Blogging the democratic revolution
Yesterday, Estonia held its national parliamentary election. Prime Minister Andrus Ansip’s Reform Party increased its position from 19 to 31 seats in the 101-seat parliament, while their coalition partner in the previous government, the Centre Party, gained one seat to move to 29. The Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica holds 19 seats, the Social Democrats hold 10, and the Greens and the People’s Union of Estonia each hold 6 (the agrarianist People’s Union was the third coalition party in the previous government). This is a remarkable gain for the liberty-oriented Reform Party, although it does not provide enough…
From the time the US and coalition forces deposed Saddam and his Ba’athists, over 25 million newly free Iraqis have had the opportunity to develop a society along a new path; the nature of that path has faced challenges from Iraqi sects, international terrorist groups, and foreign states, and its direction has been hotly debated. I have believed for some time that Iraqis have been making gradual but clear progress on many fronts in their attempt to rebuild a society — in terms of democratic reform, economic development and reconstruction, and other key elements of civil society. A little over…
Netcraft claims that President Ahmadinejad is running NetBSD or OpenBSD — maybe he will have BSD tortured or killed. Also check out the blog, and don’t miss out on this opportunity to send Mahmoud some e-mail feedback — I’m sure he would appreciate receiving some “generous offers” and perhaps a “limited” amount of your honest advice… Actually, it looks like I got it wrong and ahamdinejad.ir is the blog, while president.ir has a bunch of other stuff. ahmadinejad.ir is apparently running Windows 2000 (infidel software from the Great Satan). Oh, and for readers as well as spam crawlers, please send…
For those of you who are eagerly awaiting the next round of “Islamist propaganda Clue,” our friend Jim at Gateway Pundit, along with some particularly acute commenters, has apparently busted the New York Times participating in a Hezbollah photo op. It’s unclear at this point who staged what… UPDATE: LGF has this obvious photoshopped fake, by the same NYTimes photographer. You can also see a slideshow of his photos, which he narrates, here.
Charles at LGF caught Reuters in what looks like an obnoxious faked photo, with lots of dissection and discussion. A special correspondent who works for Reuters sent me this photo from the series, which I believes corroborates Reuters’ story. Judge for yourself: UPDATE: Now that Adnan Hajj has gone public, I feel it’s ok to share the rest of this story. Some readers may have questioned the authenticity of the original photo, even after I presented the above evidence, but surely we can all agree with Adnan’s explanation: As a ÄformerÅ Reuters photographer, I deny having deliberately attempted to manipulate…
This is too funny! Is this the tragicomic end of the Glenn Greenwald saga? Greenwald is presently denying the claims, but I don’t think it helps his credibility that his own biographical blurb reads almost exactly the same as the alleged sock-puppet posts in question… UPDATE: He seems to have changed the tenor of his bio. I wonder what else he’ll be revising? Why Greenwald is probably doomed I believe Glenn Greenwald is probably doomed to relegation. If the suspicions around his online activity are correct — and judging by his response of frantic denial, personal attacks, revisionism, etc., it…
According to the Jerusalem Post, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert has declared the latest attack by terrorist group Hezbollah an act of war. Israel has confirmed that two IDF soldiers were kidnapped, and they are currently searching for them in Lebanon. You can buy the IDF some pizza and soda, although it would seem to me far more useful if one could buy the IDF some bullets. You can also make a donation for a variety of uses to the IDF through LIBI.
I downloaded Pajamas Media’s first podcast directly to my 1 GB flash mp3 player, and listened to it on the way home from work. Wow! I think it worked out really great. Austin Bay hosted Glenn Reynolds, Tammy Bruce and Eric Umansky, and they discussed Iraq, Iran and more. I thoroughly enjoyed it: familiar blogs crackled to life, and it felt as one must have felt on first hearing a radio broadcast, although the sound quality was — slightly — better. It’s interesting and exciting, and I would gladly recommend it. Invisible Ämp3’sÅ Crackle with life Bright ÄtransistorsÅ bristle With…
Charles at LGF points out a discrepancy between Google’s .cn and .com versions. At least they’re notifying the poor Chinese what they’re missing! From a Google translation of a google.cn search: According to the local law laws and regulations and the policy, partially searches the result does not demonstrate. I guess Chinese speakers who live outside communist China must prefer to use search engines that don’t work according to “local law laws and regulations and the policy.”
OK, so Hamas won the Palestinian election. Probably better to deal with straight-up terrorists than with terrorists who are widely considered to be peace-seeking politicians. Although, I suppose, certain members of the press corps will continue to endorse the AK-toting “activists.” We all know how bad the education system is — my theory is that most journalists just don’t know how to spell “atavists.”
The liveblogging will be somewhat quiet, but please continue to post results, updates and opinions in the comments section. ÄThe blogging does in fact pick up below.Å ÄWith Canada’s absolutely ridiculous laws, there really won’t be much to discuss until a few hours later, so I think I probably won’t post much, but later on there will no doubt be insightful comments at Captain’s Quarters and around the Canadian blogosphere. Enjoy the Maple Revolution!Å Will conservatives be upset if/when the CPC only brings home a powerless minority? So far the Atlantic provinces are voting pretty much according to expectations, perhaps…
Earlier A.M. Mora y Leon had a post detailing a badly-done and horribly misguided photoshop of brave Iranian women into mindless shells of the Code Pink cult. It appears that they quietly took down that image after Mora drew attention to it. Now, most people aren’t dumb enough (or wicked enough) to pull off a stunt like that. But, having done so and having been publicly shamed, one would think the very last thing such a person would do — even an extremely dumb and wicked person — is to replace that fraud with another similar fraud. Here’s the new…
Iraq the Model has a new banner; also a number of good posts, including a discussion of the recent investigation into allegations of electoral fraud in Iraq, a new security arrangement, and a whole lot more Iraqi democratic politics — check it out! While I’m writing, Academic Elephant has a pretty good blonde joke.
Here’s one more reason to hope for Condi-in-’08, as well as a reflection of the Bush administration’s emphasis on the democratic changes currently taking place around the world. The US is moving a hundred diplomatic posts from staid Western locations to Africa and the booming East. Clearly the administration recognizes the importance of the sorts of stories Publius covers. The Financial Times says: Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, yesterday called Äthe moveÅ a “sweeping and difficult” transformation of US diplomacy. “In the 21st century, emerging nations like India and China, and Brazil and Egypt, and Indonesia and South Africa…
Even the headline is hilariously tragic: Venezuela to Eradicate Poverty. Venezuela began an offensive against poverty, starting the “Negra Hipolita” Mission, which is financially supported by the high profits of oil, like other official social programs there. The initiative made official on Saturday by President Hugo Chavez is part of a long-term plan to end the paradox of a nation that in spite of being the fifth world oil exporter, has 37 percent of its population living in poverty… The purpose now, as the first stage of poverty eradication, is to declare the country free of abject poverty by July…
In the twilight of Iraq’s latest successful election, and before the doomsayers have a chance to get back on their callused feet, it’s worth taking the time to examine Iraq’s inexorable progress in gaining freedom — an immense project that is changing not just the lives of twenty-five million people (a praiseworthy feat in itself), but changing the face of the world. Less obvious than Iraq’s newfound and thrice-exercised democratic freedom, but equally important, is its burgeoning economic freedom. As reduced regulation, lowered taxation and less corruption allow resourceful Iraqis to drive their economy into a flexible regional powerhouse, the…
Somewhat more literally, Kenyans had an orange revolution of their own, rejecting a new consolidation of power by President Mwai Kibaki in a fair, democratic process. This represents significant progress in Kenya’s ongoing struggle over its freedom from corruption and pursuit of real democracy; the story I linked to has a good amount of detail. Mr Kibaki has spent a large amount of political capital trying to push through what would have been the first major amendment of Kenya’s constitution since it won independence from Britain in 1963… Mr Kibaki told the nation that any new effort to revise or…
This is the scariest picture ever of evil Donald Rumsfeld, couretsy of CBS. Why does he have no pinky? And is he doing some Darth Vader move, or did he just rip out the CBS producer’s face? What is going on? Via Academic Elephant.
I just spat my drink out through my nose, or would have if I’d been drinking, when I came across this subtitle at Reason: Palestine, not Iraq, is the best shot at an Arab democracy. I suppose in part that’s because I was recently planning on using the same comparison to make the point that externally imposing democracy is more likely to succeed than, well, anything at all in Palestine. After running through the usual pie in the sky hopes naive liberals commonly hold of a peaceful Palestinian people laying down their arms and taking up democratic politics, or at…
Iraq now has a constitution: pick your poison. (This is just a news update, any analysis will follow.)
Following up on yesterday’s journalist poetry awards, Academic Elephant submits this Haiku loaded with meaning and insight (text by nutjob Arabist Juan Cole): Partition is the consequence of failed co- lonialism. Beautiful! If anyone else composes some news poetry, please send it along (or post it in comments). Oh, and while I’m on the subject of Cole, here‘s a recent post by Anton Efendi of Across the Bay that I meant to link to recently, dissecting the latest ass-headedness from Prof. Cole — it’s about the authenticity of the letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi.
Some jackass “journalists” desecrated their supposed profession: story here. Read the whole thing.
Here’s my sad nominee, from Reuters AlertNet: Just down the street a fading “USA Is Good” slogan was daubed on a wall, a reminder of the days just after Saddam’s fall in 2003, before American occupation, insurgents bombings, kidnappings and shootings dashed hopes. (Formatting mine. Credit: Michael Georgy, Reuters.)
Mark Steyn has a new killer essay at the Spectator about the collapse of Russia and the spread of Islamic fascism. It’s worth reading if only for the, er, fowl pun partway down page one (there’s one that’s actually funny further down, but I won’t ruin it for you). Excerpt: Moscow has reduced Grozny to rubble, yet is further than ever from solving its Chechen problem. Moreover, the sheer blundering thuggery of the Russian approach has no merits other than affording Moscow some short-term sadistic pleasure as it exacerbates the situation. The allegedly seething ???????Arab street????????, which the West????????s media…
Yesterday’s The Messenger (an english-language Georgian daily) covers the formation of a new political party out of smaller opposition groups, primarily the Conservatives and the Republicans. This new party shares in the heritage of the Rose Revolution, although it now finds enough room for disagreement with the ruling National Movement: Several leading members of both the Conservative and Republican parties originally were members of the pro-government party but broke away over the last 20 months, disenchanted by the policies of the government. “I can say for sure that we are a revolutionary opposition, in that we supported the Rose Revolution.…