Friday, May 19, 2006
I Have Trouble Getting Worked Up About the Relgious Right...
when shit like this doesn't seem to cross the radar screens of freedom's self-proclaimed defenders. Lets face it, Baltimore is hardly some sort of hotbed of religious fundamentalism, so one can hardly blame the fundies for this one. A young kid was taken to jail for exactly nothing, by police who wouldn't even provide him the basic assistance that they have a job to provide. On top of it, he had his car robbed in the impound lot. This is the sort of crap that is supposed to happen in third world nations, not the United States. Great. Now I know that, in Baltimore, the police can pick you up, throw you in jail, and rob you just because they feel like it. I'm disgusted, to put it mildly.
when shit like this doesn't seem to cross the radar screens of freedom's self-proclaimed defenders. Lets face it, Baltimore is hardly some sort of hotbed of religious fundamentalism, so one can hardly blame the fundies for this one. A young kid was taken to jail for exactly nothing, by police who wouldn't even provide him the basic assistance that they have a job to provide. On top of it, he had his car robbed in the impound lot. This is the sort of crap that is supposed to happen in third world nations, not the United States. Great. Now I know that, in Baltimore, the police can pick you up, throw you in jail, and rob you just because they feel like it. I'm disgusted, to put it mildly.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Call Me a Softie, But...
If I were the judge on this case, my sentance would be to allow the victim to hit each of the assailants exactly one time and one time only.
One minor caveat.
It would be in the knee.
With a baseball bat.
If I were the judge on this case, my sentance would be to allow the victim to hit each of the assailants exactly one time and one time only.
One minor caveat.
It would be in the knee.
With a baseball bat.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
On Crighton Movies
Fran,
In case you don't recall, you took me some years back to see a movie that you were very excited about: Rising Sun. In it, a presumable murder mystery turned out to rely heavily on a battle for control of a U.S. company between two Japanese keiretsu. One was stoking the fires of anti-Japanese sentiment in order to scuttle the other's merger plan so that they could acquire the U.S. company. I'm sorry to have to say this to you, but I think the Dubai World deal is is a case where you, as well as much of the country, got "rising sunned".
I'll explain my theory about all of this in a bit. But, first, lets take a quick look at the motives for allowing the port deal to go through. For the most part, the UAE is pretty much the commercial and financial center of the Middle East. They've been very cooperative in the War on Terror. Yes, I know, they had dealings with the Taliban and Bin Laden. Of course, the Swiss had dealings with Hitler and the Nazi regime in much the same way, and we recognized them as not being Nazis. Moreover, if we want to punish the home country of the banks that acted as Al Quaeda's financing conduit, maybe we should go one step further and cut off all financial transactions with the country the bank is headquartered in. Of course, given that the bank in question was the UAE branch of Standard Chartered, I'm inclined to guess that Tony Blair might be a little pissed at the decision. In fact, for the last four years, we've been pointing to the UAE as an example of "good" Arabs - the kind that we can happily coexist with. More than a gesture of gratitude, this designation serves as the political decision behind backing the ports deal. With the deal cancelled by the U.S., however, we've sent a pretty clear message to the Arab world: It really doesn't matter if you're a good Arab. We don't trust you.
"But what about security?", I hear you ask. Well, lets consider exactly what the contract was to do. DP World was going to run the terminal. In that role, it wasn't going to be in charge of security, and its business was going to consist of loading and unloading the boats - that's it. Now, its fair to ask whether they could cause any mischief in their stevedoring role. Well, DP World had decided, even before this came to anyone's attention, that they were going to keep the the same personnel and management that P&O had. This was really a no-brainer. After all, why bring in new management when you have competent veterans in place. Oh, and one other thing. That management was American.
So, the deal really wouldn't have made us any less secure, and Yusef al Six-Kebab, the sort of guy whose heart and mind we need to win in the War on Terror, now has ample reason to think that being a "good" Arab has no payoff from America, arguably making us less secure. Really how did this come to pass. Well, imagine you are one of P&O's subcontractors. The DP World people have just explained to you that once the merger goes through, your services will be redundant. Now you can't really make a play that DP World should keep you on anyway. Your firm just doesn't have that much talent. You also can't make your own bid for the ports. Your firm doesn't have enough capital to purchase even the smallest of them. What you do have, however, is a college buddy who works as a Congressional aide. A buddy who knows a lot of people in the media and can spin a lot of buzz. Why, you get the glimmer of an idea. After all, organized labor will jump aboard in a heartbeat to protect the union longshoreman jobs, and congressmen will be racing to establish their security creds on the cheap.
The final results of this entire fiasco is that DP World has agreed to sell its U.S. assets to an American company (Congres was going to pass a law to that effect anyway). Undoubtedly, whoever acquires the ports will get them at a firesale price. After all, you have a forced sale with a restricted pool of buyers. About the only result to this entire matter that won't completely disgust me would be to wake up one morning and hear the following speech from the chairman of DP World: "Of course, we are tremendously disappointed to have been locked out of the U.S. market. However, DP World has had a long and highly profitable relationship with American business. Fortunately, one of our longstanding business relationships has proven its worth and one of our good American friends has agreed to purchase the ports at a mutually agreeable price. Therefore, it is my pleasure to announce that we will be selling the U.S. operations to one of the few U.S. companies with the expertise to manage such an enterprise, Halliburton".
Fran,
In case you don't recall, you took me some years back to see a movie that you were very excited about: Rising Sun. In it, a presumable murder mystery turned out to rely heavily on a battle for control of a U.S. company between two Japanese keiretsu. One was stoking the fires of anti-Japanese sentiment in order to scuttle the other's merger plan so that they could acquire the U.S. company. I'm sorry to have to say this to you, but I think the Dubai World deal is is a case where you, as well as much of the country, got "rising sunned".
I'll explain my theory about all of this in a bit. But, first, lets take a quick look at the motives for allowing the port deal to go through. For the most part, the UAE is pretty much the commercial and financial center of the Middle East. They've been very cooperative in the War on Terror. Yes, I know, they had dealings with the Taliban and Bin Laden. Of course, the Swiss had dealings with Hitler and the Nazi regime in much the same way, and we recognized them as not being Nazis. Moreover, if we want to punish the home country of the banks that acted as Al Quaeda's financing conduit, maybe we should go one step further and cut off all financial transactions with the country the bank is headquartered in. Of course, given that the bank in question was the UAE branch of Standard Chartered, I'm inclined to guess that Tony Blair might be a little pissed at the decision. In fact, for the last four years, we've been pointing to the UAE as an example of "good" Arabs - the kind that we can happily coexist with. More than a gesture of gratitude, this designation serves as the political decision behind backing the ports deal. With the deal cancelled by the U.S., however, we've sent a pretty clear message to the Arab world: It really doesn't matter if you're a good Arab. We don't trust you.
"But what about security?", I hear you ask. Well, lets consider exactly what the contract was to do. DP World was going to run the terminal. In that role, it wasn't going to be in charge of security, and its business was going to consist of loading and unloading the boats - that's it. Now, its fair to ask whether they could cause any mischief in their stevedoring role. Well, DP World had decided, even before this came to anyone's attention, that they were going to keep the the same personnel and management that P&O had. This was really a no-brainer. After all, why bring in new management when you have competent veterans in place. Oh, and one other thing. That management was American.
So, the deal really wouldn't have made us any less secure, and Yusef al Six-Kebab, the sort of guy whose heart and mind we need to win in the War on Terror, now has ample reason to think that being a "good" Arab has no payoff from America, arguably making us less secure. Really how did this come to pass. Well, imagine you are one of P&O's subcontractors. The DP World people have just explained to you that once the merger goes through, your services will be redundant. Now you can't really make a play that DP World should keep you on anyway. Your firm just doesn't have that much talent. You also can't make your own bid for the ports. Your firm doesn't have enough capital to purchase even the smallest of them. What you do have, however, is a college buddy who works as a Congressional aide. A buddy who knows a lot of people in the media and can spin a lot of buzz. Why, you get the glimmer of an idea. After all, organized labor will jump aboard in a heartbeat to protect the union longshoreman jobs, and congressmen will be racing to establish their security creds on the cheap.
The final results of this entire fiasco is that DP World has agreed to sell its U.S. assets to an American company (Congres was going to pass a law to that effect anyway). Undoubtedly, whoever acquires the ports will get them at a firesale price. After all, you have a forced sale with a restricted pool of buyers. About the only result to this entire matter that won't completely disgust me would be to wake up one morning and hear the following speech from the chairman of DP World: "Of course, we are tremendously disappointed to have been locked out of the U.S. market. However, DP World has had a long and highly profitable relationship with American business. Fortunately, one of our longstanding business relationships has proven its worth and one of our good American friends has agreed to purchase the ports at a mutually agreeable price. Therefore, it is my pleasure to announce that we will be selling the U.S. operations to one of the few U.S. companies with the expertise to manage such an enterprise, Halliburton".
Monday, May 15, 2006
Both Andrew Sullivan and Mary Cheney seem to be missing the point of the Federal Marriage Amendment. No serious person really was thinking "about trying to amend the constitution as a political strategy." The political strategy rested in the threat to so amend the Constitution. Ms. Cheney is absolutely correct in how abhorent such an amendment would be. That said, one needn't be a "Christianist" to conclude that bypassing the legislative process in order to alter one of our civilization's most central institutions in the name of a...novel...conception of civil rights is also abhorent. Essentially the middle got pretty much what it wanted out of the entire matter. The courts were scared off of their attempt to legislate social progress and the Amendment was allowed to the die the death it so richly deserved.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Okay, Jane Galt has me appalled. In case you don't know Jane went to college in Philadelphia. She should know that the best coffee comes from WaWa. Don't get me wrong Dunkin Donuts will do in a pinch, but really...
