Dead at 80

Posted by: Vinnie at 10:26 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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The American Political Science Association has invited the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and Director of the notoriously antisemetic Middle East Institute at Columbia University to give tonight's keynote address.

Rashid Khalidi will speak on 'Resurrecting Empire', also the title of his latest 'academic' book. The thesis of the book boils down to the Iraq War being about a Neocon right-wing conspiracy to protect the interests of Israel. Khalidi, like many I'm-not-antisemetic-I'm-just-pointing-out-the-fact-that-there-are-a-lot-of-Jews-in-the-Bush-administration-who-are-really-pulling-the-strings-of-power political scientists also puts oil interests at the center of this conspiracy. Of course, the Jewish Neo-Con conspiracy isn't really a conspiracy because, you know, conspiracies are secret and every one knows that the Jews control Washington's foreign policy.

Everyone in the Administration has some connection to oil, and even Condi Rice is somehow being personally enriched by the War.

I would like to think that the American Political Science Association has sunk to a new low inviting this conspiratorial moonbat to give a keynote address. Unfortunately, the practice is common place in the academy. The neo-conspiracy theories of the Left, couched in academic language, will probably be well received by the audience. Any one who questions the appropriateness of including Khalidi in the program will be branded an advocate of censorship and a Brownshirt trying to quash academic freedom.

The address will be tonight at 8:30 in Salon 1 at the Washington, D.C. Marriott-Woodman Park (near the Zoo). I'll be the guy sitting in the first row, wearing the anti-Bushitlerhaliburton mind probe tin foil hat.

More on Rashid Khalidi can be found at the Little Green Footballs archives

Posted by: Rusty at 10:15 AM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
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I won't elaborate, but I'm now completely convinced that we're in a war with "the liberals" (meaning, the Social Democrats) just as much as we're in a war with "irreconcibable Islam." I'm also beginning to think that, at least as an organizing principle, we ought to start pushing to change the "working Capital" of the US from DC to Omaha, Nebraska. And it's not that I hate Omaha all that much, but it's a lot closer to the "middle" of the country than any place else I can think of, in just about every way I can imagine.

And the parking lots are epic.

Keep DC as a symbolic totem.

Posted by: Demosophist at 08:17 AM | Comments (23) | Add Comment
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If you thought there was something eerily familiar about Kanye West's ranting in front of an embarrassed Michael Myers, well, so did Tony B at More than Loans. Yes, it was an SNL skit once upon a time, with Heather Locklear in the Kanye West role, and Myers standing there looking flabbergasted.

Tony links to one of several versions of this video going around. This one, hosted at riehlworldview.com, is the best because you see Chris Tucker looking equally astonished before stumbling into his script.

Posted by: seedubya at 03:51 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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Remember 41's "Thousand Points of Light?"

By the time the mess of Katrina is cleaned up, bloggers will have their own galaxy.

Here's one who is literally hands on in his approach.

Here's a grateful Iraqi. One of the rare voices from Islam who doesn't think a hurricane is getting what we deserve.

What am I doing? Well, I'm link-peddling other's worthy efforts on high traffic blogs, and I'm working on this.

Posted by: Vinnie at 11:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Get in on Phin's auctioning off of a custom blog design. Scratch that, get in on Phin's auction of TWO blog designs.

As an added bonus, Pixy Misa is throwing in your very own colony in MuNuvia.

All proceeds will go to the American Red Cross, or a charity of the winning bidders' choice.

What the hell are you staring at this for, git goin'!!!!!!!

Posted by: Vinnie at 06:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Woo-Hoo!

Good news! Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue today announced that, effective at midnight tonight and running until the end of September, no state gasoline taxes will be collected. Perdue expects stations to drop their prices up to 15 cents per gallon within hours. Those stations that don't pass on the savings to consumers will be singled out for investigations by the Department of Revenue and Office of Consumer Affairs.

I suppose it's not necessary to mention that Gov. Perdue is running for re-election next year and he timed his announcement to run live on Georgia TV news broadcasts. It's also probably not necessary to mention that the suspension in tax collection is more a political play than an economic benefit.

Hey, but it's better than nothing.

Posted by: Mike Pechar at 06:31 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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All APSA related posts can now be found at The Jawa Report's APSA archives

Posted by: Rusty at 05:12 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Above (click for larger image): Paul Mirengoff of Powerline speaks at the American Political Science Association. Next to Paul (from left to right) is John Klenker of the Claremont Review of Books, Scott Johnson, also of Powerline, Peter Cannellos, of the Boston Globe, and Bill Gertz, of the Washington Times. (Bad photo, I know, but it's from a camera phone). Charmaine of Reasoned Audacity sat right behind me and has a few better photos here.

Report from the panel: Wasn't able to stick around and meet Paul or Scott from Powerline because I had to rush off to a job interview.

Two memorable observations from the panel. First, a heated exchange betwen Peter Cannelos and Scott Johnson. more...

Posted by: Rusty at 02:53 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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(Los Angeles) Four homegrown Islamic terrorists identified as members of the radical group Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, or JIS, have been arrested for conspiring to attack military facilities, synagogues, and other targets in California.

From The Mercury-News:

Four suspects were charged Wednesday with conspiring to wage war against the U.S. government through terrorism. Named in the federal indictment were Levar Haley Washington, 25; Gregory Vernon Patterson, 21; Hammad Riaz Samana, 21; and Kevin James, 29.

All but Samana, a Pakistani national, are American born and Muslim converts. Counterterrorism officials have found no evidence directly connecting the group - described as the cell of a California prison gang of radical Muslims - to al-Qaida or other foreign terror networks.

Law enforcement officials and terrorism experts said it could represent one of the first Islamic terrorism cases involving U.S. natives without those connections.

The founder of Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh is California State Prison inmate Kevin James (aka Shakyh Shahaab Murshid) who preaches terror to Islam's enemies. Followers apparently pledged loyalty to James "until death by martyrdom."

Interestingly, the plotters were exposed only after they were arrested for an unrelated series of gas station robberies. Subsequent searches of their possessions found weapons, ammunition, and plans for the attacks. In other words, the authorities were lucky to catch these fanatics before they acted.

"Make no mistake about it -- we dodged a bullet here, perhaps many bullets," Los Angeles police Chief William Bratton said at a news conference.

Companion post at Interested-Participant.

Posted by: Mike Pechar at 02:10 PM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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Chavez is moving to consolidate power again. Yes the democratically elected President and self appointed Dictator of Venezuela is after control of that country's banking system.

A continuation of left-wing President Hugo Chavez's aim to create "socialism of the 21st Century", a number of foreign banks would be affected. Among them are Spanish institutions Banco Santander and BBVA. Both own Venezuelan banks - Banco de Venezuela and Banco Provincial respectively.

Hat tip: California Conservative.

Yeah I know but I'm waiting on a machine right now.

Posted by: Howie at 11:18 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Whomever this author is (whom is obviously afraid to sign his work), just couldn't resist taking a few potshots at the war through the hurricane.

The situation in New Orleans, which had seemed as bad as it could get, became considerably worse yesterday with reports of what seemed like a total breakdown of organized society. Americans who had been humbled by failures in Iraq saw that the authorities could not quickly cope with a natural disaster at home. People died for lack of water, medical care or timely rescues - particularly the old and the young - and victims were almost invariably poor and black. The city's police chief spoke of rapes, beatings and marauding mobs. The pictures were equally heartbreaking and maddening. Disaster planners were well aware that New Orleans could be flooded by the combined effects of a hurricane and broken levees, yet somehow the government was unable to immediately rise to the occasion.

Watching helplessly from afar, many citizens wondered whether rescue operations were hampered because almost one-third of the men and women of the Louisiana National Guard, and an even higher percentage of the Mississippi National Guard, were 7,000 miles away, fighting in Iraq. That's an even bigger loss than the raw numbers suggest because many of these part-time soldiers had to leave behind their full-time jobs in police and fire departments or their jobs as paramedics. Regardless of whether they wear public safety uniforms in civilian life, the guardsmen in Iraq are a crucial resource sorely missed during these early days, when hours have literally meant the difference between evacuation and inundation, between civic order and chaos, between life and death.

(snip)

The gap is now belatedly being filled by units from other states, though without the local knowledge and training those Mississippi and Louisiana units could supply. The Pentagon is sending thousands of active-duty sailors and soldiers, including a fully staffed aircraft carrier, a hospital ship and some 3,000 Army troops for security and crowd control (even though federal law bars regular Army forces from domestic law enforcement, normally the province of the National Guard).

But it's already a very costly game of catch-up. The situation might have been considerably less dire if all of Louisiana's and Mississippi's National Guard had been mobilized before the storm so they could organize, enforce and aid in the evacuation of vulnerable low-lying areas. Plans should have been drawn up for doing so, with sufficient trained forces available to carry them out.

Let's look back through history. Florida has had three, four? hurricanes, just this year. How many cases of looting and anarchy did you see? I don't recall any, although to think that nobody stole anything after a natural disaster is probably a little naive. But the fact is, there was order and control there. And guess what? They have National Guard soldiers in Iraq as well. So I'd have to say that the entire gist of this article has just fallen flat.

Of course I'm sure that they can then turn around and argue that this disaster is worse than anything Florida faced, but I'm not so sure that will hold water either. Except for the massive flooding, I've seen Florida sustain some pretty bad damage. But even the flooding doesn't excuse what's going on.

The looting started the day that the rain stopped. There was no time for societial deteroriation due to lack of leadership. If people were starting to loot NOW, I might be inclined to agree with that. But when you go out and start stealing stuff the minute the rain stops falling, you're just looking to steal stuff. Especially when that stuff is name brand clothes, TVs, radios and other non-consumables. You liberals need to get used to the fact that, try as you might, you simply can't blame a natural disaster on Bush. He didn't cause it, he couldn't stop it, and he is now reacting to it. That's about the best you could ask for out of anyone. So pull your head out of your backside and realize that there are people of the United States that need your help. Not your preaching about how Bush is evil. Try pulling together and let's see what we can do. We did it after 9/11 and I'm sure, if you try hard enough, you can put your Bush-hate aside and join us in rebuilding the lives that have been devistated by this.

Posted by: Drew at 09:49 AM | Comments (30) | Add Comment
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New Orleans, LA (LifeNews.com) -- Victims of Hurricane Katrina are battling rising waters, destroyed homes and are seeking basic necessities like food, water and shelter. On Wednesday, Planned Parenthood sent an announcement to its members that the nation's largest abortion business is available to help -- with free morning after pills and birth control. Planned Parenthood Federation of America interim president Karen Pearl lauded her group's efforts in a recent email to its supporters. "As Hurricane Katrina ripped through the southeastern United States, Planned Parenthood [is] there to offer one free month of birth control or one free emergency contraception kit to women from Louisiana and Mississippi,"

Yeah, because we all know that THAT'S what's on everyone's mind down there. I guess I should be happy that they aren't offering free abortions to all the women.

Posted by: Drew at 09:07 AM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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Darn I've got some catching up to do here. So I'll be pretty busy and with Rusty out guest bloggers are welcome.

See bush saves Police officers. Not Bush, a bush.

Also this morning I was listening to an interview of an evacuee from Katrina. She was a nurse at a veterans hospital/retirement home and had accompanied vets to a DC area evacuation site. Paraphrased quote

I've lost my job, my house, my car, everything I'm now free to fish

Updated: Also our last festival of Fatwas has moved pretty far down. Link this post and send a trackback if you would like a Friday Fatwa.

Posted by: Howie at 08:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Hung out with some fellow anonymous political scientist bloggers last night. We met up with the not-so-anonymous Daniel Drezner. He's good people.

Next door, Cornell West was at a party. Wait, that guy is a political scientist. I thought he was a hip-hop artist or something?

Two worlds colliding. You know about the worlds. A non-blogging, not-in-the-know about "Rusty Shackleford", friend from grad school was hanging out at the party with us. Turns out, he and Steve the Llamabutcher know each other. Small world. Awkward, since none of could talk about blogging around him. Best to keep academic world and blog worlds apart.

If you have to make a choice between going to a party hosted by libertarians or conservatives, go to the libertarian party. Just trust me on this one.

Best. Advice. Ever: Never challenge Steve the Llama Butcher or Professor Chaos to a drinking game. more...

Posted by: Rusty at 08:43 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I've been away from my guest-blogging duties here for a while. While New Orleans was going under, this was the view that night from where I was staying:

A little rain might have been nice.

--See Dubya

Posted by: seedubya at 11:13 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Your local CITGO gas station is owned by Hugo Chavez.

Originally, CITGO started out as Cities Service Corporation in Indian Territory--the eastern half of what is now Oklahoma, before 1907. It's based in Houston, but owned by Caracas.

There are some things of ours I don't think our adversaries should be able to buy. I'm glad China was stopped from buying UNOCAL. So where was Clinton on the CITGO sale in the 1990's? Can we regain control of the rest of our energy supply?

--See Dubya

EDIT: Oops. Looks like that was Bush #1. That was well before Chavez came to power in 1998; he just got control of one of America's biggest oil companies in the process.

UPDATE: Hyscience says let's boycott Citgo. Seems pretty reasonable to me, although it may hurt a lot of businessmen in the process. Still, a widespread boycott could bring the share price down low enough that an American interest can buy it back.

Posted by: seedubya at 07:44 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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I'm at a conference in Washington, D.C. Sorry if I can't respond to all comments or e-mails right now because of limited access. I do have internet access, but Professor Chaos's pad is so dungeon-like as to make any one want to spend as little time as possible in it. This apartment goes a long way in explainsg Chaos's long track record of striking out with his dates.

Thanks for your patience.

UPDATE: Chaos assures me that there are many more deep seeded pathologies that explain his relationship problems.

Posted by: Rusty at 07:24 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Check out the Pajamas Media portal. My bio is now up. Ever want to know what I look like? My photo is up, too. Man, am I good looking or what?

Posted by: Rusty at 07:03 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Rusty, It looks like someone beat the crap out of you with wet noodles! Who was it: students, school administrators or Kossacks?

Posted by: Don Miguel at September 01, 2005 11:08 PM (UAn5X)

2 cool to know at least a little about the guy who runs the site...i dont blame ya for being carefull, after all, youre job could be at risk and most of all, you have a family to take care of...i think its funny that youre wife has no idea...if i did this stuff my wife would laugh her ass off at me since im such a goof...sigh...oh well....nice to meet you{kind of} Rusty....keep up the good work

Posted by: THANOS35 at September 01, 2005 11:38 PM (hcN1S)

3 You're a much bigger man that I suspected. I had you envisioned at pygmy size. Very small hands and feet. Unless you just blurred over a pic of Jesse Ventura. I was expecting "South Park" Rusty so this is a step up.

Posted by: Wittysexkitten at September 02, 2005 12:33 AM (5//sc)

4 Nope, that's me ;-)

Posted by: Rusty at September 02, 2005 12:53 AM (Ura90)

5 It's a shame to have to work in an environment so hostile you have to remain anonymous. Where I work the worst case scenario is that I have to use monosyllabic words and speak very slowly - and even then I have to repeat myself two or three times. And you ARE a handsome devil. ;-)

Posted by: Oyster at September 02, 2005 06:53 AM (YudAC)

6 What, no mention of the Koran flushing, the ongoing Crips vs. Bloods fued, or the hot lesbo action? Disappointment. P.S. Get rid of those sideburns.

Posted by: Venom at September 02, 2005 09:20 AM (dbxVM)

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Above (click for bigger pic): The guy in front of me falls asleep during Michael Ledeen's talk.

Panel 3, Sponsored by the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy

A Neo-Conservative Conspiracy? Principles and objectives of Bush's Foreign Policy: A Roundtable

Excellent roundtable. Most of these academic panels put me to sleep. Not this one. Unfortunately, the guy sitting in front of me wasn't as into the talks as me. I couldn't resist snapping a picture of him with my cell phone. That's Michael Ladeen, author of War Against the Terror Master, in the background talking.

Speaker 1: Adam Wolfson, former editor of Public Interest

Wolfson began by talking about how Bush outrages both Realists and Idealists. Later, Wolfson would claim that Bush is a Hamiltonian Realist. Hamiltonian Realists believe that the character of opposing regimes is somehow connected to our national security.

Bush is also not a Wilsonian Idealist, as some on the Right like to accuse him --think Pat Buchanan. This is evidenced by Bush's willingness to selectively apply his idealism. Think Cuba. After the Cold War, Cuba ceased to be threat. Bush's unwillingness to invade Cuba does not reveal a hypocrisy, as many on the Left like to accuse, rather it is consistent with a Realist foreign policy. No threat, no need for regime change. Iraq, on the other hand, was a threat and therefore only by regime change could we ensure the long-term national interests of the country.

Wolfson reminded us, though, that the cause-effect relationship between democracy, peace, and our national interest is a theory we are trying to test. It could very well be that the theory is wrong. Bringing democracy to the Middle East may not, in fact, bring peace and serve our interests in the long run. Let's hope the theory is right.

Random thought : This guy should definitely blog. more...

Posted by: Rusty at 06:34 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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