Isebrand

In new Falklands dispute, Obama needs to stand up for our ally Britain

President Obama needs to stand by Britain in the new Falkland's dispute. Britain's claims of sovereignty are legitimate.

The people of those islands have a uniquely British-Americas identity. They utterly reject Argentine identity. We should respect that. As the Winnipeg Free Press pointed out:

Definitely not included among Argentina's concerns are the welfare and wishes of the Falkland Islanders themselves. A vast majority of them wish to remain a British dependency or become directly British. [Argentine Foreign Affairs Minister, Jorge] Taiana made it perfectly clear his government believes the residents have no say in deciding the status of their home.

Argentina is of the Americas, as is the United States. But the United States is also of Britain in ways cultural, political, and legal to an extent that many Americans themselves often do not realize. Also, the legacy of a two World Wars and Cold War partnership between Britain and the US should not be held cheap or thrown away lightly by President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton. (The Rhodes Scholarship that Secretary of State Clinton's husband got was about the relationship between which two countries again?) Th there is the problem of Argentina's government itself. Why should President Obama or his Secretary of State in this dispute support not Britain, but rather Argentine President Cristina Fernández who is disquietingly friendly with US-loathing Hugo Chavez and is doing what the President and countless members of his Administration rightly criticized President G. W. Bush for having done: drumming up nationalism at home with saber-rattling for the sake of re-election votes?

British soldiers are fighting and dying in Afghanistan right now. In fact, British toll from the Afghan conflict just this week past the British military toll of the Falklands War. And US neutrality in this new Falklands dispute is not how America should say that it is are grateful.

(Photo: Liberation Day ceremony at the Liberation Monument in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands.)

Happy Birthday, Wayne!

"The Effects of Including Gay and Lesbian Soldiers" in foreign militaries

Until January, 2000, when Britain lifted its gay ban following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, gay and lesbian soldiers were prohibited from serving in the British Armed Forces.

The first ten months of the new policy have been an unqualified success. The military’s own classified, internal assessment at six months found that the new policy has “been hailed as a solid achievement” (Ministry of Defense, 2000e, p. 2). There have been no indications of negative effects on recruiting levels. No mass resignations have occurred. There have been no major reported cases of gay-bashing or harassment of sexual minorities. There have been no major reported cases of harassment or inappropriate behavior by gay or lesbian soldiers. There has been no perceived effect on morale, unit cohesion or operational effectiveness. The policy change has been characterized by a “marked lack of reaction” (Ministry of Defense, 2000e, p. 2).

via www.palmcenter.org

It's time to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell. The above summary is from the Palm Center, which released a new study on February 23, 2010. The new study concludes:

that foreign militaries that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly achieved success by implementing an inclusive policy quickly and under decisive leadership. The principal author of the study, “Gays in Foreign Militaries 2010: A Global Primer,” is Dr. Nathaniel Frank, Senior Research Fellow at Palm, who last year published the book, "Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America.” Also contributing to the report was top expert on the British military, Dr. Victoria Basham, as well as a retired Captain in the Canadian Forces and several social scientists who study gender, sexuality, and military personnel policy.

(Photo: June 25, 2009, Israeli soldiers march in the gay pride parade in Jerusalem. Associated Press.)

"Ford Catches Flak at LGBT Community Center"

Saying his position on marriage equality was one he had “evolved on and matured on,” Harold Ford came to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center [on Feb. 25th, 2010] to talk to the gay community, but received a raucous and often hostile reception.

via www.gaycitynews.com

The anti-Ford protesters were disruptive; but, they were so largely with facts and solidly based on Ford's record. This was not a situation of protestors rabbiting on based on misinformation or lies ("Death panels" anyone?), but about Ford's pernicious actions--rhetoric and votes--relative to gay Americans, for which he's never really paid a political price. Until last night. I'm a tempermentally conservative person usually easily annoyed by disorder in almost any form; (I'm even a former parliamentarian for a NYC Community Board). But, I'm shedding no tears for Ford, and think the handwringing (like this) about etiquette is a bit excessive, too.

(Photo by Scott Wooledge via Pam's House Blend.)

The Graphic: Lord Acton and "all the premonitory signs of a coming crisis"

When in London in 1993, I bought some full-page grapics from miscellaneous editions of the late 19th-century publication, The Graphic. Only afterwards did I examine some of the flip-side articles.

Here's an example: the Saturday, February 23, 1895 edition, under “Topics of the Week.” (I’ve added links to less common terms and individuals. The image at right isn't the edition in question. It's a photo I found on the Internet; it's of an 1879 Graphic cover.)

THE NEW REGIUS PROFESSOR.----It can scarcely be doubted that the Appointment of Lord Acton to the chair of Modern History in the University of Cambridge will excite some wrath in certain quarters.  For the appointment of a Roman Catholic to an important professorship at either of the old Universities is unprecedented, if we are not mistaken, for the last two hundred years, if, indeed, a similar examples can be found subsequent to the Reformation.  But the critics of Lord Rosenbery’s latest exercise of patronage should remember that the abolition of religious tests as a condition of admission to the Universities more than a quarter of a century ago has thrown those national institutions open to all Her Majesty’s subjects without distinction of creed.  If, then, it is open to every man to matriculate, whether he have a conscientious objection to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles, or whether, with Theodore Hook at Oxford, he is ready to sign “forty, if you like,” it follows logically that the same freedom applies too the appointment to the highest positions in the University.

Under "TROUBLE ON THE NILE."

Mahomedan fanaticism is being fanned, with or without the Khedive's connivance, against unbelieving foreigners ; English soldiers and sailors are not only insulted, but brutally assaulted ; the stupid cry of " Egypt for the Egyptians" makes itself heard at Cairo and Alexandria as it did just before the Arabi rebellion ; in fine there are all the premonitory signs of a coming crisis.

The original punctuation is preserved. The use of double quotation marks (what the British refer to as inverted commas) as above is not now standard in British English, but is standard in American English. Also, as you can see by clicking on the image of the cover, the date style follows the standard American format, not what is now the standard British format.

Gay Soldiers Don’t Cause Disruption, Study Says

A comprehensive new study on foreign militaries that have made transitions to allowing openly gay service members concludes that a speedy implementation of the change is not disruptive. The finding is in direct opposition to the stated views of Pentagon leaders, who say repealing a ban on openly gay men and women in the United States armed forces should take a year or more.

The study, “Gays in Foreign Militaries 2010: A Global Primer,” is to be released Tuesday by the Palm Center, a research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The Palm Center has no official position on “don’t ask, don’t tell,”

via www.nytimes.com

(Photo: Which soldier is gay? Can't figure it out? Guess what? The enemy can't either.)

Using the Cleveland Fed's "trimmed" inflation measures

it suggests that deflation may not be too far in the future. But beyond that, there’s a growing belief among sensible economists that we need higher, not lower inflation. What we’re doing now is moving in the wrong direction, with real interest rates rising even as the nominal rate remains at zero.

We may have to start calling the Fed chairman Bernanke-san, after all.

via krugman.blogs.nytimes.com

No tool is perfect. The CPI is another measure. It shows something slightly different than what the Cleveland Fed's trimmed inflation measurement shows. But, deflation is what Krugman's worried about pretty much since the Great Recession started, so he's going to be sensitive to probable indications that deflation's likelihood is increasing.

15 Openly Gay Conservative MPs in the Next British Parliament

the British Tories believe that including gay people in the British Conservative Party, supporting their commitments to one another, and celebrating their service to their country in the military are essentially conservative ideas and are integral to the Tory plans to win the coming British election.

via andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

The text of a speech by Nick Herbert, the Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, can be read here.

Staff Sergeant Leblanc (USMC)

I was summoned by my commanding officer and he directed me to report to OSI, Office of Special Investigation. I sat in a small room, where I waited for more than an hour. Finally, a man dressed in civilian clothes came in and introduced himself as a special agent of the OSI. He said allegations had been made against me.
“What allegations?” I asked.
“For being a faggot,” he said in those exact words.

via www.staffsergeantleblanc.com

Helmand pincer advance presses forward

In the pincer move of British, US/ NATO and Afghan forces on Marjah in poppy-rich Helmand Province, the Taliban have behaved differently in each area. In the north, as the British approached Nad Ali, the Taliban faded away and there was very light resistance. Afghan authorities charged that 35 Pakistani Taliban were fighting alongside Afghan extremists in Nad Ali.

The American and other troops that are coming into the city of Marjah itself, however, have encountered larger than expected numbers of roadside bombs and continued sniping and other harassment from the Taliban there. Pajhwok News says that Taliban subjected US Marines who had entered Marjah and were raising an Afghan flag on a city building to intense fire. The Marines riposted vigorously.

Both the British and Americans report finding large weapons and explosives caches.

This resistance in Marjah impelled the US military to fire rockets from a truck mount at what they thought was the source of attacks, but the rockets hit a civilian dwelling and killed 12 civilians, ten of them from the same family.

via juancole.com