A propos of nothing

Djibouti notes

1. There's little alcohol in this poor,mostly Muslim country and the social ether feels healthier for it. I noticed the same thing in Tehran a few years back. I expect the West to sober up in general as the career and mental health benefits become more acutely recognised. Good whisky, of course, stands alone. Perhaps I should give khat a try.

2. I don't take underwater photographs. I feel that I have nothing new to show, I don't need the extra clobber to interfere with the delight of neutral buoyancy and, above all, I'm repelled by the use of flash on fish and turtles.

3. I've put up a gallery here.

Altogether elsewhere, vast..

Djust back from Djibouti diving from a liveaboard with my number 3 daughter as buddy. The whale sharks were findable in the plankton soup and sometimes curious about us in a dolphinesque way. We looked for these, the biggest fish, in our rubber dinghies. When a fin was spotted, we headed that way fast, tumbled into the ocean and finned like hell toward the massive presence which would glide by in glory. Oh, boy! One day helicopters of the French Foreign Legion acted as our spotters in between amphibious exercises. Vive la France! I take back my sneer about the Legionnaires' deployment to model tight-fitting shorts above their waxed and shaven legs. We didn't go within sight of the island volcano off Yemen which is on the other side of the entrance to the Red Sea, but a combined diving and land trip to Yemen is now on my agenda.

The Horn of Africa

I fly to Djibouti tonight for a week's diving where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean. My nr 3 daughter will be my buddy. She's a far more knowledgable diver than I. I'm just a warm-water, follow my leader guy. She trained in the cold water and strong currents around the UK. We'll be looking for whale sharks, the largest fish, which congregate in an algae-rich bay. I also hope to see the volcano which blew up last week on an island off Yemen. This is my third liveaboard trip in the Red Sea. The ease of access from the UK is striking with 5 hour direct flights to the relevant ports of Hurghada and Marsa Alam in Egypt. Djibouti's a little further, but still just a normal magic carpet ride away. Poof! The morning will find us in an enclave surrounded by Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen along with 2,000 soldiers of the French Foreign Legion, but I add without irony that I'll find it refreshing to interact with friendly Moslems. On liveaboards there's nothing to do except dive, eat, sleep and read, so the vacation doesn't get ruined by sightseeing apart from a final 24 hours ashore to de-fizz before the flight home.  A couple of weeks after I get back I'll be in Escalante, Utah, with London and New York in between. The best thing of all is that I don't deserve my lifestyle and haven't earned it by hard work. Toodlepip.

Ruminating on Romney

John Hawkins has a good piece against Romney for GOP nominee. Polls suggest that many Americans, especially Christians, especially Christians who'd vote Republican, will not vote for a Mormon. Mick's thoughts are here and I don't buy this poll just as I don't buy polls which suggest that Americans want to surrender in Iraq. It's contextually-manipulated polling, asking questions in a setting which suggests the preferred answer and then headlining that answer at the expense of other answers which would severely modify the policy takeaway from the poll.

Anyway the GOP nomination process is a narrow-mesh filter for the religious-test proposition that Mormonism disqualifies Romney from winning the general election. My instinct is that almost no-one who isn't a locked-in liberal has a problem with a man who follows his parents' religion, doesn't bring its specifics into his campaign, acts on general Christian principles, is personally tolerant, refuses to disavow his faith and has a great family. All religious sects have their cultish aspects, The Church of Liberalism most of all.

Hawkins is right that the MSM will love to mock Mormonism's absurdities, but they'll lash Giuliani's love-life. I bet if a distinguished US general were running for the GOP, they'd call him traitor. A non-RINO needs a rhino's hide whatever his background.

Hawkins deals fairly fairly with Romney's supposed flipfloppery. He concludes that Romney is probably a conservative but

The idea, I suppose, is that conservatives should get him into the White House and then we'll find out where he really stands.

Well Romney's policy statements are clearly conservative, his personal life is clearly conservative, his record as governor of a liberal state is clearly conservative. I don't really have a problem with a President who has evolved into conservatism - isn't that normal?

Hawkins notes that Romney trails in national polls:

Once you get outside of Iowa and New Hampshire, where he has been spending much of his time and campaign war chest, Mitt's numbers are frighteningly bad.

Another way to say that is that Romney appears to be the candidate who can campaign most effectively. If Romney is nominated he'll get the national exposure. If you believe like Hawkins that Romney's a great campaigner, you have to believe that's a winning combination with exposure.

My imaginary vote still goes to Romney over Giuliani because of his competence and stability, tho Giuliani as President sounds dandy too. I'd change my mind if Romney started to trim left.

An afterthought is that Giuliani is far more likely to have secrets in his personal life which are being hoarded by the media. This is a critical election (they all seem to be now that the Democrats have become so treacherous) and should be the dirtiest on record. Romney may have an important edge if you believe that a candidate's personal life can translate to votes. Tho I have many daughters, I'm a dunderhead on female psychology, but I'd have thought Romney's looks and demeanour would appeal to women more than Giuliani's and far,far more than Hillary Clinton's and without the preponderance of the female vote the Dems are sunk. I imagine I'm an expert on male psychology and I can't imagine any man, anywhere, ever voting for Hillary Clinton over Romney (or Giuliani) unless he's a member of some liberal group (government employee, racial identity group, lawyer, academic, student...), but that may be my wishful thinking.

PJ Harvey

Having seen Prince, I found that another music hero was giving a single concert in London, so I coughed up for PJ Harvey. This little genius has been a star for about 14 years. I prefer her early albums, especially 4-Track Demos, but she is a knockout live act. Here's an early clip from the Tonight Show...can't imagine what the Leno audience made of her but they seemed to like it.

Bollingers' bollocks redux

This is a comment on Dave's comment - "the invite should never have occurred" - on my comment on Mick's post 'Bollinger Bollixes his Brief' to the effect that confronting A'jad was a decent deed performed by a hypocrite who should not have invited this A'hole to speak. It's a post so as to include the video:

Reasonable men (and we too) can disagree whether Bollinger got his multiculti knickers in a twist with the invite. I do agree he's a hypocrite because he opposed the ROTC at Columbia, but I'm glad that he invited A'jad and I'm glad at his take-down which was wholly effective. Suppose Hitler, Stalin or Mao, with the world watching, had been confronted to their faces with a similarly levelheaded summary of their scumminess. That would have brought them into ridicule and consolidated resistance. It would also be an inspiration in history. No invite, no takedown, no autobeclowning, no inspiration.

"I am only a professor who is also a university president. Today I feel all the weight of the modern civilised world yearning to express its revulsion at what you stand for. I only wish I could do better."

Let right and wrong confront each other in public. Christ said "the truth shall make you free." He didn't add "but the truth is reserved for courteous non-hypocrites in private."

The practical upshot of Bollinger's invite has been to break the liberal meme that BigBad Bush must be deterred from attacking the tolerant, Islamic, more-sinned-against-than-sinning resistance-fighters in Iran so as to steal their oil (tho I would be happy to steal their oil). By speaking against homosexuality in PoliticallyCorrect-i-bad U, NYC, A'jad committed a mortal sin on liberal soil and that's cooked his goose with the bien pissants far worse than his implied threats to nuke Israel.

Bollix (American); Bollocks (English); Cojones (Spanish).

Dwarf, poison, antidote

A'jad's speech at Columbia U had these good outcomes.

1. President of Columbia, Lee Bollinger's policy of banning the ROTC (because of Clinton's dont-ask-don't-tell ordinance re gays in the military), but inviting to campus the guy who murders American soldiers who volunteered to protect America (even the bit which is Columbia U) - that policy is brought into acute focus.

2. A'jad made himself ridiculous as well.

I suggest that Bollinger now take his ROTC banning credentials to Tehran U and there devote a speech to the glory of overt homosexuality in the military.

More seriously, I suggest that Bush himself propose a visit to Tehran for the sole purpose of speaking about freedom and democracy versus an obscene theocracy. A town hall type event would be fine.

Rudy v Fred v McCain v Mitt - the issue

John Hawkins emphasizes national polls. Mick emphasizes early primaries. Powerline hops about. Hugh Hewitt's in love.

Comment is free, but facts are sacred:

to find a clearly bald candidate beating a rival who was not so afflicted, you have to go back to the 1880 election, when James Abram Garfield beat the retired Civil War general Winfield Scott Hancock by fewer than 10,000 votes.

Columbia U is right, Bush is wrong

I have no problem with a New York college giving a platform to a fascist like A'jad or Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot. Sure the academics' motives are treacherous, but I credit the American crowd with the wisdom to see diabolism for what it is - laughable.

I have a problem with the US government allowing free movement in NYC to a murderer of US troops.

A'jad is right

This from the Iranian news agency:

International rules require the United States, as the host to the UN headquarters, to issue visa for other countries' envoys to the United Nations and to refrain from disrupting the operations of the world body.

Due to similar incidents in the past, Iran has called on the UN member states to change the UN headquarters from New York to Geneva or a more convenient and impartial place.

Actually move the UN to Tehran. Ok it might inconvenience the next Australian PM when he wants to get sloshed in a strip club while on an official visit to the UN, but what's that compared to the sheer appositeness of the world's foremost forum for hypocrisy and anti-Americanism re-locating to Iran.