian, The Minister of Disinformation.) (full article)

The Most Important WMD Story You Haven't Seen
April 7th, 2004

The U.K. newspaper Scotsman on Sunday has publicized a leaked document which shows that

Charles Duelfer, the new director of the Iraq Survey group, concludes that hard evidence does exist that Saddam had the ability to wreak terror with the weaponry. (full article)

ANOTHER DEM SPEAKSOUT... SENATOR BOB KERREY
Clarke is Wrong... Partisanship on the 9/11 Tragedy is Wrong

Hmm... I'll get back to this one later.

The Search for Answers
Richard Clarke is wrong about Iraq.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BY BOB KERREY
Thursday, April 8, 2004

The 9/11 Commission's objective is to answer the following question: How--at the end of a summer of high terrorist threat--did 19 men with a few hundred thousand dollars manage to utterly defeat every single defensive mechanism we had in place that September morning and murder 3,000 innocents on American soil?

The search for this answer is especially painful because these 19 men were part of al Qaeda, a radical Islamic army called to war against the United States by Osama bin Laden in August 1996 and again in February 1998--and because Sept. 11, 2001, was not their first success.

On Aug. 7, 1998, six months after Osama bin Laden's declaration of war against Americans world-wide, al Qaeda terrorists attacked our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania with truck bombs, killing more than 250 Kenyans, Tanzanians and Americans and wounding thousands more. Attempts to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, a hotel in Amman, Jordan, and the USS The Sullivans in Yemen were prevented by a combination of skilled spycraft and good luck.

But our luck did not hold.

On Oct. 12, 2000, a bomb ripped through the USS Cole in Yemen killing 17 American sailors. And less than a year later, Mohamed Atta and his suicidal crew crashed civilian aircraft into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pa.

I believe Chairman Tom Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton will lead our commission to write a bipartisan report that will provide Americans with the clearest picture yet of how this happened. I believe they will lead the commission to produce a report that will contain specific recommendations of what we need to do to make certain that nothing like the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, ever happens again.

As a member of the commission, authorized under federal law as a consequence of the persistence and perseverance of the families of the victims of that terrible day, I sincerely hope our efforts will meet their highest expectations.

Today's appearance of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will test the commission's resilience to the partisan pressures which threaten to collapse the goodwill needed to achieve consensus. Among the most dangerous forces is the tendency in politics to become personal and question motives instead of confronting the substance of the argument made by any individual. If we yield to this tendency, all hope for an honest and constructive report is lost. We will most certainly fail.

The best example of this came two weeks ago, when all the key national security officials of both the Clinton and Bush administrations, except Ms. Rice, testified under oath before the commission. This testimony came immediately after Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism director under both presidents, spoke.

Mr. Clarke's most startling statement was that there have been more terrorist attacks against the United States in the 30 months since 9/11 than in the 30 months prior to the attack. You could almost hear a clap of thunder when he went on to say that this happened because we substantially reduced our efforts in Afghanistan and went to war in Iraq, causing a loss of momentum in the war against al Qaeda.

That's his argument. I think he's wrong, but I don't think he is being duplicitous. He is wrong because most if not all of the terrorism since 9/11 has occurred because al Qaeda and other radical Islamists have an even dimmer view of a free and independent Iraq than they do a free and independent United States. A democracy in Iraq that embraces modernism, pluralism, tolerance and the plebiscite is a greater sacrilege than anything we are doing here at home.

Mr. Clarke's views on Iraq notwithstanding, after 9/11 we could not afford either to run the risk that Saddam Hussein would be deterred by our military efforts to contain him or that these military deployments would become attractive targets for further acts of terrorism. I supported President Bush's efforts to persuade the United Nations Security Council to change a 10-year-old resolution that authorized force to contain Saddam Hussein to one that authorized force to replace his dictatorship. And I believe the president did the right thing to press ahead even without the Security Council's support. Remember, the June 25, 1996, attack on Khobar Towers that left 19 American airmen dead happened because of our containment efforts. Sailors had also died enforcing the Security Council's embargo and our pilots were risking their lives every day flying missions over northern and southern Iraq to protect Iraqi Kurds and Shiites.

It is my view that a political victory for terrorism in Iraq is a much greater danger to us than whether or not we succeed in capturing Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. Victory in Iraq will embolden radical Islamists as much as our failure to recognize the original danger of their declaration of war against us.

This debate becomes all the more important since the work of this commission--to examine an attack against the U.S. that occurred nearly three years ago--has been overshadowed by the events taking place in Iraq. The war there is not over. Twelve marines were killed in Ramadi Tuesday night in what has become a dramatic escalation of violence against coalition forces. I believe this escalation is taking place precisely because the country is about to be handed over to the Iraqi people to run themselves.

More importantly, I believe this commission must try to provide a foundation for bipartisan agreement on what should be done in Iraq and the broader war against radical Islamists who use terror as a tactic to destroy our will.

Whether you disagree with me or with Mr. Clarke, the only way for the 9/11 Commission to succeed is to confront every fact and every argument on its merits. If we do, the world will be safer. If we don't, we will have exercised our freedoms poorly.

Mr. Kerrey, president of New School University in New York and a former Democratic senator from Nebraska, is a member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the "9/11" Commission).

DON'T BELIEVE THE SKYPE

Fool.com
By Dave Mock
April 7, 2004

With Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell still wrestling with how the U.S. government should or should not regulate Internet telephony, provider companies haven't skipped a beat in pushing ahead toward the age of voice over Internet protocol (VOIP).

Major carriers and equipment suppliers such as Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) and Nortel Networks (NYSE: NT) have been hustling to deploy new VOIP capable equipment and services. Smaller start-ups, such as deltathree (Nasdaq: DDDC) and privately held Vonage, have also been aggressive in trying to carve out a profitable niche in the future of data telephony.

Recently, another popular private player leading users into the convergence age -- a company called Skype -- announced software that enables mobile calling over data networks. With the software, voice calls can use broadband access points (Wi-Fi hotspots) and the Internet to complete calls between users. Because the calls need to originate and terminate on devices using Skype's software, it's referred to as peer-to-peer (P2P) telephony (it can't call traditional phones -- yet). (full article)

TALE OF TWO SOLIDERS FROM THE 1ST CAVALRY
Two More Deaths by the Shiite Radicals

Angel Munoz, Arsiaga's older sister who has served in the Army, said Arsiaga was passionate about helping the Iraqi people.

Army Specialists Die in Iraq Fighting

By BETSY BLANEY
The Associated Press
April 8, 2004

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) - It wasn't long ago that Army specialists Israel Garza and Robert Arsiaga met at Fort Hood, but the two became fast friends. The 25-year-old married men even looked alike, at times switching clothes to play pranks.

Together to the last, they also died fighting side-by-side in Iraq.

Garza, from Lubbock, and Arsiaga, from Greenwood, grew up miles apart in West Texas, but never met until joining the Army. They quickly grew close, sharing family cookouts and other activities together.

On Sunday, the friends were killed as their convoy fought Shiite militiamen in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City. Five other soldiers from the 1st Cavalry at Fort Hood also died in the attack.

"He wasn't alone. He was with his best friend,'' said Tracie Arsiaga, Arsiaga's wife of five months. "He didn't know him a long time, but they were close. He was so lucky that he had a friend like him.''

Garza's mother, Dinah Rodriguez, said her son spoke fondly of Robert Arsiaga.

"He wanted me to meet him,'' Rodriguez said. "He said, 'They say we look so much alike.'''

The men had been in Iraq less than a month, having left Fort Hood on March 11. The families learned of the deaths Monday.

First lady Laura Bush, who was in Midland on Tuesday, stopped in to pay her respect's to Arsiaga's family in nearby Greenwood.

Arsiaga graduated from Greenwood High School in 1998. From there he went to Phoenix, Ariz., to study drafting, with plans to design a new home for his mother. He joined the Army in 1999 and served in Korea. He re-enlisted in 2001 with a military career in mind.

Then he met his future wife and decided he wanted a family life away from the military. He had planned to leave the Army in August, but when he was sent to Iraq that date was moved to 2005, Tracie Arsiaga said.

"I'm not angry,'' she said. "I'm just hurt. I believe I should have had more time with him. He was taken too soon. He's our hero and we love him very, very much.''

Angel Munoz, Arsiaga's older sister who has served in the Army, said Arsiaga was passionate about helping the Iraqi people.

"The soldier in me says, 'That that was his job,''' Munoz said. "And he did his job well. The sister in me is angry at losing him. I don't understand why he had to die.''

Garza went to school in the Frenship district near Lubbock. He obtained his GED after leaving school and married Guadalupe Silva in 2001. They had two sons, Israel Jr., 2, and Michael, 4 months. Daughter Brianna, 9, and son Steven, 8, were from previous relationships, Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said Steven seemed scared and confused.

"Yesterday he came to my house and he was trying to kind of figure out what was going on,'' she said. ``But he was holding onto his dad's picture in his hand.''

Rodriguez said she tried to dissuade Garza from joining the military in September 2001, fearing he'd come into harm's way. But she said she told Garza a week before he went to Iraq that she finally had accepted his decision.

"I just didn't want him to get in,'' she said. "But I said 'OK, if that's what you want to do.' I'm very proud of him, and I'm glad that I got to tell him how proud I was of him.''

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

AHH... THE POWER OF INCUMBENCY

Treasury Looks Into Kerry Tax Analysis
Tue Apr 6, 7:50 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury's inspector general is conducting an inquiry into the propriety of having civil servants analyze tax proposals resembling those of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites), a spokesman said on Tuesday.
.....
The analysis focused on the potential impact of a tax plan that rolls back tax reductions for taxpayers earning more than $200,000 annually -- the centerpiece of Kerry's proposal.

The analysis said their impact would be to boost taxes over the next decade by hundreds of billions of dollars. (full article)

Monday, April 05, 2004

THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
Finally Saw it... Did Not Meet Expectations

I finally saw "The Passion of The Christ" after my various posts and reading all the debates about it. It was okay. It wasn't even a good movie to me since it seemed more like a documentary. I think all the hype and excitement raised the bar too high for me. My good Christian friend told me that it was awesome and how he was sobbing throughout the movie. He's not that emotional, so I was getting ready to shed some tears and preparing to be awestruck. I did not shed a tear, and it didn't stir any particular emotion in me.

The movie wasn't as gruesome as various critics proclaimed. If they saw "Kill Bill Vol.1" and still proclaim it's one of the most grotesquely violent movies in recent memory (from a comment a read a while back) then they are lying and just trying to slander the movie. "Kill Bill" is far worse in terms of graphic violence and blood shed.

It was confirmed for me that the movie was not anti-Semitic. I was more disturbed by the brutality of the Roman soldiers, but that is what I pictured from my readings of the Roman Empire. The Jews that were against Jesus were threatened and fighting for their faith, holding on to their power, or whatever other motivation that led them demand his death. It happens and those qualities are not solely Jewish traits, but of all of mankind. A great symbolic message related to this topic from Mel Gibson is his only cameo appearance. His hand was one of the hands that held Jesus down while He was being nailed to the cross. So the message is that we all nailed Christ to the cross. We all crucified Him for our sins.

It was a good reminder for me what kind of sacrifice Jesus Christ did for humankind. In our society, especially Western society where His name is a curse that people use daily, Jesus Christ has become too marginalized and commercialized (e.g. Christmas, which is suppose to be a celebration of His birth). Our minds are desensitized to the point that we tend to picture Jesus Christ as some distant character in a children's Bible, some person in ancient history, or a name that has been so commonly used it rolls off our tongues like the words crap, f*@k, or sh#t. In the remote parts of the world, modern day missionaries talk about how His name amazingly brings people to their knees. On rare occasions, they don't need sermons or discussions about the Bible, but by simply saying the name "Jesus Christ" people are transformed.

Anyway, I still am amazed by the impact Mel Gibson's movie has had financially and spiritually today. If you are a Christian reader of this blog and saw "The Passion of The Christ," you can consider donating to a project my close friend emailed me about a few days ago:

Dear friends,

Campus Crusade in Russia is mobilizing a special effort to enable interested Russian students to see the film, "The Passion of The Christ", which has had a world-wide impact on people and their interest in Jesus Christ. Please consider taking part in this unique outreach effort.

In His Grace,
Sam & Hanna Won
Ekaterinburg, Russia
--------------------------
From the Russia Campus Ministry:
Send a Russian college student to see "The Passion of the Christ" for $3.50 per ticket

Thousands of students in America have been greatly impacted by this film. The Buzz about the film has reached Russian students... they want to see it!

The film opens in Moscow on April 8 and will be shown in theaters all over Russia during the month of April.

Your gift will be used in several ways depending on the city:
- Christian students will take a friend to see the movie... this is the most effective approach!
- Special showings will be held.
- Related materials will be distributed at the theatres and on campus.
- Follow up discussion groups will be held.

How many students would you like to sponsor?
By April 15, please send your gift to:

Give ONLINE

Send a check payable to
"Campus Crusade for Christ"
PO Box 628222
Orlando, FL, 32862-9841
"Russia Campus Minsitry" account #2580598

WHO IS MARKOS ZUNIGA?
What a Loon... Only in the Blogosphere

The blog world is great in that it creates a voice for people that never had a public voice. It also brings into the spotlight unknown writers and their insights that need to be heard. I'm all for diversity of opinions and enjoy heated debates and reasonable discussions, but when you get a loon and loser like Markos Zuniga it spoils the air like sulfur and rotten eggs.

The buzz around the blogosphere is his recent hate-filled rant against some of the people that recently were killed in Falluja attack:

"That said, I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them."

I don't care if you don't agree with the war or hate Bush, but to wish or enjoy the death of people, especially Americans, is messed up. What a loon, and it's sad that his blog is the leading liberal blog. I believe that is simply reflective of the lack of quality liberal blogs out there. If you examine the top 50 blogs, the majority and most read blogs are right-leaning blogs. Does that mean the majority of blog readers are right-leaning? I don't believe it's skewed to that degree. I believe there is a lack of quality bloggers from the left for whatever reasons, which allows hate-filled nuts like Markos Zuniga lead the pack. Sad.

Great commentary on this by Powerline, LGF, and Powerline again. Kerry actually took a stand on something (avoiding a fire) and pulled a link to Zuniga's blog off his site.

Mark A. R. Kleiman has another viewpoint, and also Kevin Drum from the left on this. At least the other prominent left-leaning bloggers aren't supporting "Loony" Zuniga on his recent rant.

Feds tell states 'VoIP is ours'

By Ben Charny and Declan McCullagh, from CNET News.com (April 2, 2004)

Thursday, April 01, 2004

EXCELLENT AND EYE-OPENING ARTICLE ON CLARKE

More on Clarke from the The Wall Street Journal. I know some of you might be getting sick of these posts, but I think that they are too informative to pass up. And a side drink from VodkaPundit on the upcoming Rice testimonies. Excerpts below and link here:

Against Selected Enemies
Richard Clarke should apologize for his book.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BY RICHARD MINITER
Thursday, April 1, 2004 12:01 a.m.

A year ago, I thought Richard A. Clarke, President Clinton's counterterror czar, was a hero. He and his small band of officials fought a long battle to focus the bureaucracy on stopping Osama bin Laden long before 9/11. For my own book, I interviewed Mr. Clarke extensively and found him to be blunt and forthright. He remembered whole conversations from inside the Situation Room.

So I looked forward to reading "Against All Enemies." Yes, I expected him to put the wood to President Bush for not doing enough about terrorism--a continuation of his Clinton-era complaints--and I expected that he might be right. I assumed, of course, that he would not spare the Clinton team either, or the CIA and FBI. I expected, in short, something blunt and forthright--and, that rarest thing, nonpartisan in a principled way.

I was wrong on all counts. Forthright? One momentous Bush-era episode on which Mr. Clarke can shed some light is his decision to approve the flights of the bin Laden clan out of the U.S. in the days after 9/11, when all other flights were grounded. About this he doesn't say a word. The whole premise of "Against All Enemies" is its value as an insider account. But Mr. Clarke was not a Bush insider. When he lost his right to brief the Cabinet, he also lost his ringside seat on presidential decision-making.

.....

There is other evidence of a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda that Mr. Clarke should have felt obliged to address. Just days before Mr. Clarke resigned, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations that bin Laden had met at least eight times with officers of Iraq's Special Security Organization. In 1998, an aide to Saddam's son Uday defected and repeatedly told reporters that Iraq funded al Qaeda. South of Baghdad, satellite photos pinpointed a Boeing 707 parked at a camp where terrorists learned to take over planes. When U.S. forces captured the camp, its commander confirmed that al Qaeda had trained there as early as 1997. Mr. Clarke does not take up any of this.

.....

He fails to mention that President Clinton's three "findings" on bin Laden, which would have allowed the U.S. to take action against him, were haggled over and lawyered to death. And he plays down the fact that the Treasury Department, worried about the effects on financial markets, obstructed efforts to cut off al Qaeda funding. He never notes that between 1993 and 1998 the FBI, under Mr. Clinton, paid an informant who turned out to be a double agent working on behalf of al Qaeda. In 1998, the Clinton administration alerted Pakistan to our imminent missile strikes in Afghanistan, despite the links between Pakistan's intelligence service and al Qaeda. Mr. Clarke excuses this decision--bin Laden managed to flee just before the strikes--as a diplomatic necessity.

While angry over Mr. Bush's intelligence failures, Mr. Clarke actually defends one of the Clinton administration's biggest ones--the bombing of a Sudanese "aspirin factory" in 1998. Even at the time, there were good reasons for doubting that it made nerve agents. He fails to mention that in 1997 the CIA had to reject more than 100 reports from Sudan when agency sources failed lie-detector tests and that the CIA continued to pay Sudanese dissidents $100 a report, in a country where the annual per-capita income is about $400. The soil sample he cites, supposedly showing a nerve-gas ingredient, is now agreed to contain a common herbicide.

Last year Mr. Clarke made much of such failures. But this year he treats Mr. Clinton with deference. Indeed, the only man whom he really wants to take to the woodshed is President Bush. Mr. Clarke believes the Iraq war to be a foolish distraction from the fight against terrorism, driving a wedge between the U.S. and its Arab allies. In fairness, he might have noted that, since the war started, our allies (e.g., Saudi Arabia and Sudan) have given us more intelligence leads, not fewer. Considering its anti-Bush bias, maybe Mr. Clarke's book should have been called "Against One Enemy."

.....

In recent days we have been subjected to a great deal of Mr. Clarke, not least to replays of his fulsome apology for not doing enough to prevent 9/11. But he has nothing to apologize for: He was a relentless foe of al Qaeda for years. He should really apologize for the flaws in his book.

Mr. Miniter is the author of "Losing bin Laden: How Bill Clinton's Failures Unleashed Global Terror" (Regnery).