Friday, May 30, 2003

On the Banks of the Salton Sea. The title of this L.A. Times article is "A Dangerous Slum Sprouts in the Desert" and the writer is quite obviously horrified. "They call it 'Duroville,' a haphazard village of roughly 4,000 people and dozens of unregulated businesses that has sprouted from the desert scrub in just two years. It was named for its founder, Harvey Duro, a husky member of the Torres-Martinez Band of Cahuilla Indians, who said he just may double the size of the place. Whether anybody can stop him remains to be seen. Duroville sits on sovereign Indian land, beyond the reach of state and local laws. So, although one county official says it is the worst and largest substandard housing development of its kind in the region, there's nothing she can do about it." (I'm not really sure what's supposed to be more horrifying, that these people are living in substandard conditions, or that there's nothing the state can do to stop them.) [Hit & Run] Here's a rare bit of good news from California. The linked article requires registration, unfortunately. 10:27:26 PM    comment () Comments Revive Doubts Over Iraq Weapons [AP World News] European critics of the Iraq war expressed shock Friday at published remarks by a senior U.S. official seen as playing down the importance of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as a reason for going to war. In an interview in the next issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz cited bureaucratic reasons for focusing on Saddam Hussein's alleged arsenal. "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in a Pentagon transcript of the interview. If those European critics are really shocked, they must have been asleep for the past year. It's been obvious all along that the government was using "weapons of mass destruction" as one of many excuses, which were changed or played up whenever it was convenient. 3:38:20 PM    comment () Singapore success against Sars. The World Health Organisation takes Singapore off its list of areas affected by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. [BBC News | Front Page | UK Edition] I've noticed that several times now when the WHO says something about the situation getting better in some location, there's another story a few days later about the situation suddenly getting worse. We'll see if the pattern holds for Singapore. 2:39:30 PM    comment () Iraqi Intifada?. An intifada is brewing in Iraq, and American troops are about to stop being liberators and will be forced to embrace their inner occupiers. And many Americans don’t give a damn. Twenty soldiers have died in fighting or accidents since May 1, the day Bush declared the major fighting over. Five have died this week alone.One was killed yesterday in an ambush on a military convoy about 25 miles north of Baghdad, according to CENTCOM “Two US soldiers died and nine others were wounded Tuesday in a second day of guerrilla attacks in the flashpoint town of Fallujah, west of... [Back In Iraq 2.0] After commenting on the ignorance of reporters who believe government press releases, it's nice to read this excellent article by someone who actually pays attention to what's going on. 2:29:01 PM    comment () Calling a chair 'a cow' will not make it go 'Moo'. With Orwellian double-think, the preamble to the European Convention begins with a quote from Thucydides: Our Constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. So should we not vote on it? It is about as 'democratic' as the Warsaw Pact Treaty. Paul Staines... [Samizdata.net] Does the proposed EU Constitution allow the 80 million people of Germany to vote on taxes and spending for the 60 million people of the UK? If so, then it truly does capture the essence of democracy. 6:25:32 AM    comment ()

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