Ahh. Democracy…

To choose from a couple thousand candidates for one that might come close to your chosen position on the problems that face a country.

How I long for that much freedom.

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What can you say about a civilization where people zip from one solar system to the next as if they were changing their socks but where a woman fails to register for an ultrasound, and thus to realize that she is carrying twins until she is about to give birth? Mind you, how Padmé got pregnant is anybody’s guess, although I’m prepared to wager that it involved Anakin nipping into a broom closet with a warm glass jar and a copy of Ewok Babes. After all, the Lucasian universe is drained of all reference to bodily functions. Nobody ingests or excretes. Language remains unblue. Smoking and cursing are out of bounds, as is drunkenness, although personally I wouldn’t go near the place without a hip flask. Did Lucas learn nothing from “Alien�? and “Blade Runner�?—from the suggestion that other times and places might be no less rusted and septic than ours, and that the creation of a disinfected galaxy, where even the storm troopers wear bright-white outfits, looks not so much fantastical as dated? What Lucas has devised, over six movies, is a terrible puritan dream: a morality tale in which both sides are bent on moral cleansing, and where their differences can be assuaged only by a triumphant circus of violence. Judging from the whoops and crowings that greeted the opening credits, this is the only dream we are good for. We get the films we deserve.

The general opinion of “Revenge of the Sith�? seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, “The Phantom Menace�? and “Attack of the Clones.�? True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.

This is a beautiful photo weblog…

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Grandsons are condemned to life-long terms as slave laborers alongside their grandfathers, both equally helpless in the brutal surroundings. Prisoners are arbitrarily murdered by security guards. Women suffer from forced abortions at the hands of unlicensed doctors. Newborn babies are beaten to death. And sons and daughters are publicly executed in front of their mothers.

This is not the story of an age of slavery from centuries past or of a survivor of Nazi Germany’s Holocaust. It is what is happening at this moment inside the gulags of North Korea. The stories of gulag survivors are often too horrible to believe for the citizens of civilized countries. If one were to have the opportunity to speak with a survivor of a North Korean gulag, what they would reveal might be well beyond the threshold of the listener’s imagination.

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The concentration camp is a kind of closed town where a number of camps are linked together by a road. At least two of the camps, Hoeryong and Hwasong in Hamkyong Province, are larger in area than the District of Columbia. All the gulags are located in remote and desolate mountain areas to further their anonymity and isolation to foreigners and dissidents. Presently, there are six gulags known to the outside world where it is speculated that some 150,000 to 200,000 inmates are imprisoned.

The most striking feature of the gulag system is the philosophy of “guilt by familial association” or “collective responsibility” whereby whole families within three generations are imprisoned. This policy has been practiced since 1972 when Kim Il Sung, the founder of communist North Korea, stated “Factionalists or enemies of class, whoever they are, their seed must be eliminated through three generations.”

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The most dismaying thing I’ve read in a while is a Page One story in the May 17 Philadelphia Inquirer, by staff reporters Hannah Allam and Mohammed al Dulaimy, headlined, “Iraqis Lament a Call for Help.” If you want to know why we’re not winning in Iraq, and why we’re not likely to win anytime soon (if ever), there is no more brutally illustrative tale.

The story concerns Operation Matador, last week’s clash between U.S. forces and foreign jihadists in the desert villages of western Iraq. Officials have portrayed the operation as a grand success. Allam and Dulaimy depict it as a grave disaster.

For months, they report, Iraqi tribal leaders in the area had formed a vigilante group called the Hamza Forces to stave off the Islamic extremists streaming across the Syrian border. Outnumbered, at least three of the tribal chiefs asked the Iraqi defense ministry and the U.S. Marines for help.

Rather than respond in a coordinated fashion, U.S. forces blazed in with armored vehicles and helicopter gun ships and simply pummeled the place. Fasal al-Goud, a former governor of Anbar province and one of the sheiks who had asked for assistance, told the Inquirer, “The Americans were bombing whole villages, and saying they were only after the foreigners.”

Villagers who returned after the fighting were stunned to find entire neighborhoods destroyed. Men who had stayed behind to help were found dead in shot-up houses. Over 100 jihadists were killed, but so were a lot of Iraqis fighting on the side of the Americans, to say nothing of several bystanders caught in the crossfire.

Fasal al-Goud now says he regrets calling for help. Allam and Dulaimy heard confirming accounts and similar sentiments from two other tribal leaders, who asked not to be named because the jihadists (who, it seems, weren’t expelled entirely) are still holding some tribesmen hostage.

This story is depressing in two ways, beyond the obvious horror of needless death and destruction. First, a number of encouraging news stories have appeared recently – including a column in today’s Washington Post – about a surge of creative, new thinking inside the U.S. military: a revival of counterinsurgency doctrines, training in small-arms tactics, instruction in Arab languages and culture, and so forth. Yet, at least in the short term, nothing seems to be changing. From Fallujah to Ramadi and now to the desert villages around Qaim, our commanders ultimately fall back on the big kaboom. Leveling towns, bombing every suspicious target in sight�this is not how hearts and minds are won or how persistent insurgencies are defeated.

Second and more disheartening still, U.S. officials have realized for some time now that a crucial strategic task in this war must be to separate Iraq’s Sunni nationalists from the jihadist fighters in their midst. Most nationalists despise the U.S. occupation, but many also resent the jihadists, whose presence they tolerate either out of fear or as (in their bitter, dispossessed eyes) the lesser evil. The trick for American policymakers is, 1) to distinguish the nationalists from the jihadists (the passive abetters from the active enemy); 2) to drive a wedge between them; and 3) to kill and defeat the latter without alienating the former.

Operation Matador offered a golden opportunity to try out both categories of new thinking: a) smarter counterinsurgency tactics that b) distinguish and separate the nationalists from the jihadists. Here was an unusual, perhaps unique, case of real Sunni tribal leaders asking us to come in and help them fight the common enemy. And we bungled it by confusing victory with mere firepower and by brushing aside – not even consulting with – a serious group of aspiring allies.

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Tom Wilson is faced with a problem many city administrators would envy: How to spend $1.5 million on a bus stop.

Wilson, Anchorage’s director of public transportation, has all that money for a new and improved bus stop outside the Anchorage Museum of History and Art thanks to Republican Sen. Ted Stevens – fondly referred to by Alaskans as “Uncle Ted” for his prodigious ability to secure federal dollars for his home state.

Wilson is prepared to think big.

The bus stop there now is a simple steel-and-glass, three-sided enclosure. Wilson wants better lighting and seating. He also likes the idea of heated sidewalks that would remain free of snow and ice. And he thinks electronic signs would be nice.

“It is going to be a showpiece stop,” Wilson said.

He acknowledges the money has put him in an awkward position.

“We have a senator that gave us that money and I certainly won’t want to appear ungrateful,” he said. At the same time, he does not want the public to think the city is wasting the money. So “if it only takes us $500,000 to do it, that’s what we will spend.”

That is still five to 50 times the typical cost of bus stop improvements in Anchorage.

The money was contained in a $388 billion spending bill passed by Congress last November, when Stevens was head of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Citizens Against Government Waste has ranked Stevens No. 1 every year since it began calculating lawmakers’ proficiency at bringing home pork in 2000. In 2005, Stevens brought home more than $645 million, or $984.85 for each Alaskan, the group says.

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An ownership battle has erupted over the world’s most famous monument to love, the Taj Mahal, as it celebrates its 350th anniversary.

The magnificent 17th-century structure built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his beloved queen, Mumtaz Mahal, is owned and managed by the Archaeological Survey of India as a national monument.

But the Sunni Waqf Board, which oversees Sunni Muslim graveyards and mosques throughout India, has staked a claim to the white-marbled tomb, saying since the monument houses Muslim graves, the Taj belongs to it.

The Taj in Agra in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh contains the tombs of Shah Jahan and his queen along with other tombs.

Contradicting the Muslim claim, a hardline Hindu outfit, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council), says the Taj Mahal’s builders constructed it after demolishing a Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva, one of the most important gods in the Hindu pantheon.

The Hindu group says the monument should be declared a temple and adds the key to the mystery lies in a sealed basement in the Taj that it says contains the “pillars and artefact of a temple”.

How about everybody takes their own religion, and shoves it?

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Oud-premier Kok heeft woensdagavond in het tv-programma NOVA burgers met klem opgeroepen ja te stemmen voor de Europese grondwet. Volgens hem heeft de nieuwe grondwet voor Nederland belangrijke voordelen, met name op het gebied van de aanpak van internationale criminaliteit, een gezamenlijk asielbeleid, economische welvaart en sociaal beleid.

De grondwet versterkt volgens hem de positie van de nationale regeringen ten opzichte van de Europese Commissie.

Kok zei de zorgen van burgers over Europa te begrijpen. Veel mensen zijn bang dat de grondwet de positie van Nederland uitholt. Ook bestaat er angst bij burgers dat de kloof tussen hen en de politiek alleen maar groter wordt. Kok zei dat juist de grondwet die problemen kan helpen oplossen.

Ach, groter kan die kloof toch niet worden. En Wim, ik ben echt niet bang dat de grondwet de positie van de Nederlander uitholt. Wat ik wel weet, is dat de positie van de Europeaan met de grondwet geen fuck voor stelt. Regel eerst gewoon ‘s dat de Europese Commissie een democratisch gekozen instituut wordt, dan praten we verder over andere problemen in de huidige versie van de grondwet. En een grondwet kies je maar een keer, dus ik wil het wel graag goed geregeld zien voordat ik “Ja” zeg.