Once Again, Never Again

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is so evil that he does not know he is evil. This is the only explanation for his bizarre letter to Germany's Angela Merkel, in which he denies the Holocaust only to justify its repetition.

"Is it not a reasonable possibility that some countries that had won the war made up this excuse to constantly embarrass the defeated people ... to bar their progress," Ahmadinejad said in the letter.

"The question is if these countries, especially Britain, felt responsible for the Holocaust survivors, why they did not settle them in their own countries?" it said.

He understands the Jewish people as one would a herd of sheep. It is not that Britain chose Palestine for the Jews at the expense of Arabs. Rather, Jews expanded their settlements already there and took responsibility for creating their own state.

"By promoting the necessity of settlement of Holocaust survivors in the occupied Palestine, they have created a constant threat in the Middle East," he said, referring to Israel.

On behalf of Muslims, he is shamed by the proximity of a prosperous Jewish state not under the thumb of Islamic rule. Their escape from the grasp of his coreligionists seems to burn away at him, thus the insane historical rantings.

Iran will hold a conference on the Holocaust in a few months, one which will no doubt be appalling and intellectually monstrous. But we should remember that his goal is not to deny the Holocaust, but to rehabilitate it.

Technorati tags: Iran | Mahmoud Ahmadinejad | anti-Semitism | the Holocaust

NFL Steroids

The NFL may have a steroid scandal approaching. Not just a one-player, failed-drug-test type scandal, but a big-scale, everybody-looks-bad, the whole-league-is-dirty type scandal:

According to an investigative report posted on the Charlotte Observer's Web site on Sunday, a number of Carolina Panthers used a vast quantity and tremendous variety of performance-enhancing drugs during the team's 2004 Super Bowl season.

[...]

Players' names were blacked out on Wadler's report, but the Observer reported that six Panthers -- and three of the five starting offensive linemen from the Super Bowl team -- were taking performance enhancers. And many reported adverse reactions.

Although studies have shown that steroids can affect blood flow and contribute to strokes and heart disease, one member of the Panthers ignored a family history of strokes and took the drugs anyway.

This story is going to get bigger.

Technorati tags: football | NFL

Possible Proof Castro Is Dying

AcademicElephant infers from the following story that Castro may be on his death bed:

Venezuela's President says he made a second visit to Cuban leader Fidel Castro earlier this week.

President Hugo Chavez describes his ailing ally as "recuperating" and says they spoke for a couple of hours.

Chavez' visit was more or less secret, and thus AcademicElephant's inference: had there been good news about Castro's health, Chavez would have arrived with cameras in tow. He did not, therefore Castro's health must be very poor.

We can hope.

In the Australian, Caroline Overington describes how she came to realize that Castro's Cuba was not the paradise she had imagined in here fevered, progressive dreams:

Two years ago, I was given what quickly became an awful assignment. I was told to visit Cuba. Oh sure, like everybody I thought: dark rum, hot nights, fat cigars, the rumba.

The reality was very different. Cuba was wretched. Every day the photographer and I encountered distressing scenes of women, children and ageing Cubans living in terrible poverty.

I should be grateful she eventually figured out that all those nasty right-wing Cubans were telling the truth all along, but I'm not lately inclined to be generous to the dimwitted.

It was a terrible shock because, like many people, I'd believed the hype about Cuba: that it was a socialist paradise; that Castro was a visionary leader; that the Cuban people were happy communists. In fact, Castro is a gutless dictator who has never been brave enough to hold a presidential election. Yet across the West he continues to be celebrated as some grand, visionary leader, instead of being derided as a lunatic on his last legs.

If she really was a believer, then she probably owes a number of people an apology. People like her, people who "celebrated" Castro, are responsible for denouncing and denigrating those who have always understood Castro was a lunatic, long before he was on his last legs. Now that she's found her courage, she might take the time to recognize the Cuban dissidents who have always been courageous enough to tell the truth.

Previously:

• Castro: Maybe Recovering, Probably Not Dead

Technorati tags: Fidel Castro | Cuba | freedom

Dumb Blogger

So, I'm still waiting for HTML editor that was promised in a time frame of "days, not weeks" almost two weeks ago. And I'm still waiting for my Google AdSense ads to appear, and the DiggIt links, and so on, and so on. But while I'm waiting I've discovered yet another bizarre glitch.

A few days ago I clicked on a referring link from my logs. I could see it was to somebody's Blogger dashboard, but I was curious if it was simply a "Next Blog" hit or if there was some other link on the page. It turns out, the particular dashboard page was on the Korean blogger site, or at least I think it was Korean. I think, fine, whatever, and log in. Since then, every time I go the dashboard on my home computer, the site is in Korean. Every single time. At right is a partial screenshot.

How stupid is the programming that it thinks one visit means I want to work in the Korean version of blogger.

Technorati tags: Blogger | Blogger Beta

I Told You So

Eleven days ago I wrote the following about John Mark Karr:

The man is a pedophile obsessed with the death of JonBenet Ramsey, and think it highly unlikely his confession will hold up once DNA evidence is tested. Despite all the talk, we never really left square one on this case.

I was right.

Since the prosecutors have declined to file charges, John Mark Karr can be returned to California to serve his time for possession of child pornography. His release from jail for that charge will probably be heavily covered by the media, so we can then learn whether he really is planning a sex change.

The media's insistent belief that not only had the JonBenet Ramsey murder been solved, but that the Ramseys' deserved all manner of mea culpas for ever having been suspected of the crime, only proves that the media is full of pompous, preening buffoons. In no way did Karr's sudden appearance exonerate the Ramseys: if he were guilty, given the facts of the crime, he would at least have to have been inside the Ramsey's home, making the parents possibly complicit; if he were innocent, then his appearance in no way relieved the parents of suspicion. After they had rushed to a judgment about Karr, they rushed to decry their prior rush to judgement about the Ramseys. We'd have all been better off if these reporters had chosen a career in janitorial science instead of journalism.

As I noted previously, Drunkablog has been covering the case more than is healthy,
as he now admits. I'm sure his friends and family are happy to have him back. But before he returned to his senses, such as they were, he did find this nugget of wisdom from the World Socialist Web Site. It is rapidly becoming axiomatic that while all idiots may not be leftists, all leftists are idiots.

Upon being cleared, one of Karr's lawyers, Seth Temin, advocated so zealously on behalf of his client that he nearly managed to defy the laws of physics:

"We're deeply distressed by the fact that they took this man and dragged him here from Bangkok, Thailand, with no forensic evidence confirming the allegations against him and no independent factors leading to a presumption that he did anything wrong," Temin said.

Let's see, what's insane in that statement?

1. He was returned to California because he violated laws against child pornography in that jurisdiction.
2. He confessed on international television.
3. Champagne and fried prawns hardly constitute "dragging."
4. He confessed on international television.
5. He was returned Colorado because he refused to challenge a duly legal extradition warrant in a California court.
6. He confessed on international television.
7. He alluded to his guilt to two different sources, who each kept records of his statements.
8. He confessed on international television.

Yes, his arrest makes no sense at all.

One last point: I heard a few of my friends say things like this about Karr: "Why would he confess if he didn't do it?" For the record, I've never heard anyone ask a question like that when it actually made sense. Every time I've heard someone say, "Why do x, it makes no sense," that person has only succeeded in displaying naivete and ignorance. There is always a very solid reason that someone would do something that seems crazy, and its because that person is crazy. Karr confessed because he had a broken mind to begin with and somehow convinced himself he was guilty. It's called human nature, and it isn't always sunshine and moonbeams. The next time you hear someone say, "Why would somebody do that?" remind them of that fact.

Technorati tags: crime | JonBenet Ramsey

Hurricane Ernesto Reaches Cuba

Hurricane Ernesto made landfall this morning more or less right on top of the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay and the terrorist detention center there. My question, what do they do with the prisoners? The vast majority of people held there are monstrous, using every opportunity to harass and intimidate the Marine guards, including hurling feces at them. Do they all sit together in a shelter? Are left in their open air cages? Can we just put them all on a little boat and hope they sink in the bay?

UPDATE: Question answered (see page 2 of the article). The prisoners are no longer housed in open air cages, and haven't been for some time:

For the last three years, detainees have been kept in cells without windows or with a single window covered with a heavy steel hurricane shutter. The cells replaced the open steel cages where prisoners were initially held.

U.S. military personnel, except for guards and people in other critical jobs, were told to stay in their quarters until the storm passed, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Defense Department spokesman.

My image of the open air cages persisted.

Technorati tags: hurricane Ernesto | Guantanamo

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.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

Another Reason To Shrink The Government

According to some experts, the United States is falling apart.

A pipeline shuts down in Alaska. Equipment failures disrupt air travel in Los Angeles. Electricity runs short at a spy agency in Maryland.

None of these recent events resulted from a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but they may as well have, some homeland security experts say. They worry that too little attention is paid to how fast the country's basic operating systems are deteriorating.

[...]

The American Society of Civil Engineers last year graded the nation "D" for its overall infrastructure conditions, estimating that it would take $1.6 trillion over five years to fix the problem.

I once heard an analyst from the Cato Institute describe big government as a luxury we purchase for ourselves when the economy is strong. I think this is a wise insight, and can be expanded by noting that when we buy ourselves a luxury, it usually has little to do with our actual needs. A luxury item isn't usually an expensive version of a necessity, it is an impulsive purchase for which no prior need existed. In this sense, the big government we support when times are good is not big government that will prove useful, but simply a popular impulse in response to a supposed, not actual, need.

All those billions we've thrown at expanded regulations and expensive programs are now coming back to haunt us. Most of them should be tossed aside as unaffordable luxuries, so that money can diverted to infrastructure or taxes cut for those industries that can improve infrastructure. It pains me to say it, but even the so-called "big-government conservative" programs I generally support, such as a Mars mission and NCLB, probably need to be dropped in favor of infrastructure spending. We shouldn't tolerate living in a country where our elites preen at their own superiority for passing grandiose federal programs, while all around us we see deterioration and decay.

Technorati tags: United States

Government By Gangster

The kidnapping of FOX News journalist Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig represented something at least unusual. Prior kidnappings of Westerners in Gaza were short lived, but the two journalists were held for several days, and were even subjected to a forced conversion. The internecine feuds driving Gaza politics are responsible for this strange kidnapping case.

In its broadcasts, Fox News often portayed the Hamas militants as terrorists, but the kidnapping of the two journalists, sources tell TIME, had nothing to do with Fox's perceived pro-Israel stance or a serious attempt, as the captors first demanded, of swapping the pair for Muslim prisoners in the U.S. Instead, the two newsmen were more likely the victims of a vicious feud between various Palestinian militias.

Palestinian security sources close to the negotiators told TIME that the two Fox Newsmen - reporter Steve Centanni, 60, from Washington, D.C., and New Zealand cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36 - were kidnapped from Gaza to embarrass Haniyeh's government. The militants, who earlier identified themselves as members of the previously unknown Holy Jihad Brigades, were enraged with fellow Hamas militants because they too had joined in the daring capture on June 25th of Corp. Shalit, in which Palestinian gunmen tunneled under a wall and attacked an Israeli army post. But according to these security sources, the militant groups fell out after Hamas' military wing took control of Shalit and elbowed the other co-conspirators aside.

In revenge, these militants, who belong to a splinter group of the late Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, struck back by seizing the two journalists, these sources said.

The Palestinian pseudo-state is governed by gangsters, and this fact alone makes their government one with which no deal can be struck. I don't know what can be done instead, since the Palestinians are such the darlings of the international community and the U.N., but we ought to at least recognize their government and political culture for what it is: barbarous collections of armed thugs, driven by irrational hatreds and preoccupations.

The problem that follows from the kidnapping is the price that Ismail Haniyeh had to pay to secure the journalists' release: the hard line militants will now have a say in whether Gilad Shalit is released.

Also mentioned in the TIME article is the air strike against a car carrying various Palestinian journalists:

The reporters' car was clearly marked "TV" and the crew were filming the destruction of an Israeli air raid when the missile struck. The Israeli military said the journalists' vehicle was acting suspiciously, a claim that the Foreign Press Association in Tel Aviv dismissed as "outrageous."

Given the outright lies in "news" stories from both Lebanon and Gaza, and the willingness of terror groups and militants to use civilians as cover for their attacks, I think the notion that the Israeli claim is "outrageous" is outrageous itself. The Israeli claim may be true, it may be untrue, but unbelievable it is not.

The strenuous response from the Foreign Press Association suggests they also think the military's claim may prove true. In other words, methinks the Muslim doth protest too much.

Technorati tags: Gaza | Israel

Brewers-Rangers Trade One Month Later

On July 28, the Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers completed a typical deadline trade: the Brewers got a strong relief pitcher to shore up their bullpen and the Rangers got a soon-to-be free agent slugger and a prospect in return. I thought at the time the trade would help the Brewers but made no sense for the Rangers, and now that it's been a month we can see if that statement was accurate.

In the trade, the Brewers received four players: reliever Francisco Cordero, outfielders Kevin Mench and Laynce Nix, left-hander Julian Cordero. Texas received Carlos Lee and top prospect Nelson Cruz.

Nix is a bench player and Julian Cordero is a minor leaguer; neither was expected to have much of an impact on the season. The primary player in the trade for Milwaukee was Francisco Cordero, and Mensch was included to replace the player the Brewers gave up, Carlos Lee, and as a sign of Lee's value.

I'll use July 29 as the baseline, even though F. Cordero pitched on the 28th; the 29th is the first date that all players had settled in with their new teams. On that day, one day after the trade, the Brewers record was 49-55, and they were 9.5 games out of first place in the NL Central and 6 games back, tied for fourth place, in the wild card. As of today, they are 62-67, 6.5 games out of first place, and are only 4.5 games back for the wild card, but behind 6 other teams in seventh place.

My thought at the trade was that since F. Cordero was a strike out pitcher, he'd be missed by Texas and effective for Milwaukee. Since the trade he's come in as the teams closer, pitching 11.2 of about 120 innings for the team. He's compiled a remarkable record, with 10 saves in 10 opportunities and no losses. He has yet to give up any runs, and has had 15 hits and walks against 13 strike outs. If the teams has not won more games, it is because the starters and the offense has not gotten to th 8th or 9th inning with a lead.

One reason why this might be the case is the loss of slugger Carlos Lee. The acquisition of Kevin Mensch was intended to replace Lee, so the immediate wisdon of the trade might be an issue of whether losing Lee cost the team any of the leads that may have allowed F. Cordero's performance to help them. Since he's come to the Brewers, Mench's average has dropped 50 points and his OPS has gone from a respectable .797 to a lowly .573. He's scored but 5 runs and only driven in 13, and has seen limited playing time in the last two weeks. This shouldn't surprise: until this year, he's only played in the American League.

The best comparison is to what they might have had from Carlos Lee had they not traded him. In the 21 games he played for the Brewers in July, Lee had 8 runs and 17 RBI, and thus was only marginally more productive than Mench. The Brewers may have a problem in left field, but Mench's presence instead of Lee has hardly hurt the Brewers win percentage.

On July 29, Texas had a record of 51-53, was 3 games back AL West, and was 11 back for wild card in sixth place. As of today they are 66-65, 9 games back, and still in sixth place for the wild card, 11.5 games back.

For Texas, the value of the trade isn't just what they get in Lee, but what they lose by giving up F. Cordero. In his last 12 appearances for the Rangers, used as a setup reliever and not a closer. Cordero had 16 strike outs against a 14 hits and 4 walks. He gave 5 runs, all earned, 4 of them in a single game against the New York Yankees.

In his place, the top 2 setup men for Texas have mainly been Wes Littleton and Ron Mahay; these two seem to be the best players to compare to Cordero. In August, Mahay has 14 Ks and has given up 4 runs, 3 earned, in 11.2 innings. In the same month, Littleton has 1 strike out and has given up 4 runs, all earned, in 13.2 innings. Against that lone strike out, he has given up 12 hits and 4 walks. Losing Cordero can be said to have changed nothing, since he had not pitched that much better than either of these men, or it could be said to have cost 2 or 3 runs. Unlike Mahay and Littleton, Cordero had been consistently strong excpet for one bad appearance against the Yankees.

Meanwhile, Carlos Lee has provided more offense for Texas than Mench has for the Brewers, but little more than Mench did before the trade. His slugging percentage since joining the Rangers has been an unexciting .517, and though he has hit well, he has drawn few walks. However, compared to Mench, he has been a run scoring machine. He has 24 runs and 15 RBI. In his last 28 games with the Rangers, Mench had 7 runs and 10 RBI.

Lee has probably benefited from playing a stronger line up and in a park that allows a lot of offense. In this sense, they've improved their team by including him, because he has taken advantage of the park in a way that Mench never has. That his presence has not helped the team greatly is a function of a pitching staff that did not improve from the trade, and arguably became weaker.

Ultimately, this trade will probably mean little to either franchise. Unless Nix, Cruz, or Julian Cordero turn into top players down the line, the whole episode will be quite forgettable. Neither team improved greatly after the trade, and neither team will reach the playoffs this year. But it is interesting to note that the two primary players in the deal, F. Cordero and Lee, have been rejuvenated somewhat by the change. Cordero, for 12 games at least, has gone from a slightly above average set up reliever to a top closer, and Lee, in terms of runs, has become more productive than he had been in Milwaukee. At least their agents will be happy, and Milwaukee, with an important position solidified, can build for next year.

Technorati tags: baseball

FOX News Journalists Freed

As Ismail Haniyeh had predicted, Olaf Wiig and Steve Centanni have been released by their captors.

The two journalists were dropped off at Gaza City's Beach Hotel by Palestinian security officials and appeared to be in good health. A tearful Centanni embraced a Palestinian journalist briefly as he entered, then rushed upstairs as Wiig followed.

Centanni, in a phone interview shortly after his release, said "I'm fine. I'm just so happy to be free."

He said he was so emotional because he was out and alive.

"There were times when I thought 'I'm dead,' and I'm not," Centanni said. "I'm fine. I'm so very happy."

Prior to their release, the kidnappers released another videotape.

Parts of the latest six-minute tape, aired on al-Jazeera television, showed Centanni and Wiig seated cross-legged. Both read from written statements condemning the American policy in the Middle East. In one scene, both men were shown eating.

"It is Apache helicopters firing Hellfire missiles made in America that kill the residents in Gaza," Wiig said on the tape.

Their statements were punctuated on the tape with screens of written verse from the Koran, and scenes from Abu Ghraib, the prison in Iraq that was the site of abuse of Muslim prisoners by American soldiers.

Despite this barbaric treatment, the two men still very positive towards the Palestinians.

At a news conference, Centanni and Wiig said they worried that their kidnapping might discourage other news organizations from reporting on the Palestinians, whom Centanni said "are beautiful."

"That would be a great tragedy for the people of Palestinians" if their story does not get told, Wiig said. "You guys need us on the streets."

The end of the FOX News story, which included material from the Associated Press, tries to put the kidnapping into perspective.

In chaotic Gaza, gunmen often change their affiliation or form splinter groups. Their agendas are often driven by personal issues, including jobs and power for their clans, rather than by ideology.

They sound almost like old-fashioned hillbillies. Except for the death worship and the blowing up of Jews.

Technorati tags: Gaza | terrorism

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.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

Insult Upon Injury

The fact they survived for months on raw fish and rainwater does not stop the vultures of the Mexican press from invading the lives of three fisherman.

The story captivated Mexico when first reported last week. Having disappeared in October, family members said, the fishermen and their 27-foot skiff turned up two weeks ago in the central Pacific halfway between North America and Australia, a blip on the radar screen of a tuna vessel north of Baker Island.

But the 100 or so journalists who greeted the survivors at Mexico City's Benito Juarez International Airport are more used to reporting crime and scandal than heroism. They grilled the three men at an often chaotic news conference that ended in a melee between producers and cameramen from rival television networks.

This is the tragic part: an ordeal like this alone would be fascinating were anyone to take it seriously enough to tell these fishermen's story, but the press is too caught up with themselves to do so.

Is it true that you guys are really drug dealers on a failed smuggling mission, the reporters asked. What happened to the two other men who you say were on board with you? Did you eat them? If you were at sea for nine months, why aren't your fingernails longer?

"To those who don't believe us, all I can say is that I hope that what happened to us never happens to you," Lucio Rendon, 27, said after denying that he and his comrades [Salvador Ordoñez and Jesus Vidaña] were either "narcos" or cannibals. "I just thank God for being here."

The truth should be enough, but it probably isn't sick enough for the media.

Family members say the three are typical fishermen from a stretch of coast dotted with hardscrabble fishing hamlets. When they left San Blas with two other men on Oct. 28, they didn't notify port authorities, or even many members of their family — not an unusual practice in an area where many fish illegally.

[...]

The survivors have said in interviews that they set off in search of shark, but have not said whether they were licensed. Their first night out, they lost a fishing line. While they tried to find it the next morning, their onboard engines ran out of gas. They began to drift.

One of the men, known to the others only by the nickname "El Farsero," died in January. Fifteen days later, a second man, known to the others as "Juan," died. The men either wouldn't eat or couldn't hold down the raw fish the others were eating to survive.

The other two men have not been identified, which does not seem surprising given the fishing industry of these little Mexican towns. The fact they dies so early has led to the accusations of cannibalism.

The men read a Bible they had on board. When a storm ripped out the Apocalypse chapters, they said, they took it as a good sign.

I think a case could be made that moral imagination allows people to persevere, and having the Bible with them no doubt insipred them.

They collected rainwater to drink. Ordoñez remembered advice from a government-sponsored survival course: Eat as little as possible and drink fish blood to stay hydrated. (Officials in San Blas confirmed that Ordoñez completed the course in 2004.)

Score one for a government program.

Upon hearing of his presumed death, Ordoñez's 15-year-old daughter, Gladiola, gave up her dream of being a teacher, dropped out of school and set out for the United States, the newspaper La Cronica de Hoy reported Thursday.

"My father is dead," Gladiola told her brother Angel. "What will I do here? I don't even have money for a notebook." Gladiola crossed the border illegally and reportedly is working in a Los Angeles factory, the newspaper reported. The account could not be independently verified.

The story is possible, but it sounds too good to be true, especially from a country where there is much resentment at America for acting like it has a right to defend its borders. I wonder how the "hardscrabble" life she endured in this little village would have allowed her income enough to go to school in the first place, and thus why her circumstances so changed upon her father's supposed death. That the story has not been verified illustrates the problem with how the Mexican press is treating these men. They treat the most salacious rumors as though they were true, as though these men were Brangelina.

Rendon, it turned out, was on probation on charges of stealing shrimp from a fishing company. A mortgage company was about to foreclose on the family home of Vidaña, 27. Vidaña's wife had given birth to their baby, a girl — Juliana is now 4 months old. And while talking with Ordoñez in a phone call broadcast live by the Televisa network, his family in Oaxaca learned that he had moved in with a woman in San Blas.

But little has emerged about the two men said to have died at sea. "Up to now they are only ghosts," the newspaper El Universal wrote Tuesday. "No one knows their full names or where they're from. It's as if they never existed."

We might learn the truth if the press were interested in more than the following:

At Friday's airport news conference, a radio reporter asked the three men whether they would take lie detector tests to prove that their story was true.

Yes, the fishermen answered.

After the news conference, producers from the rival Televisa and Azteca television networks engaged in a shoving match over who would get the first "exclusive" interview with the three men: Televisa ended up with two of the survivors, Azteca with one.

Reporter Carlos Loret de Mola prodded Ordoñez and Rendon until they acknowledged that, yes, at one point they had drunk their own urine to survive.

The press probably won't bother finding out who the other two fishermen are: ghosts and victims of cannibalism make better copy.

Technorati tags: Mexico | the press

These Nazis Get A Protest

It's nice to know that at least one instance of Americans resisting a fascist rally gets favorable news coverage.

Hundreds of people jeered and taunted a group of neo-Nazis who rallied against immigration policy and the Iraq war Saturday on the steps of the state Capitol.

Police estimated about 800 people showed up to counter the Minneapolis-based National Socialist Movement's speakers, but a brief rainstorm thinned the crowd.

Police said 64 neo-Nazis lined the Capitol steps.

Of course, these Nazis make it easy: they take essentially the same name as Hitler's party, and they wear brown uniforms with little arm bands. They are so easy to spot that they succeeded in becoming the target of a pompous newspaper editorial.

But I suspect the mass denunciations are a function of the group's obviousness and inherent weakness. These are alienated white losers who are the remotest of threats to the public at large. They are easy to spot, are not likely to fight back, and thus easy to denounce.

It is rather pathetic that we can so loudly decry these people but shrink to even notice fascists who are Muslim. In the case of Islamic fascism, we fail to see the same hatred, violence, and ideological rigidity that the gentlemen in Madison displayed on Saturday. In fact, not only do we fail to notice, we often fall all over ourselves to prove that we don't notice, endlessly repeating the mantra that "Islam is a religion of peace" and justifying genocidal intentions by pointing out all of Israel's mistakes and none of the Islamofascist crimes.

Protesting the neo-nazis is a useless display given the threat we face from fascists of a different faith.

Technorati tags: neo-nazis | the left

Adblogging: Dance! Dance! Dance!

I can think of few professions more useless then that of dancer. Dance, while pretty to look at, expresses little but the dancer's own athleticism. It has little or no content, and holds little or no intellectual interest. Yet young people in droves seek out this career, and when they need to eat, they can usually find employment in music videos and advertising, two genres where the superficiality of the dancer's art is not a vice but a virtue.

Below are some recent examples in commercials:

Starbucks Doubleshots: Manic, caffeinated hordes are coming to pillage your offices and conference rooms. They stomp, shout, and chant their way through urban America, seeking virgin office managers they can sacrifice to their pagan gods.

There's several fatal errors in this ad, and it not only fails to make me feel enthused about trying the product, it actually makes me want to avoid the product entirely, even if it were offered to me for free.

The first is that the producers attempted to maximize how large the crowd of stompers appears to be. They used quick cuts from dance move to dance move, rearranging most of the dancers each time, to make that hundreds of people had taken the streets. The problem is, they didn't have enough dancers: too many faces repeat. In the final set of cuts, a man sees the crowd then rushes out to join them. However, the same man was in the shot just prior to this, and the fact it is the same man is obvious. An ad with a mistake this obvious does not bring credit to the product it advertises. It also doesn't help that the ad is all about getting ready for the day and in the last shots, some guy is ditching work to go stomp around the streets with a bunch of strangers.

A second flaw is the art design. The ad is all black, grey, and denim blue. It is supposed to have a cool, corporate feel to it, and I suppose it does, but all the ambition it is supposed to inspire crashes against its depressing backdrop. Why would I want to succeed in an environment so completely lacking in joy, around people so dour and intense, and why would I want a product that is intended to help me do so?

The final and most serious problem is simply this: these people are freakin' crazy, I mean totally, completely, balls-to-the-wall insane. I really don't want to drink something that will cause me to act like these people. I'd be more interested in the antidote.

Fanta: I thought the first bunch of Fanta ads featuring the Fantanas were absolutely brilliant. The scantily clad girls, each dressed in a different bright, solid color to represent the different flavors of the drink, would suddenly appear on some hot sweaty scene bringing joy and refreshment. It was all so cheesy and fun that I was tempted a number of times actually buy a Fanta, which is saying a lot for the ad because I never buy soft drinks. I especially loved that each of the Fantana's had a name, as though they were dolls you could collect.

The ads must have been popular, because they have been developed further in a batch of ads. Unfortunately, the producers took what was good, cheesy fun and created a successor that is less clear and much more overproduced. The music changed: it has become a complex and overproduced dance tune, and one that isn't half as fun to listen as before. Second, instead of primarily presenting obvious scenarios that show Fanta is a cool and refreshing drink, the new ads are mostly a jumble of people dancing. This lessens the clear message about the drink the prior version had. The only redeeming virtue of the new ad is that the girls still have names.

"Don't you wanna?" Not as much as before. They should have kept things simple.

Bacardi Mojiti: Apparently, if you are very hip, you are at the mercy of smug, pretentious bartenders. They can make you dance, they can make you stop dancing. Your whole world revolves around them, at least while they are crushing mint leaves for your Mojito. This ad features a muscular dance not unlike the Twist, only without any of the joy or variety of movement.

With all the sweaty bodies grinding about, the underlying message of the ad is subtle. The bartender is only just beginning the drink; he hasn't even added the alcohol. So it takes more thought then they expect the viewer to employ to realize that the entire commercial is saying Bacardi rules the night, and is the sole source of whatever fun one might have. When the drink mixing stops, so does all the dancing in the entire city.

The people most responsive to this ad are those who hope to submerge themselves into the overpriced, soulless world of clubs and parties. Watching it makes me grateful that I am not hip.

And by the way, I don't think a Mojito is a gay drink: Moe-hee-toe.

Technorati tags: advertising | ads | culture | television | tv

Clarity In India

In India's Daily Pioneer, Dina Nath Mishra makes an observation that I can't imagine appearing anywhere in the mainstream Western media, despite that it's truth can be verified by simple observation:

Islam is not past, it is very much alive and clicking all over the world. The number of its followers is next only to Christians. They are present as minority in almost all parts of the world. They are troublesome where in minority; they are tyrants where in majority.

Samizdata discusses a recent example of this phenomenon:

There is a strange article in the LA Times called The Governor's cold shoulder to Muslims, in which Shakeel Syed, the executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California criticises state governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for refusing to meet with him. The title suggests this refusal amounts to cold shouldering 'Muslims' rather than just certain Muslims (i.e Shakeel Syed).

In reality, all Schwarzenegger did was attend a rally supporting Israel. Demanding he crawl before them apologetically is evidence of a congenital bully. The calls for an apology are meant to demean the governor, and make any other public official think twice about supporting the existence of Israel. Trouble now, as a minority, and giving every indication that as a majority they would be tyrannical.

Technorati tags: muslims | Islam | terror | terrorism

Fentanyl Laced Heroin Dealer Faces Murder Charge

Corey Crump, a 35-year-old convicted felon, is charged with murder for selling drugs to the son of a deputy police chief. "In this case, the body of 17-year-old Joseph Krecker -- still clutching tinfoil packets of heroin in one hand -- was discovered within a half block of the [Crump's] home, investigators said."

While the charge is significant -- murder indictments are rare for selling drugs that cause a fatal overdose -- it is not part of the primary arrests made several weeks ago in the heroin-fentanyl epidemic.

Similar charges involving other fentanyl victims and dealers in Chicago could be forthcoming soon, a law enforcement source told the Chicago Sun-Times. Investigators are awaiting laboratory toxicology results in those cases, the source said.

Krecker is the youngest victim of the nearly 200 fatal fentanyl overdoses in Cook County since April 2005.

"This tragedy is based on somebody's greed," said Jack Krecker, a deputy chief of the west suburban FranklinPark Police Department. "They tried to make more money by cutting this [heroin] with fentanyl. This greed is what killed my son."

Technorati tags: heroin | fentanyl | Chicago

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.

Other Midnight News Entries

Technorati tags: news | politics | current events

YouTube Barbarians

The revolution may not be televised. The barbarity, however, can be found on YouTube. (NSFW)

From Crime Scene KC.

Technorati tags: Kansas City | crime

Refined Moonbattery

Not all idiots are leftists, but all leftists are idiots.

In a commentary that drips with phoniness, a poster at Huffington Post has stated that although he'd prefer there not be another 9/11, he does sometimes long to see one take place so that the true source of evil in the world, George Bush, might be deposed. Apparently, no sacrifice is too great for other Americans to make in the service of protecting our republic from the depredations of a Texas conservative. This is a point of view so deranged that although those who express it ought to be ashamed, expressing it at all implies a mind incapable of shame.

Ace of Spades is monitoring any attempts to retract post and avoid the repercussions of its vicious insanity.

Technorati tags: the left | 9/11