George Will on representative government v. plebiscitary democracy

George Will, in a January 11, 2019 WaPo column on the messy aftermath of the UK's 2016 Brexit vote:

The bedrock principle of representative government is that “the people” do not decide issues, they decide who shall decide. And once a legislature sloughs off responsibility and resorts to a referendum on the dubious premise that the simple way to find out what people want is to ask them, it is difficult to avoid recurring episodes of plebiscitary democracy.

Appeasers hate those who confront evil (Obama's idealism v. Netanyahu's realism)

Dennis Prager has a concise explanation for why the Obama administration is so offended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard line against the Islamists:

Appeasers hate those who confront evil.

Given that this president is the least likely of any president in American history to confront evil — or even identify it — while Benjamin Netanyahu is particularly vocal and eloquent about both identifying and confronting evil, it is inevitable that the former will resent the latter.

The negotiations with Iran over its nuclear weapons program are today’s quintessential example. Those who will not confront a tyranny engaged in terror from Argentina to the Middle East, and which is committed to annihilating another country, will deeply resent Israel and its leader.

Why can't Netanyahu understand that the terrorists don't need to be confronted and defeated; they need jobs?

Our Dangerous Historical Moment?

Historian Victor Davis Hansen, writing in NRO on February 19, notes the geopolitical similarities between the world of the 1930s and the world of today:

Putin, the Islamic State, and Iran at first glance have as little in common as did Germany, Italy, and Japan. But like the old Axis, they are all authoritarians that share a desire to attack their neighbors. And they all hate the West.  

The grandchildren of those who appeased the dictators of the 1930s once again prefer in the short term to turn a blind eye to the current fascists. And the grandchildren of the survivors of the Holocaust once again get blamed.

The 1930s should have taught us that aggressive autocrats do not have to like each other to share hatred of the West.

The 1930s should have demonstrated to us that old-time American isolationism and the same old European appeasement will not prevent but only guarantee a war.

Meanwhile, some of the left's apologists, such as Steven Pinker and Andrew Mack at Slate, paint a rosy picture worthy of Pravda's descriptions of unrelenting Soviet triumph.  As long as the "progressive" tribe is in power, the trend lines are incapable of being anything but positive:

The world is not falling apart. The kinds of violence to which most people are vulnerable—homicide, rape, battering, child abuse—have been in steady decline in most of the world. Autocracy is giving way to democracy. Wars between states—by far the most destructive of all conflicts—are all but obsolete. The increase in the number and deadliness of civil wars since 2010 is circumscribed, puny in comparison with the decline that preceded it, and unlikely to escalate.

We have been told of impending doom before: a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, a line of dominoes in Southeast Asia, revanchism in a reunified Germany, a rising sun in Japan, cities overrun by teenage superpredators, a coming anarchy that would fracture the major nation-states, and weekly 9/11-scale attacks that would pose an existential threat to civilization.

Why is the world always “more dangerous than it has ever been”—even as a greater and greater majority of humanity lives in peace and dies of old age?

And the prize for “Most Pathetic Headline of the Week by a Major US Paper” goes to….

…the Los Angeles Times.  Here’s how they titled their story about yesterday’s vote by Honduras’ Congress regarding Manuel Zelaya:

Honduran Congress upholds coup

The LAT seems determined to set in stone the fiction that Zelaya was removed in a coup d'état, rather than in a legal, constitutional action.  If you didn’t catch the “coup” in the title, don’t worry – they use the word four more times in the accompanying article.

The vote was overwhelmingly against Zelaya’s reinstatement (111-14), but the LAT dismisses it by suggesting that this was a vote by the Honduran elite to rid itself of a meddlesome man of the people.

The MSM’s reporting on Honduras’ political situation should be a badge of shame, but you’ll never read that in their newspapers.

Manuel Zelaya is quite possibly insane

In an interview granted to the Miami Herald, deposed Honduran president Zelaya gives more reasons why he should never be permitted to return to power*:

It's been 89 days since Manuel Zelaya was booted from power. He's sleeping on chairs, and he claims his throat is sore from toxic gases and "Israeli mercenaries'' are torturing him with high-frequency radiation.

"We are being threatened with death,'' he said in an interview with The Miami Herald, adding that mercenaries were likely to storm the embassy where he has been holed up since Monday and assassinate him.

"I prefer to march on my feet than to live on my knees before a military dictatorship,'' Zelaya said in a series of back-to-back interviews.

Zelaya was deposed at gunpoint on June 28 and slipped back into his country on Monday, just two days before he was scheduled to speak before the United Nations. He sought refuge at the Brazilian Embassy, where Zelaya said he is being subjected to toxic gases and radiation that alter his physical and mental state.

If not insane, he’s at the very least paranoid and delusional.

* The constitutional reasons to bar him from power are overwhelmingly sufficient; this is just icing on the cake.

(Credit: Image found here)

Honduran Foreign Minister: We will not discard our constitution just to please the international community

On August 24 the Foreign Minister of the government* of Honduras issued an “open letter” to the world to defend its actions regarding former president Zelaya.
Naturally, this clear statement of the facts did not get much play among the enemies of constitutional democracy (including our own government and most major press organizations).
I post this for the benefit of those who value truth over ideology.  Please keep these facts in mind as you follow the current situation in Honduras.

SECRETARIA DE RELACIONES EXTERIORES
DE LA
REPUBLICA DE HONDURAS

An Open Letter to the Citizens of the World
from
Carlos Lopez Contreras, Foreign Minister of Honduras

As citizens of an increasingly smaller and interconnected global community, we are all responsible for respecting one another and for creating a better world together. Our diverse cultures, religions, and forms of government must continually search for ways to understand one another and work together.
In Honduras, we have always worked diligently to uphold this responsibility as inhabitants of a global village. We have always remained steadfast in our commitment, and this past month is no exception. In fact, it is an example of what we must all vow to do from time to time: hold true to the principals of democracy and the rule of law while protecting the human and civil rights of our fellow citizens in the face of criticism and misunderstanding by certain sectors of the international community.
Let me be clear about what we as Hondurans believe. We believe in the rights of every person to freely express themselves and their beliefs so long as it is done in accordance with the rule of law. We encourage full and equal participation in political discourse and believe that a free and unfettered press is a valuable part of that discourse. We believe that the Honduran government must act in accordance with the Constitution that establishes and limits its power to govern.
As the Minister of Foreign Affairs, I am charged with representing the Honduran government and its people before the world. Now more than ever, my job is to bring an understanding to our shared global community of our dedication to uphold these beliefs, and ask each of you to consider our views as we consider yours.
Yes, Manuel Zelaya was democratically elected as the Honduran President. We cherish democracy.
Yes. as President, he did abuse his power and violate the Constitution. We respect our Constitution.
Yes. his powers as President were automatically forfeited after our Attorney General investigated the violation and our Supreme Court ruled that the violation had occurred. We respect the rule of law.
Yes, the military was ordered to arrest him as part of their Constitutional duty. We know this appearance might seem troubling to some, but it is clearly written in our Constitution -and has always been a part of our Constitution.
Yes, it was a mistake to remove Manuel Zelaya, a Honduran national, from the country. We admit the error and are aware that there are consequences.
Those consequences are that the Constitution and rule of law must be upheld. And so, the Attorney General opened an investigation into the expatriation of Manuel Zelaya on July 4th, and we await the findings of this investigation.
We, the Honduran people, firmly believe that those consequences are not any of the following:

• The restitution of the Presidential powers of Manuel Zelaya. This is not an option the Honduran Constitution grants to the government. In fact, it is clear that the exact opposite must take place. No powers under any circumstances.
• The granting of amnesty to Manuel Zelaya by the executive branch.  This is a proscribed duty of the Congress. and the Congress alone. This is their power. and theirs alone.
• The unilateral decision to negotiate breaking articles of the Constitution in order to satisfy some members of the international community.  Popular opinion by powerful nations does not rule our nation, and should not rule any country.

Please consider what is being asked of our country: Break the Constitution. Ignore the rule of law.
We simply can not do this because of a mistake in expatriating a Honduran national who had been Constitutionally stripped of the powers that democracy provided to him only to have him abuse them.
We would never ask another nation to ignore its Constitution and trample on the rule of law much less purposely violate its Constitution to please our opinion.
Each day, our citizens wake up and hope that through our insistence and dedication that we can bring understanding to others. We are thankful to friends who have courageously spoken up on our behalf. We are grateful for their support, and are humbled that they have chosen to work selflessly alongside us to bring other nations to understanding our commitment to democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law.
We are a little country among the community of nations but our nation’s larger mission is to protect human rights, democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law. We are confident that these are values worth standing firmly in order to uphold. We invite the world to examine our true intentions and decide for themselves. As we prepare to hold free and fair elections this coming November, our faith in these principles could not be more clear.

* Not the de facto government, as the world’s media like to call it, but rather the de jure government.
(Letter text found here.  Official publication copy here.)

World’s media continue to lie about the reality of what happened in Honduras

A constitutional crisis is underway in Honduras, but not for the reasons that the media – and the Obama administration, for that matter – would have you believe.

As I have written previously, former president Manuel Zelaya was removed from power in June after a series of moves on his part that violated the Honduran constitution. Completely in accordance with said constitution, the Honduran military, on the orders of the Honduran Supreme Court and with the endorsement of the Honduran Attorney General, arrested Zelaya.

The military exceeded its authority by exiling Zelaya rather than simply taking him into custody, but as far as I can tell, that is the only misstep in the entire drama.

Despite these facts, the Obama administration and the majority of the world’s media have had the audacity to refer to this as a coup.

Now the deposed Zelaya has been smuggled back into the country and is holed up in the Brazilian embassy. The Obama administration, which to date has struggled to find a left-wing regime it couldn’t find common cause with, has pledged its support to Brazil.

An AFP report from today follows the tired old script [emphasis added]:

The United States pledged Tuesday to do whatever it can to help Brazil's embassy in Honduras, which was surrounded by soldiers and had its lights, water and phone lines cut off after deposed President Manuel Zelaya took refuge there.

"Our embassy in Tegucigalpa is in contact with their counterparts in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa and we're discussing what kind of assistance that we can provide to help them during this crisis," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly.

[…] Honduran soldiers earlier dispersed thousands of protesters who had camped out overnight outside the embassy to protect the man they see as the country's rightful leader, but who was deposed in a military-backed coup in June.

The Honduran government is understandably angry that Brazil would give aid and comfort to a man who through his actions is an avowed enemy of the country’s constitution.

It is to America’s shame that our government continues to pretend otherwise.

9/24 UPDATE: Unsurprisingly, Spain's leftist president Jose Zapatero has joined in the charade (with Reuters' hearty concurrence):

Democracy must be restored in Honduras and a political crisis caused by the overthrow of President Manuel Zelaya must end, Spain's prime minister said at the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.

"We won't accept the coup," Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told world leaders.

Zelaya was ousted in a June coup in the worst political crisis in Central America in decades.

Reuters contradicts its own shoddy reporting on Honduran crisis

It’s almost like a reflex.  Reuters leads off a July 20 dispatch on the Honduran constitutional crisis in this way (emphasis added):

Honduras' political foes are on a collision course after negotiations collapsed and deposed President Manuel Zelaya vowed to return home despite warnings from a defiant de facto government.
Zelaya says resistance is being organized in Honduras to pave the way for his return this weekend and that nobody can stop him. The interim government installed after the June 28 military coup has threatened to arrest Zelaya if he returns and crack down on any protesters who stir trouble.

People who read only the opening paragraphs of news articles will come away with a reinforcement of the oft-repeated – but false – claim that Zelaya was deposed by a military coup.
Read a little further, and one will see that Reuters itself can’t decide whether or not the events of June 28 constituted a military coup.
In a section entitled “Unusual Coup”, we see laid out many of the facts demonstrating that the military, far from instigating Zelaya’s removal from power, was actually carrying out the constitutionally lawful order for his arrest:

Zelaya was expelled from the textile and coffee exporting country in his pajamas in the middle of the night. He had upset his political rivals by seeking to lift presidential term limits, and the army moved against him after the Supreme [Court] ordered his arrest.
[…] The Honduran coup is an unusual case. Unlike those that battered Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, Zelaya's ouster was approved by the Supreme Court and Congress as well as Catholic Church leaders in the country. There is also no military strongman in the picture this time.

So, get this straight: The Honduran Supreme Court lawfully ordered Zelaya’s arrest, and the military lawfully carried out the arrest order.  Honduras’ Congress (including Zelaya’s own political party) endorsed this lawful order. 
The only way that the military exceeded its authority was by exiling the president rather than merely taking him into custody.  Even so, once the operation was completed, the military stood down.  They have no influence over the interim president – from Zelaya’s political party, by the way – that Congress lawfully selected to take Zelaya’s place.
Despite the cognitive dissonance abundantly evident in this article, Reuters seems incapable of admitting that no coup – military or otherwise – took place in Honduras on June 28.
The article ends on an encouraging note:

The interim government, which has been denied around $200 million in multilateral aid and $16.5 million in U.S. military aid and is at risk of regional trade sanctions, insists it can and will stand up to the international pressure.

Honduras knows that it has few if any friends in this crisis.  For some reason, it seems like the whole world – governments and media alike – is determined to snuff out the liberty of this tiny republic.  Good on the people and government of Honduras for refusing to refusing to buckle under  the unbelievable pressure.

Obama receives an unwelcome endorsement of his economic plan

At least I assume it’s unwelcome.  From Foreign Policy’s “Passport” blog, July 9:

Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov says he enjoyed getting to meet Barack Obama along with other members of the Russian opposition this week and even saw eye-to-eye with the U.S. president on a few things. Interfax reports via Johnson's Russia List:

"I said that I had thoroughly studied the U.S. president's anti-crisis program, that I liked it, as well as that it is socially oriented and primarily aimed at supporting poor people and enhancing the state's role. I said all this to President Obama," he said.

The truth about Honduras (SPREAD THE WORD)

The following is written by a longtime Christian missionary in Honduras (known personally to members of a sister church there). Please do your part to counter the 'coup' nonsense that we're being fed by the media and our government!

(Map credit: geology.com)

---

Date: Sunday, July 5, 2009, 4:40 PM
Dear Friends,
This has been a very difficult and yet productive trip. At this point we need your prayers more than ever. Tensions are very high here in the capital of Tegucigalpa. Thankfully, we met some people here with military and police connections that offered to get us to a safe house if need be. Praying that will not be needed, but grateful God gave us that option. Many here think we will need it...
There have been unidentified planes and helicopters in Honduran airspace. The military was able to chase some away, but one helicopter is lost. The airspace over Honduras is closed because Zelaya threatened to come back today. Apparently he is in El Salvador now.
Who knows how long it will take for this drama to play out. We are praying hard to get out by Tuesday and head to Washington with our findings for the congressman who asked us to do a report. On this end we have been asked to assist a group of Honduran government officials get their information into the right hands when and if they leave for DC this week.
We are so incredibly sad that the American people know little about this situation and what they do know are mostly lies. We beg you to pass this email to anyone on your email list and to any government officials you know.
See link below for some more interesting background information:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/carlos_alberto_montaner/2009/07/preventing_a_honduran_bloodbat.html?hpid=talkbox1
In the last few weeks before the President was arrested for treason hundreds and hundreds (I have heard everything from 800 to 2000) Venezuelans were granted entrance to this country. We were told that they were given Honduran passports. These are counter-intelligence and military people whose prime job is to organize mobs and create chaos. They have much experience in these things. What Zelaya, Chavez, and the Castro brothers want more than anything is a bloodbath here to intimidate the population into allowing Zelaya back in the country as President.
Chaos is what this President has specialized in the past few months. He has tried to destabilize the country in every way he can. Class struggle is something that this regime really poked and stoked. It is true that Honduras needs to do more for its poor, but at the government level everything was a pinata. Not much assistance ever got to the poor.
This former President is a known narco-trafficker, allowing planes to land at the capital's airport loaded with drugs and cash. Our own government has documentation on this - it has not been released to Congress. Our government is advocating this thug be placed back in power. He broke 18 laws of the country - and by the Honduran constitution some of these laws he broke called for him to cease immediately to be the President of the country.
This was in no way a military coup. The military is not in power. They acted on the orders of their Supreme Court!
The grave mistake the government made here was not arresting the President, but letting him go free! Had they jailed him, the International community could not find fault with the current government. The only reason the government did what they did in whisking him off to freedom was because they had no idea who was in place in Honduras to create chaos. Many of the police and had been paid off by the President and they did not want bloodshed.
The thugs supporting Zelaya, many of them paid rioters brought in from every corner of the poorest of the poor areas are bombing, shooting, throwing grenades, burning things, and trying to scare the people here into giving in and letting Zelaya back.
We have talked to the poor and many of them tell us they prefer to eat only tortillas and salt rather than live under a Chavez puppet. The poor that Zelaya promised to help have received nothing in three and a half years of his presidency. He has bankrupted the country, most of the money that came in for aid is unaccounted for - presumably stolen by Zelaya. He provided NO BUDGET for the country for 2009 nor funding for the upcoming elections. He refused to release the funds putting their November elections in jeopardy.
He did manage to hand over 100 Venezuelan or Chinese tractors to the poor that cannot be maintained or fixed. Magnificent! Even the poor are laughing their heads off over that one.
I saw many poor people at the marches here carrying signs that said THE PEOPLE ARE NOT STUPID. They have somehow managed to inform themselves of the issues. That alone amazes me. The masses are waking up. The poor we know here have called Zelaya a crook for the last two years or more. In the beginning I think a lot of them had hope for change. No more.
CNN has been propagating the most ridiculous lies about what is going on here. One of their chief correspondists is married to some high ranking Sandanista - so much for objectivity.
Yesterday a friend in the states sent me an article about how the Honduran Military is a bunch of thugs and torturers. So really, why if the military are such thugs did they not torture Zelaya and take over the country? They were acting on orders of their Supreme Court who ordered them to arrest the treasonous President, a President who in a matter of a few hours was prepared to dissolve the contstitution and throw out the Congress!
All evidence we have says the US government was begging the Honduran Congress to let the President go ahead with his illegal referendum and then when the chaos began the US would back the Hondurans. Really? Like we did with the Iranians when their election was stolen and blood ran in their streets? I understand the Iranian situation is complicated, but it took forever to even condemn their actions of shooting innocent protesters. The Hondurans had zero confidence in the US to back them if bloodshed resulted. All they sought was peace and the legitimate removal of this man from power.
The Honduran people are devastated that the United States has not only abandoned them but actually insists they return a traitor, liar, and theif to power. Justice does not prevail here. Reason does not prevail here. Politics do, and innocent people may die.
In our villages, fifty years ago, the Nicaraguans came in and fought one very evil guerilla battle. Some of our friends there told us of their family members' heads being chopped off and placed on fence posts. Pregnant women's bellies were slashed open so that they and their children died. It is very much feared in our villages that these demonic deeds will happen again.
An army colonel we spoke with yesterday told us that the guerillas are already in place to intimidate the people not to fight. And armies are mobilizing according to the President.
Americans have always stood on the side of the underdog. Honduras has been our ally and friend helping us stand against communism for decades. Now is not the time to abandon them. Stop the politics! Do what is right!
Please help us by passing this information to anyone you know. I am sorry I do not have time to answer each of you individually. But your notes of encouragement have meant the world to us. This is a very scary time. We are holed up in a hotel that is only a block from the Presidential Palace and a place where it is feared will be a lot of violence.
Our mission here is nearly accomplished. One or two more meetings tomorrow with the very highest level officials and then we need to get out of here and head to Washington.
On a positive note we have been introduced to a slew of people that can help us advance the work with the children in Honduras if we survive this mess. We are very encouraged about that. This country will be a whole new nation once this is over and our ideas about working with the youth are being well received. Many are asking to learn more, come and see our work, and help mentor the youth!!!
Please pray for Honduras. Please send this to all your friends. Please bombard Washington with a plea for justice.
Love to all,
[Name withheld for safety's sake]

---

UPDATE: July 3 photo from LA Times:

Zelaya supporters are not ashamed to make known who their hero is. Make no mistake – left-wing leaders throughout the Americas are upset because the people and government of Honduras refuse to go quietly into the Marxist abyss.
This is a significant challenge to the ambitions of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Raul Castro & co. Don’t think for a moment that they’ll back down from the challenge.
Honduras is in for a rough ride, and it looks to be a lonely one.

The Honduran army PREVENTED a coup, but don’t hold your breath waiting for Obama to admit it

If a coup is defined as an illegal seizure of power, then the Honduran army didn’t stage a coup this past weekend, it prevented one. Every action taken to stop President Zelaya from proceeding with his illegal referendum was done in accordance with the Honduran constitution.

Read this WSJ article from Monday for some background information.

Zelaya was looking to remove the constitutional limits on his retention of power (following in the footsteps of his buddy Hugo Chavez), but the national Congress refused to call an election to put the constitutional amendment to a vote by the people.

Despite the fact that only the legislature could call such an election, Zelaya determined to move forward anyway. The president even whipped up a mob to storm the military installation where the ballots (printed by Venezuela) were stored.

The Supreme Court and the Attorney General – completely within the boundaries of their constitutional power – ordered Zelaya to stand down, but he refused.

It was because of Zelaya’s criminal actions that he was arrested on Sunday morning by troops acting on the orders of the Supreme Court – again, all within the boundaries of their constitutional power.

In light of the foregoing facts, it would be absurd to accuse the military of staging a coup, but the Obama administration has joined the chorus of those making just such an accusation.

I am not at all surprised that Obama would take the side of those who despise the rule of law. His administration has been doing that very thing in our country over the past 5+ months.

UPDATE: The WaPo opines that the Obama administration should continue to push for Zelaya's reinstatement, but adds that the administration should also be bold enough to confront the antidemocratic forces spreading like a cancer throughout Latin America (in Venezuela and Nicaragua, for example) that emboldened Zelaya in the first place.

WaPo seems to imply that confronting the Marxists would be out of character for Obama, and with that sentiment I heartily agree.

(Map credit: geology.com)

Standing up to tyranny: The courage of the Iranian protesters

Iran's Ayatollah Khamanei has drawn a line in the sand, warning that possibly violent consequences will come if election protests continue on Saturday (AP via Breitbart):

Iran's supreme leader sought Friday to end the deepening crisis over disputed elections with one decisive speech—declaring the vote will almost certainly stand and sternly warning opposition leaders to end street protests or be held responsible for any "bloodshed and chaos" to come.

But a first sign of possible resistance came shortly after nightfall in Tehran. Cries of "Death to the dictator!" and "Allahu akbar"—"God is great"—rang from rooftops in what's become a nightly ritual of opposition unity.

The sharp line drawn by Iran's most powerful figure, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is a gambit that pushes Iran's opposition to a pivotal moment: either back down or risk a crushing response from police and the forces at Khamenei's disposal—the powerful Revolutionary Guard and their volunteer citizen militia, the Basiji.

An Iranian blogger writes about how she is preparing for Saturday’s showdown between protesters and their government (translated by niacInsight):

3:09 pm: One of our readers requested that we translate the following blog post: “Tomorrow is a big day, may I get killed tomorrow!” (http://balatarin.com/permlink/2009/6/19/1625688)

“I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It’s worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I’m two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children…”

I hope and pray that the people of Iran will look back on these events as the dawn of freedom and prosperity for their nation.

I take back some of what I've said about Twitter

I've long been of the opinion that Twitter is completely useless to anybody who isn't afflicted with ADHD. The microblogging service's limit of 140 characters per post is ill-suited to anybody who communicates in complete sentences and who has thoughts more complex than "OMG this traffic is awful" or "I like turtles LOL".

My antipathy toward Twitter has softened somewhat as I've seen the use made of it by anti-Ahmadinejad partisans in Iran. The #IranElection channel (is that the right word for it?) has been, bar none, the best source for raw information on the protests and the government's reaction.

I've come to the conclusion that Twitter is ideally suited for this kind of hit-and-run reporting (an apt term in this case, since many of the Tweeters are running for cover as they post). In other words, Twitter does "live blogging" better than blogs do.

Twitter appears to recognize that they're a part of history today. Australia's News.com reports that the service has postponed a scheduled outage so the #IranElection channel won't be disrupted.

To Twitter: SALUTE! To those in Iran wishing to be free from Mad Mahmoud: I wish you success, with little or no bloodshed.

P.S. I still think the other 99.9% of posts on Twitter are completely useless. And I'll keep saying so until I start my own feed there.

Yeah, that'll teach North Korea

The Associated Press (via WaPo) breathlessly informs us that the United Nations is sending North Korea to bed without any dinner:

The U.N. Security Council has approved tough new sanctions against North Korea for its recent nuclear test.

The resolution imposes new sanctions on the reclusive communist nation's weapons exports and financial dealings, and allows inspections of suspect cargo in ports and on the high seas.

U.S. deputy ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo said Friday's vote was a strong and united international response to North Korea's unacceptable behavior.

Does anyone seriously think these sanctions will persuade the folks in charge of NK to change their ways?

Saddam Hussein prospered for a decade under the United Nations' "tough sanctions" and its "strong and united international response" to his "unacceptable behavior". And Saddam was just your garden-variety genocidal dictator. Kim Jong-Il and his merry men take genocidal dictatorship to a whole new paranoid level.

Japan slowly commits demographic suicide

It's sad to see a culture implicitly make the decision to vanish from the face of the earth, however slowly.

Many native European peoples are making similar choices, but it's less obvious there, because their population implosion is masked by uncontrolled immigration from third-world countries.

Japan strictly limits immigration, so there is no hiding the fact that the sound of children there is slowly diminishing. AP via CNSNews, May 6:

Japan, which designates every May 5 as Children's Day, has fewer children to celebrate the holiday for the 28th straight year, underscoring a demographic dilemma that could eventually wreak havoc on the world's second-largest economy.

A government report released this week said the number of children under age 15 as of April 1 had fallen to about 17 million. Japan's proportion of children which has been declining for the past 35 years now stands at just 13 percent of the country's 128 million people.

In contrast, Japan's elderly population is swelling. The number of those over 65 years old has reached 22.5 percent and continues to climb.

The unprecedented changes to Japan's population, fueled by low birthrates and one of the world's highest life expectancies, are expected to strain government services and pension programs, as well as lead to labor shortages in the near future.

Japan now has the lowest percentage of children among 31 major countries, trailing Germany and Italy, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications report. Children make up about 20 percent of the U.S. population and 17 percent in neighboring South Korea.

(Photo found here)

Yes, there have been four more hijackings, but...

The Associated Press overlooked one important fact in this morning's report about four new hijackings by Somali pirates:

Undeterred by U.S. and French hostage rescues that killed five bandits, Somali pirates brazenly hijacked four more ships in the Gulf of Aden, the waterway at the center of the world's fight against piracy.

Pirates have vowed to retaliate for deaths of their colleagues-- and the top U.S. military officer said Tuesday he takes those comments seriously. But Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told ABC's "Good Morning America" that "we're very well prepared to deal with anything like that."

Still, despite Mullen's confident statement and President Barack Obama's warning Monday, pirates captured two more nautical trophies Tuesday to match the two ships they seized a day or two earlier.

NATO spokeswoman Shona Lowe said the MV Sea Horse, a Lebanese-owned cargo ship, was attacked and captured Tuesday by pirates in three or four speedboats. She had no further information.

That hijacking came only hours after the Greek-managed MV Irene E.M. was seized in a rare overnight attack by pirates.

AP says the pirates were "undeterred" by the French and American actions, but consider this: the number of French and American ships seized since this past weekend's rescues is.... ZERO.

As I predicted Sunday, the Somali "businessmen" are focusing their efforts on activities that show the greatest promise of earning them money rather than on activities that will earn them an early death.

For the moment at least, the pirates have indeed been deterred from attacking French and American interests.

France and the US have shown the rest of the world how to deal with the pirate menace. If they choose to continue to capitulate, that's their problem.

Mr. President, I hope you're paying attention

In all of the years of the Bush administration, I don't recall hearing of an American ship being seized by Somali pirates. Less than three months into the Obama administration, however, folks in one of the numerous pirate villages on the coast figured that the new US government, seeking to become European in every meaningful way, would also capitulate to pirate demands like the Europeans typically do.

It's an age-old principle of child-rearing: you get more of the behaviors you reward. Somali piracy has increased significantly in the last two or three years because the ships and/or crews always end up getting ransomed. But somehow, all of the American ships sailing past were ignored. Could it have been because President Bush had demonstrated his resolve not to allow such outrages against Americans to go unpunished?

For a while, it was looking like the current incident would end up with the pirates going free (with or without the ransom). The bad guys were certainly not impressed when a navy ship showed up, only to stand by quietly while hostage negotiation teams swung into action.

It was with grim satisfaction that I saw today that the standoff was resolved in a swift firefight -- three of the four pirates dead, and the American captain unharmed.

This is justice. If other Somali pirates have any wisdom, they will know to let American ships pass unmolested from now on. There are still plenty of European ships out there to provide a handsome income.

President Obama, I don't know what role you played in setting the rules of engagement in this standoff, but I sincerely hope you will take to heart the lesson that -- just like with strong-willed youngsters -- we must make bad behavior so unprofitable that the bad behavior will decrease or be abandoned.


UPDATE: Credit where credit is due: the president did authorize force as early as Saturday, but it might be better to make it a standing order rather than having to react to every incident after it is underway.


UPDATE #2: It seems that the pirates are very put out over the deaths of what AP calls their "colleagues".

Somali pirates on Monday vowed to retaliate for the deaths of three colleagues who were shot dead by U.S. Navy snipers hours before in a daring nighttime assault that freed a 53-year-old American captain.
The Navy Seals late Sunday rescued freighter Capt. Richard Phillips, who had been held by pirates on a lifeboat that drifted in the Indian Ocean for five days.
"Every country will be treated the way it treats us," said Abdullahi Lami, one of the pirates holding a Greek ship anchored in the pirate den of Gaan, a central Somali town.
"In the future, America will be the one mourning and crying," he told The Associated Press by telephone. "We will retaliate for the killings of our men."
He gave no details and it was not clear in what way the pirates could retaliate, though some fear they could take their revenge on the hundreds of other foreign nationals they hold on seized ships.

This is a standoff of another kind. Who will blink first: Obama or the pirates?

By the way, the AP article reveals something that I missed before. I was overly harsh in characterizing all of the Europeans as appeasers. The French, apparently, have had enough:

The American rescue followed a similar operation Friday carried out by French navy commandos, who stormed a pirate-held sailboat, the Tanit, in a shootout at sea that killed two pirates and freed four French hostages. The French owner of the vessel was also killed in the assault.

Good on them. Let's hope that more countries follow their example. The only negotiations the pirates will submit to are ones that result in money being paid to them. Some may think that paying ransoms are an acceptable cost of doing business, but they have no right to make that decision for the rest of us.


UPDATE #3: Man, this is getting confusing. The Obama administration is claiming that it authorized the military action that freed Captain Phillips, but as Blackfive notes, in reality the on-scene commander took action under standing rules of engagement that would have applied with or without the president's input:

I just finished listening to the press conference w/ ADM Gortney about the rescue of Captain Phillips. At the time it happened the USS Bainbridge was towing the lifeboat to calmer waters as the sea state was deteriorating. One of the pirates was on board the Bainbridge as the talks about obtaining Phillip's release continued. The lifeboat was approx. 25 m behind the Bainbridge when snipers on the fantail observed one of the pirates in the pilot house of the lifeboat pointing an AK-47 at the back of a tied up Phillips and the other two pirates on board were visible (at least shoulders and heads). The standing authority gave them clearance to engage the pirates if the life of the captain was in imminent danger. The on scene commander deemed this to be true and gave the order to fire. All three bad guys were taken out and then a rigid inflatable boat went to the lifeboat to retrieve Phillips. Iti is unknown at this point whether the shooters were SEALs or Marine Scout Snipers as both would have been available. This was not a rescue attempt ordered by National Command Authority i.e. the President. It was a reaction by the on scene commander under standard authority to safeguard the life of a hostage.

(Via Gateway Pundit)

Russia warns against statist solutions to economic crisis

Talk about living in a topsy-turvy world.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Puting, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, has a message for western countries flirting with central planning of their economies: We tried it. It didn't work.

The Wall Street Journal has the complete transcript online. This excerpt is especially interesting:

Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state's omnipotence is another possible mistake.

True, the state's increased role in times of crisis is a natural reaction to market setbacks. Instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent.

The concentration of surplus assets in the hands of the state is a negative aspect of anti-crisis measures in virtually every nation.

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state's role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.

Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.

President Obama, are you listening?

Do foster parents have a duty to PREVENT the religious conversion of children in their care?

At least one town council in England appears to think so, as The Telegraph reported February 8. After removing the young woman from foster care, they even tried to persuade her to convert back to her former religion:

A foster mother with 10 years' experience was struck off after a Muslim girl in her care converted to Christianity, it has emerged.
The woman has been banned by her local council for failing to prevent the teenager from getting baptised, even though the girl was 16 and made up her own mind to change religion.
The carer, a churchgoer in her 50s who has fostered more than 80 children, has now been forced to move out of her home.
She has lost the farmhouse she rented to look after vulnerable teenagers, due to the loss of income.
[...]
The foster mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, insists that she did not pressurise the teenager to convert, and actually tried to discourage her initial interest.
The girl, who is now 17, was taken into care after being assaulted by a family member, saw baptism "as a washing away of the horrible things she had been through and a symbol of a new start," the woman said.
"I offered her alternatives. I offered to find her places to practise her own religion.
"I offered to take her to friends or family. But she said to me from the word go: 'I am interested and I want to come [to church]'."
The carer claims that social services were aware that the girl was attending her evangelical church, and council bosses only objected when she they found out she had been baptised.
[...]
Officials advised the teenager to reconsider her decision and stop attending Christian meetings, and in November struck the carer off their register, claiming she breached her duty of care as a foster parent.
"They consider that in some way she should have taken steps to prevent the conversion," said solicitor Nigel Priestley, who is representing the carer.
He is demanding a judicial review into the council's decision, claiming they have breached Article 9 of the Human Rights Act, which guarantees freedom of religion for both the carer and the girl.
He said that the teenager, who is now back with her parents, was "distressed" that her private faith had had such repercussions, and is supporting her former carer's legal bid.

It is clear that the teen does not regret her decision to convert, but no matter.

Remember: it's not discrimination unless it happens to a politically-favored victim group. Britain's government, bending over backward to show how tolerant it is, takes just about every opportunity it can to atone for the centuries of Christianity's dominance there. It's just not fair that Christianity should continue to dominate -- so the government aims to do all it can to help level the playing field.


(Image stolen from Searching for Liberty)

The cultural landmines of international diplomacy

I spend a lot of volunteer time helping international graduate students improve their English skills. Over the years, I have gained an appreciation for the fact that genuine communication is much more than just words.

This is especially true when we engage in cross-cultural communication. The words we hear from our international acquaintances may seem familiar and unambiguous, but the words (and the way they are delivered) come wrapped a cultural context that must be understood in order for true communication to occur.

I was reminded of this as I read Genesis 23 in the Bible this morning. The chapter deals with Abraham as he makes preparations to bury his wife Sarah, who has just passed away. He is interested in a particular burial place -- one that happens to be on land owned by someone else.

The conversation he has with the owner of the land was a bit terrifying to me, once I discovered that I had completely misunderstood what was going on until the very end. Here is the passage (taken from the New International Version):

1 Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty-seven years old. 2 She died at Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her.

3 Then Abraham rose from beside his dead wife and spoke to the Hittites. He said, 4 "I am an alien and a stranger among you. Sell me some property for a burial site here so I can bury my dead."

5 The Hittites replied to Abraham, 6 "Sir, listen to us. You are a mighty prince among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will refuse you his tomb for burying your dead."

7 Then Abraham rose and bowed down before the people of the land, the Hittites. 8 He said to them, "If you are willing to let me bury my dead, then listen to me and intercede with Ephron son of Zohar on my behalf 9 so he will sell me the cave of Machpelah, which belongs to him and is at the end of his field. Ask him to sell it to me for the full price as a burial site among you."

10 Ephron the Hittite was sitting among his people and he replied to Abraham in the hearing of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of his city. 11 "No, my lord," he said. "Listen to me; I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. I give it to you in the presence of my people. Bury your dead."

12 Again Abraham bowed down before the people of the land 13 and he said to Ephron in their hearing, "Listen to me, if you will. I will pay the price of the field. Accept it from me so I can bury my dead there."

14 Ephron answered Abraham, 15 "Listen to me, my lord; the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver, but what is that between me and you? Bury your dead."

16 Abraham agreed to Ephron's terms and weighed out for him the price he had named in the hearing of the Hittites: four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weight current among the merchants.

17 So Ephron's field in Machpelah near Mamre—both the field and the cave in it, and all the trees within the borders of the field—was deeded 18 to Abraham as his property in the presence of all the Hittites who had come to the gate of the city. 19 Afterward Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpelah near Mamre (which is at Hebron) in the land of Canaan. 20 So the field and the cave in it were deeded to Abraham by the Hittites as a burial site.

It wasn't until verse 15 that I began to suspect that Abraham and Ephron were negotiating a sale. Ephron kept insisting that Abraham accept the land as a gift. Why didn't Abraham graciously take him at his word (like the typical American would)? Because he understood the Hittite culture, and knew that Ephron would eventually get around to stating his price (all the while insisting that he wouldn't accept the money).

This is very sobering to me, because I am often foolish enough to think that, upon meeting an international for the first time, I can quickly establish a rapport and engage in meaningful conversation without knowing anything significant about that person's culture.


Okay, this is a blog about politics, culture and religion. I've mentioned culture and religion already in this post, so let's round it out with a political-moral-of-the-story.

Today, Hillary Clinton was confirmed as Secretary of State. On the individual level -- say, between me and one of my international friends -- cross-cultural miscommunications can lead to hard feelings and confusion. On the international level, the consequences of miscommunication can be much worse.

Here's to hoping that Mrs. Clinton will take her job seriously, with a full appreciation for the hazards inherent in her job. It's a dangerous world out there.