Midnight News -- 8/29/06

George Bush will not make the same mistake twice. He, as well as leading Democrats, are racing to the Gulf Coast in solidarity with the victims that Hurricane Ernesto has not yet created. In a related story, Wizbang has an analysis of last year's levee break in New Orleans. New Orleans was doomed the moment Katrina made landfall, and would probably be doomed should Ernesto turn to the west.

The British newspaper the Telegraph insists that Hassan Nasrallah has made himself enormously popular by claiming on Lebanese television that he did not expect Israel's robust response to his attack. They speak of him the way a preteen girl speaks of a pop star. Big Pharaoh provides information suggesting the Telegraph may be misreporting the truth about Lebanese opinion.

Gas prices have mercifully dropped. It has less to do with oil imports than refinery capacity and gasoline supply. It has always had less to do with oil imports than refinery capacity and gasoline supply. When gas prices go up in the future, it will be less due to available oil imports than refinery capacity and gasoline supply. It is problems with refinery capacity and gasoline supply that cause high gas prices, and not oil imports. How long do I have to say it before someone builds another damn refinery?

A team from Columbus, Georgia has beaten a team from Kawaguchi City, Japan to win the Little League World Series. It's the second year in a row the U.S. team has won.

Monday was another bad day for airline travel.

Desperate to make a case for himself as a viable Democratic candidate for President, Joseph Biden makes an unfortunate argument. If he wants to run for President, he'll have to learn not to say things like this.

The Farmer's Almanac predicts a frigid winter to come. They were more or less right about last year's winter, and claim 80-85 percent accuracy.

Thugs broke into a forest preserve in Australia and killed a favorite koala.

Marapana manager Tim Mullany says Mambo was so friendly he would have rushed towards the intruders, who are believed to have bashed the animal, possibly tearing off an arm, before the dingoes found and attacked him.

That koala could have worked for the U.S. State Department, so trusting was he in the face of mortal danger. He could have also worked for the U.N., the mainstream media, academia, about half of Congress, and the Democrat Naional Committee.

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Midnight News -- 8/28/06

The Washington Post implies there is something fishy about how few homicide charges are brought against American troops responsible for civilian deaths in the Iraq War. That may be the case, but it is more important to ask why the Washington Post and other media outlets are willing to equivocate when American lives are taken by terrorists, and cry injustice when Americans accidentally take the lives of Iraqis. It seems that civilian deaths only discredit the force responsible when that force is American or Israeli. I would be more inclined to take the Post's concerns seriously did it not so often act as defense attorney for groups that would prefer to chop off my head for not submitting to Islam rather than praise my country's application of the rule of law.

Thousands of Central American children risk "robbery, rape and death" to sneak into the U.S. illegally. The primary source of their suffering is the desperate economies of parts of Central America. The secondary source is our lax and indolent treatment of our own borders. Our unwillingness to act like we deserve to enforce our own immigration laws offers these children a false hope, and entice them into making the cruel passage north.

The pilots of Comair flight somehow made a horrible mistake. The lone survivor was the co-pilot, and he will carry the weight of this tragedy on his shoulders for the rest of his life. I think I would prefer to be one of the 49 fatalities.

Public school teachers in Detroit have voted to strike, beginning tomorrow. From some colleagues in that area, I learned that the teachers are highly motivated for two reasons. First, they haven't had a raise in four years, and are beginning to feel stretched. Second, their union has caved so many times in the past that many believe that should the union agree to the proposed pay and benefit cuts, that the union would effectively be broken. One strategy I heard bandied about, and which I think the teachers will regret not employing, would have had the teachers delay a strike until next week, when the students arrive. It would have shown good faith, allowed more time for negotiation, and would have given the teachers a chance to cause real pain, by forcing the schools to somehow manage all those teacherless students.

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Midnight News -- 8/27/06

The Sudan has charged a Chicago Tribune reporter with espionage.

Paul Salopek, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, was charged with espionage and two other criminal counts in a Sudanese court Saturday, three weeks after he was detained by pro-government forces in the war-torn province of Darfur.

[...]

Salopek was on a scheduled leave of absence from the Tribune when he and the two Chadians were detained Aug. 6 and jailed. All three were officially charged Saturday with espionage, passing information illegally and writing "false news," in addition to a violation of Sudan's immigration laws by entering the country without a visa.

Though unable to convince his own militia to quit launching rockets at Israel, Prime Minister of the Palestinian pseudo-state Ismail Haniyeh is convinced the release of kidnapped FOX newsmen is imminent.

The Israeli Air Force apparently struck an armored car containing Palestinian journalists. None were killed, and Pallywood has a new storyline.

Iraqi civil defense workers are unsung heroes in the sectarian violence in Baghdad. It is really a question of how long they will keeping working for the benefit of a weak central government that cannot at this point protect even them from violence.

Democratic candidates are discovering that courting the left means riding a tiger. The left does not wish to confront real threats, preferring instead more aggrandizing policies that involve spending other people's money to satiate their egalitarian whims. A war against people that want us all dead is to them only a distraction, and they want that distraction to end as soon as possible, regardless of the consequences. Democrats who realize that an immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be disastrous are finding that however sensible their proposals for ending the war might be, they are not going to satisfy for their most vociferous and demanding supporters.

Tropical Storm Ernesto could strengthen and become a major hurricane. Ernesto is also chatting up your date at the cabana bar, so there's another reason to watch out for him.

An invitation to a conference on freedom of expressions was rescinded for one participant because he was Israeli, and indication the organizers didn't quite grasp the concept of freedom of expression. Some Norwegians offered to grant the person Norwegian citizenship to allow him to bypass the restriction on a technicality, but the participant, a former Israeli MK, declined. Freedom of expression follows directly from the freedom to exist; denying the latter implicitly denies the former.

An advertisement on the Tokyo subways that features a nude and pregnant Britney Spears will not be censored as originally planned. This is not good news for America.

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Midnight News -- 8/26/06

According to Kofi Annan, troops from the European Union will provide the "backbone" of the peacekeeping force being sent to southern Lebanon. This will severely deplete Europe's already limited backbone resources. The whole continent threatens to collapse into a puddle.

Russia is experience regular economic growth, but is also suffering severe inflation:

City authorities quickly began handing out bread coupons to him and hundreds of other pensioners in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - the first time food vouchers had been issued anywhere in the country since the dark days of 1992. But the gesture brought little comfort to [Vladimir] Gaidukas, 72, who lives on 5,000 rubles ($187) per month.

"People are in a state of shock," Gaidukas said by telephone from the remote city on the Kamchatka Peninsula this week.

Muslims in Pakistan are enraged by attempts to change the rape laws in that country. They are profoundly furious at the notion that rape victims might not be guilty of adultery, and thus not available to be stoned.

French socialists are sexist pigs.

There is no redemption for this degree of depravity.

I am glad I am not a polar bear in this day and age.

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Midnight News -- 8/23/06

The Congolese finally heard the results of their historic election, and they did not like the results at all. Riots and inter-party violence broke out when it was announced a runoff would be required between incumbent President Joseph Kabila and former rebel leader and runner-up Jean-Pierre Bemba. Kabila received 45% of the vote to Bemba's 20%. The European Union has sent troops to quell the violence and support UN peace keepers, and President Kabila is begging his army to remain in their barracks. Much of the capital Kinsasha has shut down. The greatest disappointment in the election is that it failed to unite the country and that much of the voting fell along tribal lines. It is foolish to have expected a Switzerland to erupt after a single election.

We should not be glamorizing the functionaries of the state. This is how we go from a government of public servants to one of courtiers and mandarins.

Much controversy ensued in Scottsdale, Arizona when the Pink Taco restaurant chain moved to town. Now, the family behind the chain wants to purchase the naming rights for the new Arizona Cardinals stadium across town in Glendale. They've pledged 30 million dollars to indicate their seriousness, but I have no doubt their only goal is to keep their company's name in the headlines. As successful as they have been, they must be smart enough to know that the lead-in to a televised football game could never begin: "Coming up, the 49'ers take on the Arizona Cardinals, live, from the Pink Taco in Glendale, Arizona."

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Midnight News -- 8/21/06

Despite condemning Israel's commando raid in Baalbek, Kofi Annan is expected to announce that the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon will be allowed to use force to keep the peace. Perhaps Israel's raid sent a sufficiently loud message to the world that Israel would take the provisions of resolution 1701 even if no one else did, thus spurring Annan to make a change in UNIFIL's rules of engagement.

South Korea is taking a keen interest in whether the North is planning to test a nuclear weapon. This despite saying that U.S. claims of an impending North Korean nuclear test were unfounded.

The human oddity that has claimed the murder of JonBenet Ramsey flew in style from Bangkok to Los Angeles. Sitting in business class, John Mark Karr sipped champagne, had a beer, then enjoyed a supper of chardonnay and fried prawns. Some commentators have suggested that indulging Karr was a ploy by Boulder, Colorado investigators, an attempt to soften Karr up for an interrogation. Others, by which I mean myself, have suggested the cops who escorted Karr were too distracted by the man's weirdness to think to say no. It has also been reported that while in Thailand, Karr visited a sex change clinic. Drunkablog has been covering the Karr case more than is probably healthy.

Controversy during a cricket match between England and Pakistan on Sunday exposed tensions between citizens of Muslim countries and those of Western countries. I frankly have no idea how cricket works, but the drama surrounding it, as described at Samizdata, is intelligible and captivating.

The Maori queen has died. Long live the Maori king.

Teachers at my old grade school in Scottsdale are making special efforts to make sure kids attend the first week of classes. The problem is that many families are on vacation through August, and that many are newcomers who don't realize school starts on before Labor Day. Life is good for a public school educator when those are the worst problems.

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Midnight News -- 8/20/06

Among other things, yesterday was a very bad day for women's rights, as a number of stories report women suffering at the hands of deranged or fanatic men.

Four American soldiers were killed in two separate battles against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The fighting came on Afghanistan's independence day, on which president Hamid Karzai praised education:

"Our history proves our bravery," Karzai said. "The only thing we need to keep our independence is education."

Militants have targeted schools, burning 144 to the ground over the past year and forcing another 200 to close following threats against teachers and students, according to officials. More than 200,000 children have been unable to continue their education as a result.

The insurgents claim that educating girls is against Islam and oppose government-funded schools for boys because they teach secular subjects besides religion. Targeting schools is also considered a tactic to shake the authority of the U.S.-backed government.

The religion of peace has also been sighted in Italy. A Pakistani Muslim living there slit his daughter's throat because she dared to act like she had a mind of her own. Now Italy is reconsidering its planned liberalization of immigration policy.

Two women were murdered while sitting in their car in midtown Kansas City. One was seven months pregnant, and since the unborn child was also killed, the murderer could be charged with three homicides. The description sounds like a planned assassination, as the killer jumped into a grey car and fled the scene. The police have already linked the crime to drugs. A third homicide charge for the killing of the child looks likely to spark and intense debate related to abortion.

A Long Island Man murdered his neighbor, a female retired teacher. He dismembered her and kept her severed head in his car.

Fears grow for the lives of a FOXNews correspondent and cameraman kidnapped in Gaza. None of the radical groups in that territory are willing to take credit for the kidnapping, and few kidnapped journalists have ever been held this long.

The president of Taiwan is defiant against allegations of corruption and increasing calls for his resignation. Part of his defense is that his opposition, by decrying him so vociferously, is providing mainland China with an opportunity to hurt Taiwan. The trouble with democracy is that we use legal restrictions on democratic leaders to fight political battles. This is fine when a country is rich and safe, but can be disastrous when a country faces an immediate threat, as Taiwan does. It's tragically ironic that the only party that would really benefit from extended battles over corruption Taiwan is the profoundly corrupt government of mainland China.

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