Month: August 2005

A different strategy for Iran

Let simmer until well done[*1] :

Karl Marx wasn’t right about much. But one thing he did get right is the social dynamic leading to political revolution. Genuine revolutions, Marx noted, do not take place in a friendly environment amenable to gradual and piecemeal reform. They are the result of widespread dissatisfaction so strongly suppressed that it eventually erupts, like an overblown balloon, in acts of revolutionary violence and fervor.

In a wonderful historical twist, this piece of Marxist-Leninist wisdom may be the key to the undoing of the Iranian theocracy. But to make it so, the US must play it clever and ignore the Iranian government’s repeated provocations.

Because provocations they are. The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his cohorts know full well that the only way to maintain and tighten their grip on the Iranian populace is to provoke the US and its Western allies into confrontation. Once that happens, wide support for the new national cause drowns domestic concerns about the totalitarian regime.

The Iranian people are by and large friendly to — to some extent even admiring of — the United States. Iran has a large and well educated middle class with an unabashed entrepreneurial spirit and economic vested interest in a stable middle east. This is why Iran does not produce terrorism so much as sponsor it abroad: although Hezbollah and its likes get much of their financial and organizational support from Tehran, Iranian citizens are rarely involved in terrorist acts.

This might work, until such time as Iran actually tests a nuclear bomb. Then it will be too late.

Out of the mouths of soldiers

National Review[*1] reports an exchange on The Today Show where Matt Lauer gets slapped upside the head:

LAUER: Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re probably telling the truth, but there might be a lot of people at home wondering how that might be possible with the conditions you’re facing and with the insurgent attacks you’re facing… What would you say to people who doubt that morale could be that high?

CAPTAIN SHERMAN POWELL: Well sir, I’d tell you, if I got my news from the newspapers I’d be pretty depressed as well.

Emphasis mine.

Via Instapundit[*2] .

Royals: Eighteen

Pathetic[*1] .

Sitting in last place, 15 games under .500, the Mariners certainly aren’t going to feel bad about beating anybody.

But having just swept the hapless Kansas City Royals with an 11-5 drubbing in front of 35,224 at Safeco Field, Seattle’s manager and players could certainly sympathize with the team that just lost its 18th consecutive game to tie the 10th-longest streak in major-league history.

Royals need to go 43-0 to finish .500, 25-18 to avoid 100 losses, 1-42 to avoid losing all of their remaining games.

NCAA buys NIT tournaments

The NIT’s lawsuit against the NCAA was resolved out of court with the NCAA paying $56.5 million to acquire the NIT[*1] .

At issue in the trial was an NCAA rule that required teams to attend its postseason tournaments, and no others, if invited. The NIT had called for an open market.Wednesday’s action essentially closed that market. But it raised several new questions, including the motivations of both sides, how teams will be selected for the tournaments and the NCAA’s intentions for the NIT.

What does the NCAA do with the NIT? The linked article states that the NCAA makes 90% of their money off of the Division I men’s basketball tournament–far too concentrated. Maybe they’ll turn the NIT into a consolation tournament, expanding the tournament field to 96 or 128, and taking all of the first round losers of the NCAA tournament or something like that. I guess we’ll see.

Half of all Mexicans want to emigrate to U.S.

Survey finds many Mexicans would move[*1] to the U.S. if they could:

In the survey of 1,200 Mexican adults, conducted in May by the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center, 46 percent said they would like to live in the United States if they had the opportunity. Among college graduates, 35 percent said they would head north.
. . . According to the (Mexican Government’s) Population Council, 400,000 Mexicans, or less than 0.4 percent of the population, migrate to the United States every year. About 75 percent of these people enter the United States illegally, the council says. In July, the CIA estimated Mexico’s population at 106 million.
. . . Many Mexican politicians hoped NAFTA, which went into effect in 1994, would raise wages.

But stiff competition from China, and a long-running depression in the Mexican agriculture sector, have kept unemployment high and wages low, said Monica Gambrill, an expert on the agreement at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.

Once again, the question comes up: What is so special about the American model that half of the population of a neighboring country would up and move if they had the opportunity? I think the answer is in the combination of political and economic freedom which is unique in the world’s history. The two feed off of each other to create the dynamic American way of life. Other countries, other systems restrict political or economic freedoms in a way which is corrosive to those countries’ success. Even such “advanced” European countries like France and Germany have overlayed a stifling welfare state over their economies leading to their relative undesirability. No other country in the world was started with the premise that it is the government which must be restrained, not the people.

This is why issues like the Kelo decision are so important. Government Must Be Restrained.

Morning Whip, August 17, 2005

#10: The pass-out “game”
#9: Mariners 4, Royals 3
#8: SDSU women’s basketball team #2 in GPA
#7: The Virginia iBook riot
#6: OK, I missed The Worm
#5: Are gas prices really at “record highs?”
#4: Folsom Prison terror cell
#3: North Korean news agency–they’re so ronrey
#2: Able Danger: Army officer confirms lawyers blocked military from informing FBI
#1: State Governors declare border emergency

The pass-out “game”

Kansas 15-year-old girl kills herself[*1] with a bicycle chain:

Tami Radohl, a Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center counselor at Southwest Junior High School in Lawrence, said the behavior is not uncommon.

“This is going on in every junior high in Lawrence,” Radohl said.

Usually, the game involves one person causing another to pass out and, seconds later, reviving the unconscious peer.

The behavior is not uncommon?!? I realize that all teenagers are stupid, but this . . . words fail me.

Mariners 4, Royals 3

Royals lose seventeenth in a row[*1] :

“I think it’s gotten past the point of frustration for us,” Matt Stairs said. “When we make a mistake, it seems to beat us. Tonight it was an infield hit. I thought it was a good ballgame and I thought we played well, but we lost.”

Royals need to go 43-1 to finish .500, 25-19 to avoid 100 losses, 1-43 to avoid losing all of their remaining games.