Dallas' Dem district attorney-elect = disaster? UPDATE:more info

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Monday November 13, 2006 · 6:18 PM PST

2006/11/13 · 18:18

As the Dallas Observer points out, first in this blog entry and then this one, it turns out that Craig Watkins, the new district attorney, not only holds the justice system in unadulterated contempt, but also shows only the shakiest grasp of written English in expressing that contempt.
The Observer offers up this cached page from his Web site (which disappeared after it began to attract media attention), in which he declares: "I enjoy manipulating the government," and "...it is my responsibility to put up every roadblock and to search every loophole and legal technicality to get you off."
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U.S. may have killed Al-Zarqawi, AP reports.

kapoleon

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Sunday November 20, 2005 · 1:26 PM PST

2005/11/20 · 13:26

The AP story is here:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight -- some by their own hand to avoid capture. A U.S. official said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.
... In Washington, a U.S. official said the identities of the terror suspects killed was unknown. Asked if they could include al-Zarqawi, the official replied: "There are efforts under way to determine if he was killed."

The rest of the story is a horrific wrap-up of the bombings and deaths across Iraq today. Killing Al-Zarqawi would be a fantastic step, but the unspoken message of the story is that it wouldn't change a whole heck of a lot, at least in the short term.

The tragedy of Rumsfeld Syndrome: Incompetence begets arrogance

kapoleon

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Sunday November 13, 2005 · 6:04 PM PST

2005/11/13 · 18:04

Today's Washington Post magazine feature on Donald Rumsfeld made me want to rip Rummy's arm off and beat him to death with it. Staff writer David Von Drehle convincingly lays the blame for the disastrous bungling of the Iraq war squarely at the SecDef's feet.

It makes me dizzy with rage to think this self-satisfied hack is still in office - but it's not surprising. Recently I ran across a 2000 NYTimes piece (posted for free here) on a study showing that incompetence is usually accompanied by supreme self-confidence:

One reason that the ignorant also tend to be the blissfully self-assured, the researchers believe, is that the skills required for competence often are the same skills necessary to recognize competence.
The incompetent, therefore, suffer doubly, they suggested in a paper appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
"Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it," wrote Dr. Kruger, now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, and Dr. Dunning.

More below. Read More

Bush gives Marine medal for cleaning up Bush-created disaster

kapoleon

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Friday November 11, 2005 · 12:09 PM PST

2005/11/11 · 12:09

The front page of the White House Web site has a nice picture of Dubya awarding a medal to a Marine. "So what?" you say.

Well, this wasn't a military decoration - it was the National Humanities Medal. The medal goes to Americans who have made singular contributions to the field of humanities. The irony here, of course, is that Col. Matthew Bogdanos' medal-winning effort to recover stolen Iraqi antiquities wouldn't have been necessary if Bushco had bothered to make a plan for occupying Iraq, or if they had invaded with enough troops in the first place.

Bogdanos himself makes that point in a USA Today piece.

More below the fold... Read More

The future of journalism

kapoleon

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Friday October 28, 2005 · 10:14 AM PDT

2005/10/28 · 10:14

There is a lot of disgust with the news media on this site, and rightly so, especially with the infotainment crap that passes for TV news. But I think the vital work that the majority of journalists do and the courage it takes to do it is underappreciated. Most journalists - note that I don't say "all" - try hard to get it right. With that in mind, I think this news may help restore some hope in the minds of those who feel an independent press is a thing of the past.

The 2005 Courage in Student Journalism Award from the Newseum and a pair of student press organizations went to a group of students at DeSoto High School right here in Dallas. The students stood up to a hostile school board and exposed a whiz-bang gang-intervention program that the district had spent tens of thousands of dollars on as a fraud. Read More

Love to the CS Monitor (Hurricane name footnote)

kapoleon

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Tuesday October 18, 2005 · 8:34 PM PDT

2005/10/18 · 20:34

Special Counsel Patrick Fitz - WHOA! Put that thing away! I meant that figuratively, people. Ok, that's better - I did not need to see that.

Now, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is expected to indict some extremely high-ranking ham sandwiches tomorrow, and I, for one, am damned hungry. But waiting for the main course has dulled my appetite for other news. Miers against abortion? No kidding. Vote fraud in Iraq? Ho-hum. Out of hurricane names? Less than scintillating (actually, I'll get back to that one later).

Somehow, though, one publication cuts through the Fitzgerald fog: the Christian Science Monitor. Read More

Conservatives battle to bring back the good old days

kapoleon

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Monday October 17, 2005 · 8:20 PM PDT

2005/10/17 · 20:20

On all fronts right-wingers are trying to turn back the clock: on abortion, on the environment, on social services. The carnage in Iraq can now be considered another front in the war on progress in the light of this report, from the Human Security Centre. The world, amazingly enough, is growing more peaceful. As Ivo Daalder at TPM Cafe discusses, the end of colonialism and the cold war have spelled a marked decrease in the frequency, size and intensity of armed conflicts since the 1950s. Too bad for Bush that Philip Cooney wasn't around to edit this report for "consistency."

(As noted in my blog.)

Success in Afghanistan?

kapoleon

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Sunday September 18, 2005 · 11:19 AM PDT

2005/09/18 · 11:19

The AP story on the Afghan elections makes it sound like a rare moment of hope in the ol' GWOT/GSAVE:

It appeared tight security helped on election day, with only three people injured and no one killed near polling places, although officials said they thwarted plots to smuggle explosives into polling places in pens and a clock.

Despite violence elsewhere in the country, the focus was on getting out the vote after intense efforts by United Nations officials and the U.S.-led coalition to organize the election and provide security for voters.

"We are making history," President Hamid Karzai said while casting his ballot. "It's the day of self-determination for the Afghan people..."

Again, the people of Afghanistan astound and inspire. But the real lesson is that we can accomplish great things when we're not too busy giving the rest of the world the finger:

More than 6,000 polling stations were guarded by about 100,000 Afghan police and soldiers and 30,000 foreign troops in the U.S.-led coalition and a separate NATO peacekeeping force."

kapoleon

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Monday September 12, 2005 · 5:08 AM PDT

2005/09/12 · 05:08

Let's hope that this analysis of the fallout from Katrina by the BBC's Harold Evans is on the mark.

My judgment is that the log of Social Darwinism will disappear again under the toxic flood waters of New Orleans. The corpses floating face down in the muddy overflow from broken Mississippi levees are too shocking a sight for Americans of all classes and parties. They are too kindly a people. They will look once again for vigour and compassion in government, even at the price of higher taxes.

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