Manning the Snowy Barricades

I have several friends who are Ukrainians, Russians and Caucasians, living here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I love spending time with my Soviet expatriate friends. Every so often they throw together a party that goes late into the night. I get invited as the only native-born American to these gatherings, to drink the most insane vodka I have ever had, all the while eating roasted potatoes and preserved herring served on newspaper. These parties are impromptu, ending at three in the morning with one of the women playing guitar, lustily singing sad music. The other guests sit around and hum along, or listen enraptured. You'd never believe they drank so much vodka.

In my mingling, I have noticed there are two kinds of Soviet expatriates when it comes to politics. The first kind of expat is politically animated. I've had countless intense conversations---no, debates---with these people, who are genuinely interested in the world. They want to know what I think as an American, and tell me what they think as new U.S. citizens. The other kind of expat shuns politics, pushing it away as far as possible. That kind of attitude is probably a holdover of the hopelessness of the Soviet political mindset. They're usually a little older, and remember the Soviet era---it was pointless to talk politics, because you could affect nothing anyway. "Have another shot of vodka, you crazy Amerikanyitz, and be quiet about war and Boosh. Poidyom!" The little glasses slam down on the counter. Oof---this stuff would kill me if it weren't for the spuds and butter in between.

I mention all of this because I have been getting forwarded email from their friends who are trading protester shifts at Independence Square in Kiev. It is quite inspiring to read how confident they are, and that any predilection they might have for hopelessness is supplanted with optimistic expectation.

read the rest! »

Simon's China and East Asia Highlights: 2004-11-30

Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This Regional Briefing focuses on East Asia, courtesy of Simon World.

Asia by Blog is a twice weekly feature at my blog, posted on Mondays and Thursdays (the latest edition is here and the full archive here). You can be notified by email when it is updated, just drop me an email at simon-[at]-simonworld-[dot]-mu-[dot]-nu. The following is a digest of highlights from the past month's Asia by Blog series.

The round-up has four key areas of focus:

• China, Taiwan & Hong Kong: Politics, Economy & lifestyle, History sport & culture, Information
• Korea & Japan
• South-East Asia
• Asian Miscellany

read the rest! »

The (Sort Of) Conclusion to the Elephant in the Room

I apologize for my prolongued absence, as I have been removed from Internet access for pretty much the entirety of Thanksgiving break. Unfortunately, I come back to the most wonderful time in any college student's existence - term papers and finals! But I do want to address a number of points that were brought up during my absence and try to wrap things up with respect to where we stand on Iran. I apologize for rather shortened form that this analysis is going to be and hope to go back and expand on it in the future.

• Iran vs. Pakistan: Why I don't think the example holds up
• Contra Kenneth Pollack (among others)
• What I Think Should Be Done

read the rest! »

An Open Letter to Professor Juan Cole

Dear Professor Cole:

I was offended and upset by MEMRI's threat to sue you for libel. Free speech matters, and the notion that anyone would use the courts to try and intimidate someone for speaking - simply because their views differ - threatens the liberty that I deeply believe in.

I posted my position on my blog.

We're on opposite sides of many current issues. I disagree - strongly - with many of your views on the Middle East, but on my blog I publicly challenged MEMRI and personally wrote Yigal Carmon, telling him that what he was doing was wrong.

read the rest! »

Values

LA Times editor Michael Kinsley tees off on values in Sunday's Opinion section. "To Hell With Values," he titles his column.

Boy, there is just so much wrong with this column that I hardly know where to begin. But since I've been dinking around with a piece on values, and he's offered me a neat entree, I ought to be grateful.

But I'm not. I'm actually depressed, because I do believe that his attitudes are fairly mainstream within the group that shares my political values and goals, and that because of them, we'll wind up both doing badly (as in getting our asses kicked) and doing bad (as in doing things that don't meet our real goals).

read the rest! »

Good News from the Islamic World, vol. 3

Arthur Chrenkoff has his roundup of Good News from the Islamic World. This is the 3rd installment.

Democracy and Sitzfleisch

Rachel Belton of the Truman Project (which I blogged approvingly about) emailed me this morning to point me at co-founder Matthew Spence's op-ed in the Sunday L.A. Times.

I'd already clipped it for blogging, not because it was from the Truman Project, but because Spence made three key points that I hear rarely and agree with completely. I'd like to see these points made over and over louder and louder, until they become truisms. And I'm happy to align myself with someone who makes them.

read the rest! »

Iraq Report, Nov 29/04

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. This briefing is brought to you by Joel Gaines of No Pundit Intended and Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.

TOP TOPICS

• Despite calls for a six month postponement, the January elections in Iraq will go on. Look for calls to postpone to grow louder as election day nears.

• The fighting in Fallujah is over for now. Take a good look at the men who fought there and what they saw in two separate accounts of 2-2 Infantry's battle for the city. (Hat tip: Unqualified Offerings.)

• M. Simon of Power and Control also points us to the letter up at 2Slick's Forum from a soldier who served in the Battle of Fallujah.

Other Topics Today Include: "Charlie's Angels" in Iraq; Al Qaeda in Iraq; thoughts on Iraq's elections; Japan considers leaving Iraq; oil-for-food update; war advice from the Left; being like James.

read the rest! »

Vote Pat Tillman for SI Sportsman of the Year

Sports Illustrated is conducting it's annual fan poll for Sportsman of the Year. This year there was indeed one athlete who stood out. Blackfive explains why you need to head over and vote for Pat Tillman, who is currently only in third place.

Winds has covered Ranger Tillman, who walked away from a multi-million dollar NFL contract to serve his country and was killed in Afghanistan earlier this year. He needs to win one last time - and you can help. Please do.

A Legacy of Heroes: The 4 Chaplains

You will rarely read a story of such extraordinary interfaith courage, honour, and brotherhood. In modern times, it has added another element: reconciliation.

And the legacy lives on:

"In the late 1990s, in an effort to reinvigorate the legacy of the four chaplains, David Fox, the nephew of Chaplain George Fox, and Rosalie Goode Fried, the daughter of Chaplain Alexander Goode, created the Immortal Chaplains Foundation. Other descendants of Chaplains Goode, Fox, and Poling (Father Washington's could not be located) soon became active in the organization, which is dedicated to promoting the values of the Immortal Chaplains by presenting two annual Awards for Humanity each February on the anniversary of the Dorchester's destruction. Awards are bestowed upon individuals who have demonstrated courage in helping others at their own risk, regardless of racial, religious, or other differences. Recipients since 1999 have included Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa; Charles David, an African American Coast Guardsman from the Comanche who died of pneumonia after repeatedly jumping into the freezing waters to rescue Dorchester survivors; Omri Abdel Al-Jada, a young Palestinian man who died while saving a Jewish child from drowning in Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee); and the villagers of Le Chambon, France, who saved 5,000 Jews from the Nazis...."

You'll want to read the whole thing, of course.

Cooking, Food, and Eating

I don't get to cook enough (or, really, do enough that involves actually doing and making things as opposed to talking about doing and making things), and so Thanksgiving is always a treat for me since it's so food-centered.

I like making new stuff, but am kind of pinned in that a) it's always about turkey; b) my family will kill me, cook me and eat me if I don't make my usual stuffing; and c) they will also serve me on a platter, John-the-Baptist style if I don't make my apricot/sweet potato casserole.

They're a tough, but devoted audience.

So I thought I'd share the recipes here, after some brief comments on cooking.

read the rest! »

Sufi Wisdom: Patience

by T.L. James of Mars Blog and Man of Two Worlds. Part of our weekly Sufi Wisdom series.

This week we have a Maxim from Sa'adi's classic Gulistan. This Maxim is a reminder that what can be obtained quickly or easily is not necessarily valuable:

Whatever takes place quickly is not permanent.

I have heard that eastern loam is made
In forty days into a porcelain cup.
A hundred are daily made in Baghdad.
Hence thou seest also their price is vile.

A little fowl issues from the egg and seeks food
Whilst man's progeny has no knowledge, sense or discernment.
Nevertheless the former attains nothing when grown up
Whilst the latter surpasses all beings in dignity and excellence.
Glass is everywhere, and therefore of no account,
But a ruby difficult to get, and therefore precious.

The Incredibles, Zell Miller and Other Worthy Ways to Spend Time

I've got work piled up to my ears, but I've been going stale lately so I'm taking a break to relax and catch up on some non-academic books and movies. Want to spend a few good hours? Make a cup of coffee, brew your favorite tea or whip up some hot chocolate and settle down with one or more of these books- they're all great reads. But don't get too cozy -- make time to go see this really fine animated film, first!

(my reviews at the links)

A National Party No More
Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces
The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created

I've mostly been reading research papers and books with titles like Grounded Research, Structural Equation Modeling and The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Collaboration lately. I did find time for these two books recently, though ... better bedtime reading (at least for people saner than me!):

Anti-Americanism
Absolutely American

read the rest! »

The Winds Troll Doctrine Debate

A.L. and I have been having a conversation about troll policy on Winds, and it's time to bring y'all into it. Here's the crux of our debate:

If people A.L. and Joe both really trust (and it's not a large circle) warn us of trolls on their blogs or blogs they frequent, should we should act pre-emptively and ban the trolls in question, or wait for a pattern of bahaviour to show up here on Winds itself before a ban can be justified?

Use the comments section to let us know what you think. The 2 sides' arguments, in brief...

read the rest! »

Where's The Gratitude? Hypocrisy

Sadly, in spite of my support for Juan Cole's right to blog without an attorney at his side, he decided to ignore my post in his roundup of blogger support.

Possibly it might have had something to do with my critical remarks about him; as TalkLeft has shown us, my Left - the one that believed in free speech - isn't so much a part of the left any more.

UPDATE: Click through for an explanation of my withdrawal of support for Prof. Cole

read the rest! »

Robi & Nitin's Subcontinent Survey: 2004-11-26

Winds of Change.NET Regional Briefings run on Tuesdays & Wednesdays, and sometimes Fridays too. This Regional Briefing focuses on South Asia, courtesy of Robi Sen and Nitin Pai of The Acorn

TOP TOPICS: THE KASHMIR POTBOILER

• Contending that solving Kashmir is easy, and can even be achieved in a day's sitting General Musharraf proposed a simple solution to the problem of Kashmir. This generally involves India ceding some (Muslim-majority) territory to Pakistan in return for peace. India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh took his time, but then ruled out any solution that would involve another Partition along religious lines. While India remains hopeful that globalisation and trade between India and Pakistan could help spur the peace process, Pakistan's Prime Minister reiterated that his country's position remains 'Kashmir before trade'.

• General Musharraf, who will keep his epaulettes after all, and is not accustomed to being rejected, promptly declared that he might need to review what he put on the table since the vibes from India were just not right. The good news is that India and Pakistan are firmly engaged in bilateral talks and confidence-building measures; the bad news is that any eventual solution of Kashmir involves one of the two countries having to swallow an unacceptable bitter pill.

• India began withdrawing troops from the state of Jammu & Kashmir, as part of its internal rapprochement process. The separatist elements remained churlish and refused to meet the visiting Indian Prime Minister, in spite of the state getting an unparalleled $5.3 billion economic development package.

• Rather strangely enough the Hizbullah has a seemingly reasonable solution but you can be assured that when they say Kashmiris they actually mean Jihadis. Despite the continued talks between the two countries the insurgency continues and the death toll mounts.

Other Sub-Headings Today Include: What Condoleezza Rice means to South Asia; India adopts Bush strategies in tackling terror; Pakistan makes some important decisions; Bangladesh and refugees; Shifting Alliances; Looking for good South Asian blogs?

read the rest! »

Weblog 2004 Awards: Nominations Underway

Wizbang's 2004 Blog Awards are in their nomination phase. Thanks to Dave Schuler for submitting one nomination for Winds in the Group Blog category, and if we qualify we now have one nomination in the Canadian blogs category as well. Feel free to drop by yourself and add any nomination votes you think appropriate (note that in the TLB Ecosystem, Winds is in the Top 100 blog category).

Can't believe there are no Centrist blog, Business blog, WarBlog, or MilBlog categories. Anyway, I also took the time to recognize and nominate a few of our own authors:

read the rest! »

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Just a word to everyone out there in the blogosphere: co-bloggers here at WoC, writers on other blogs, readers, commenters and all. I am most of all thankful for the well-being my family this Thanksgiving, as I imagine we all are.

But I'm also thankful for this community, and for what it means for our future together and our children's future.

Don't eat too much, don't drink and drive, don't splash in puddles, wear your galoshes, and today of all days - especially - find something nice to say about everyone. Like it or not, we're all in this together.

Spirit of America Challenge: Join Our Team!

As some of you know, we've formed a team called "A Mighty Wind" (we're also considering "Pajamahdeen", let us know what you think) for Spirit of America's blogosphere challenge.

Why that name? Because the focus of our efforts is the project to create Arabic blogging tools and hosting, so that more bloggers like Alaa, Zeyad, Big Pharaoh, The Religious Policeman, Chan'ad Bahraini et. al. can work to join us and make "citizens media" and the blogosphere a tool of freedom in their own societies.

Together, we and they can be a mighty wind for change. You can contribute money here.

We strongly believe that having one unified, thematic team of bloggers promoting the "Viral Freedom" blog tools project will really raise its visibility and give it the momentum it needs to succeed.

If you have a blog, we're asking you to become part of our team. Make a difference. Click here to join the team, and help our friends in the mideast join the pajamahdeen!

Blogosphere Akbar!!!

Finally, A Good Use For PowerPoint

Thanks to Dean's World, we can link to a PowerPoint deck by soldiers in Fallouja - outlining what they found and faced there (some of it not for the squeamish).

Talk about an example of citizen's media...let's make sure to pass this around widely.

An ex-Punk's Take on Political Hate

Ex-punker and obvious X-files fan "Cigarette-Smoking Man" penned a post in late October called "Quarantine the Hate." It explained the damage done, the odd dynamics of hate itself that reach beyond the affiliation using it, and what to do about it within a civilized society. Interesting, on the money, thought provoking. Right up until that final paragraph.

Exposing the nature of the hate that has gripped your opponent can be very effective. We have a whole topic category here called "Hatred Rising", and believe it's a big issue. Still, there are pitfalls. To reduce your risk of crashing and burning on such an important mission, just follow a few tips...

read the rest! »

The Cure For Hurtful Speech Is Not The Courts

There have been three incidents that I know of where bloggers have been threatened with libel litigation for what were essentially political speech.

Luskin v Atrios

Niewert vs. Wizbang (in this case, Niewert just advocated libel suits against Wizbang)

And now, we can add another - MEMRI vs Juan Cole

I publicly oppose all three.

read the rest! »

New Energy Currents: 2004-11-24

The election has come and gone, but energy issues are, you know, 'here to stay.' While oil prices may be settling down, international efforts to transform our energy systems and reduce greenhouse gases are just starting to gear up, as the Kyoto Protocol and a new Methane to Markets initiative (spearheaded by the US) come into effect. In addition to the industrialized world's efforts to clean up its own massive energy systems, the non-industrialized world's need for new energy sources is growing steadily - and, in China's case, so explosively that it will have a dramatic and lasting affect on the global environment and international politics.

Fortunately, there's a lot of hard work being done by scientists, engineers, and (sometimes) policymakers around the world to come up with a wide variety of potential approaches that will compete with as well as compliment each other as we slowly transform our energy systems. To help you keep track of these developments, 'New Energy Currents' is a broad but by no means comprehensive compilation of noteworthy news in energy technology and policy from the past month (by John Atkinson, of chiasm).

• Biofuels
• Fossils
• Hydrogen
• Nuclear
• Solar
• Space
• Water Power
• Wind
• Hybrid Vehicles
• Related Policy Issues

read the rest! »

Winds Readability Feedback, v2.0

Hi all, just got back in from Tucson, Arizona. Thanks to the crew for keeping things humming without me.

I've been dissatisfied for a long time re: how easy Winds is to read - not so much from layout, as from the fonts used and how easy it is for the eye to follow along through our posts. Our goals are:

1. Little effort required to follow with the eye as you read.
2. Type large enough so people over 35 can read it.
3. Harmony with our layout so it looks visually pleasing.

I've modified the styles for the main blog body section. It's not elegant because there are parts of the blog using a different style set, but I'm focusing on the posts themselves right now. I ask you...

• Are the new fonts an improvement, based on the above criteria?
• How do they hold up in longer posts like Dan's recent bit on Iran?
• Any alternative or additional template/layout suggestions to help us reach the above goals?

UPDATE: Trebuchet font has been hurled per reader suggestions - the experiment with Georgia and serifed fonts for blog posts begins. Comments?

The Elephant in the Room, Part 5

This is something of a way of summarizing all of my most recent posts with respect to Iran and the logical conclusions (Now Updated!) that we can derive from recent events there.

On Wednesday As soon as possible, you'll get my policy recommendations for how we deal with Iran, as well as the reason why I believe that Iran is more of a threat to US interests than is Pakistan. This will also touch on some of the reasons why I believe Pollack's argument is more or less flawed, entirely apart from my earlier pop psycho-analysis of why I think he wrote The Persian Puzzle.

read the rest! »

Thinking About The Unthinkable

Smash asks us to think about the unthinkable (if you haven't read the book - 'Thinking About the Unthinkable' by Herman Kahn, you damn well should).

Smash lays out a reasonable set of alternatives as strategies for response.

Personally, I think the responses would be harder to bring into focus.

read the rest! »

Build Freedom, One Blog At A Time

Spirit of America is launching a new service that will provide easy-to-use blogging tools translated into Arabic, along with free hosting. It's the first in a series of projects they say they want to do to open the doors to democracy in Iraq and elsewhere, by allowing average men and women to be heard.

It's a great project, and we're proud to be a part of a friendly competition among blogs to raise the funds to support it.

So click here to donate, or if you have a blog of your own, click here to join our team.

Tim Oren and I have both talked a lot about the impacts of citizen's media. Let's promote some citizen's media that builds freedom by letting Iraqis have their own voices.

Where Do I Sign Up?

Patrick Belton, over at Oxblog posts about a new group calling itself 'Truman Democrats'; I definitely want to know more about this, but on a quick scan, I want to sign up...

The co-directors of the Truman National Security Project just sent us their interesting thoughts toward how Democrats can gain public trust on security as the party of principled strength; among other things, they explore the relationship between Realism and Wilsonianism within the Democratic party, as well as the putative values gap. Since one of the directors of the Truman Project happens to be my wife, Rachel, I'm happy to include their thoughts in full here.

It’s been just two weeks since the polls closed, and Democrats have accepted that their defeat stemmed from losing the values-debate. But in the first minutes after the election, conventional wisdom served up another theory for the Democratic loss: Americans don’t trust Democrats to protect them from terror. These voting blocks were only three points apart. But these theories are in danger of becoming mutually exclusive. Instead, they need to be unified. Americans want a candidate with a strong moral vision, and a commitment to their security. For Democrats to win elections again, we must embody strength, with principle.

Call for Information: Arabic and Farsi Machine Translation

Jeff Jarvis unfortunately buries his lead in a post re Spirit of America fundraising: Both SixApart (typepad) and Blogger have agreed to help put together useable Arabic versions so the circle of Middle East bloggers can be expanded beyond those with English language skills. Tip of the hat and best wishes to them, as well as SoA's own project to produce an Arabic blogging tool.

So let me do the VC thing and ask the "lead the duck" question: Assuming we can foster an Arabic blogging community, how do we stay connected across the language barrier? Yes, there are dedicated folks working at manually translating blog posts and comments at places like Sarmad's Road of a Nation Forums, but it's a grind and slows the action to a crawl.

One part of the answer is to throw cheap cycles at the problem, that is, machine translation. Yes, I'm fully aware of the limitations of the technology, but a cheap something is better than an expensive nothing. And we can all find common ground in making fun of the translation software, at the least.

To that end, I'd like to ask the help of readers to identify best-of-breed technology sources for translation between English and Arabic and Farsi. I'm already aware of Language Weaver and Meaningful Machines on the Arabic to English front. Since much of the development in these areas has been funded (quite openly) by DARPA and In-Q-Tel, there's more available for the path into English than the other way, but we're going to need both, so please send in any tips. The current state-of-the-art has moved to corpus based translation, but an older rule based system would be better than nothing. Right now, this is a technology survey, we'll worry about how to get the systems integration and business deals done later. Have a clue for me? Drop it in the comments.

The Elephant in the Room, Part 4

Sorry about the break, I've been busy working on a paper and a test on the subject of who started World War 1 (and anyone says Gavrilo Princip I'll bite their head off ;) that has taken me away from keeping track of the Iranians and the fighting in Fallujah. Just in case nobody else notices it, there's a pretty good piece from Knight-Ridder on the issue of Omar Hadid, Zarqawi's Darth Vader in Fallujah and a former member of Saddam Hussein's personal guard it would seem. And it seems that our pal Mike wasn't being as candid as one might think during his appearance on various media outlets concerning Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda.

But back to Iran ...

read the rest! »

Good news from Iraq

Note: Also available at the "Opinion Journal" and Chrenkoff. Many thanks to James Taranto and Joe Katzman for their strong and continuing support for the series, and thanks to all of you who suggest links, comment, publicise, spread the news and link to it.

In the fortnight that saw the massive assault by American and Iraqi troops on Fallujah, the flare up of violence elsewhere throughout the Sunni Triangle, the execution of Margaret Hassan by her kidnappers, not to mention the controversy over a Marine shooting dead a wounded insurgent, it's hard to believe that anything positive might have also been happening in Iraq.

Yet, fortunately, neither Fallujah nor even the Sunni Triangle are the whole of Iraq, just as violence and bloodshed are not the whole story of Iraq. Lt Col Victor Zillmer of Lindale, Texas, recently volunteered to return to Iraq as the commander of the Army Corps of Engineers in Baghdad. His impressions of the country today seems to be shared by many in Iraq outside of the media:

"As I expected, it was not a total war zone with massive explosions and burning vehicles everywhere as commonly portrayed in the press. It was typical Baghdad, only the traffic was even worse. The economy must be doing much better over here, for the streets are jammed with cars of every description, with many of them newer and better condition than when I left in May. As compared to 18 months ago when I first arrived, the traffic has increased a hundredfold."

As the old joke goes, sometimes a cigar is just cigar. In Iraq, contrary to the impression one can often get from watching the news, for most part a car is just car, not a carbomb, and as Lt Col Zillmer says, there are a lot of them driving around. Here are some stories of Iraqis trying to, often under difficult circumstance and against great odds, journey towards a better and more normal life.

• Society
  
• Economy
  
• Reconstruction
  
• Humanitarian Aid
  
• The Coalition Troops
  
• Diplomacy and security

read the rest! »

Iraq Report, Nov. 22/04

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. This briefing is brought to you by Joel Gaines of No Pundit Intended and Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.

TOP TOPICS

• The elections will go ahead despite the continuing violence in Iraq. 30 January is the scheduled date for countrywide elections to determine the first true Iraqi government.

• Fighting has erupted in Baghdad again after a raid on a mosque last Friday. Zeyad has a chilling report from his home which is now part of the battlefield.

Other Topics Today Include: checking Fallujah after the fighting leads to al Qaeda find; reports from Fallujah; Kevin Sites' ordeal; the fighting moves to Mosul; rebuilding Fallujah; malnutrition in Iraq; Kurdish political party terrorists; calls for election boycotts; Sunni persecution(?).

read the rest! »

War In A Time Of Information

Kevin Sites has a commentary up on his blog about the video he shot, the background of the events, and his justification for releasing the footage.

It's a good read, and I suggest you go check it out.

It points out a subtle, but interesting thing to me.

read the rest! »

Sufi Wisdom: The Effects of Education

by T.L. James of Mars Blog and Man of Two Worlds. Part of our weekly Sufi Wisdom series.

This week, we have another story from Sa'adi's classic Gulistan, this time concerning the effects (or rather, lack thereof) of education:

A vezier who had a stupid son gave him in charge of a scholar to instruct him and if possible to make him intelligent. Having been some time under instruction but ineffectually, the learned man sent one to his father with the words: 'The boy is not becoming intelligent and has made a fool of me.'

When a nature is originally receptive
Instruction will take effect thereon.
No kind of polishing will improve iron
Whose essence is originally bad.
Wash a dog in the seven oceans,
He will be only dirtier when he gets wet.
If the ass of Jesus be taken to Mekkah
He will on his return still be an ass.

Hatewatch Briefing 2004-11-19

Welcome! This briefing will be looking hard at the dark places most mainstream media seem determined to look away from, to better understand our declared enemies on their own terms and without illusions. Our goal is to bring you some of the top jihadi rants, idiotarian seething, and old-school Jew-hatred from around the world, leaving you more informed, more aware, and pretty disgusted every month. This Winds of Change.NET HateWatch briefing is brought to you by Lewy14. (Email me at my handle "hatewatch" here at windsofchange.net). Past briefings and posts on related topics can be found here. Entil'zha veni!

HIGHLIGHTED TOPICS

• Religious Hate: Full translation of Van Gogh killer’s bloody post-it note; Germans fear Islamist hate while Islamist fears German BO; Official Saudi forum documents intra-Islamic hatred in curricula; British Muslim activist: hostages "legitimate targets"; Iraqi Christians intimidated during Ramadan; German scholar of the Koran threatened; American student charged with aiding jihad in Somalia; Blasphemy in Pakistan.

• Idiotarian Seethings: Anti-Muslim violence in Holland; Guardian: Van Gogh had it coming; “Prominent Muslim Pundit” applauds van Gogh murder; Dutch Foreign Minister’s strained definition of peace and tranquility; More British documentary revisionism on terror?; Anti-Semitism Zionism in Spain; Garrison Keillor’s unfunny wit.

• Race and Culture: Norway forbids Jews to commemorate Kristallnact; Intimidation by pro-Palestinian group at SFSU; Anti-Semitic vandalism in Dublin; Nazis in ’08 election.

• A Hopeful Note: French Muslim group issues secularist manifesto; Arab reformers propose to outlaw hate.

read the rest! »

Really, I'm Trying To Feel Bad About This

Despicable litigant and bad cartoonist Ted Rall was dropped by the Washington Post yesterday.

Apparently he has fans, and on his blog, he thoughtfully posted the email of the poor sap at the WaPo taking complaints on this: washingtonpost@mailnj.custhelp.com

Somehow, I have a feeling you'll know what to do.

I believe the correct spelling is "congratulations."

You Decide

Via Vodkapundit (how fun that is to say!), a blog that deserves wider attention - but positive, or negative, I can't yet say.

Meet the Irate Savant - either a truly odd person writing a personal journal, or, more likely I believe, an exercise in literary style from an aspiring fiction writer.

Earlier this evening I resorted to what has heretofore been a certain cure for boredom or anxiety: the Marian Keane commentary on the Criterion Collection Notorious, always rewarding and worth any number of film classes (and, I recall, even more compelling on narcotics), and yet I find my mind wandering to my neighbor and our most agreeable adventure of the night before. While navigating the treacherous strait of courtship is an exigent, wearisome, and inevitably disappointing task, I am nevertheless more and more resolved to seize the helm and steer into those waters once again.

Stoppard on Voting And Values

I was looking for a quote I recalled about voting, in Tom Stoppard's play 'Jumpers'. And of course, once TG found my copy, I sat down and read the whole brilliant thing. I saw it on Broadway in the mid-1970's, and still remember how thrilling and funny it was.

So here's something to keep in mind as we talk about voting and technology:

George: Furthermore, I had a vote.

Dotty: It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting, Archie says.

and since I couldn't stop reading it and am a fast typist, something to keep in mind while I work on my post on 'values' (not italicized because it's too darn long):

George: Professor McFee's [the murdered jumper/gymnast/Professor of Logic] introductory paper, which it is my privilege to dispute, has I think been distributed to all of you. In an impressive display of gymnastics, ho ho, thank you, Professor McFee bends over backwards to demonstrate that moral judgments belong to the same class as aesthetic judgments; that the phrase 'good man' and 'good music' and prejudiced in exactly the same way; in short that goodness, whether in men or music, depends on your point of view.

read the rest! »

Against a Cold Civil War

Recently, Salon published an essay by Andrew O'Hehir entitled Welcome to the New Cold War. Mr. O'Hehir claims that a cold war is evolving between Europe and America. Taking him at his word, the continents are drifting apart as they evolve towards divergent ideological polities.

O'Hehir characterizes Europe as a wholly separate political universe spinning out of orbit from the United States, evolving into something smarter and with more to be optimistic about than America, which is still mired in history:

While America has been gnawing on its own innards for the last decade or so, feuding internally over White House blow jobs, flawed elections, the threat of terrorism, the ill-fated war in Iraq and an angrily polarized public discourse, Europe has quietly been cohering into an impressive whole, the world's newest superpower. For all its layers of bureaucracy and all the challenges it faces, the EU has forged a harmonious society on a continent that spent most of history at war with itself.

"Cold war" is a state of political conflict using means that fall short of actual armed warfare. Mr. O'Hehir is saying that transatlantic politics are characterized by distrust, incredulity and misconception: the United States seeks to retain global dominance; the nations which make up the European Union provide a burgeoning and preferable alternative Western world power. As this new cold war evolves, the divide between the US and EU will deepen, with vast energies on each side directed at subverting the other. Viewing the US and the EU in the grip of an emerging cold war has dangerous implications for the West's survival. We should question the accuracy of defining the transatlantic relationship as a cold war.

read the rest! »

A Ratchet Works Only One Way

I don't have a lot of time to write about this, but thought it shouldn't go without comment.

In the Business section of today's Los Angeles Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik criticizes the Governator.

That's OK, there are a fair number of things to criticize him for. But note the implicit policy tilt in this quote:

A big risk would have been to suggest that the property tax regime created under Proposition 13 requires a serious updating; Schwarzenegger silenced his one advisor who raised the issue, Warren Buffett. (To his eternal discredit, Buffett put up with the muzzling.)

read the rest! »

Winds of War: November 18/04

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Thursday's Winds of War briefings are given by me, Colt, of Eurabian Times.

TOP TOPICS

• The Battle of Fallujah is all but done. Your comprehensive briefing is here. The latest controversy involves a US Marine shooting an unarmed man in the head. A former Navy SEAL explains the possible motive here.

• There's a bumper pack of Dan Darling posts this week, looking at Iran's involvement in the Iraq insurgency and with al-Qaeda: One, two and three. Don't miss four tomorrow.

• A declassified US intelligence report from 1998 sheds more light on al-Qaeda. They cite Chechnya as a good location to establish themselves in because they believed it to be "unreachable by strikes from the West." It also highlights their intense interest in obtaining WMD, and stirring ethnic tensions to cause chaos.

Other Topics Today Include: Iran Reports; Domsetic briefing; Syria funds terror; Chechens in Pankisi; Russians take out Arab camp; Saudis release amnesty terrorists; Egypt releases 700 Islamists; Chadian rebels defect; breakthrough in Uzbek terror investigation.

read the rest! »

No elephant in the room entry today ...

Unless one of you wants to come down to Missouri and help me write up a paper on the causes of WW1. Did you know that the Hungarians were one of the initial suspects for having assassinated the Austrian Archduke? I sure as heck didn't.

In any case, this Washington Post article (registration req'd) should be more than enough to keep the comments boxes busy on such wonderful topics as Iran, MEK credibility, etc.

See you in 24 hours ...

The Elephant in the Room, Part 3

Continuing on from my previous screeds on the subject of Iran, its activities in Iraq, the implications for US policy that one can draw from them, and why Iran is a greater threat to the United States than Pakistan.

read the rest! »

On The Dangers of Contractions

...or why it might be better to say "Gladly The Cross I Would Bear" as opposed to "Gladly The Cross I'd Bear." Say it out loud folks...just a little classical music humor from KCRW KUSC radio.

Update: David Cohen was paying closer attention to his radio dial than I was to mine...thanks for the catch, Dave!

Two Books and a Quote

I've been reading a bunch of books this week.

Two of them are bloggable, and I'll get them in good time (paying work comes first).

They are Occidentalism, by Ian Baruma and Franklin and Winston, by Jon Meacham.

Franklin and Winston offers good lessons even for those who - unlike me - don't see parallels between the threat presented by Islamist totalitarianism and Nazi totalitarianism.

read the rest! »

The Battle of Fallujah: A Comprehensive Briefing (v3.6)

"Wellington once observed that "nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won." Nothing about it is nice; but better them than us."
  -- Wretchard the Cat

As many of our readers know, there's a very significant battle going on in Fallujah right now. Want a one-stop shop that will help you keep track of what's going on as things develop, and link you to some of the smartest background analysis around so you understand the why and how, as well as the what? OK, you got it. One power-packed briefing, in depth and in detail.

Nov. 13/04: Evariste, of Discarded Lies, Obsidian of Obsidian Order, and Bill Roggio of the fourth rail have now joined in to help keep this briefing up to date. If you have a news item we've missed, please post it in the comments or email it to evariste, who will be updating this post periodically.

• Visual Aids
• Background & Context: Before the Battle
• Background & Context: The Bigger Picture
• Background & Context: The Military Dimension
• Background & Context: The Press' Performance
• Reports: Opening Moves - And So, It Begins...
• Reports: Into The Mid-Game
  • Nov. 09
  • Nov. 10
  • Nov. 11
• Reports: Entering the Endgame
  • Nov. 12
  • Nov. 13
  • Nov. 14
  • Nov. 15
  • Nov. 16

This briefing will be updated as excellent new sources are found and events continue to develop. Readers are welcome to suggest additional items for inclusion via the Winds of Change.NET Comments section.

Nov 16, 2004

Highlight of the Night: Bill Roggio at the fourth rail writes in Into the Sunni Triangle that the task now ahead of us is nothing less than the conquest of the Sunni Triangle (not reconquest, conquest)-because that had been the 4th ID's job, and it was denied permission to deploy from Turkish territory. By his lights, we serendipitously stumbled into a situation that, while hard, gives Iraqis a prominent role in the ultimate pacification of their country and is therefore a good thing.

Political solutions to the problems in the Sunni Triangle were sought by the Iraqi Governing council and the Interim government, but these attempts have failed. The Coalition and Iraqi government has demonstrated to the Iraqi people that the political options have been exhausted and has assembled Iraqi security forces able to participate in operations to establish government control. While the delayed timing of the pacification has fueled the resolve of insurgents, it has allowed the efforts to crush the insurgents to take on an Iraqi face. The Iraqis are committing to restoring order to their nation and have a stake in the outcome. While there is little doubt more American troops would have helped with restoring order sooner, it is beneficial in the long run with having the Iraqis actively participating in the restoration of order and their own liberation from the brutal coalition of terrorists and Saddam loyalists.

He has much more.

read the rest! »

Where's Smiley?

OK, this is weird.

The man who set himself on fire in front of the White House yesterday was apparently a Yemeni national who had been an undercover informant to the FBI in antiterrorism cases, including one or two major ones, according to the Washington Post.

read the rest! »

We Are All Ambassadors Now: The Age of Citizens' Diplomacy

Let me tell you why you should care about the Smith-Mundt Act.

Huh? Bear with me here. Back in 1948, not long after the beginning of the Cold War, a short addition to the US Code was passed (the link is the amended version). Its purpose was to forbid the domestic dissemination of content created by the overseas information arms of the US government, such as the Voice of America and U. S. Information Agency (USIA) generally. Records of the time suggest a two fold logic for the Act. An apparent concern was the commercial media organizations' fear of government competition in the content domain. Larger was making sure that the government could not turn a propaganda apparatus on its own citizenry, which still retained a keen memory of the Nazi propaganda machine. Cynics then and since have suggested a third reason: to hide the devious machinations of America's own overseas propaganda from its citizens.

read the rest! »

The Horror of War, In Our Living Rooms

None of us know what happened inside the mosque in Fallouja. The reality of war - of sending fragments of metal through men's bodies to injure or kill them is horrible for any sane person.

It is not the least horrible thing, though.

read the rest! »

The Elephant in the Room, Part 2

Continuing on with my post from yesterday, I'm going to continue dissecting the US News and World Report article on the subject of Iran's meddling inside Iraq among other things.

Also, in the comments yesterday a number of readers noted that I didn't mention the comparable threat posed by Saudi Arabia in yesterday's piece. That's true, though I did mention Syria's harboring of the surviving Iraqi Baathist leadership and financiers (now subordinated to their Syrian counterparts, in contrast to the al-Douri Baathists who have folded into Zarqawi's organization). If you want to know about Saudi Arabia, I have plenty of back posts on the subject - Riyadh Bombings Retrospective is an old favorite of mine and I will no doubt write more and more on the subject of the Magic Kingdom in the future.

Right now, however, I'm talking about Iran.

read the rest! »

I'm Making Popcorn

The rumors are that Condoleeza Rice will be the new Secretary of State. I've always been impressed by her (although I did think her testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee was so-so), and note that this makes her a likely contender for the Republican nomination, if she's interested in it.

Which in turn brings to mind two interesting thoughts.

read the rest! »

A Hundred Thousand Here, A Hundred Thousand There

Middle Guy is doing his college applications right now, and mostly plans on going to a University of California campus, probably Berkeley or San Diego. So I'm watching news from the university system with some interest; particularly as it comes to student fees - which increased 14% this year.

They're still good value, as U.C. runs one of the best university systems in the world. It should be better, and public policy would be served by making it better and adding to the social capital of our state, except for two problems: the state government is too broke to spend the money it should on improving the quality of the education there and broadening the availability of that education to students whose parents - unlike me - don't have the means to send them there.

That's the liberal argument.

read the rest! »

The Elephant in the Room, Part 1

For a long time, people like myself and a great, great, many others have been talking at length about the fact that the Islamic "Republic" of Iran poses a dangerous threat to the United States, both inside Iraq and worldwide. I noted nearly a year ago and continue to stand by my belief that if the United States suffers a major terrorist attack, nuclear or otherwise, Iran is almost certain to be singled out for US retaliation by virtue of the regime's decisions. Wretchard noted the grim reality of the situation and unfortunately little has occurred to change that analysis over the last year.

Yet one of the things that people continue to ask me is, if all of this is true, where is the evidence from government officials?

Where, indeed.

This series of analyses will deal specifically with the US News article as well as another published in the Los Angeles Times some time ago. I will also attempt to explain in my final analysis why Iran is a greater threat to the United States than Pakistan, a comparison that some have made in the past as a means of criticizing US Iran policy or lack thereof.

read the rest! »

Good news from Afghanistan

Note: Also available at the "Opinion Journal" and Chrenkoff. Many thanks to James Taranto and Joe Katzman - and to all the readers and fellow bloggers - for support in spreading the good news.

Badam, a Pashtun nomad, might have been the oldest voter in Afghanistan's recent presidential election. While birth records are sparse in his country, Badam's mother had once told him he was born in the year of "zeym" (the inundation), as 1894 is still remembered in collective memory - making Badam 110 years old.

"Badam is old enough to remember some of the crucial moments in Afghanistan's early twentieth-century history. During the reign of the modernising King Amanullah [1919-29], he fought under Khan Haji against British forces. 'At that time I was a handsome boy and I had the strength to fight against British,' he said.

"Now, by voting, Badam said he felt as if he had struck another blow for Afghan independence. 'I know it's not appropriate for my age, but I danced the Atan [a traditional Pashtun dance] today because it's one of the happiest days of my life,' he said.

"He said he could count such days on the fingers of one hand. 'The first was on my second wedding day, which was a love match, and the second was five years later, when I became father of a son,' he said. 'The third is today, when I decide my own destiny'."

Millions of Badam's younger countrymen - and women - shared that experience with him just over a month ago. After decades of war and oppression, which left one million dead, forced some five million to flee across borders, and utterly devastated and impoverished the country, the Afghans are finally finding some reasons to be happy. Largely out of the international media spotlight, Afghanistan continues to progress along the winding road to peace, freedom and democracy. Here are some snapshots from the past four weeks of that journey:

• Society
  
• Reconstruction
  
• Humanitarian
  Aid
  
• The Coalition Troops
  
• Security

read the rest! »

IRAQ REPORT,15 NOV/04

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. This briefing is brought to you by Joel Gaines of No Pundit Intended and Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.

TOP TOPICS

• The fighting in Fallujah is now being described as a hornet's nest. US Forces have the remaining insurgents trapped between the hammer swinging down from the north and the anvil set up on the southern edge of the city. The resistance is fierce as the insurgents have realized they cannot escape. There are also reports of another large battle occuring in central Fallujah. "They were playing the game of surrendering, but had their AKs under their cloaks."

• US Forces are reported as occupying the entire city of Fallujah, with no large pockets of resistence apparent. It appears insurgent activity in other cities in the Sunni triangle and in hotspots in Northern iraq has risen dramatically and may call for rapid deployment of troops to those areas in the near future.

Other Topics Today Include: much more on Fallujah; could things get worse across Iraq; Russia offers an economic olive branch to Iraq; a new Iraqi political party appears; overseas ballots will be available for Iraqis too; kidnapped French journalists' driver found; Iraq the Model celebrates its first birthday.

read the rest! »

Sufi Wisdom: In the Street of the Perfume Sellers

by T.L. James of Mars Blog and Man of Two Worlds. Part of our weekly Sufi Wisdom series.

This week's entry comes from Idries Shah's Tales of the Dervishes:

A scavenger, walking down the street of the perfume-sellers, fell down as if dead. People tried to revive him with sweet odours, but he only became worse. Finally a former scavenger came along, and recognized the situation. He held something filthy under the man's nose and he immediately revived, calling out: 'This is indeed perfume!'

What is happening here?

Joke: Holy Roller

This one comes from our Cairo correspondent Tarek Heggy. I liked it.

After getting all of Pope John Paul's luggage loaded into the limo, (and he doesn't travel light), the driver notices that the Pope is still standing on the curb. "Excuse me, Your Holiness," says the driver, "Would you please take Your seat so we can leave?"

-- "Well, to tell you the truth," says the Pope, "they never let me drive at the Vatican, and I'd really like to drive today."

read the rest! »

Fallujah Report & Shabbat

So, what to do about the Fallujah Special Report this Saturday?

Per my own personal policy, I won't be working on it. However, other team members may choose to add to this briefing, and if they do they can increment the version number to 4.x and move the post into a Saturday date. This is a very rare occurrence at Winds of Change.NET, but troops are fighting and dying for us and Remembrance Day just passed, so I'll make the exception.

If you would especially like to take on this role but aren't yet a team member, we can talk about that, too. Email me quick, "joe" here at windsofchange .net, or use the Comments.

Finally, Joe Joe live his home in Tuscon, Arizona next week, so folks who want to help move the Fallujah report forward while I'm away will be more than welcome for a few days, not just one.

Libertarians and Obligation

Commenter TJ Madison left a lengthy comment on the Veteran's Day post, laying out a what I take as a libertarian case against honoring the veterans of American wars. I haven't had a lot of success in starting constructive arguments with people who don't believe that society exists at all, but because I said I would, here goes.

His quotes from my post are preceded by >>.

<<First, you have to love America.

This is an odd statement. "America" is simply a geographic area filled with 300 million people. It's too large and too diffuse for anyone to "love" in a meaningful sense.

That's silly. America is also an idea, or a group of ideas. As noted by Lincoln in the Lyceum speech I mentioned last year:

We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them--they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors.

read the rest! »

North Korea: What Now? What Next?

Robert Koehler, who lives in Seoul and does our outstanding Eyes on Korea regional briefings, has taken the time to translate a couple of Korean media interviews with American scholars Nick Eberstadt of AEI and Institute for International Economics Senior Fellow Marcus Noland.

I found both interviews uncontroversial and usefully informative as a going-forward overview, but apparently they've caused a bit of a storm in South Korea. Marmot begins to explain why, but this STRATFOR analysis re: Bush's re-election and its implications around the globe really nails it.

TalkLeft: Two Emails and a Post

There's a simple thing that I believe blogging is about: honest argument and debate. We bloggers aren't usually in the forefront of direct reporting, but we ought to make up for it in intellectually honest argument.

Sadly, not everyone agrees with this.

Jeralyn Merritt, at TalkLeft, is a passionate advocate for progressive values through the law. I read her blog for some time. And then she proposed a silly comments policy, and I wrote her this email:

read the rest! »

Why She Couldn't Vote Democrat

I was pointed to a marvelous post the other day from a young, college-educated woman who discussed why the Democratic Party didn't get her vote in 2004:

"I tried so hard to give you guys a chance. I'm young, I'm not extremely religious, and I'm supportive of liberal ideals like fighting for higher wages, stopping outsourcing of jobs, and standing up for the little guy. I wanted to vote Democratic this time, more than I can possibly put into words. You just didn't give me the option."

She then goes on to describe, in detail, 2 very important things that Democrats desperately need to read, understand, and take to heart:

1. What it would take to get her vote, and the votes of people like her; and
2. The extraordinary volume and sheer vileness of the abuse that someone who wanted to vote Democrat felt subjected to by the party.

To summarize, she lists 7 key reasons for her non-vote:

read the rest! »

Firefox Browser v1.0 Released!

Mozilla.org's Firefox is a great browser. It's also fast, safe, open source, ready for easy download at under 5MB, and stable enough for prime time release. I use it myself, with the Oh, Canada! or Noia 2.0 eXtreme themes added. 20% of Dean Esmay's readership uses it, too.

Consider joining us. Try it for the tabbed browsing alone - your Net surfing will never be the same.

Vote Fraud? The Geeks Speak.

Here's a fairly definitive analysis of voting machines and polling patterns (pdf format) by the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project that pretty clearly debunks the 'Diebold Vote Fraud' rumor (hat tip to The Opinionated Bastard who's probably from Dabney - where I'm told all the Ayn Rand fans live).

Summary:

read the rest! »

Winds of War: November 11/04

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Thursday. Winds of War briefings are given by me, Colt, of Eurabian Times.

TOP TOPICS

• Yasser Arafat is dead. His rotting corpse will be put in a crate, shoved in the back of a cargo plane and sent to be buried in the most famous rubble heap in the Middle East: the al-Muqata compound in Ramallah. Before then, there will be a memorial in Cairo. Europe will not send heads of state, but foreign ministers, to attend. The reactions have varied. Kofi says he was 'deeply moved' upon learning that the career terrorist had died in his bed. Tony Blair sent his condolences to Arafat's family. Jacques Chirac called him a "man of courage". Hamas, the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades and Islamic Jihad all hold Israel responsible for Arafat dying of something Zionist like being old and unhealthy.

• In the Netherlands, the Dutch are moving against known terrorist cells. Politically, they've called for Hezbollah to be listed as a terrorist organisation in the European Union. Several suspects have been arrested in raids across the Netherlands. In the Hague, two police officers were wounded by grenades. Dan Darling has an analysis of the likely perpetrators.

• It's on in Fallujah. So far, so good. Joe Katzman has a continuously updated page of news from the city. Another good resource is The Adventures of Chester, the blog of a former Marine who served in Iraq.

Other Topics Today Include: Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade is back!; Russians nail assassin; U.S. warns of Uzbekistan attacks; Singapore guards facilities; PFLP wanted to hit French; al-Qaeda may disintegrate; GSPC murders innocents; caucasian suicide bomber in Iraq; IAEA: nucelar terrorism a threat (you read it here first); Bahrain Ansar al-Islam threatens U.S. and U.K.

read the rest! »

Remembrance Day, 2004

(see also Remembrance Day/ Veteran's Day 2005)

Today is Veterans Day in the USA, and Remembrance Day in the British Commonwealth countries. Too many others have said it better than I can, so I'll just let them do so:

• Armed Liberal's 2003 post about Veterans Day, liberalism & patriotism is exceptional. Be ye left or be ye right, you needed to read it. Then, in 2004, he improves on it.

• This is the best page for Canadian Remembrance Day resources. The famous poem "In Flanders Fields" is here, along with the poetic reply to it and many informative links. My favourite: please scroll down a bit and read the "Wear a Poppy" poem on the right.

• Want to support your country's currently-serving troops? Our compiled How to Support the Troops post gives you lots of options, for a number of countries. Including a few option