Red Rag

Does anyone else think Howard Dean sounds like a professional wrestler?

Update: Quite independently, Marty made the same comparison; Vikki concurs.

I have been busy with Real Life in the last couple of days. For instance, I bought a car — something I’ve been meaning to do for over a year, since I wrote off the last one. It’s a 1992 Hyundai Excel Sprint. I’m pretty happy with it; it certainly beats bludging of Mother and Manas.

I’ve also had my university enrolment confirmed. I’m taking these units:

• AB100: Aboriginal People
• LW205: Principles of Equity and Trusts
• LW3010: Constitutional Law
• LW304: Employee Relations Law
• LW320: The Law of Evidence
• LW3300: Administrative Law

They almost fit into three days, although the Evidence tutorials are on at the same time as Aboriginal People. Given that I’ve already completed the 300-level sequel to AB100, I’m not altogether worried about missing an hour a week.

Now I’ve got to work out how I’m paying for my books, since I spent all my money on the car…

In an embarassing backflip, American officials have been forced to ask the UN to approve their transitional plans in Iraq. The US lacks legitimacy, and — as Michael Hirsch argues — “That’s where Kofi Annan comes in.”

Several weeks ago Sistani signaled his flexibility by summoning Shiite notables to his base of power in Najaf. “He said, ‘I do not mind looking into an alternative to [direct] elections on the proviso that it would be inclusive and preserve the representation and the transfer” of power, according to the Shiite politician. Sistani’s alternative? Local Shiite referendums to select delegates. But he wants Annan to send a U.N. team to affirm that broader national elections are not possible at this point, given the lack of a national census and voter registration, and to supervise the delegate selection. The aura of international legitimacy — as opposed to a U.S. diktat — conveyed by the world body would give Sistani the cover he needs.

Observant readers will note that this compromise is very similar to that suggested by Kick & Scream very recently. If the UN is not scared off by the recent bombing, there’s hope for real progress in Iraq during the coming year.

Dr John K Williams gave an interesting address in Melbourne yesterday, on the difference between faith and dogma:

[O]ne cannot deny that this “old time religion” concerned and concerns itself with some matters other than escaping the fires of hell. It has converted many a drunkard to sobriety. It has sometimes made people kinder in their daily lives. It’s social influence has, here and there, been good.

So is there any harm to it? I believe there is. A religion must be judged by thinking and informed people, not by what it, in the absence of available alternatives, might have done, but by what it does today.

[...]

From its beginnings, the assertions of the “old time religion” were based on ignorance, even ignorance as to the nature and selection of the library of diverse books we call the Bible.

Unlike Dr Williams, I am not a religious person, but I can see the difference between his thoughtful and loving religion, and the bitter, ignorant and inconsistent “old time religion” espoused by people like Homer Paxton.

Give me newfangled religion any day of the week.

My brother received his university offer this week. Lucky for him, I suppose: tens of thousands missed out. Still, as the University of Sydney’s Vice-Chancellor points out, there’s no need to be disappointed. Full-fee places are available if you want to jump the academic queue — as long as you can afford it.

Update: Melbourne University will admit full-fee paying students to their arts/science course with a score of 87.55; HECS students need to secure 97.0. In other words, you get almost ten bonus entry points just for having wealthy parents.

Juan Cole is one of the most insightful commentators on the situation in Iraq that I’ve come across. Last night he participated in a NewsHour panel discussing the influence of Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani and his demands for real democracy in Iraq. I suggest you read the whole transcript, but here are some interesting excerpts:

RAY SUAREZ: So his threat earlier in the week to draft the Fatwah, the religious edict demanding his followers resist this new plan for setting up a new government should be regarded seriously then?

JUAN COLE: I find it most alarming. Sistani in the past has been a voice for moderation, and has tended not to want to get too directly involved in politics. He has now come to the point of sponsoring the largest public demonstrations yet seen in postwar Iraq; issuing public statements, demanding free and fair open elections; all of this suggests a building confrontation between him and the United States.

[...]

JUAN COLE: I think it’s in response to a number of missteps that the Americans made early after the fall of Saddam. Just to give an example, Sistani lives in the town of Najaf; it’s a fairly large city, actually.

And the Americans, when they first came in, appointed as the mayor of Najaf an ex-Baathist Sunni officer. I mean anybody could tell you that was a very bad move. Then it turns out that this man was extremely corrupt and kidnapping Najaf citizens and holding them for ransom. Ultimately the United States had to remove him from power and try him. In the meantime, Mr. Bremer announced municipal elections in Iraq and 16 candidates declared their candidacy, and then when it seemed clear that whoever won that election would be pro-Iranian, Mr. Bremer cancelled the election and went back to an appointed government.

So as Sistani watched these missteps unfold, he must have conceived an enormous mistrust on how the United States was going to handle national electoral affairs.

RAY SUAREZ: You heard Mary Jane Deeb talk about the possibility of an Islamic republic, a Shiite dominated republic in Iraq if things run their course in a certain way. Is that a possibility if Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani wants to use his power in a certain way?

JUAN COLE: Well, Islamic republic is actually an ambiguous term. I don’t think that Sistani… in fact I know Sistani does not want a system like that in Iran where the clerics rule.

What he wants is free and open elections, laypersons in positions of power. But he wants the clerics to have an influence on social policy through their rulings and through the allegiance people demonstrate to them. So he does want Islamic law to be extremely influential in Iraq and he wants religion to play a big part in the social affairs, but he doesn’t want to rule the country.

He is not a dictator. He is not a thug. He has called for peaceful demonstrations. And he’s attempting to exercise influence on society.

[...]

JUAN COLE: Well, certainly Sistani is attempting to press for a system in which the Shiites will be the majority. They will have the majority of seats in parliament, they will have enormous influence on national policy.

But he is not a narrow kind of leader of only the Shiites. His rhetoric is the rhetoric of Iraqi nationalism. He talks about the Iraqi people. After all, free and fair elections of the sort that he is pressing for would make a place for Sunni Arabs and Kurds to elect their community leaders. It seemed to me that the problem is that the plan the United States initially put forward was very narrow. We’re calling them caucus elections but they’re not caucuses.

The base of the system has been largely appointed about it Americans and the British. They’re hand picked, they’re disproportionately Sunni; they’re disproportionately ex-Baathists as many of them have been corrupt. There have been demonstrations against them in places recently. So the idea that the United States could have an election based upon its own hand picked constituency and then call that a sovereign Iraqi government was always a little chancy. And Sistani is now calling us on it.

So there’s good news, bad news, and worse news. The good news is that Sistani doesn’t want to simply install mullahs as Iraq’s rulers. The bad news is that he would expect any government to respect Islamic law and (possibly) adhere to any fatwahs he issues.

But the worst news is that the Coalition’s mess is of its own making. By installing corrupt ex-Baathists, and then tailoring a system of (appointed) caucuses to make sure similar characters take power, they’ve pissed off the majority of Iraq’s population — and they’re right to be pissed off. I only hope Bush and Bremer have the decency to apologise and back down.

Iraq’s transition to a functioning democracy seems to slip further from its grasp as each day goes by. The Iraqi Governing Council decided that women’s rights are not necessary in their new, liberated society:

For four decades, Iraqi women have enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world, under a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce or male favouritism in child custody and property disputes.

Saddam Hussein did not touch those rights. But the US-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe them out, ordering that family laws shall be “cancelled” and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal law or sharia.

Fortunately, Paul Bremer has a veto over the IGC’s decisions, so women can breath easy for a while.

But only for a while.

Iraq’s Shiite population is not happy with American plans for democracy in Iraq. They believe (rightly) that a proposed system of regional caucuses is designed to prevent them from gaining a majority in the new government, and have threatened to issue a fatwa against any council elected under the current plan. Should they secure power, sharia would almost certainly be at the top of their legislative agenda.

This puts the occupying power in a bit of a pickle. The challenge is to draft a constitution that simultaneously convinces the Shia that their rights have been protected, and guarantees a power-sharing government. The two goals are not easily reconciled. As it stands, the US wants to hold regional caucuses, at least some of whose members would be appointed, which would choose the transitional parliament. The Shia are demanding immediate direct elections that would effectively guarantee their grip on power. Neither is satisfactory.

My preference is for a unicameral parliament resembling the Australian Senate. Each electoral district would directly elect a fixed number of representatives according to a proportional voting system. If the electoral boundaries are established properly — to correspond as closely as possible to the different ethnic groups — the result would be an elected, power-sharing Iraqi government. The US would need to sell the proposal as a fair compromise. There would be real democracy with no appointed delegates, but in exchange the Shia would have to allow additional time to prepare electoral rolls and the like.

I certainly hope Bremer and Bush came up with a workable plan when they met last night — and I hope Bush is willing to maintain the troop commitment despite the demands of his re-election campaign.

Graham Freeman responds to Telstra’s plans to move IT jobs offshore:

Put that in the “Well, duh” category, kiddies, because who didn’t see this coming? Let’s see, government partly privatises one of its corporations, leaving the corporation partly free to follow market forces, which it does, at which point the government gets cranky. Disingenuous, much?

Costello’s whinge is pathetic, particularly when he tries to wriggle free of his own responsibilities:

“Telstra is a government owned corporation. Let’s be clear about this, this is a government owned corporation — majority-owned corporation; this has got nothing to do with privatisation.

“In fact, this demonstrates that government-owned corporations can move jobs offshore just as much as anybody else.”

The difference is that a government-owned corporation can be directed to act according to government policy. Costello’s hands are not tied — if he really cares about those jobs, the government will act.

I’m not holding my breath.

The Union Label membership list is slowly growing, and it’s turning up plenty of interesting blogs. The newest addition, Zagg, grabbed my attention with a post about US casualty statistics.

When I read a report that attacks against US troops were down 22% since Saddam’s capture, I immediately assumed that was a good thing. However, Zagg has convinced me otherwise:

[I]n reality, almost the entire difference can be accounted for in one incident–on Nov. 15 two Black Hawks crashed into each other after one was hit by ground fire, killing 17 soldiers. So the conclusion we should draw then is fact that the resistance has been unable to recreate one of its bloodiest attacks is all due to the capture of Saddam. At least that’s what the administration would like us to believe.

Take that incident out of the number of troops killed in the respective periods is 41 in the first and 39 in the second… If that Black Hawk incident had happened four days earlier, it would have not been part of the Army’s selected sample, making the two 30 day periods seem more similar.

Sadly, it appears that this is merely a case of statistical manipulation — there has been no discernable drop in the rate of US casualties.

Good news:

The United States said today that France and other countries opposed to the war in Iraq would be allowed to bid for reconstruction projects in Iraq.

The announcement came from the White House shortly after President George W Bush said that Canada would also be able to bid for an estimated $US18.6 billion ($24 billion) worth of contracts.

This is obviously good for the Iraqi people. Punishing France and Germany for disbelieving claims about WMD might give the warbloggers something to gloat about, but it also undermines the post-war claims that it was all about liberation.

In an oligopoly, you don’t get as much bang for your liberating buck — or, alternatively, your favourite corporations make more profits for the same amount of liberation. To its credit, the US looks like it will put its diplomatic squabbles aside in the interest of rebuilding Iraq as quickly and cheaply as possible.

I also noticed this paragraph:

The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq issued 17 reconstruction contract solicitations last week worth about $5 billion. Only the 63 members of the declared “coalition” may compete to be prime contractors, a list that excludes Canada, as well as France, Germany and Russia, among others. Companies from any nation may compete without restrictions for subcontracts, however.

The Coalition Provisional Authority is the Iraqi government at the moment. If a contract made with Iraq’s government doesn’t constitute trade with Iraq, I don’t know what does.

Graham Freeman bears good news: Lego is going to go back to making Lego.

“We are returning to Lego’s former concept. We’re going to focus on building bricks as our main product, concentrating on little kids’ eagerness to assemble,” [Lego's owner and president, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen] said.

“That’s why we’re pursuing much more aggressive marketing for building bricks, leaving products linked to films such as Star Wars on the back burner,” he said.

One key factor for the weak result this year was the poor sales of games based on the Star Wars and Harry Potter films in 2002.

Interesting. In the dying days of last year, I mentioned in a comment at Feministe that I didn’t like the newfangled Lego. It is perhaps no coincidence that Star Wars and Harry Potter were the two brands I mentioned.

I was interested to read, via Tim Blair, this translation of a German report about Iraq. It certainly makes some good points about new freedoms in Iraq — the growth of a free press, access to the internet, and the availability of cars.

However, it would be unwise to rely on that article to generalise widely about the state of the nation. The article suggests that wages are high in Iraq, but there is ample evidence to suggest that labour is not so satisfied — including this passage:

Together the family has more than enough to live on, especially since the Americans have retained Saddam’s old system of distributing foodstuffs. There is enough to eat, even for those who don’t earn money. Flour, rice, oil, salt, sugar, tea and similar basic foodstuffs are always supplied. [My emphasis.]

Elsewhere, we have reports of ongoing riots about the 50% unemployment rate. Life might be cars and internet cafes for some Iraqis, but for most there is poverty and a queue for food parcels.

In the Dallas Morning News, Tod Robertson describes the new freedoms as they are experienced by most Iraqis:

The good times Iraqis expected with the fall of Mr. Hussein’s dictatorship have failed to materialize. Rightly or wrongly, in the eyes of many Iraqis, the United States is to blame for the current mess.

Even so, Iraqi streets seem busier and more commercially active than ever. Satellite dishes, refrigerators, air conditioners and all kinds of electronic items literally are spilling out of shops.

Many of the imports were banned under the dictatorship or prevented from entering under U.N.-mandated economic sanctions imposed since the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Today, imported domestic goods are so abundant, there sometimes is little room for pedestrians to walk on the sidewalk.

But many Iraqis ask where they are supposed to get the money to buy these items, given the scarcity of jobs and economic activity that normally would have come from the export of oil, Iraq’s principal commodity. Seeing the imported items every day, but not being able to afford them, only adds to many Iraqis’ sense of frustration and anger.

It’s doubly frustrating for them to live in a country with the second-largest petroleum reserves in the world, behind Saudi Arabia, and yet they have to wait 10 hours in line to fill their tanks.

[...]

In April, even the most cynical of Iraqis were convinced that by now, 10 months after Mr. Hussein’s ouster, at least minimal public services would have been restored. There is no telephone service for most of the country. Iraqis still line up for hours at fuel pumps. They have electricity sometimes for as few as four hours a day.

Yes, imports are booming, and there is an unprecedented supply of electronic goods for sale. But what good are they, Iraqis ask, if there’s no electricity to run them?

Baghdad is a city of 5 million, nearly twice the size of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. A third of the population lives in neighborhoods constantly flooded with raw sewage.

It’s not quite the consumer paradise that the Berliner Morgenpost would have us believe.

Tim goes on to quote an “Iraqi translator’s account” of the situation. Apparently, anti-US sentiment is coming only from Saddam’s supporters:

The only people who are against the Americans now are those who were rich before. Now they know that they can’t sit at home and get wealthy. They will have to work and they don’t like it. They lost the power and authority. It is very dangerous.

What Tim neglects to tell us is that the translator works for the US Army. He takes home a healthy pay-cheque from the occupying force, while hundreds of thousands of his countrymen rely on food parcels delivered under a scheme set up by Saddam. Is it possible that he’s seeing things through rose-coloured glasses?

Iraq is making slow steps forward, but reports of a fledgling utopia are surely premature.

The web works in mysterious ways, as today’s Crikey subscribers email attests:

Some subscribers have been amused to see Qantas ads on the left hand side of the Qantas-bashing story on the site which has some new additions: http://www.crik…

This is the beauty of Google Ads. Sites like ours sign up to accept ads and advertisers like Qantas sign up to have their ads placed on sites with “relevant information”. Neither side can control the process so Crikey is making a few dollars out of Qantas by slamming them.

Conveniently, this Google- and Qantas-related story offers me the chance to link to Sam Ward’s Qantas rant, as requested.

Jason soon has passed on a disturbing tale of antisemitism on the part of a bookshop employee, who complained to a customer that he was “sick of Jews and their complaining about what happened to them in WWII”. Needless to say, he lost the sale, and I hope he lost his job with it.

However, I found Jason’s last statement troubling:

Lots of left-wing types seem to be using Ariel Sharon as an excuse to be anti-semitic.

The problem with that statement, as Tim Dunlop pointed out, is that it is very vague:

“Lots?” “Seem?” Even “left-wing types”: Weasel words, Jason, especially on the basis of this type of story. If it’s true (and I accept your reasons for believing it), then it is truly awful, but any further extrapolations should be couched more cautiously than you have here.

I’m sure it was just a slip, typed in anger after reading that story, because Jason is usually far more careful about these things. He knows that it is not reasonable to take the views of one Holocaust-denier and extrapolate to an entire political movement.

This gross generalisation came hot on the heels of an excellent post on the Communist liberation of Tibet, in which Jason expressed his frustration at similar generalisations being made about other topics:

Now to believe that Tibet and Tibetans are probably better off after the overthrow of the Tibetan feudal theocracy by modernist-Communists (as I do believe ) is not to believe that the Chinese invasion of Tibet was justified or would have been the best way to reform Tibet (readers may observe parallels here with the ‘just processes’ vs ‘outcomes-based relative comparisons’ distinctions that can be similarly made about Iraq which tend to be lost on some warbloggers, er, all warbloggers).

If supporting the overthrow of Tibet’s feudal overlords can be separated from support for Chinese Communism, then surely disagreement with Israeli government policy can be separated from hatred of Jews.

James Russell beat me to this issue (as usual). He summed my views up neatly, so I’ll leave you with them in conclusion:

So, criticism (justifiable or otherwise) of the leader and/or government of one nation (Israel) is equivalent to saying “I hate all Jews” now, is it? Bloody oath, Jason, I expected better of you than that. By extension, does your own rip on Mahathir Mohammad as “the safari suit-wearing dictator of a third world country” mean you hate all Malaysians or (to be really excessive) all Muslims?

Update: Over at Hot Buttered Death, Jason has admitted that “it was an unjustified extrapolation”.

This blog seems to discuss little else but blog awards, and this post is not going to change that. You see, I’m one of the 150 lucky panelists who will shortlist the finalists in this year’s Bloggies. I’ve been given these categories to consider:

• best meme,

• best article or essay about weblogs,

• best british or irish weblog,

• best latin american weblog,

• best non-weblog content of a weblog site,

• best weblog about music,

• best web development weblog,

• best topical weblog,

• best community weblog, and

• weblog of the year.

Feel my wrath!