More on McCartney -- Twliight of the IRA?

Well, it’s about time! The Scotsman reports:

Two men have been arrested in connection with the murder of Belfast father-of- two Robert McCartney, police said today.

The men, aged 36 and 49, were arrested following police operations in Belfast and Birmingham.

This is obviously good news, but it's still too soon to tell just what consequences, if any, will flow from the arrests.

Catherine McCartney, the victim’s sister, puts this in perspective:

She said: "We obviously welcome these arrests but remain cautious. People
have been arrested before and let out. Others have walked into police stations,
stared at walls and said nothing."

That could very well happen again. Meanwhile, the IRA has tried unsuccessfully to distance itself from the thuggery. It officially expelled three men involved in the McCartney murder. But that hasn’t quieted international criticism. And, of course, they have reverted to their trademark – terrorist threats and violence.

Last month police visited the sisters - and Mr McCartney's partner Bridgeen Hagans - at their Short Strand home to tell them "criminal elements" were threatening to burn down their homes and the business that one of them runs.

The women believe they are being targeted by republicans for their high-profile campaign to bring their brother's killers to justice.

That campaign has been largely successful in hitting the IRA where it hurts most. The sisters’ appeal has graphically illustrated the fact that what was once a patriotic organization has degenerated into a common criminal gang and that fact has seriously undermined American Irish support upon which the IRA depends heavily.

More and more it seems that the IRA is on its last legs. Let us sincerely hope so.

Read about it here.

The EU Constitution -- back to the drawing boards

Wretchard over at the Belmont Club opines that there is likely to be no way to stop eventual enactment of the EU Constitution. It's the only game in town and there seems to be no alternative. He writes:

Despite the French rejection of the proposed Constitution, there is no institutional equivalent of the Brussels bureaucracy advocating an alternative EU vision or the vision of no EU at all. In other words, the European 'process' remains a one-party show and the French rejection has no more significance than Kim Il Sung's failure to get a certain percentage of votes. Interesting but irrelevant if he is the only candidate.

Of course, it is possible that a severely scaled-down version of the EU constitution could finally develop out of this controversy, or that an institutional alternative might still emerge, although at this point it is hard to see from whence it could come.

Then Wretchard makes an extremely interesting point. He writes:

One axiom from the Watergate years was that it was "the coverup that gets you". In this case, it is not the rejection by the French voters that is most significant but the failure of the rejection to have any significance at all. The cavalier dismissal of the French vote describes the 'process' for what it is: a project in the hands of an elite. The real challenge for Europeans, especially Eastern Europeans and the British, is to articulate an alternative vision for the Continent. The European vision needs a second party in order to make up a debate.

You can say that again. Plan A isn't working -- someone had better come up with an alternative.

Read Wretchard's comments here.

Deep Throat Revealed? Who Knows? Who Cares?

Mark Felt, formerly number two at the FBI, now claims to have been "Deep Throat," the anonymous source who guided Woodward and Bernstein's investigation of the Watergate scandal. The MSM is all over this thing. They've been speculating for decades as to whether or not Deep Throat was a person, a composite, a construct, a space alien, whatever. Now they're wallowing in it again. Why?

The reason is that Watergate is the founding myth of modern journalism, with all its reliance on unnamed sources, its tabloid excesses, its pretentions to political significance, its hostility to other sources of institutionalized power, etc. Deep Throat was one of the more exotic features of that myth stucture. He was the ultimate inside source, the patriotic whistle blower who revealed the dark recesses of government, the truth teller who brought down a president. Add to that the exotic machinations -- meetings late at night in dark garages, flower pots strategically placed as signals, the cagey clues -- "follow the money."

For members of the MSM, and for Nixon haters [two not mutually exclusive categories] Deep Throat was an irresistable subject for speculation, and the whole story a mastubatory fantasy. But does anybody else care? Not really.

Should they? Well, ask yourself "what difference does it make whether we attach a name to Deep Throat or not?" Other than the individuals directly involved and their families, the answer has to be, "it just doesn't matter." It's a footnote, and an obscure one at that.

As for the MSM and the Nixon Haters. They've wallowed far too long in that mud-hole. For too long they've viewed the world and their place in it through that particular distorting prism. It's a new world out there and for them it's time to move on.

Zimbabwe Update -- Things Just Keep Getting Worse

Mad Bobby Mugabe's post-election crackdown continues unabated, and the results are horrifying.

ZimOnline reports:

HARARE – Armoured troop carriers yesterday patrolled several Harare suburbs as the army was summoned to help suppress swelling public anger against an ongoing government onslaught against informal traders and homeless people.

As soldiers descended on suburbs such as Glen Norah, Glen View and Mbare, where police fought running battles with informal traders in the last week, sources told ZimOnline that the police - who have led the evictions - were under orders to use live ammunition against civilians attempting to resist.

It could not be established whether the army was also under instruction to shoot at civilians with live ammunition.

According to the sources, Harare police commander Edmore Veterai, on Thursday told about 2 000 police officers at Morris police depot in the city that they should not fear shooting with live ammunition at people resisting eviction because the campaign against informal traders had the blessings of President Robert Mugabe.

There are reports of running street battles as residents of the targeted neighborhoods resist the destruction of their homes.

Read about it here.

Resistance is growing, and residents are attempting to arm themselves against police depredations.

MUTARE - Residents in Zimbabwe’s eastern Mutare city - driven to desperation after their informal businesses were destroyed by the government – pleaded for weapons at the weekend to wage war against the government because they were just “fed up.”

Several hundreds of residents, who attended a meeting held at Sakubva Beit Hall in the working class suburb of Sakubva in the city, told local Member of Parliament, Innocent Gonese, to source guns for them to fight the government.

Even the presence of the police at the meeting did not deter the irate residents with several standing up to openly declare they would rather die trying to “remove President Robert Mugabe from power” because they had nothing to live for after their only source of livelihood was destroyed in the ongoing controversial campaign by the government to clean up cities.

“We want you to provide us with guns because we are fed up,” a middle aged man rose from the crowd to declare boldly.

With the angry crowd urging him on, the man continued: “This government has no respect for the people. Our houses have been destroyed, our businesses have also gone. We have nothing to live for. We are prepared to die removing Mugabe. We don’t want to hear all this talk of going to court (to sue for compensation from the state).”

Read about it here.

As the situation worsens, the BBC describes "Desperation On the Streets"

Read it here.

and church leaders denounced Mugabe's "War against the poor." [here]

Finally: The BBC reports that,

Zimbabwe is to proceed with plans to nationalise all farmland, a ruling party official has said. Zanu-PF spokesman Nathan Shamuvarira said the party would amend the constitution so as to abolish rights to private ownership of land.

He said the move would end "ceaseless litigation" by white farmers whose property has been expropriated by decree over the past five years.

Under the proposed new system, land would be leased for 99-year terms.

This, of course, is pure Marxist/Maoist madness. It will inflict further damage on an already devastated economy. And of course, most of the real suffering will be done by the poor.

Read it here.

Also, check The Zimbabwean Pundit [here] for updates on the situation. He offers some hope. It appears that Mugabe is ill, and might die. This sounds to me like wishful thinking, but it's about all the opposition can hope for.

For my previous posts on the post-election situation see here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here. That's enough for now. For earlier posts scroll through my archives.

The Carnival of Revolutions is Up

Check it out at Registran.net

Flores Update -- Hobbits or Pygmies [or Furries]?

Liang Bua Cave on Flores [Time, inc] where controversial "hobbit" remains have been found.

Time Magazine has a nice treatment of the current controversy over the Flores "hobbit". Early assertions that a new human species had been found there have been called into question. It seems that a village of pygmies lives within easy walking distance of the cave where the diminuitive skeletons were found. Controversy centers on the only skull recovered from the cave. It has an abnomally small cranial capacity, which leads some "scientists" to argue that it does represent a separate species. Other "scientists" say "nonsense -- it's just a pathological specimen." We've heard this argument many times before, starting with the first Neanderthal skeleton unearthed.

One parenthetical point: Some of the pygmies have a heavy pelt of fur on their bodies. If that's the case, shouldn't we be calling them the Flores "furries" instead of "hobbits?"

Read the article here.

Hack!

Col. David Hackworth in his glory days.

Farewell to a Hero -- Colonel David Hackworth

A flag flew Saturday in Arlington National Cemetary near where Colonel David H. Hackworth will be buried. Tomorrow, the US military will lay to rest the veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam -- among its most decorated and controversial heroes. (Globe Photo / Chris Maddaloni)

They're burying a hero tomorrow at Arlington -- Col. David Hackworth. The Boston Globe has a nice piece on him. Excerpts:

WASHINGTON -- His courage under fire was the stuff of Hollywood, such as once ordering his helicopter pilot to land in the middle of a firefight so he could rescue his wounded men.

As an orphan shining shoes at a military base in Santa Monica, Calif., he lied about his age to join up in the waning days of World War II. That started a career that led him to Korea, where he survived a gunshot to the head, and a whopping four tours of duty in Vietnam, where his daring and swagger became the inspiration for Robert Duvall's Colonel Kilgore character in the movie ''Apocalypse Now."

Tomorrow, the US military will lay to rest Colonel David H. Hackworth -- among its most decorated heroes of all time -- at Arlington National Cemetery.

The top brass is not expected to attend.

Hackworth's most enduring foe was not the communists he fought. He earned a a chestful of medals, including two Distinguished Service Medals, 10 Silver Stars, eight Bronze Stars, and eight Purple Hearts. His adversary became the US military bureaucracy, which he railed against for 30 years on grounds that it failed to put the troops first. He also opposed military action in Bosnia, Kosovo, and especially Iraq.
....

But while Hackworth was an unyielding critic to generals, admirals, and defense secretaries, he was a father figure to thousands of grunts. Some held memorial services for him in between hunting for Iraqi insurgents, his family said....

Read it here.

Goodbye Hack. We're gonna miss ya.

.

Angela Merkel Rises

Deutsch Welle reports:

Angela Merkel, the leader of Germany's opposition Christian Democrats,
has officially been chosen as the conservative challenger to Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder in early elections in the fall.

Germany's opposition conservatives on Monday named Angela Merkel as
their candidate to challenge Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in an expected autumn
election that could produce the country's first woman leader.

Read about her here.

This is one hot lady. She defies all stereotypes. Born in Hamburg, raised in East Germany, trained as a physicist, joined the early anti-Communist movement, then the Christian Democrats, married and divorced, by 2000 emerged as the leader of the CD's. Today she polls well ahead of Schroeder and is the odds-on favorite to emerge as Germany's first woman chancellor.

What a babe!

Red State/Blue State in France!

Le Monde -- The political map of France is beginning to resemble that of the US in certain ways. Maybe it's just that nobody outside the metrosexual centers and Kerry's hometowns [remember his ties to Brittany] can stomach Chirac any more.

I wonder if we are going to be subjected to endless and incredibly obtuse think pieces in the NYT about the supposed quaint peculiarities of Red State Frenchmen? Probably not.

Actually, there is a a deeper theme here. On both the left and the right and throughout the Western world, there is a populist revolt emerging, directed against the credentialed cosmopolitan elites who have dominated Western political culture since WWII. Those elites always sold themselves as being disinterested, technocratic, experts who knew best what was good for the rest of us. But now they are seen as just one more self-serving interest group whose expertise, so often applied to disastrous effect, is suspect. In the end it is the people themselves who know what is best for them.

French Neanderthal Babe

A reconstructed 20-year-old Neanderthal woman dubbed 'Pierrette' is displayed at the 'Paleosite' center, a museum combining tourism and archeology, in Saint-Cesaire, France, aiming to show how these hominids lived 35,000 years ago(AFP/File/Michel Gangne)

Of course, keep in mind that these kinds of reconstructions are very speculative. One of the theories as to why there is no clear evidence that Neanderthals and Modern Homo Sapiens interbred was that they were physically unattractive to each other. A Neanderthal "babe" would be repulsive to a modern human and vice versa. This reconstruction doesn't seem to bear out that theory. She just ain't repulsive.

Late at night, in a bar, you've struck out with Miss Lebanon. You've had a few. Bob Seger is singing on the jukebox. This lady starts to look pretty good, even if she is a separate species and built like a linebacker.

Sorry Jacques -- It's Back to the Drawing Boards

French President Jacques Chirac addresses the nation on TV after France voted against the ratification of the European constitution, May 29, 2005. Chirac said on Sunday French voters' rejection of the EU constitution made it hard for France to defend its interests in the EU, and said he would announce decisions on his government in coming days. REUTERS/France Television

Trey Jackson has the video here.

The People Speak -- France says "No" to the EU Constitution

AP Reports:

PARIS - French voters rejected the European Union's first constitution Sunday, President Jacques Chirac said — a stinging repudiation of his leadership and the ambitious, decades-long effort to further unite the continent.

Chirac, who urged voters to approve the charter, announced the result in a short televised address. He said the process of ratifying the treaty would continue in other EU countries. "France has expressed itself democratically," Chirac said. "It is your sovereign decision, and I take note."

Hell, it wasn't even close. "Non" won in a landslide.

Earlier, the Interior Ministry said that with about 83 percent of the votes counted, the referendum was rejected by 57.26 percent of voters. It was supported by 42.74 percent.

Read about it here.

It has been fun over the past few days, as it became ever more clear that the French public was about to reject the EU Constitution, watching the Euro-elites twisting and turning, trying to cone to terms with rejection. Some despair, seeing this as the death of their dreams of a comprehensive European state. But, as Mark Steyn notes in a brilliant collumn, these anti-democrats are not about to take the vote of the people as final.

He writes:

[A] couple of days before the first referendum, Jean-Claude Juncker, the "president" of the European Union, let French and Dutch voters know how much he values their opinion: "If at the end of the ratification process, we do not manage to solve the problems, the countries that would have said No, would have to ask themselves the question again," "President" Juncker told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir.

Got that? You have the right to vote, but only if you give the answer your rulers want you to give. But don't worry, if you don't, we'll treat you like a particularly backward nursery school and keep asking the question until you get the answer right. Even America's bossiest nanny-state Democrats don't usually express their contempt for the will of the people quite so crudely.

Read him here.

Notice that Chirac's statement did not promise to take rejection by the French public as final. He simply promised to "take note" of their opinion as he crafts future strategies.

Some have even perversely suggested that a referendum of the public is "undemocratic." Witness this incredible argument from Paul Virilio, writing in Sign and Sight. He writes:

Under the appearance of democratic openness, the French referendum on the European constitution increasingly appears as a denial of democracy. It is taking the guise of a cloaked plebiscite by a president who since April 21, 2002 has no longer held sway with the French voters, and that despite the incontestable success of his foreign policy at the moment of the refusal of the Iraq War....

[T]he practice of holding a referendum on such a subject is suicidal. It is an electoral absurdity that puts in question the political intelligence not only of the head of state, but also of his immediate entourage and communication advisers.

How can one vote "in full knowledge of the facts" on a text of some 500 pages, with over 400 articles? Who is the butt of jokes when the postal service has to deliver over 40 million copies of the European constitution to electors at their homes, and when ten or more books that set out the implications of the constitution in either positive or negative terms have become best-sellers?

So let me get this straight! Voting is a denial of democracy because the common folk are too dumb to understand what their government wants of them and the government is too incompetent to give them clear orders. The common folk have been fed too much information for their tiny brains to process, and therefore their participation in a referendum is a "denial of democracy."

What unadulterated crap!

Arguments like this have been used for centuries to disenfranchise groups of voters. They, not the referendum, are the real "denial of democracy."

Read the whole disgusting thing here.

One of the most important things the American founders did was to bypass the local elites in the various sovereign states and to take their case directly to the people. The American Constitution, after all, begins with the words "we the people." And they meant it.

Instead of simply asking the state legislatures to ratify their proposed constitution in 1787, they arranged for Congress to call for constitutional conventions in all the states where specially elected representatives would debate ratification. The result was significant modification of the original document, enshrined in the "Bill of Rights," and a recognition by the American public that they, not their leaders, had played the crucial part in shaping their government. James Madison, heralded as the primary author of the Constitution [and of the "Bill of Rights"], took full notice of it. He always maintained that the real meaning of the American Constitution was to be found, not in the deliberation of 55 men in Philadelphia, but in the wide-ranging ratification debates that took place in the state constitutional conventions.

Europe's elites should take warning from the French vote and inspiration from the American example. There is a real disconnect between the governors and the governed, and to stubbornly continue down the current road is to risk disaster. The precedent of the American founders should be reconsidered. A successful and legitimate constitution must be founded on the consent of the governed.

Casting Her Ballot in Beirut

Reuters photo -- I love this picture: check out those expressions, they say it all.

Fireworks in Beirut -- The Political Reconstuction of Lebanon Begins

Fireworks in Lebanon celebrate the victory of Saad al-Hariri, son of the slain leader, in local elections.

The Power of a Name -- The First Round of Lebanese Elections is Over

Reuters reports:

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Candidates led by the son of slain ex-premier Rafik al-Hariri won all the seats in Beirut in Lebanon's general election on Sunday, a government source said....

Saad al-Hariri's anti-Syrian bloc had already won nine of the capital's 19 seats in the 128-member parliament before the vote because they were not contested. The source said candidates on Hariri's list had taken all 10 undecided seats.

"This victory is for Rafik al-Hariri. Today Beirut showed its loyalty to Rafik al-Hariri," Hariri, 35, told a jubilant crowd celebrating outside his villa in the capital.

"Today is a victory for democracy...freedom and sovereignty," he said to chanting supporters....

"It's a festival of democracy," the chief of the EU mission [that was monitoring the elections], Jose Ignacio Salafranca, told reporters at one polling station.

Well, maybe. Certainly this is a hopeful development, but remember:

1) this is only the first round of a complex series of elections and Berirut represents less than one sixth of Lebanon's electorate. Things will change significantly as future polling moves outside the city.

2) turnout was unexpectedly low.

[V]oters denied Hariri the high turnout he sought in the first polls in
three decades with no Syrian troops in Lebanon. Interior Minister Hassan
al-Sabaa put the turnout at 28 percent. The capital had a 34 percent turnout in
2000, when Hariri's father, then cooperating with Syria, also swept the
board.

3) The anti-Syrian movement is having problems:

The solidarity of the anti-Syrian alliance that blossomed after Hariri's death has eroded in the run-up to the election.

Hariri's alliance with Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and some Christian foes of Syria is intact, but [General Michel] Aoun, a fierce opponent of Syria just back from exile, was left out in the cold....

Followers of Christian leader Michel Aoun, left off Hariri's anti-Syrian ticket, had urged people to shun the polls, handing out orange stickers that said: "Boycott the appointments."

4) The early promise of Christian/Druze/Sunni Muslim cooperation, so prominently displayed in the spring demonstrations, has not been fully manifested. Christians and Shiite Muslims were largely shut out of these local elections.

Still, these problems may not be all that important.

1) The low turnout may simply reflect the fact that everyone knew, prior to the elections, who was going to win.

"Why should I vote when the result is already decided?" said Abdul-Rahman Itani, in his 40s.

2) Some of the low turnout may be just [mainly young] people's revulsion at the cynical negotiating that lies at the heart of the democratic process.

For others, the euphoria of the anti-Syrian protests has given way to dismay
at politicians who have reverted to electoral horse-trading and alliances that
curtail voter choice.

3) The deal-making has the possibility of cementing cross-faith alliances.

[T]he Hariri-Jumblatt front has... made deals with the main pro-Syrian Shi'ite alliance. Hariri's Beirut ticket includes a Hizbollah candidate. The joint Amal-Hizbollah list in the south embraces Bahiya al-Hariri, the slain leader's sister.

4) Future elections will be more closely contested and turnout will be higher as a result.

The election results are broadly predictable in Beirut and the south, but tighter contests are expected in the north and center of the country, especially among Christian rivals.

One thing that stands out in all of this is the power of the name "Hariri." The slain leaders widow, his son, and his sister have all emerged as major figures in post-Syrian Lebanon.

The youthful idealism of the Cedar Revolution has given way to democratic politics. Some might be dismayed by this, but the early hopes were far from realistic. Still, the deal-cutting is providing a continuing basis for a dynamic relationship among Lebanon's various confessional groups, and workable shifting arrangements seem to be emerging. This is the glory of democracy as properly practiced. It ain't pretty, but it works well enough to provide a common basis for political action. All in all, the early results from Beirut seem to indicate that post-Syrian Lebanon is not likely to fall back into the welter of violence and chaos of a previous generation. The experience of Syrian occupation seems to have created sufficient national consciousness to prevent that.

Still, there is HizBullah to worry about. Things could still fall apart.

Stay tuned....

Read Reuters report here.

CNN video report here.

Can't Get Enough of Those Lebanese Babes -- Can't Call Her a Protest Babe, Though; She's Just Having Fun in Phuket

Nadime Mjeim: Miss Lebanon in Phuket, Thailand. Yalibnan has the story and lots of accompanying pictures here.

More Miss Lebanon!

OK, OK, By Popular Demand -- More Miss Lebanon -- Also from Yalibnan. Check them out here.

Another Freedom Babe

Rusudan Boshoidze; Miss Georgia.

And Yet Another Freedom Babe

Juliya Chernyshova; Miss Ukraine.