Sunday, June 26, 2005

A Note   My server experienced technical difficulties this weekend.  I have been posting regularly, but the posts didn't register for something close to 48 hours.  I apologize for the inconvenience. 8:33:49 PM    comment []

Quote for the Day, 6/26/2005   "It's not that I can't help these people, it's just that I don't want to."   -Tom Hanks (Lawrence Bourne III), Volunteers   I have a guilty affection for this fairly bad movie, Tom Hanks' first, in which Hanks has the worst New England accent ever.   Update:  A reader pointed out to me that Splash actually appeared before this.  Amazing.  Tom Hanks did this picture after his first big screen success.  Who was his agent?  On the other hand, he did start dating Rita Wilson, the woman he'd marry, during this film shoot. 7:53:44 PM    comment []

Logic Watch   I am adding a new feature, the Logic Watch.  When our leaders say something that makes absolutely no sense, I'll try to point it out.  First up, Rummy:  Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week while testifying before Congress, "Timing in war is never predictable.  There are no guarantees."  In his very next sentence, Rumsfeld guaranteed victory, saying, "Any who say we've lost the war, or that we're losing this war, are wrong."  Rumsfeld lied to Congress.  Either there are no guarantees in war, or he can say with assurance that we're winning the war.  One of his statements is a lie. 11:23:38 AM    comment []

Belated Quote for the Day, 6/25/2005   "[Bowling] is a very intimate situation.  It's all sexy with the smoke, and the sweating, and the...shoe rental."   -Alyson Hannigan (Willow), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Lover's Walk"   Yesterday was the first time since I started posting a daily quote that I missed a day.  It was just carelessness, really...I thought I had, and I was wrong.  So I'm posting a quote for yesterday now.  You never know when you'll need a good bowling quote.  It's the sort of thing that always takes you by surprise. 5:27:08 AM    comment []

The Iranian Presidential Elections   I strongly suspect that in the first round of voting, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not qualify for the run-off.  I not only doubt he came in second place; I would not be at all surprised if he came in worse than third.  Every poll but one had him trailing somewhere between fourth and sixth place.  At the same time, I don’t doubt that the religious fundamentalist Ahmadinejad crushed former President Rafsanjani in the final vote.  Rafsanjani represents the political "elite" in Iran, a country where elite has become a dirty word much like in the United States.  (For the record, "elite" actually means better than most; disliking people because they are in fact better than you is...well...an unworthy emotion.  I am always stunned when Republicans refer to liberal elites, thus conceding their inferiority to their opponents.  While I grant their premise, I am always surprised that they do.)  Of course, elite is a remarkably poor choice of words for the leadership in Iran; the political leadership there has lead an educated, oil-rich country into 30% unemployment, while spending over $20 billion on nuclear power for a country which can pump oil out of the ground for about a couple dollars a barrel; a country which also spends hundreds of millions or billions a year subsidizing Islamic terror movements abroad.  Not the most efficient use of national resources.  A drunken imbecile could govern Iran more effectively. Some 60% of Iran's population is under 35; for a near-majority of them, finding a job is impossible.  Ahmadinejad campaigned against the corruption and indifference to poverty of Iran's leadership; though he sides with his country's religious leaders, he also at least posed as a sort of reformer.  Rafsanjani campaigned for the status quo.  He also sought the support of Iran's reform movement, when his political past was as a fixer and an authoritarian.  The reform movement endorsed him, reluctantly, but their supporters sat on their hands, and found something else to do rather than vote in the elections.  Ahmadinejad reportedly won the vote by 26 percentage points.  Even if their was vote fraud, there is little doubt he would have won in a landslide anyway.  Of course, the claims of voter turnout are absurd.  The Interior Ministry reported voter turnout originally at 47%, and then later, after pressure from the Guardian Council, a group of religious leaders who have a veto over the elections, the Ministry "adjusted" the turnout to 60%.  (The same thing happened after the first round of voting, but in the first round, the lower turnout had Ahmadinejad in third place.  The increased vote then was probably in part necessary to produce the votes to get the Guardian Council's boy into the run-off.)  That represents an adjustment of more than 5,000,000 votes.  While Iran is not the most technologically developed or most educated country in the world, it's pretty advanced, and I honestly think their civil service is more competent than to miscount the vote by several million. What should be interesting is what Ahmadinejad does as President of Iran.  He supported theocratic control of Iran; but does that mean he will gladly suffer the nearly complete powerlessness of the President's office.  He may press for greater power to be placed in his hands.  (Certainly not one American President who has campaigned supporting a weak central government has done anything but seize more power for the federal government when in office.)  And the theocrats may actually give him some of the powers he's likely to seek, comfortable with a religious ideologue of their stripe in the Presidency.  This may actually lead to Iran becoming somewhat more accountable to its people. On the other hand, he will also press for Iran to build nuclear weapons as quickly as possible.  Not for the first time, it occurs to me we invaded the wrong Middle Eastern country.  Indeed, Saudi Arabia is where at least 40% of all Islamic terrorists come from; and Iran is the country that was, and is, striving to build weapons of mass destruction to aim at Israel and the US.  Ithas played a greater role in international terrorism than Iraq ever since 1979.  But we invaded Saddam Hussein's religiously and ethnically fractious country anyway. Curious, huh? 12:04:43 AM    comment []