SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean police are probing leaflets and Internet messages spreading rumours of imminent war and questioning an investigation into the sinking of a naval vessel which they say could affect Wednesday’s local elections.
Published on: 31st May, 2010
Published on: 31st May, 2010
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – A 6.1 magnitude earthquake shook the Pacific coast of Costa Rica on Monday night, the United States Geological Survey said.
Published on: 31st May, 2010
Tonight’s Rescue Rangers are grog, Louisina 1976, Alfonso Nevarez, claude, and BentLiberal with vcmvo2 as editor.
The diaries up for rescue are:
Memories on Memorial Day
Oil, Oil, Everywhere…
Legal and Financial Anlysis
The Best of the Rest
jotter has the High Impact Diaries: May 31, 2010.
sardonyx brings tonight’s Top Comments: Choosing Usernames Edition.
Enjoy and please post your own favorite diaries from the past twenty-four hours in this Open Thread!
If you enjoy Diary Rescue, please consider joining the Rescue Rangers. It’s a great way to become more involved with the Daily Kos community. Did we mention it’s rewarding and fun? We recently won a Koscar Award for DK Best Community Service for 2009. To volunteer or learn more, please contact us (don’t forget to tell us your screen name) at: dkos.rescuerangers@gmail.com
Published on: 31st May, 2010
Most Americans are aware that gay activism rarely presents itself as a movement solely for the rights of gays. For example, the most common acronym for the gay-rights movement is “GLBT,” meaning “gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.”
Interestingly, few people ever ask about the “T.” What do the transgendered have to do with gays? How and why are they connected by activists, gay and straight, on the left? Strictly speaking, gays have no more in common with transgendered people than straights do.
To understand the answer is to understand much of what animates the sexual Left.
The aim of the GLBT movement is not merely to halt society’s persecution of gays and encourage the acceptance of homosexuals as equal fellow citizens. If it were, the movement could disband. The battle for acceptance of gay people has largely been won. And deservedly so: The persecution of people for being sexually attracted to members of the same sex has been as morally wrong as it has been consistent. I am among the majority of Americans, and presumably non-Americans, who still hold to the male-female sexual ideal and who seek to retain the man-woman definition of marriage. But I fully recognize there have always been individuals who are no more capable of sexual attraction to the opposite sex than men like me are capable of being sexually aroused by the same sex. They should not be ridiculed, let alone persecuted, for their sexual orientation.
And few people, conservative or liberal, have any trouble accepting a transsexual, i.e., someone who has surgically changed his or her sex.
But what does any of this have to do with the transgendered, i.e., people who do not psychologically identify with their biological sex, who act as if they were a member of the opposite sex, and who have not changed their biology? Why does the Left include the transgendered in its activism on behalf of gays?
The latest example occurred this month in New York State when Attorney General Andrew Cuomo forced American Eagle Outfitters to rescind its employee dress code. This code included a ban on male employees’ wearing dresses or other women’s clothing and a ban on women employees’ dressing as men.
To the Left, this is just another example of fighting discrimination — how dare society ask men who prefer to wear women’s clothing not to do so at work? As New York Times columnist Frank Rich recently wrote with regard to changing the definition of marriage to include couples of the same sex, Americans regard all this with a “shrug.”
Likewise last year, the civil-rights commission of the state of Maine declared that no Maine school should insist that biological males use only men’s bathrooms. From elementary school on, every student in Maine should be allowed to determine if he feels male or female, and enter whichever bathroom matches this self-definition.
The Maine commission also called for a ban on schools’ enforcing gender divisions in sports teams, school organizations, and locker rooms. It says forcing a student into a particular room or group because of his or her biological gender amounts to discrimination.
On the Left, few, if any, changes in the sexual arena are worthy of more than a shrug. Man-made carbon-dioxide emissions are worth changing the world’s economy over. But redefining marriage from male-female to same-sex, forcing companies to retain male employees who cross-dress at work, and ending gender-specific teams and bathrooms in schools — these are hardly worth a shrug.
But the gender-definition of marriage and the transgender issue are actually very big deals.
In his just-published book, How Pleasure Works, Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom, described by Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, as “among the deepest thinkers and clearest writers on the science of mind today,” writes:
Freud claimed “when you meet a human being, the first distinction you make is ‘male or female’ and you are accustomed to making the distinction with unhesitating certainty.” This is true for me at least; I get e-mails from strangers with foreign names and when I can’t tell whether the sender is a man or a woman, it is oddly unsettling. It shouldn’t matter — I have no intention of mating with them — but it does. When we see a baby in a diaper, the first question that many of us ask is: Is this a boy or it is a girl?
So, why the T in GLBT?
Because the Left seeks to obliterate the distinction between men and women. They consider this distinction to be a social construct. That is why, to this day, despite all the scientific evidence (as if that were needed) proving how different male and female brains are, many left-wing academics still argue that boys play with trucks rather than with dolls because of sexist socialization.
And that is why, on the left, changing the definition of marriage is only worth a shrug. Since there are no inherent differences between men and women, what difference could it possibly make whether a man marries a man or a woman? Or if children have two fathers, two mothers, or a father and a mother?
For those of us who believe that the male-female distinction is vital to civilization, the Left’s attempts to erase this distinction are worth fighting against. For those who see no purpose in maintaining this distinction, its demise is worth no more than a shrug.
– Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. He may be contacted through his website, dennisprager.com.
Published on: 31st May, 2010
The effort to destroy the Jewish state has many fronts. One front is in Iran, where the maniacal regime that has repeatedly promised to “wipe Israel off the map” marches inexorably toward a nuclear bomb. Another is in Gaza, from which Hamas has lobbed 10,000 missiles into Israeli cities. Yet another front, the most insidious, is comprised of the propaganda arm of the Palestinian movement. And this front thrives for only one reason — the complicity of the world press and the so-called “international community.”
It was the propaganda arm that staged the “Freedom Flotilla.” But there have been many previous productions: The propaganda arm was responsible for the photo-shopped images of damage to Lebanon during the 2006 war, the staged “death” of twelve-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah, the “massacre” at Jenin, and the “war crimes” in Gaza.
In each and every case, the “news” of Israeli atrocities was broadcast far and wide by organizations such as Reuters, AP, CNN, and AFP. The United Nations has offered its imprimatur to every libel. The truth seemed always to have a case of laryngitis.
Today, in the wake of the confrontation between Israeli soldiers and the provocateurs aboard the Gaza flotilla, the remarkably incurious world press is providing exactly the sort of headlines on which the organizers knew they could count. “Flotilla Attack Is Israel’s Kent State” screamed the Huffington Post. Agence France Presse carried a banner quoting the Turkish foreign minister to the effect that “Israel has lost all legitimacy.” Every news outlet I checked docilely described the flotilla as “humanitarian.”
Don’t members of the press ever resent being so used?
Fact: Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza to prevent weapons from reaching the radical Islamic regime there that continues to make war on Israeli civilians. Egypt too has blockaded the strip, hoping to choke off weapons to Hamas, which it views as a threat.
Fact: Humanitarian relief is delivered to Gaza from Israel on a daily basis. During the first three months of this year, 94,500 tons of supplies were transferred to Gaza from Israel, including 48,000 tons of food products; 40,000 tons of wheat; 2,760 tons of rice; 1,987 tons of clothes and footwear; and 553 tons of milk powder and baby food for the strip’s 1.5 million inhabitants. Representatives of international aid groups and the United Nations move freely to and from the Gaza Strip.
Fact: Upon learning of the intentions of the Gaza flotilla, the Israeli government asked the organizers to deliver their humanitarian aid first to an Israeli port where it would be inspected (for weapons) before being forwarded to Gaza. The organizers refused. “There are two possible happy endings,” a Muslim activist on board explained, “either we will reach Gaza or we will achieve martyrdom.”
Fact: The flotilla ignored multiple instructions from Israeli navy ships to change course and follow them to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
Fact: On board one of the ships, according to al-Jazeera, the “humanitarian” Palestinians sang “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return” — a reference to the 628 massacre of Jews in Arabia at the hands of Muhammad.
Fact: The flotilla’s participants included the IHH, a “humanitarian relief fund” based in Turkey that has close ties to Hamas and to global jihadi groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya, and elsewhere, and which has also organized relief to anti-U.S. Islamic radicals in Fallujah, Iraq. A French intelligence report suggests that IHH has provided documents to terrorists, permitting them to pose as relief workers. Among the other cheerleaders — former British MP and Saddam Hussein pal George Galloway, all-purpose America and Israel hater Noam Chomsky, and John Ging, head of UNRWA, the U.N.’s agency for Palestinian support.
Fact: When the family of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who was kidnapped during a cross-border raid by Hamas in 2006, offered to support the flotilla if, in exchange, they would agree to ask Hamas to permit international agencies to visit their son, they were rebuffed.
Fact: When Israeli commandos rappelled down ropes to the deck of the Mavi Marmara, they were assaulted and beaten with metal poles and baseball bats by the Palestinians on board. (It’s available on theisraelproject.org).
Some commentators sympathetic to Israel complain that the Israelis were late getting their explanation of events to the press. That’s probably true, but almost irrelevant. There is a jerking of knees around the world whenever and wherever Israel is forced to defend itself. This eagerness to repeat the Palestinian version of events, to assume the very worst about Israel, and to ignore the history of blatant and outrageous lies by Israel’s enemies — amounts to joining them.
– Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2010 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Published on: 31st May, 2010
Editor’s Note: Jay Nordlinger was in Ft. Worth over the weekend. Below are some characteristic “scribbles.”
There are some significant events going on in this friendly town west of Dallas: the Colonial Golf Tournament (a PGA event, in case you didn’t know); and the premiere of an opera, Before Night Falls, by Jorge Martín.
All over town, people have tags around their necks — their tickets to get into the tournament, on the various days. And a blimp hovers over the tournament — a Met Life blimp. With Snoopy on it.
I remember something from my childhood — or adolescence? — and it may amuse you. One day, we woke up and Snoopy was advertising for Met Life. I remember being kind of traumatized, and appalled: Peanuts belonged to the whole nation; the strip and its characters were a national institution. And here Snoopy was shilling for a company?
I thought it was so wrong! As though the government had weighed in on behalf of a particular product. I guess I was innocenter then . . .
Before Night Falls treats the well-known story of Reinaldo Arenas, the Cuban poet, gay, who was persecuted by the revolution. You may remember that a movie was made of this story in 2000. I will be writing about the opera for National Review.
The performances take place in Bass Hall — on the front of which, two enormous angels stick out, blowing long, long trumpets.
And some of the ladies attending the opera are interesting: They have backless or sleeveless dresses, and big ol’ tattoos. Big mamas, too.
Oh, one more thing, before I move on: The Diet Cokes at the opera are $2.25. Two twenty-five! At the Metropolitan Opera, where I am usually reviewing, they are $5, I think — maybe more. In Ft. Worth, I feel like getting two!
At Angelo’s Barbecue, I hear two old men talking about “the Five Lessons” — and they are obviously talking about Hogan, the great, late golfer who was from Ft. Worth: and who in 1957 wrote his famous Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf.
I wonder if these old duffers knew Hogan — or met him. He did not like to be met much. (By the way, I wrote an appreciation of Hogan when he died in 1997. You may find it in the collection advertised at the bottom of this column: Here, There & Everywhere.)
The barbecue at Angelo’s is good, of course, but is it better than it is elsewhere in the country — New York City, for example? Or do we merely think it is, ’cause we’re in Texas? I’m afraid I think the latter . . .
But that doesn’t negate the goodness of Angelo’s!
Angelo’s is closed on Sunday: a reminder that we are not in New York anymore . . .
By the way, the joint is on White Settlement Road. Interesting to speculate how the road got its name.
And is there a less modern-sounding name?
At the hotel, I check in, and the young man behind the counter thrusts out his hand and says, “My name’s Hayden. Have a great stay.”
That is something I love about America — something that differentiates it from Europe. And something that differentiates, say, Texas from New York City. The sheer openness of it, the equality of it — do you know what I’m driving at (in this brief little blurby thing)?
I’m reminded of the observations of European travelers to early America. They were amazed at the easy intercourse between people. (No snickers, please.) For example, the easy intercourse between employees and employers. (Yes, I’ve heard of slavery, thank you very much. Please don’t write me.) (On this point.)
There is a big photo of JFK, visiting Ft. Worth. Was it during that trip? I don’t know, but I could check — not germane at the moment. He is leaving the Texas Theater. The marquee says, “Welcome to Ft. Worth, Where the West Begins.” JFK is striding, buttoning (I believe) his suit coat. Big, bright smile. Has anyone ever looked better in a suit? Ever?
Behind him is LBJ, in a raincoat. Not looking very good at all. Hey, I’ve learned my Oliver Stone history: I know LBJ killed Kennedy.
I see an ad for Lone Star beer. It says, “Drinking any other beer is treason.” A stinking example of Texas McCarthyism . . .
The Tarrant County Courthouse (I think it is) is a beautiful brown building, with a champion clock tower — the clock is right, too (and more than twice a day, I assume). If this building were in another country, we would pause before it with great appreciation, and consider ourselves lucky to have seen it. Seldom do you appreciate your own stuff, you know?
Outside the courthouse is a monument honoring “Confederate soldiers and their descendents who served in the Spanish-American War, World War I, and World War II.” It was put there by the Julia Jackson Chapter of the UDC — the United Daughters of the Confederacy — in 1953.
“Descendants” is misspelled (as it so often is). “Descendent” is only an adjective, never a noun, as far as I know.
There is a great, huge, beautiful old building that was the Texas & Pacific depot. It is now condominiums. You should see the elevators in the building: works of art. I don’t see why we can’t make stuff like this now. Do you?
Nearby is a monument to Al Hayne, a British visitor who rescued many people in a tremendous fire. He was the only one to die. An inscription reads, “Most noble is that fame which rests upon heroic deeds of love and sacrifice.” A great monument, and, by the evidence, man.
The old post office is absolutely enormous, and rock-solid — it ain’t goin’ nowhere. Was built in 1933. They built things to last. Huge, huge columns: There are cows at the top of them, to honor the area. (Ft. Worth is known as “Cowtown,” you know.) There are also traditional gargoyles and such.
And the lobby? It features — I am tempted to say “boasts” — marble, bronze, and gold leaf.
Why does everything new need to be ugly? Do we have a lack of imagination — of taste, of money?
I have a point confirmed in Ft. Worth: There is no Texas accent. Rather, there are many Texas accents. Such a big state, and a diverse one, at that. There could no way be just one accent.
At a bar or some establishment — 7th Haven (no, not “Heaven”) — I see a marquee. Today, it’s reading, “Better to lose a lover than to love a loser.” Ah, American folk wisdom!
Would you like to know where the “Home of the Crawfish Sausage” is? Well, I’m gonna tell you: J&J Blues Bar.
I have complained about this a million times: the sheer extremism of the environmentalist movement. I mean, if only they would speak more sanely. The little signs on the bathroom counters in hotels say, “Save Our Planet.” It has to do with washing the towels.
“Save Our Planet”! Why do they have to talk that way? Why? Can’t they be a little more — temperate, credible? A friend of mine was saying, makes her want to throw her towels on the floor, to be washed. I know the feeling.
The Ft. Worth Water Gardens is — are? — a very good idea. This is a hot climate. And the gardens are very pleasant. There is this kind of waterfall, a little Niagara — and I think of Annie Taylor. Remember her? The first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls. She was in a barrel.
Weird, bizarre, very American story.
Guy has a black Corvette — very cool. Wrong color for this uncool climate, however, in my opinion. Still, I’d take it, if offered . . .
First Christian Church, established in 1855, has an interesting slogan: “From the Frontier to the Future.”
There is a Foch Street, or Foch Road — I can’t help thinking of it as Avenue Foch. Could it possibly be named for the World War I general?
On Houston Street — is it “Street”? — there’s a fantastic old-timey sign for a store that no longer exists: Juvenile Shoe Store — “for Boys, for Girls.” It is my impression — and things may be different where you are — that people don’t say “boys” and “girls” much anymore: It’s “kids,” “young people,” etc.
By the way, would you like to see a picture of that sign? Took it with my little BlackBerry, so it’s not exactly Stieglitz-level, but you may like it: here.
Um, there’s also, elsewhere in town, Limp Willies Snowball Palace. Oh, come on, y’all.
In airports and hotels, I am asked, often, for ID, such as my driver’s license. In these days of anti-Arizona fever, perhaps I should say that I’m asked “for my papers” — and I should say it with a Nazi accent (as distinct from a German accent, huh?).
They have this slogan down in Austin: “Texas for people who hate Texas.” Must be the snottiest slogan on the planet. Well, I love Austin — and I also love Texas for people who love Texas.
Published on: 31st May, 2010
Every year about this time, big-government liberals stand up in front of college-commencement crowds across the country and urge the graduates to do the noblest thing possible — become big-government liberals.
That isn’t how they phrase it, of course. Commencement speakers express great reverence for “public service,” as distinguished from narrow private “greed.” There is usually not the slightest sign of embarrassment at this self-serving celebration of the kinds of careers they have chosen — over and above the careers of others who merely provide us with the food we eat, the homes we live in, the clothes we wear, and the medical care that saves our health and our lives.
What I would like to see is someone with the guts to tell those students: Do you want to be of some use and service to your fellow human beings? Then let your fellow human beings tell you what they want — not with words, but by putting their money where their mouth is.
You want to see more people have better housing? Build it! Become a builder or developer — if you can stand the sneers and disdain of your classmates and professors who regard the very words as repulsive.
Would you like to see more things become more affordable to more people? Then figure out more efficient ways of producing things or more efficient ways of getting those things from the producers to the consumers at a lower cost.
That’s what a man named Sam Walton did when he created Wal-Mart, a boon to people with modest incomes and a bane to the elite intelligentsia. In the process, Sam Walton became rich. Was that the “greed” that you have heard your classmates and professors denounce so smugly? If so, it has been such “greed” that has repeatedly brought prices down and thereby brought the American standard of living up.
Back at the beginning of the 20th century, only 15 percent of American families had a flush toilet. Not quite one-fourth had running water. Only 3 percent had electricity, and 1 percent had central heating. Only one American family in a hundred owned an automobile.
By 1970, the vast majority of those American families who were living in poverty had flush toilets, running water, and electricity. By the end of the 20th century, more Americans were connected to the Internet than had been connected to a water pipe or a sewage line at the beginning of the century.
More families have air-conditioning today than had electricity then. Today, more than half of all families with incomes below the official poverty line own a car or truck and have a microwave.
This didn’t come about because of the politicians, bureaucrats, activists, or others in “public service” that you are supposed to admire. No nation ever protested its way from poverty to prosperity or got there through rhetoric or bureaucracies.
It was Thomas Edison who brought us electricity, not the Sierra Club. It was the Wright brothers who got us off the ground, not the Federal Aviation Administration. It was Henry Ford who ended the isolation of millions of Americans by making the automobile affordable, not Ralph Nader.
Those who have helped the poor the most have not been those who have gone around loudly expressing “compassion” for the poor, but those who found ways to make industry more productive and distribution more efficient, so that the poor of today can afford things that the affluent of yesterday could only dream about.
The wonderful places where you are supposed to go to do “public service” are as sheltered from the brutal test of reality as you have been on this campus for the last four — or is it six? — years. In these little cocoons, all that matters is how well you talk the talk. People who go into the marketplace have to walk the walk.
Colleges can teach many valuable skills, but they can also nourish many dangerous illusions. If you really want to be of service to others, then let them decide what is a service by whether they choose to spend their hard-earned money for it.
– Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. © 2010 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Published on: 31st May, 2010
For the week ending May 29, 2010, we commissioned R2K to poll three questions on space & exploration. Full results including demographic breakdown and methodology are here. To best gauge opinion instead of generating partisan responses we avoided any specific names or parties, and kept the Q & A as short and defined as possible.
Regarding the US Space Program, do you feel we spend too much, not enough, or the right amount?
RIGHT TOO MUCH NOT ENG NOT SURE All 28% 47% 12% 13%
Dem 36% 38% 19% 7%
Rep 23% 56% 5% 16%
Ind 25% 48% 11% 16%
Should the US government continue to take the lead in space exploration, or should it leave such space exploration to the private sector?
GOVT PRIVATE NOT SURE All 56% 32% 12%
Dem 71% 17% 12%
Rep 33% 55% 12%
Ind 58% 29% 13%
RIGHT MORE RECENT NOT SURE All 62% 25% 13%
Most astronomers believe the universe formed about 13.7 billion years ago in a massive event called the Big Bang. Do you think that's about right or do think the universe was created much more recently?
Dem 71% 17% 12%
Rep 44% 38% 18%
Ind 66% 23% 11%
We went around and around on the best way to ask all three questions (Especially Q2). From long queries that experts rejected as impractical, to short ones that didn’t work as well. Given various constraints this was the best compromise. The responses of Q1 and Q2 taken together could mean the electorate — as is often the case — is either confused, or wants it both ways. Both of which suggests those of us in the explanation business, including politicians, need to do a better job of comparing and contrasting government vs. the private sector.
Published on: 31st May, 2010
