sfarber

Today’s revelation comes from this story in the Jerusalem Post, observing that Dubai Ports World is a proud participant in the Arab world’s boycott against goods and services originating in the State of Israel; participating in that boycott is, of course, against American law, and should, by itself, it is intimated at least by the story, be a sufficient basis to block the port deal under which the Emir of Dubai will secure operational control of 21 American ports (not just six) from Maine to Texas. Given his inconceivably bad 34% approval rating, the worst of his presidency, Bush has...

Apparently, the Coast Guard had issued a report questioning the homeland security implications of portions of the proposed Dubai Ports World’s acquisition of the American operations of British Peninsular and Oriental, the current operator of some ports, after which DPW will operate six twenty-one American ports. While some Republican senators, like Susan Collins of Maine, appear gung ho on having hearings to inquire as to implications of the deal, it looks like Bill Frist has been brought back to the reservation, and he favors waiting the whole 45 days of the voluntary rubber stamp sweetheart non-Congressional review that DPW proposes...

This just in… it looks like The Bush Administration actually plans on complying with a federal court order telling it what to do over an aspect of the War on Terror TM… in this case, a decision appears to have been made to comply with the order of Manhattan federal court judge Jed Rakoff to turn over the names of over 500 detainees at Guantanamo Bay pursuant to the Associated Press’s Freedom of Information Act request. This is stunning news, not insofar as the names will be all that “new;” probably most of the detainees’ names are known insofar as...

< The Loquacious Pup is a fan of at least one show that features a talking dog, notably Disney Channel's American Dragon Jake Long. Like all talking dog’s, Fu dog is magical, in his case, over 600 years old as well as talking. He also fights dirty, as, like a certain other talking dog, Fu has spent an awful lot of time on the streets of Brooklyn. < LP's Daddy has his own favorite currently active talking dog, however, his second-favorite character on Cartoon Network's Family Guy, none other than Brian, a dog that, like Fu Dog, does a lot...

An amazing confluence of events, all of which seems to benefit… whom? But for the first item, I’d have had another guess altogether. But the first event, the thwarted suicide attack on a major Saudi oil refinery (ably discussed here by Professor Cole) at Abqaiq, a Shiite area in Saudi Arabia, throws off virtually all prior analyses. I understand that Al Qaeda itself has claimed credit, but this is simply not its usual M.O. While A.Q.’s attacks in Saudi have, on occasion, involved the deaths of Saudi nationals, they are usually either incidental or collateral to a primary intent to...

It seems that the President is going to survive the port-sale fiasco after all. Everyone and their Dubaian uncle are rushing in to save him, including Dubai Ports World, which agreed voluntarily to belay its takeover of operations at six American ports for a delay of unstated duration. At the same time, the New York Times reports that the Bush Administration itself is seeking a delay of the port deal, to “convince Congress” that their security concerns are… unwarranted. Again, this is a logical result of having spent the last four and a half years of making reality the enemy…...

Bad s*** coming out of Iraq. (Dogrun member) Professor Juan Cole is writing that the situation over in our Mess O’Potamia is lookin’ pretty ominous… in particular, the recent guerrilla bombing of the gold domed Shiite Askariyah Shrine in Samarra, which in turn led to retaliation against Sunnis all over Iraq, with 75 Sunni mosques attacked, including 3 burned to the ground, 3 clerics and 6 people overall killed, on the same day that saw bombings all over Iraq that killed dozens more. Bruce the Veep suggests that Iran (or, as I prefer to think of it, Iraqi elements closely...

For those of you in the New York area, you might want to consider joining me and a few hundred of our friends at a Bill of Rights reading/protest of NSA internal spying etc. sponsored by Move-On.Org; tonight’s protest is 6 pm, at Federal Hall on Wall Street, sight of President George Washington’s first inauguration, on this, President Washington’s natural birthday. Be there. Aloha. Update: Maybe around 200 people showed up for the 20-25 minute protest, mostly upscale looking, mostly older than me (and I ain’t so young); Move-On was kind enough to provide many with signs (“Bush broke the...

Apparently, the Vice-President’s straight-shooting has thrown the White House off its game; it finds itself back on its heals for the second week in a row, this time trying to defend a recently announced deal permitting the acquisition of the British company that manages six American ports (New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami and New Orleans) to a company owned by the government of Dubai, U.A.E. On its face, the sale may actually be pretty inocuous: the concession to operate the ports was already in foreign hands, albeit English hands. And, for a change, it is always possible that the...

Let me join in the chorus of outrage over the conviction of Holocaust-Denier and All-Around-Prick David Irving, convicted by an Austrian court of the crime of Holocaust denial, and sentenced to three years in prison. For one thing, the timing is wonderfully outrageous: while Europeans insist that their honorary first-class citizens, the Jews, are worthy of sufficient respect so as to criminalize the kind of speech that understates suffering at the hands of the Third Reich, Europeans insist that their new second-class citizens, their Moslem immigrant population, just grin and bear speech (or cartoons, anyway) that they find mortally offensive....