Tag: liberty

What’s at stake in Lebanon

With the democracy domino wobbling and threatening to fall in Lebanon, there is a lot at stake for many in the region. The Wall Street Journal sums it up (paid subscription required):

An estimated one million Syrian guest workers reside in Lebanon and remit their wages to relatives back home, and Syrian officials have plundered much of the international aid Lebanon received over the past decade. The Bekaa Valley also serves as a lucrative transit point for narcotics and other contraband. Without Lebanon, Syria’s economy might collapse. So, too, might the Assad dynasty: Bashar’s grip on power is far less sure than his father’s, and the loss of prestige that a withdrawal from Lebanon would entail might well be politically fatal to him and the minority Allawite clique through which he rules.

For Iran the stakes are strategic. Its elite Revolutionary Guards operate terrorist training camps in the Bekaa. Iran has also placed upward of 10,000 missiles in Lebanon, including the medium-range Fajr-5 rocket, bringing half of Israel within their reach. It thus maintains the option of igniting a new Mideast war at any moment, as well as a hedge against the possibility of a pre-emptive Israeli strike on its nuclear installations. Yet if Syria withdraws, no pro-independence Lebanese government will indulge Iran’s military presence. The Lebanese have had enough of allowing their territory to serve, Belgium-like, as the battleground of choice for foreign powers.

For Hezbollah, the stakes are greater still. During the years when Israel maintained a security zone in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah could present himself as a patriot fighting occupation. But Israel removed its forces from Lebanon in 2000, and now Nasrallah’s support for Syrian occupation exposes a different set of motives: not patriotic, but Jihadist. And the last thing the Jihadists want is for Lebanon to again become a flourishing, pluralist, cosmopolitan Arab state. Syria’s withdrawal would likely precipitate a Lebanese decision to enforce UN Resolution 520, which requires the Lebanese Army to patrol its border with Israel, a function now performed by Hezbollah. At length, it could lead to the disbanding of Hezbollah as an independent militia, though its terrorist wings would likely continue to operate.
So let’s see: Syrian influence is weakened, the dictatorial ruling party is squashed, and the democracy domino potentially falls in that nation. Iran’s influence is further weakened, and its military presence threatening Israel loses ground; actual, physical ground. Lastly, Hezbollah’s power is further weakened, and the organization is exposed for what it truly is and always has been: a group of terrorists.
Tell me, o occupiers of the Left and haters of America, democracy, and liberty, what is the down side?

SSA makes case for reforming itself

Brendan Miniter:

Private accounts would pay workers based on the total amount they’ve paid into the system over their working lifetimes, not an average of what they paid in for part of their time in the work force. If private accounts had been around in 1989, I would have started growing mine with the first paycheck I earned pruning apple trees in the dead of winter in upstate New York. That account would have then been able to take advantage of what Albert Einstein called “the most powerful force in the universe,” compound interest. So instead of penalizing workers like me, who pay in early, private accounts will give workers the advantage of nearly two extra decades of accruing retirement assets.

Viewed from this perspective, it’s clear that by uniting against reform, Democrats are defending a system that is skewed against the workers they claim to represent–those who are handed little in life and must enter the work force early. Some of them work their way through college, but many stay in blue-collar and service-related jobs. They make less money each year, but make it up by working longer and harder. The Social Security debate is now about whether to allow these workers to capitalize on all of their hard work while saving for retirement. Isn’t that what the Democratic Party is supposed to be all about?

On the Apple lawsuits

I have refrained thus far from commenting on the lawsuits by Apple against Think Secret, PowerPage, and Apple Insider, none of whom I will dignify with a link. There are others who are doing a far better job of shedding the real light on this issue, in that is has nothing to do with the First Amendment.
Notably, John Gruber and Jeff Harrell have gotten it right. Think Secret, PowerPage, and Apple Insider should have to reveal their “sources,” and they should suffer some form of punishment. I don’t think hefty fines or jail time is necessary, but something punitive enough to ensure they will discontinue this nonsense, because it is hurting Apple.
My disdain for Jason O’Grady’s rumor-mongering goes way back, and my thoughts then still hold true now. By combining real facts leaked by insiders and NDA-holders with utter speculation, these rumor-mongers set up false expectations for unannounced Apple products. This leads consumers, as well as Wall Street “analysts”, to be disappointed when the real product is announced, and downplay the significance of the product because it is not exactly what the rumor-mongers said it was going to be. These sites are hurting Apple by revealing sensitive and private corporate information, and it has to stop.

So what exactly are you protesting?

Amir Taheri:

I spent part of last week ringing up the organizers of the anti-war events with a couple of questions. The first: Would they allow anyone from the newly-elected Iraqi parliament to address the gatherings? The second: Would the marches include expressions of support for the democracy movement in Arab and other Muslim countries, notably Iraq, Lebanon and Syria?

In both cases the answer was a categorical no, accompanied by a torrent of abuse about “all those who try to justify American aggression against Iraq.”

[…]

Why are so many Westerners, living in mature democracies, ready to march against the toppling of a despot in Iraq but unwilling to take to the streets in support of the democratic movement in the Middle East?

Is it because many of those who will be marching in support of Saddam Hussein this month are the remnants of totalitarian groups in the West plus a variety of misinformed idealists and others blinded by anti-Americanism?

Or is it because they secretly believe that the Arabs do not deserve anything better than Saddam Hussein?
[This article requires a free registration; get one from BugMeNot.]
[Via Best of the Web.]

The real domestic issue

Peggy Noonan points to civil defense, not Social Security or tax cuts, as the real number-one domestic issue. The one no one is talking about.

New long distance record in Iraq

A U.S. Marine, Staff Sgt. Steve Reichert, has scored a kill shot while engaging the enemy in Iraq, and the shot was over a mile away. For his actions, Staff Sgt. Reichert has been awarded the Bronze Star for Valor.

In the after-action report, the platoon leader made a remarkable account: that Reichert made the shot from 1,614 meters – about a mile away. His accuracy was the deciding factor in the outcome of the firefight.
For the math-impaired, 1,614 meters translates in to 1765.0918662 yards. There are three feet in a yard, so that number times three yields 5,295.2755986 feet. Staff Sgt. Reichert scored a kill shot at fifteen feet beyond a mile. Boys and girls, that’s a long, long way for a rifle shot.

Identity thieves targeting medical patients

Read this article now, as it will become subscriber-only after March 1st.

The biggest vulnerability of hospital patients is that their Social Security numbers often double as a medical identifier. For identity thieves, “Social Security numbers are the key to the golden kingdom,” says Mari Frank, a California attorney specializing in identity theft.

[…]

Often, the culprit in medical settings is a rogue employee. Identity-theft experts recommend that patients and loved ones protest any visible use of Social Security numbers, such as on wristbands or unguarded charts. At the very least, patients may be able to darken a couple of numbers. Patients should refuse to answer aloud any verbal request for those numbers when they might be overheard.

Patients should also resist the impulse to trust their fellow patients. “If you and the other guy were at the counter at Costco, you’d be careful in a way that you’re not when you’re wearing hospital gowns,” says Mr. Cox, the Michigan attorney general. His office recently extracted a guilty plea from a cancer patient who stole the identities of nine other cancer patients.
The best thing to do is, if at all possible, have the hospital assign you a non-Social Security number for identification purposes.

Flying the American Flag

I got a postcard in the mail from a local real estate agent, and on it was a helpful list of flag-flying days. Some of these will already be on iCal’s U.S. Holidays calendar, but I decided to make a separate calendar you can download for iCal or any other calendar app which supports a .ics file. The dates are:
+ New Year’s Day (January 1)
+ Inauguration Day (January 20)
+ Martin Luther King’s Birthday (3d Monday in January)
+ Lincoln’s Birthday (February 12)
+ Washington’s Birthday (February 22)
+ Washington’s Birthday (Observed) (3d Monday in February)
+ Patriots Day (April 19)
+ National Day (2d Sunday in May)
+ Memorial Day (Last Monday in May, fly flag at half-staff until noon)
+ Flag Day (June 19)
+ Independence Day (July 4)
+ Labor Day (1st Monday in September)
+ Constitution Day (September 17)
+ Columbus Day (October 12)
+ Navy Day (October 27)
+ Veteran’s Day (November 11)
+ Thanksgiving Day (4th Thursday in November)
+ Christmas Day (December 25th)
I did not include Easter, since Easter Sunday varies from year to year. The flag can be flown on Easter. The flag should also be flown on election days, can be flown on state and local holidays, a State’s Birthday, and any days as proclaimed by the President of the United States.
I welcome any additions or corrections.

Looking at you, bureaucrats

“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” –Thomas Jefferson

“But the police will protect you, you don’t need a gun…”

Tell that to Barbara Gesell and her daughter Theresa, who used her .45-caliber handgun to subdue the purse snatcher who attacked the elder Gesell, 83, in her garage as she arrived home.

“A man has attacked us in our house, and we are fighting him in the yard,” Theresa Gesell said to the 911 dispatcher.

As the struggle moved down the street, a neighbor — whom Theresa Gesell identified as “Hershall” — stopped to help. Theresa then grabbed her .45-caliber pistol and continued running after Campbell — despite the dispatcher’s plea for her to drop the handgun.

“I am going to go get my .45 … you all are too slow,” she said.

As the call continues, the dispatcher asks Theresa to get rid of the weapon. However, after the suspect tried to escape along a creek bed, Theresa and Hershall used the pistol to make sure he didn’t leave.

“You can go put that gun up now,” the dispatcher said.

“No sir,” Theresa replied. “We have the gun pointed at him … he must have been a city fellow because he didn’t know anything about the woods.”

Seconds later, police arrived and arrested Campbell. With Hershall’s help, the Gesells retrieved Barbara’s purse.
So let’s do the math: 1 purse snatcher attacking an 83 year-old woman + 1 daughter with firearm = subdued criminal who would have escaped before police could arrive on scene. Now imagine that the criminal in question was after more than a purse, and you can see why firearms save more lives each year than they take. You just don’t hear about all of those live-saving events on the nightly news.
[Emphasis added. –R]