Saturday, March 13, 2004

Madrid: the electoral impact
As most readers will by now know, Spain is scheduled to hold a general election tomorrow (Sunday). Several people have been asking what the likely impact Thursday’s terrorist attack in Madrid will have on the outcome. The short answer is that it's difficult to tell.

Prior to this week’s events, the ruling Partido Popular (PP) looked as if it would be returned to power. The party currently has an absolute majority in the Spanish parliament. While prime minister José María Aznar is retiring, his successor, Mariano Rajoy appeared as if he was garnering enough support in opinion polls to win a slim majority or enough seats to form a coalition with a smaller party.

How this week’s bombing will affect the result is anybody’s guess. What does seem likely is that it will prompt far more people to go to the polls than was probable prior to the attack. Turnout in the 2000 election was 70 percent, down by 7.4 percent compared to 1996. Those who lost interest in the electoral system last time around may very well come back tomorrow. Where these additional votes will go is the great unknown.

The massacre in Madrid will doubtless be the issue on the minds of every voter. While the identity of the perpetrators is unlikely to be known for sure by tomorrow, who Spaniards think was responsible may well be a factor.

If they decide that the attack was the work of ETA, it could signal increased support for PP. Aznar’s government has taken a strong stance against the organisation and it has won his party considerable support within Spain. However, if voters decided that Islamic-orientated terrorists were responsible, it could spell trouble for PP. Aznar’s decision to send troops to Iraq was deeply unpopular in Spain, with 1 million people taking to the streets in protest and opinion polls finding that roughly 90 percent of Spaniards disagreed with the move.

With this mind, and as Jon has already noted, the Spanish government has appeared desperate to conclude that ETA was behind the attacks. While it may well be proved right, its insistence on fingering ETA before the evidence has been assembled smacks of attempting to shore up its position prior to the election.

Several reports today indicate just how far the government has gone in asserting ETA’s responsibility. Spanish daily El Pais today reports that foreign minister Ana Palacio had instructed ambassadors to use any opportunity to confirm ETA's responsibility for the bombings.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg is reporting on a story from Cinco Dias that asserts that interior minister Angel Acebes knew of indications an Islamist group might be responsible for Thursday's bombings in Madrid when he said all clues pointed to ETA:

"An unidentified police official, uncomfortable with government insistence that ETA was to blame, informed the opposition Socialist Party of clues pointing to an Islamic group, the newspaper said."

MORE: Writing in today's Irish Times (subscription required) Paddy Woodworth draws similar conclusions regarding the government's assertions about ETA:

"Many politicians, in the PP as well as in the opposition, would find any use of Thursday's ghastly carnage as election material repugnant and obscene. But the government's judgment in the first 12 hours after the attack is at the very least questionable."
posted by Dick O'Brien at 4:50 PM | link |


Re: Elephant
Seeking the vindication of one's political views in the deaths of innocent people is an intellectual adoption of the logic of terrorism. To do so is to indulge in the most morally ignorant form of ideological narcissism.

Frank has a trenchant observation along similar lines:

"It is somewhat ironic that there is a confluence of interests among fervent anti-war types and fervent pro-war types in favouring Al-Qaeda as the likely perpetrators. The likes of Mark Steyn and Charles Johnson are sure that this is the first step of an Islamofascist assault on Europe, while the anti-war left is keen to see this as some sort of payback for Aznar for supporting Bush."

The Spanish government, for its part, seems desperate to conclude that ETA was behind the attacks. (Of course, there are many good reasons to believe they were.) With national elections tomorrow, the last thing Aznar's party wants is to be blamed for provoking Islamist terrorism by supporting Bush, which is already happening. If it turns out an Al Qaeda-linked group did this, I expect traumatic cognitive dissonance in Spain. Judging from initial televised reactions from Madrid the other day, most Spaniards agree with each other about ETA. Popular opinion about Islamist terrorism appears to be far less cohesive.
posted by Jon Ihle at 2:13 PM | link |


Elephant
We decided it may be a good idea to get a Spanish perspective on Thursday’s massacre. The following piece was written by Diana Perez Garcia, a native of Madrid.

About a month and a half ago I went to see Gus Van Sant’s movie inspired by the Columbine massacre: ‘Elephant’. I walked out of the cinema thinking that the director had achieved a near perfect representation of that tragedy. Or rather that he had managed to achieve the right pitch to reflect his intentions, which are so frequently botched in the final result but which seemed fully realised in this case. Two things illustrate this: one is a scene in which one of the kids runs out of the school which two heavily armed fellow students have just entered, he knows that something really horrible is about to happen, and he runs away from the building trying to alert those who are about to go in. He is also worried about his alcoholic father, who is waiting in his car for his other son to pick him up and drive him home. When the kid gets to the car, the passenger seat is empty. He runs around the school’s grounds looking for his father. Father and son find each other on the lawn in front of the school, where explosions are taking place, the viewer looks at them as they look at the smoke come out of burst windows, as they hear the bangs go off inside the building. Van Sant shows the kid’s reaction in a muted manner, with the young actor showing the burden of premature responsibility towards his alcoholic father in a brief flash of reproach, that also delicately suggests his relief. The father’s reaction is equally restrained and equally authentic, he is about to justify himself, but he is deafened and silenced by the inexplicable enormity of what is taking place inside the school. He just puts his arm around his son, and they both stand paralysed on the lawn.

The second reason why I think that Van Sant’s film is outstanding is illustrated by its title: ‘Elephant’. He explained that he took it from an old Hindu tale, in which three blind men are touching different parts of an elephant’s body: the first one touches the tail and he thinks he is touching a donkey, the second one touches its side and he thinks that he is touching a wall, the third one touches its trunk and he thinks that he is touching a snake. None of the men can comprehend that he is touching an elephant, because the elephant is simply too enormous to be apprehended at once from each of the men’s limited experience.

I have been thinking of the explosions that took place in Madrid since I heard about them yesterday morning. I am from Madrid but live in Ireland, so maybe, for a moment, I thought that the distance might allow me to see the whole elephant. Van Sant’s film came to mind as the closest representation of horror that I have come across in recent times, because horror is unspeakable, and it is most unspeakable when it is most deeply felt. This is why the victims and the bereaved can only articulate one insistent question: why? Awed silence seems to me to be the only conscientious answer to acts like the one that took place yesterday in Madrid, but the aftermath brings reaction, and last night all sorts of blind men claimed to know what it was exactly that they were groping.

As I scrolled down pages and pages of web comment, I came across those that were well intentioned, a majority, expressing their sympathies and condolences (I personally received the sympathy of many friends in Ireland). I came across those who are politically alert, theorising about the possible authorship behind this action (I, myself, speculated, unequipped, unprepared by my experience of having lived in a country, where terrorist actions had always taken place with a warning and within a cordoned off area). I came across those who saw themselves and their own dead in those bloody corpses stretched across the railway lines. I came across professional politicians making professional political statements about the carnage, talking about ‘the great country of Spain’, ‘the war against terror’, ‘an attack on democracy’, ‘Islamic fundamentalism’, those comments that seem to be the political equivalent of the ready-made ‘deepest sympathies’ card, already in printed headlines as they come out of the mouth and onto the microphone. And then I came across the obverse of whatever it was that I was looking for; there it was, fragmented and chaotic, a crystal clear monstrosity: an orgy of blood.

It all starts with a blogger focusing on one of the spontaneous demonstrators that gathered in Seville to protest this act. It is a young man in the middle of a crowded street hands up in the air like the others, in a gesture that is meant to show the terrorists that their hands are clean, that they are not soaked in blood, that their conscience is clean (the gesture belongs to Spanish political body language, having been created as a sign of repulse to the kidnapping and assassination by ETA of a young county councillor in the Basque Country in the mid 90s). This young man in the picture, you see, is wearing a keffiyeh, the Palestinian scarf. The blogger’s reaction to this is scornful, I think he wants it to be seen as ironic outrage, but scorn is what its written all over his post. And his observation triggers a chain of bloodthirsty comments from his readership. I wrote before that they were fragmented and chaotic because there were many voices that were woven into this tapestry of hatred.

These comments bemoaned what their authors viewed as an act of submission from the demonstrators, as if taking out your sawn off shot gun and chasing down manholes looking for dark men wearing head scarves was the natural reaction to 200 dead and 1,500 injured in a senseless act of violence. Those that died on their way to work yesterday morning were by implication, in view of these comments, deserving of what they got, sacrificial lambs, infected by the European malady of pussy-whipped negotiation (their adjective, not mine). A proud people is a people that foams at the mouth in the face of carnage, and that maims and destroys in response to maiming and destruction.

Others were fuelled by their own racist hatred, and out came festering a compound of everything that is other, always dark and cowardly (whether because they are bloody or bloodless, to suit the occasion). The demonstrating Spaniards were compounded with Italians, who would, in the mind of one of the proud wolves salivating over his keyboard, ‘deter the terrorist with their body odour’. Other saw the Spaniards as the natural heirs to Al-Andalus, the stronghold that Islam held in Spain for nearly 8 centuries, and thus naturally untrustworthy, and ultimately deserving of their fate (at the hands of their blood brothers? Is Spain devouring itself, like Saturn chewing on the corpse of his own son? Funny, Spain was also the site of the three cultures, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, living together in peace for centuries. Toledo is the city where they flourished, and it is only some 65 km from the place where the attack took place). Some vindicated their scorn alluding to attacks on innocent civilians in Israel, carried out by men who wear the keffiyeh. If only these ones were really concerned with the death of innocent Israelis, but I fear that they identify with Israel in so far as it reflects their own frontier, cowboy mythology. On the same line of argument, the keffiyeh was compared to the swastika, showing that everybody, even those that purport to support Israel can trivialize the Holocaust to feed their own apocalyptic desires.

Yesterday, I expected the authors of the massacre to pen their letter claiming the attack feasting in the orgy of blood that they had created. Of that act I can say nothing because it speaks its own atrocious language, and I cannot imbue it with any significance. The dead are dead at the hands of those who planted those bombs in the crowded commuter trains at rush hour, their bereaved families are bereaved because of those men. Nothing can be expected from them, and I cannot expect to understand them. But it is bleak to feel that there are others who, trapped in the paranoia fed by their cultural isolation, seem to inhabit the same mind set as them, and are caught in the same rhetoric of hatred.

I think I was looking for space, scrolling down those pages, somewhere open where many could gather, just as the crowd in Seville had done. A man reaching for his son in the face of unspeakable horror needs his son to be there, and he needs the space to do it. What I found in those pages, filled with scorn for human life, were men on their own, reaching for a gun, with their minds against a wall that they have erected with their own hands, targeting anybody and everybody, filled with hatred towards an enemy that they cannot name or identify. I do not think that it is a great leap of imagination on my part to imagine them secretly goading on the deaths of innocent civilians in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or, as they demonstrated yesterday, on that of Spanish working people and students, pensioners and immigrants, men, women and children whose names they do not know and whom they are unable to identify with. Just like some of those men wearing keffiyeh that they so despise.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:38 AM | link |


Demonstrations in Spain
According to Spanish newspaper El Mundo, 11.4 million people took to the streets in Spain yesterday evening to protest against Thursday's bombing. 2.3 million people marched in Madrid alone.

Here in Dublin a demonstration was organised by the Spanish community in Ireland. We were there and reckoned approximately 1,000 showed up on O'Connell street.


Photo from last night's demonstration in Dublin.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:33 AM | link |


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Friday, March 12, 2004

Re: Who was responsible?
Speculation still rages today as to who was responsible for yesterday's terrorist attack in Madrid. As noted last night, Spanish investigators found bomb detonators and an Arabic tape with Koranic verses in a van near the train station where it was suspected all of the bombs were planted. In addition to this an email to the London based Arabic newspaper al Quds al Arabi newspaper, claimed responsibility on behalf of the Abu Hafs al Masri Brigades, an organisation said to be part of Al Qaeda.

Having said that, the authorship of yesterday's attack remains in doubt. Bear in mind that ETA had been caught at Christmas trying to plant bombs on trains to Madrid. In addition, two suspected members of the group were found travelling to Madrid in a van containing 500 kg of explosives less than two weeks ago. Police sources today said that the same explosives were used in this morning’s attack. The Guardian today features a photo of a leaflet which was distributed in the Basque city of San Sebastian on Wednesday (The photo doesn't appear to have been published online). It read: "1-12 de marzo. Los intereses Españoles en el punto de mira. ¡¡¡Sabotea la RENFE!!!". This translates roughly as "1st to 12th of March. The interests of Spain are in the [rifle] sights. Sabotage RENFE [the rail company]."

As reported by several news sources today, the mysterious Abu Hafs al Masri Brigades has a tendency to claim responsibility for a lot of things. CNN has a useful assessment of its track record so far:

"The group claimed responsibility for the attacks last year in the Turkish city of Istanbul on two synagogues, the British consulate and a British Bank. Intelligence sources have consistently told CNN that the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade does not speak for al Qaeda, and there is a question as to whether it exists at all beyond one person with a computer and a fax machine. For example, this group claimed responsibility for the U.S. power blackout last summer, a claim that turned out not to be true."

Obviously more will emerge over the coming days, but there are still compelling reasons to suspect ETA's involvement.

MORE: John at Iberian Notes has a good assessment of why ETA remain the prime suspects.

UPDATE - 3:30 PM: Reuters is reporting that the detonator in an unexploded bomb recovered by police contained a copper detonator whereas the detonators commonly used by ETA are made of aluminium. The Spanish Interior Ministry has not confirmed this as yet.

UPDATE: 6:05 PM: El Pais is reporting that ETA has issued an official denial to the Basque newspaper Gara.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 3:04 PM | link |


Aftermath of the Madrid bombing
Spanish newspaper El Pais today has further news on yesterday's bombing in Madrid. The death toll has now risen to 198, with 1,463 injured. Spanish prime minister José María Aznar has said that no line of enquiry will be ruled out in the investigation. The paper is also reporting that the Atocha station in Madrid, scene of some of yesterday's blasts, had to be evacuated today during the 15 minutes of silence for the victims because of a false alarm.

MORE: The Guardian today features a horrific series of eye-witness accounts: "On many bodies, we could hear the person's mobile phones ringing as we carted them away." Meanwhile, the Irish Times (subscription required) provides an unflinching assessment by military analyst Tom Clonan of the effects of the type of explosives used: "The flash effect of such an explosion would immediately incinerate any commuters within a few metres' radius of the detonation. The shock wave within a confined space such as a train carriage would compress people's internal organs."

MORE: Wired today runs a story tracking the reaction on the web to the bombings. It gave us a mention and also points to Spanish blogging portal Bitacoras, which is maintaining a compendium of links to posts by Spanish bloggers.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 1:21 PM | link |


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Thursday, March 11, 2004

Reactions to Madrid bombing
As expected, the bombings in Madrid have been met with universal condemnation from world leaders. That isn't to say world leaders aren't torquing their statements for political advantage, though.

George Bush made sure to acknowledge Spain's "fight against terror", although I'm not sure he should be trumpeting Spain's association with US foreign policy goals just now.

A statement from Ariel Sharon called on the nations of the free world to unite against terrorism, while a Palestinian spokesman incautiously condemned the attacks on the basis that they targeted innocent civilians.

Kofi Annan and most of the European leaders have emphasised that such attacks can have no justification, anticipating perhaps an aftermath of fractious whataboutery within a Europe already divided over the war on terrorism.

Around the blogosphere, the bombing has re-animated some long-running debates on what to call terrorists. Frank McGahon was at pains this morning to educate the BBC on the salient differences between terrorists and separatists. Iberian Notes gave the same treatment to CNN. Charles Johnson wondered whether the AP will revert to scare quotes around the word "terrorist" if it is proven that Islamic terrorists are responsible.

Also, in a moment reminiscent of post-September 11 schadenfreude, Johnson also managed to stop mourning for dead Madrilenos long enough to score some cheap political points at their expense. Meanwhile, the crackpot conspiracy theorists are out in force over at Indymedia, where gratuitous swipes at Aznar and Bush by, among others, the Cork Anti-War Campaign are de rigeur.

Glenn Reynolds, who has sent a lot of traffic our way today, has more.
posted by Jon Ihle at 10:55 PM | link |


Who was responsible?
In the aftermath of today’s Madrid bombing, much of the discussion centres around who was responsible for the attack. As is the case with any act of terrorism in Spain, the immediate suspect was ETA. However, the matter was clouded somewhat by Arnaldo Otegi, leader of the banned Basque party Batasuna, coming out and saying that he found it hard to believe that ETA was responsible for the attack. He said he suspected 'Arab resistance'. ETA always takes responsibility for its attacks and for someone so closely associated with the group to deny involvement certainly confused the issue. As yet, there’s been no statement purporting to from ETA itself. Otegi’s statement led interior minister Ángel Acebes to initially say that the government wasn’t ruling anything out. However, within an hour Acebes had squarely pinned the blame on ETA.

There are several reasons to suspect the Basque group. ETA had been caught at Christmas trying to plant bombs on trains in Madrid. Two suspected members of the group were found travelling to Madrid in a van containing 500 kg of explosives less than two weeks ago. Police sources today said that the same explosives were used in this morning’s attack.

However, there were several aspects of the attack which were distinctly uncharacteristic of ETA. For a start, it has never committed an atrocity on such a scale before. The organisation is responsible for the deaths of around 800 people since it started its campaign of violence in 1968. Today, 186 people died. However, this doesn’t rule ETA out of the equation. It could signal a change of tactics within the group. Another possibility is that it intended to provide a warning, but botched the job. The group has issued warnings before. If this is the case, it remains possible that it won’t assume responsibility. Another issue to bear in mind is that the alternative suspects, Islamic orientated terrorists, usually employ suicide bombers. This doesn’t appear to have been the case today.

Clearly, more information will emerge over the coming days. However, at present, the weight of evidence points to ETA.

UPDATE: Sky News is reporting that Spanish investigators have found bomb detonators and an Arabic tape with Koranic verses in a van near Madrid. Interior Minister Acebes has re-itereated, however, that ETA remain the chief suspects, although he has instructed the Spanish security forces not to rule out any line of investigation.

MORE: Al Quds, an Arabic language newspaper in London, is reported to have received a claim of responsibility from Al Qaeda. The editor of the paper says he is certain the claim is authentic, according to Sky News.

MORE: El Pais is also reporting the Al Qaeda claim of responsibility.

RUMOUR: RTE (Irish state broadcaster) just had an interview with a London Times correspondent in Madrid who reported rumours that at least one of the explosions was caused by a suicide bomber. If substantiated, this would certainly point in the direction of Al Qaeda. No video available yet.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 5:52 PM | link |


Bombing in Madrid
There was a massive bombing in Madrid this morning. Four separate blasts went off at three city train stations, the worst at Atocha, one of the city's main stations. CNN has a story which estimates that at least 30 people have been killed and 50 wounded. This is one of the worst attacks in recent times. Nobody has claimed responsibility yet.

UPDATE: Bloomberg, the BBC, and Ireland.com also have stories. Ireland.com estimates the death toll to be as high as 85.

UPDATE: Obviously initial speculation about the perpetrators centres around ETA. As several of this morning's stories have noted, two weeks ago police arrested two suspected ETA members who were heading for Madrid with a van containing 500 kg of explosives. In addition to this Spanish police arrested two people trying to bomb trains on Christmas Eve. Bear in mind too that the Spanish general election will be held on Sunday.

UPDATE: Spanish newspapers El Pais and El Mundo also have stories, putting the death toll as high as 65.

UPDATE - 11:10 AM: El Mundo is now reporting that 130 people are dead and 400 injured in the bombings, according to the Madrid city council. To place this in some context, ETA has killed approximately 800 people since it began its campaign in the sixties.

UPDATE - 11:35 AM: El Mundo is reporting that Arnaldo Otegi, leader of the banned Basque party Batasuna has said that he found it hard to believe that ETA was responsible for the attack. He said he suspected 'Arab resistance'. What makes this unusual is that ETA has a track record of always claiming responsibility for attacks.

UPDATE - 12:03 PM: The death toll has risen again. El Mundo is reporting that 173 people have died and 711 are wounded.

The bombings took place at Atocha, El Pozo and Santa Eugenia stations. For those that know Madrid, Atocha is a massive train station immediately south of the Retiro park. El Pozo and Santa Eugenia are smaller stations to the west of Atocha. There are reports of two controlled explosions in the aftermath of the bombing. There are also reports of Madrid authorities saying they simply ran out of ambulances in attempting to deal with the carnage.

UPDATE - 12:12 PM: There appears to be some confusion about who is responsible. Otegi's statement doesn't constitute a denial from ETA, but is the closest source to the organisation to speak as yet. We still await an official statement from ETA. Spanish officials were quick to condemn ETA, but now are saying they're keeping an open mind. However, a Spanish journalist has just been on the BBC News 24 TV channel and said that police had told her that the explosives used were the same as those seized by police from ETA suspects two weeks ago.

UPDATE - 1:01 PM: According to El Mundo, Spanish interior minister Ángel Acebes now seems to be definite in attributing blame to ETA for the attack. Acebes criticised Basque politician Arnaldo Otegi for attempting to deflect attention away from ETA. Otegi earlier claimed that he found it hard to believe ETA was responsible and instead said he suspected 'Arab resistance'.

UPDATE - 1:08 PM: InstaPundit has picked up on this. Also John at Iberian Notes, a Barcelona based blogger has regular updates.

UPDATE - 1:53 PM: Spanish prime minister José María Aznar has just given a press conference, televised on BBC News 24 (live stream). He said that evacuation of the victims was well underway and a police investigation had already commenced. Aznar declared three days of mourning, beginning today. He also announced that the government was calling for demonstrations in all major cities tomorrow at 7PM.

Aznar characterised the bombing as a ‘mass assassination’. People died today, ‘simply because they are Spanish,’ he said. Spain had made major progress in fighting terrorism and Aznar vowed that it would be defeated. He promised that those responsible would be arrested and tried. However, he did not mention ETA by name.

UPDATE - 2:56 PM: Spanish newspaper El Pais is now reporting that the death toll is up to 186. This is now the biggest terrorist attack seen in Europe in living memory. 1,000 people are now said to be injured. It now seems that there were at least ten different blasts which went off within five minutes of eachother. A number of unexploded devices were also found. It seems that the bombs were left in backpacks on trains.

UPDATE - 3:01 PM: Blogger Secular Blasphemy has also been following the story here and here.

UPDATE - 6:12 PM: El Pais has revised the casualty figures upwards. It now estimates that 190 people died and 1,200 were injured. See this post above for an assessment on the likely perpetrators.

MORE: There are further posts tracking today's news above.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 8:37 AM | link |


More Moore
Just when you thought it was safe to go out, Timothy Noah in Slate speculates that former Alabama chief Justice Roy Moore, of two ton ten commandments fame, may run for the presidency on the Constitution Party ticket.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:09 AM | link |


Healthy habit
This story from the BBC put me in a good mood:

"Forget the scare stories, says dietician Chiara Trombetti, of the Humanitas Gavazzeni institute in the northern Italian town of Bergamo. There is sound scientific reason to enjoy your morning espresso without worrying about the health effects. Coffee can be good for you - she says - and the stronger, the better."

Well, at least until I got to this part:

"And even Dr Trombetti says no one should drink more than three or four cups a day."

Damn!
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:07 AM | link |


No smoke, no customers
Is it too late to rethink the smoking ban?
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:06 AM | link |


No kidding
Who would have ever thought it? Reuters tell us that teens who pledge sexual abstinance often fail. Teenagers? Have sex? Well I never.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:03 AM | link |


The perils of Freemasonry
It's not just suicide bombers that Masons have to worry about. They also have to deal with potentially fatal initiation ceremonies.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:01 AM | link |


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Wednesday, March 10, 2004

More on gay marriage
USA Today has a feature on gay parents. Apparently, there's a lot of them around:

"As with most things in the debate over gay parenting, just how many gay families there are is hard to pin down. Gary Gates, a demographer with the Urban Institute, has analyzed 2000 Census data and estimates that there are 100,000 female same-sex couples and 67,000 male same-sex couples with at least one child under 18 in the home. In his book due in April, The Gay and Lesbian Atlas, he estimates that 250,000 children are being raised by same-sex couples."

While pieces such as these highlight the sheer normality of gay relationships, what I want to know is why people think that the issue of gay couples having children should be the subject of public debate. Nobody questions the suitability of heterosexuals to raise children.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:29 PM | link |


Biting the hand that feeds
It seems that the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay Republican group, is going to start broadcasting television ads opposing the proposed anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment. It's not too great in an election year to have members of your own party publicly condemning you.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:23 PM | link |


Racism in Ireland
The BBC (via Slugger) reports on racist leaflets being distributed in Belfast:

"A racist leaflet urging people to expel members of the Chinese community from an area of south Belfast has been condemned. The document has been circulated in the Donegall Pass area of Belfast, where several Chinese businesses are based."
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:15 PM | link |


Being realistic about Venezuela
The New York Times has this editorial on the current situation in Venezuela:

"As long as Mr. Chávez continues to abide by the rules of Venezuela's constitutional democracy, his opponents are obliged to do the same. They can claim no popular or legal mandate for turning to unconstitutional methods, as they did in 2002. The Bush administration has so openly allied itself with the anti-Chávez camp that it would be hard for it to play a mediating role. Less compromised institutions like the Organization of American States and the Carter Center, the former president's respected election-monitoring group, were instrumental last year in persuading both sides to follow the Constitution. Their help is again needed to persuade opposition leaders not to abandon it now, and to urge election officials to agree to a fair and transparent process - with international monitoring - that gives petitioners an adequate chance to confirm their challenged signatures."

It's the kind of sentiment that has been sadly lacking in some sectors of the media. Unfortunately, the current US administration seems to have burned its boats with Chávez. Perhaps a change of personnel at the White House may bring a new engagement with South American leaders
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:09 PM | link |


Million dollar bill
CNN reports on this woman who seems to be heading straight to the next episode of America's Dumbest Criminals:

"A Georgia woman who tried to use a fake $1 million bill to buy $1,675 worth of merchandise at Wal-Mart was arrested, and police later found two more of the bills in her purse."
posted by Dick O'Brien at 6:43 PM | link |


Post-its sink sub
Scotland's Daily Record reports on how a British nuclear sub went to the bottom:

"Hunter-killer HMS Trafalgar destroyed a terrorist camp with cruise missiles in the first attacks of the 2001 Afghan war. But the proud ship was forced out of action a year later when a training exercise off Skye went bizarrely and disastrously wrong. Trafalgar's commander, Robert Fancy, had post-it notes stuck over control room navigation aids to make the exercise for trainee officers as hard as possible. And without the help of the hi-tech gadgets, a 'struggling' student sent Trafalgar ploughing into rocks on the seabed. The 2002 crash caused £5million of damage. The sub is still not back in service."

Can these people be trusted with weapons of mass destruction?

It reminds me of the Simpsons episode when Homer joined the Navy Reserve and accidentally commandeered a nuclear submarine. His excuse to massed warships when he surfaced? "It's my first day."
posted by Dick O'Brien at 9:34 AM | link |


Out of the loop
Interesting things are coming from the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on pre-war intelligence. It seems that the CIA was sidelined to some degree and director George Tenet was unaware that a special Pentagon intelligence unit was briefing the administration on Iraq. The LA Times has the story:

"The Pentagon unit was created by Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of Defense for policy, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The unit was a handful of intelligence analysts, Feith has said, and was established to examine state sponsorship of terrorism, but is principally known for its efforts to assemble evidence linking Iraq to Al Qaeda. It has been reported previously that the so-called Policy Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group presented its findings to the CIA in August 2002. But in a letter to Warner released Tuesday for the first time, Feith said the group's briefing 'was also given to National Security Council and Office of Vice President staff members.' Levin asked Tenet whether it was 'standard operating procedure' for intelligence analysis to be presented to the White House without his involvement. 'I don't know,' Tenet replied. 'I've never been in the situation'."

UPDATE: Calpundit has more on Tenet's appearance before the Committee.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 8:44 AM | link |


Facial hair beware
According to Raglan Road, Turkmenistan president Saparmurat Niyazov has passed a law banning beards in the country. Niyazov is probably the one head of state whose sanity may be on a level with Kim Jong Il. Remember, this is the same guy who commissioned 12-meter-high gold plated statue of himself which revolves once per day and follows the sun.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 8:23 AM | link |


Poor polls for Bush
The Washington Post has another opinion poll containing bad news for president Bush:

"Bush narrowly trails likely Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry by 4 percentage points, 48 to 44 percent, among registered voters in a hypothetical presidential matchup. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader, an independent, claims 3 percent. Of a dozen policy areas, Kerry leads Bush in eight, including the economy, education and health care, while Bush leads only in the war on terrorism. The two candidates are virtually tied in the other three: Iraq, same-sex marriage and civil liberties."

I still feel it's a little early to start reading too much into opinion polls, since Kerry has been campaigning far longer than Bush has. However, what the polls probably do show is that a Democrat victory is by no means beyond the bounds of possibity, something that seemed unlikely twelve months ago.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 8:22 AM | link |


More on Venezuela
Something else struck me about the Bloomberg report which InstaPundit cited yesterday on the ongoing situation in Venezuela:

"Flag-waving protesters also marched to the Spanish Embassy, urging Spain to condemn Chavez's human rights record after Monday's shooting death of José Manual Vilas, a protester who also held Spanish nationality."

The problem with this is that it seems from the autopsy (Warning: gruesome photos) that Vilas died from wounds inflicted by a marbles shot from a home-made gun. In otherwords, it appears that he was shot by his own people.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 8:21 AM | link |


Chalabi
Fred Kaplan in Slate provides further proof, as if we needed it, as to why Ahmed Chalabi is not to be trusted:

"Whether massaging Wolfowitz or bowing to Sistani, Ahmad Chalabi has consistently been serving one cause—that of Ahmad Chalabi."
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:10 AM | link |


Pakistan's missiles
While Iran and the rest of the world squabbles over exactly what kind of nuclear capability it has, other things may be passing us by. Pakistan, which definitely has nuclear weapons and definitely had been selling nuclear secrets, marches boldly on with its own weapons program:

"Pakistan on Tuesday successfully test-fired for the first time a long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads to every corner of neighbouring arch rival India."

Nothing at all to worry about here I suppose.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:07 AM | link |


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Tuesday, March 09, 2004

No tongues
It seems that Indonesia is going in the opposite direction to Singapore. Following the city state's decision to legalise oral sex, it's larger neighbour has decided to ban snogging:

"Couples caught kissing passionately in public in Indonesia could spend five years in jail. Members of parliament in the world's most populous Muslim country have proposed an anti-pornography bill that includes a ban on kissing on the mouth in public."
posted by Dick O'Brien at 7:07 PM | link |


More fat than a cheesburger
I'm not sure how they managed to do this:

"Global hamburger giant McDonald's latest line in healthy looking salads may contain more fat than its hamburgers, according to the company's Web Site."
posted by Dick O'Brien at 6:59 PM | link |


Re: Covering your ass with good intentions
InstaPundit also cites the Miami Herald and this piece from Bloomberg, remarking that suspending firearms permits is 'crushing civil rights'. He concludes that Chávez is a dictator. I'm sure it makes sense to him.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 6:50 PM | link |


West coast to east coast
It seems that Kevin Drum of Calpundit is now going to be blogging for the Washington Monthly. I wish someone would pay us to blog...
posted by Dick O'Brien at 6:34 PM | link |


Wither Brazil?
After a somewhat hysterical reaction to the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president of Brazil, that noted left wing organ, the Economist this week has a rather sober assessment of Lula's performance to date. Things are still bad in Brazil it concludes, but they're getting better:

"But the economy is in better shape than it looks;and that goes, too, for the government's policies. Last year's austerity choked an inflationary burp, restored investors' confidence in Brazil and should allow interest rates to fall further. In a feisty defence of his record, the central bank's governor, Henrique Meirelles, pointed out that recovery began last July, and that growth reached an annual rate of 6% in the final quarter. Most economists still expect growth of 3-4% this year, spreading out from booming exports to domestic consumption and investment. Lula seems to realise that surrender to the growing clamour for slashed interest rates and higher spending would jeopardise such gains."
posted by Dick O'Brien at 6:21 PM | link |


Q: When do you start getting worried about global warming?
A: When it isn't just the tree huggers that are concerned about it. According to Reuters, the insurance industry is now warning that global warming could cause serious trouble:

"The world's second-largest reinsurer Swiss Re warns that the costs of global warming threaten to spiral out of control, forcing the human race into a catastrophe of its own making. In a report revealing how climate change is rising on the corporate agenda, Swiss Re said the economic costs of global warming threatened to double to $150 billion (81 billion pounds) a year in 10 years, hitting insurers with $30-40 billion in claims, or the equivalent of one World Trade Centre attack annually."

This follows on from that other noted environmental lobby group, the Pentagon, issuing a warning of its own:

"A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents."
posted by Dick O'Brien at 6:07 PM | link |


Re: The tyranny of An Taisce
Frank's back with more on this issue. It doesn't matter what the metaphor is, planning regulations are not the same as discriminating against someone with red hair. If you accept that planning permission is necessary, then it follows that some applications will be rejected. Despite Frank labeling them as such, rejections don't mean applications are "arbitrarily scuppered". There's a reason, it's not a random decision.

As happens so often, Jon puts it more succinctly than me. It's not about "beautifully empty countryside", but instead about how to efficiently deliver infrastructure and services.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 6:00 PM | link |


Re: The tyranny of An Taisce
Whatever we think about the injustice of rejecting 0.4% of planning applications, can we not devalue the nature of genuine tyranny by calling An Taisce fascist? Thank you.

And can we all at least admit that the real problem isn't the destruction of a rural idyll, but rather the difficulty of providing infrastructure and services in a country where settlement is widely dispersed. Let's remember that the builders of one-off houses also want electricity, phones, roads, transport, hospitals, schools and jobs.
posted by Jon Ihle at 5:05 PM | link |


Another petition
It seems that Alejandro Sanz, the insufferable Miami based Spanish singer-songwriter, has revealed his dislike of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez whilst on tour in Venezuela. He announced that if he received 3 million signatures asking him to stop singing, he would hang up the guitar. Venezuelans have taken him at his word and have launched a campaign to collect the 3 million required signatures. You can sign the petition here.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 4:49 PM | link |


Re: Covering your ass with good intentions
Jon highlights this piece from the Miami Herald which isn't too happy with Venezualan president Hugo Chávez.

Consider this though. Yes, after his first election in 1998 Chávez created a constitutional convention that produced a new consitution. What the Herald fails to mention is that he also called a referendum on it and 71 percent of the population favoured it.

He also did dismiss dozens of senior officers and replace them. However, when army officers take part in a coup against the democratically elected government, it's usual that they get fired afterwards. Army officers have to be loyalists, loyal to the elected government.

I'm curious to know just what Jon expects Chávez to do. He was elected with a mandate to undo decades of corruption. How do you dismantle an oligarchy and still leave its members in place?
posted by Dick O'Brien at 4:42 PM | link |


Re: The tyranny of An Taisce
John at Irish Eagle comes up with his own response to my original An Taisce post. According to John, my figures are irrelevant since I was talking about total planning applications and not those for one-off housing. OK, let's do the maths.

Almost 70,000 new homes were built in the State last year. Roughly one third of these were what are classed as one-off houses. That's approximately 23,000 houses. So how many does An Taisce appeal?

This piece from the Sunday Independent offers some illumination:

"In 2003, An Taisce examined some 578 planning cases around the country - many of them for one-off houses. The group was also named as appellant in 248 cases according to statistics compiled by An Bord Pleanala for the Sunday Independent. Many of those planning applications from 2003 are still being processed, so it is impossible to gauge An Taisce's success rate. However, the Department of Environment says that in terms of one-off rural housing, the local authorities grant planning permission in about 85 per cent of cases. When appeals are lodged against those planning permissions, mainly by An Taisce, 76 per cent of these approvals were overturned."

Lets assume for a minute that all the 578 and 248 cases are all separate and also that they all apply to once off housing, which they don't. That makes a whopping 826 cases, not all of which are going to be successful. This is out of 23,000 one-off houses. Environmental fascism of the highest order.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 4:08 PM | link |


Re: Covering your ass with good intentions
Seems like everybody in Venezuela has a compromised history. Excerpts:

"Consider: After two judges freed several protesters arrested last week during street demonstrations against Chávez, the judges lost their jobs.

When a Venezuelan court ruled last year that Cuban doctors helping the poor here lacked the required accreditations, Chávez disbanded the court and kept the Cubans.

And when the pro-Chávez majority in the legislature wanted to ram through a controversial bill changing the debating rules in Congress, the National Assembly convened in a park in an unfriendly pro-Chávez neighborhood -- where the opposition dared not go.

So when the National Elections Council last week cited a technicality to set aside more than one million signatures on petitions seeking to recall Chávez, critics said it was just the latest of a long string of actions that illustrate the real problem with the president -- he cheats.
...
Chávez's legal shortcuts were no secret to Venezuelan voters. He led a failed military coup in 1992 and after his first election in 1998 called for a constitutional convention that his supporters dominated and produced a document almost tailor-made to his leftist populist ideology.

The new Constitution also allowed the president and his allies to put their backers in charge of independent powers like the Supreme Court and the prosecutor's office. After the 2002 coup attempt, he also dismissed dozens of senior officers and replaced them with loyalists."
posted by Jon Ihle at 3:22 PM | link |


Re: Covering your ass with good intentions
After a frenzied bout of posting yesterday, there's more on the situation in Venezuela, with Spanish daily El Pais (subscription required) providing a further insight into why the government is being so cautious in verifying signatures. In February 2003 the opposition handed in a similar petition with 4 million signatures attached. The government found that it had used customer databases from banks and other companies to forge many of the signatures.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:10 PM | link |


Re: The tyranny of An Taisce
Following my response yesterday, Frank's still not letting go of the An Taisce issue. However, I think he's employing flawed logic. For example, murdering 1,000 people is tyranny and murdering one person is no less tyrannical. Frank seems to think that this also applies to planning permission. Denying planning permission to vast swathes of the population might be tyranny, but with Franks's logic, denying it to a small minority, less than one percent is still tyranny. It doesn't really work like this and that was the whole point of my original post.

If you accept that planning should be regulated, as I'm sure most people do, you must also accept that in some instances planning applications will be rejected. Just who should decide on these things is open to debate (and An Taisce and Duchas do very different things). However, the figures reveal that the current regime is not overly hindering building development in this country. Frank's argument only applies if he believes that all planning regulation is wrong. He's hardly saying that is he?
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:07 PM | link |


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Monday, March 08, 2004

More on gay marriage
This seems to be really taking off and prominent Republicans are already distancing themselves from the Bush position:

"In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger surprised Republicans by opposing an amendment and declaring that it would 'be fine with me' if California changed its laws to allow for same-sex marriages. This weekend, New York mayor Mr Michael Bloomberg made clear that he, too, was at odds with the President's position."
posted by Dick O'Brien at 6:41 PM | link |


US jobs figures
According to Saturday's Irish Times, jobs figures in the US spell bad news for the Bush campaign:

"Figures for February showed that US payrolls increased by only 21,000, far below economists' estimates of 125,000 new jobs, and only a fraction of the 400,000 a month this year promised by the White House in January."

However, perhaps all is not lost for the President. As we all know, he's been raising huge amounts of money for his re-election campaign. Might he not have enough to create 400,000 new jobs a month on the Bush 2004 campaign between now and November?
posted by Dick O'Brien at 6:04 PM | link |


Re: The tyranny of An Taisce
Frank has an odd response to the An Taisce post:

"It matters little to someone who is 'tyrannised' how many share his fate. Someone who is subject to 'arbitrary or despotic exercise of power; with a rigor not authorized by law or justice' is still tyrannised whether this also applies to 100%, 20% 0.001% or even 0.4% of others."

So does he think An Taisce shouldn't be there at all? Are national monuments, archaeological sites and wildlife habitats not to be protected, even if it only results in a fraction of a percentage of planning applications being turned down?
posted by Dick O'Brien at 5:43 PM | link |


Meat packers
We've probably all been guilty of sneaking in a few salamis, but this takes the biscuit:

"Customs officials at Gatwick arrested a passenger after finding 13 stones of fish and meat in her luggage."
posted by Dick O'Brien at 2:06 PM | link |


Nothing to see here
Wasn't this inevitable:

"A demonstration billed as a topless march to protest anti-nudity laws drew thousands of curious spectators Sunday but only a handful of marchers."
posted by Dick O'Brien at 2:05 PM | link |


More links
I've added several Irish blogs to our links list, namely Mostly 'armless, Ramblings of a Defiant Irishwoman and It Comes in Pints?

Also thanks to Impearls for the recent endorsement.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 1:47 PM | link |


Re: Covering your ass with good intentions
Jon's added more to his Venezuela post, and asks why there aren't "scare quotes for Chavez's cynical attempt to discredit the opposition by claiming they're dupes of the gringos?" Probably because it's true. Don't believe me? Read this and this.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 1:21 PM | link |


The tyranny of An Taisce
John at Irish Eagle takes a poorly informed potshot at An Taisce which he characterises as 'environmental fascists'. The catalyst for this outburst is an editorial in the Irish Examiner, which states:

"On average, 85% of one-off housing applications are granted planning permission by local authorities. But appeals are regularly lodged against these permissions, mainly by An Taisce. Two years ago, according to the most up-to-date figures, a whopping 76% of those appeals were upheld by An Bord Pleanala on foot of objections."

However, the Examiner fails to mention just how regularly An Taisce appeals permissions and just what kind of permissions An Taisce can appeal.

First of all, An Taisce only has jurisdiction in certain areas:

"Under the legislation Local Authorities are required to send An Taisce a copy of any planning application that falls under the following headings: the "land or structure is located in an Area of Special Amenity"; may impact on Protected Structures, Architectural Conservation Areas or those proposed as such; "might detract from the appearance of structure" (i.e. Protected Structure or Architectural Conservation Area); may impact or be unduly close to "a cave, site, feature or other object of archaeological, geological, scientific, ecological or historical interest"; may impact or "might affect or be unduly close to monuments or places recorded under the National Monuments Act 1994 - 1997, or are protected or are under ownership or guardianship under the National Monuments Acts 1930-1994"; containing developments that may affect a National Monument; where the development "might have significant effects in relation to nature conservation" i.e. applications within or adjacent to a Natural Heritage Area, Special Protection Area for Birds or Candidate Special Area of Conservation, developments affecting watercourses or affecting priority species under the Habitats Directive."

But the numbers tell the real story. It reviews around 3,000 planning applications every year. It makes 300 submissions annually to An Bord Pleanala. If the Examiner's 76 percent success rate is right, this means that An Taisce blocks 228 out of 3,000 planning applications relevant to it. Less than 10 percent in other words.

This piece by Frank McDonald in Friday's Irish Times is also worth reading. In terms of total planning applications, An Taisce has only reviewed four out of every 1,000 planning decisions, or 0.4 percent.

This is hardly tyranny.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 1:08 PM | link |


Re: Covering your ass with good intentions
Jon shows extraordinary good faith in Venezuelan opposition groups which have previously called a coup democratic. His citation of the Carter Centre also excludes this:

"The appeals and correction period was included in the process to provide, in cases of doubt, an opportunity for citizens to reaffirm their signatures, or to disavow their signatures in cases where their data has been used against their will. The CNE [Venezuelan electoral commission] has accepted some of our recommendations in designing this appeals process. We support the efforts of the CNE and of the promoters to work together to establish the guarantees necessary to ensure that all of the citizens who wish to take advantage of this resource may do so. We urge them to continue in this direction."

So is the Carter centre condemning the CNE or endorsing it?

The main problem with these 800,000 signatures is that in most cases the forms appear to have been filled out by agents on behalf of the signer because of illiteracy. Were all of them aware of what they were signing? I think its reasonable that the CNE ask this.

What it seems to be boiling down to now is the burden of proof argument. The government believes that those whose signatures were disputed should come forward and reaffirm them. The opposition believes that people should be allowed check if they were included erroneously on the list. Perhaps the most compelling argument either way is one of practicality. If you were included on the list without your knowledge, you've no way of knowing unless you check. This means that most Venezuelan citizens would have to do so, with the exception of those who knew they were there. If on the otherhand, you knew you'd signed up for it, it would be relatively straightforward to come forward again and reaffirm this.

Jon can classify this debate as "procedural impediments", but properly checking the position can hardly be termed obstructionist. Remember, signatures on the California recall petition were also checked. Had the government thrown out the petition immediately, it would have been a different kettle of fish entirely.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:44 PM | link |


Payola
This InstaPundit reader seems to be falling victim to rampant paranoia. Anyway, even accounting for Soros and Heinz Kerry, which candidate has the biggest campaign fund?
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:17 PM | link |


Re: Moving the UN
Yes, the problem with accepting dirty money is that sometimes you often have to wait so long to get it.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 12:03 PM | link |


Moving the UN
I agree with Clare Short and this letter writer - let's get the UN out of New York. Let's also stop accepting any more of their dirty money.
posted by Jon Ihle at 11:51 AM | link |


God is not going to stop making charismatic maniacs
The New Yorker reviews the memoirs of Jayson Blair, former reporter and pathological liar at The New York Times.
posted by Jon Ihle at 11:13 AM | link |


Re: Covering your ass with good intentions
Who ever said democratically elected leaders can't be thugs? Democracy doesn't mean tyranny of the majority, or a mandate for a leader do to as he pleases. For a start, Chavez could honour the procedures of the constitution he is claiming to uphold. Fine, reject the signatures of dead people, etc., reject illegible forms, but I find it very hard to believe nearly a third of the rest of the petition forms - 800,000 of them - were forged. Impartial international observers in Venezuela, including the Carter Center and that Organization of American States, agree with me:

"In this process, in particular, we find sufficient controls, including security paper for the petitions, full identification of the citizen with signature and thumbprint, summary forms (actas) listing the petition (planillas) serial numbers during the collection process, party witnesses, personnel trained and designated by the CNE, verification of each petition form and a cross-check with the summary forms, a cross-check of the names with the voters list, and a mechanism for appeal and correction.

We have had some discrepancies with the CNE over the verification criteria. In the case of the petition forms in which the basic data of several signers, but not the signatures themselves, appear to have been filled in by one person, we do not share the criterion of the CNE to separate these signatures, sending them to the appeals process in order to be rectified by the citizens. These occur in such large numbers that they could have an impact on the outcome of the process."

If Chavez is such a heroic democrat, why is he so desperate to throw up procedural impediments to a constitutional process that would (presuming he is genuinely supported by a majority of Venezuelans at this stage) endorse his leadership?

UPDATE: The news we are getting in our newspapers on Venezuela isn't exactly impartial. Compare Michael McCaughan's treatment of two contentious claims in report in today's Irish Times:

"The US government has made no secret of its dislike of Mr Chavez and the Venezuelan president suspects that the Bush administration, which is financing legal opposition groups, is quietly fomenting violent opposition to his rule.

In the latest US broadside, Gen James Hill, chief of the US Southern Command, complained of a lack of state co-operation in rooting out alleged "Islamic terrorists" living on the Venezuelan tourist island of Margarita.

The "proof" cited by Gen Hill was supplied by US citizens resident on the island, who reported a sudden increase in the number of "young Muslims" living on the island."

What? No scare quotes for Chavez's cynical attempt to discredit the opposition by claiming they're dupes of the gringos? Dude, that's right out of Fidel's playbook from 1961.
posted by Jon Ihle at 10:46 AM | link |


WiFi
Bernie's found another Dublin pub with free WiFi.
posted by Dick O'Brien at 9:08 AM | link |


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