Politics

A few months ago, Ryan of the Dead Parrot Society debunked the claim that certain photographs of an execution on Haifa Street, in Baghdad, were taken from close range. Ryan is the online producer for a Washington State newspaper; he has experience with news photography and the ability to ask real photographers questions. So he did. He found out that the photos in question were almost certainly taken from a distance. This hasn’t stopped Powerline and Michelle Malkin from continuing to perpetuate the myth that the photographers were standing right next to the execution. ...

Pym Fortuyn’s party is collapsing, which is no great surprise when you get right down to it. Fortuyn himself was assassinated this summer, right before the Dutch elections, which did not prevent his party from becoming the second largest party in the Dutch government. But without Fortuyn at the center of the party, it’s dissolved into squabbles and factionalism. What this says to me is that Fortuyn was never a politician. He was a charismatic figure who was able to assemble a coalition by force of personality, but he wasn’t a politician. His party had no strength at the core, no ability to function without him. ...

Now, that’s pretty close to being a government. Good news. It’ll be interesting to see who winds up in the cabinet. More specifically, it’ll be interesting to see who gets to be the oil minister. The Kurds want it, but they probably got the right to have their own independent army (people keep saying militia. It’s got tanks and artillery (original); it’s an army in my book), so maybe they gave up the ministry. And what happens to Kirkuk?

Part of a government! Seriously, it’s a good start.

Jesse Jackson wants Terry Schiavo kept alive (original). I must confess a certain bleak curiosity; will those on the left who excoriated Ralph Nader hold Jesse to the same standard?

Still no government.

This (original) struck me as just a stupid loudmouth. This made me relieved that the people getting violent are ineffectual. This has me worried. I’m not sure why; perhaps it’s that the third time is a charm, or perhaps it’s that Hal Turner has an audience. Maybe it’s because Jeb Bush nearly sent armed men in. Hopefully it’s just a publicity stunt to boost Turner’s ratings; hopefully none of his listeners take it as an indication that they should join him. ...

Answer: not. The big snag in forming an Iraqi government is, as expected, whether or not Kirkuk winds up in Kurdish hands or not. Add to this the Kurdish insistence on maintaining their own separate militia, and what you’ve basically got is a demand for functional independence plus a big chunk of the Iraq oil reserves. It is, to say the least, difficult for the Shiite majority to agree. Turkey is still very edgy (original) about Kurdish independence. I don’t know how this gets resolved, short of the Kurds compromising. ...

Iraq has a government. Or not (original).

My friend Jere pointed out, quite accurately, that the question isn’t really “what did the kid in Kentucky write about?” The question is “when did we start arresting people for writing stories, no matter how disturbed?” Or, perhaps, “when did we stop trusting parents to raise kids and deal with problem situations?” It’s probably relevant that the biggest policy victory (pending) for the Democrats over the last few years has been Social Security, on which issue they’re coming down on the side of the government protecting people. We really like being protected these days.