Considerettes

Blogging this week will be light. I’ll be at a client site so no web-news-reading breaks. >grin< I’ll try to kick out some things in the evening, if time permits.

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Could this be the real “Deep Throat”?

W. Mark Felt, who retired from the FBI after rising to its second most senior position, has identified himself as the “Deep Throat” source quoted by The Washington Post to break the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon’s resignation, Vanity Fair magazine said Tuesday.

“I’m the guy they used to call Deep Throat,” he told John D. O’Connor, the author of Vanity Fair’s exclusive that appears in its July issue.

Felt, now 91 and living in Santa Rosa, Calif. reportedly gave O’Connor permission to disclose his identity.

Some think he’s telling the truth, though Woodward and Bernstein aren’t saying anything.

Carl Bernstein, who with Bob Woodward broke the story as Washington Post reporters, issued a statement neither denying nor confirming Felt’s claim. Bernstein stated he and Woodward would be keeping their pledge to reveal the source only once that person dies.

NBC News commentator Chris Matthews, who wrote a book about Watergate, said he wasn’t surprised, adding that Felt “has always been the leading suspect.”

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You think our military recruiting problems are bad…

Insurgents in Iraq attached explosives to a dog and tried to blow up a military convoy near the northern oil centre of Kirkuk.

The canine bomb went off but the only casualty was the unfortunate animal, said police. The militants wrapped an explosive belt around the dog and detonated it as the convoy passed through Dakuk, 25 miles south of Kirkuk, said the town’s police chief, Col Mohammed Barzaji.

“The dog was torn apart by the explosion which caused neither injury among the soldiers nor any damage.”

Col Barzaji said the bomb had been detonated outside a Shia mosque. “Eight suspects have been detained.”

I wonder if this means that the terrorists are running out of martyrs.

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When guns knives are outlawed, only outlaws will have knives.

A team from West Middlesex University Hospital said violent crime is on the increase - and kitchen knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings.

They argued many assaults are committed impulsively, prompted by alcohol and drugs, and a kitchen knife often makes an all too available weapon.

The research is published in the British Medical Journal.

The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all.

They consulted 10 top chefs from around the UK, and found such knives have little practical value in the kitchen.

None of the chefs felt such knives were essential, since the point of a short blade was just as useful when a sharp end was needed.

Never mind the nanny-ism going on here, but imagine that some folks would like 10 British chefs to tell the rest of the UK what kinds of knives they can and can’t have in the kitchen. Is this the kind of European “thinking” the gun-control left would like to see here?

Next on the list: knife sharpeners! Oh, the humanity.

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Captain Ed has still more information on why poll numbers can be deceiving (especially those coming from CBS).

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The Palestinian Authority is getting ready for a slate of worthy candidates in the upcoming election.

Several alarming candidates, including Marwan Barghouti and a terror chief known as “Hitler,” have announced their candidacy for the upcoming PA elections.

Many terrorists currently serving time in Israeli prisons will be permitted by the Palestinian Authority to run in its upcoming parliamentary elections. Among them will apparently be convicted Fatah terrorist Marwan Barghouti, seeking a seat in the PA parliament.

Another terrorist candidate is wanted Al-Aqsa Brigade chief Jamal Abu Roub, who goes by the nickname “Hitler.”

“Hitler” told Fox News reporter Jeniffer Griffin that he expects to win a seat because he gives his people “dignity and safety.” Fox News screened footage of Abu Roub publicly executing an Arab accused of helping Israel. He has been running from Israeli security forces, but appeared in public to campaign - with the reporter - assuming Israeli forces would not apprehend him while he spoke with a Western reporter.

Asked whether he thought the nickname “Hitler” would affect his election chances, Roub said, “I got this name because of my personality. I am a guy that has a strong personality and uses violence, if needed, to respond.”

With stories like this, it can be difficult to believe that the PA really wants peace. Why do some folks not understand that?

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Oh please.

The thought that John Bolton might be confirmed as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations brought one Republican senator to the brink of tears on Wednesday.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) choked up on the Senate floor, as he urged his colleagues to vote against Bolton’s nomination on Thursday:

‘’I'm afraid that when we go to the [Senate] well, that too many of my colleagues — (voice breaking) — that too many of my colleagues are not going to understand that this appointment is very, very important to our country,” Voinovich said.

So important that he didn’t bother to show up for most of the committee meetings. Sorry, don’t buy the sudden emotionalism.

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Last Friday, I noted that a panel of liberals were going to get together and discuss media bias. Yeah, right. My prediction was…

Somehow, Newsweek jumping on a single-sourced story that is embarrassing to Bush, the military and America in general will be characterized as perfectly normal, while the reaction to it will be painted as censorship.

Well, I was pretty darn close. Here’s Eric Alterman from the panel.

Alterman also expressed concern for the establishment press, which “must, on a daily basis, come face to face with an administration obsessed with secrecy and which belittles and browbeats reporters at every opportunity.

“Note how quickly [White House Press Secretary] Scott McClennan [sic] blamed Newsweek for the rioting in Afghanistan last week,” he said.

“Despite the fact that his bosses presided over the invasion of Iraq and the well-documented abuses at Abu Ghraib and Bagram, the administration — along with a whole host of ready-for-prime-time conservative talking heads — pounced on one sentence in a short blurb, claiming that it caused irreparable harm to the ‘image of America’ in the Muslim world,” Alterman added.

If I recall, it was the rioters that were upset at Newsweek (although anything would’ve been an excuse for them). When Scott McClellan notes this, it’s somehow “browbeating”.

True to form, these folks simply bring up the usual suspects…

In his opening statement, [Al]] Franken named “the Fox News Channel, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the Washington Times and, of course, talk radio” as media that work in league with the Bush administration and corporate-funded think tanks.

…and ignore the boatloads of liberal bias from virtually every other media outlet. The “myopic zeal” is amazing.

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While I don’t think the latest pictures of Hussein in his BVDs was in good taste or newsworthy, this is a little much.

Amman - A daughter of Iraq’s ex-dictator Saddam Hussein was “outraged” by the published pictures of her jailed father dressed only in underwear, an aide said on Monday.

“She was shocked and outraged because of the pictures,” which appeared in a British newspaper, the aide of Raghad Hussein told AFP.

“She described the pictures as inhumane, and wondered why her father is not being treated as a human being and the father of three daughters,” the source said.

If this is the worst thing that happens to him, he’s still being treated extremely better than those he tortured or raped. Spare me the violin music.

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The stem cell research bill looks like it’s on its way to the President’s desk, and the President looks like he’s going to pull out his veto pen for the first time in his two terms of office. RedState.org has taken an official position, although not all the Directors agree with it, and there’s a healthy debate taking place over there.

One of the issues being discussed is whether or not these frozen embryos are human life. Some of this I talk about in an essay I wrote years ago, “Just One Question”, which asks a single question to determine the “human-ness” of the cells of a fertilized egg. One comment on the thread notes:

We are not all in agreement that the nouns “human”, “person”, “baby”, “child”, etc. apply to a blastocyst immersed in liquid nitrogen that is never going to be implanted into a woman’s uterus.

Of course, if being implanted in a uterus is the measure of a man or woman, “never say ‘never’” is a maxim to live by. President Bush spoke on this subject yesterday in the presence of 21 children who had previously been immersed in liquid nitrogen.

Not in direct answer to this, but to an earlier question in the same thread, another comment gives a more practical answer to that objection:

If these embryos weren’t human, the researchers wouldn’t want them. It is their humanity that is of value.

I don’t see that their humanity is even debatable.

But regardless of which side of that debate you’re on, if it’s not settled by science yet, the stem cell research bill pushes things on anyway with eyes wide shut. Given the continuing advances in scientific knowledge about life, and given the tenacity with which government programs cling to their own life, a plausible future is that we determine that these blastocysts or embryos (or whatever you want to name them) are indeed human life, but we continue to put taxpayer money towards human experimentation. What’s actually more plausible is that once this government program is in place, any discovery of their further human-ness will be squelched or minimized, sacrificed on the altar of “generally accepted science”‘, in much the same way those who don’t tow the “global warming” line are getting ostracized. Once we take this direction, the ship of state (and science) will be very slow to react, if it reacts at all, to further scientific discoveries that would stop the gravy train.

Mixing government & science is typically a dangerous thing, and tends to entrench scientific thought in order to get taxpayer money. This should be enough to be against this bill, regardless of your stance on the humanity issue.

(Cross-posted at RedState.org and Blogger News Network. Comments welcome.)

UPDATE: Turns out that indeed all the Directors at RedState.org agree with the position that the President should veto the bill; hence it’s an official position. I misidentified one of the dissenters in the comments (a featured and prolific contributs to RS) as one of the Directors.

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Today’s Odd “Considerettes” Search Phrase - tv screens floats in air balloons with projector in korea [#1 on Yahoo! Search]

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Having been so busy yesterday, I didn’t have time to post my call to Bill Bennett in a timely manner, so here it is now.

Bill had compared the reactions to the Newseek “Quran flushing” story and the CBS “fake memo” story, and thought the former was more a reaction to the media, while the latter was a reaction to Dan Rather specifically. He had a point, but I called to note that I thought a good portion of the reaction was to the media as well, since the “myopic zeal” the CBS had while pursuing that story was an epidemic throughout most of the mainstream media. As my example, I noted that Michael Isikoff, who was on the “Quran flushing” story, had bigger and better-sourced stories spiked by Newsweek and a newspaper he used to work for. Bill corrected me, noting that it was the organizations that spiked the story, not Isikoff himself. In any event, while Dan Rather was a lightening rod for conservative criticism, I think much of the reaction was to the media in general, and explains why their numbers are dropping.

Listen to “Considerettes Radio”! [This recording from Bill Bennett’s Morning in America (WGKA, Atlanta, GA on 5/23/2005 7:55am EST (362K).]

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So while I was away from the news most of the day yesterday, the deal was done, and at least 3 justices are finally going to get a vote. I’ve been reading around the blogosphere this morning, and the general tenor is that both sides aren’t entirely happy with this, but Republicans are more dismayed with it, and I think for good reason. Democrats got to make Frist look weak, didn’t give up the filibuster of judicial nominees, and if they do use the filibuster again, Republicans look like bullies.

This paragraph from the article annoys me.

The agreement, crafted over the past several weeks by seven Republicans and seven Democrats, also opened the way for yes-or-no votes on two other of President Bush’s judicial picks who have been in nomination limbo for more than two years - William H. Pryor Jr. for the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Janice Rogers Brown for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Basically, as “MachoNachos” over at RedState noted, “We’ve gone from being run by 45 senators to being run by 14.” Hugh Hewitt has come up with a few silver linings among the clouds, but he’s still not thrilled.

And neither am I. Just remember:

The agreement, which applies to Supreme Court nominees, said future judicial nominations should “only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances,” with each Democratic senator holding the discretion to decide when those conditions had been met.

When it gets right down to it, an “extraordinary circumstance” to a Democrat is “judging while Republican”.

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The Homespun Bloggers Symposium question this week is:

What do you think about “The Sun” publishing the pictures of Saddam? While I haven’t seen all the pictures, the one everyone seems to be talking about is the one of the former dictator in his “tighty whities.”

Will this event further fan the flames of Islamic hatred for the West and the occupiers of the Coalition? Or will this blow over? Abu-Graib it’s not in my book.

I think that whoever took those pictures ought to be nailed for it. Also, like the “Koran flushing” story retracted by Newsweek (even if had been true) I don’t see what the newsworthiness of it was. It seems a rather petty use of newsprint.

That’s really all I can say on the matter. It was stupid and never should have happened, either from the photographer.s end or from the tabloid’s end. On balance I don’t think it’ll have much affect on “the Muslim street” ™. The same folks who dragged Saddam’s statues through the streets hitting it with their shoes would probably not mind. Others would object on a number of different grounds. But overall I don’t see this making much of a difference. No new bin Ladens will be created out of this.

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I’m not a big fan of polls, and this article in the Chicago Tribune explains some of why that is. Regarding polls done during the last Presidential election:

[T]he headlines were written and the issue was framed without the underlying poll data being scrutinized. The race was always “on” and likely much closer than the headlines suggested. Damage was done to the candidate perceived to be losing momentum, first to Kerry when the number of Republicans outnumbered Democrats and then to Bush when the demographics shifted back to historical patterns.

Damage was done because most people believe what they read, trusting that the data had been vetted.

There’s more about polling non-Catholics about direction the Catholic church should take, polling a disproportionate number of liberals on that question, and polls about Social Security and the judicial filibusters. As Instapundit does, I’m thankful that the Tribune had the guts to come out with this story, especially one that includes this paragraph:

I don’t think many would argue with the view that the media as a group is left-of-center, and I contend that this poll went unquestioned because it fit the media’s Democratic-leaning views. That is, the poll jibed with the media’s own hypothesis that the Catholic Church should change and so the conclusion seemed right.

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