Al Jazeera 2:38 video

Jim Geraghty transcribed a portion of the report:

REPORTER: It may be hard to believe, but working in this tiny Internet cafe in Gaza City may just be one of Barack Obama’s biggest fans.

Before every U.S. primary, 23-year-old Ibrahim Abu Jayyab gathers 17 of his friends to try and rally support for Obama’s campaign in the U.S.

So why does a young Palestinian living in Gaza spend so much of his time and money on an election thousands of miles away?

ABU JAYYAB: [translated] It all started at the time of the U.S. primaries. After studying Obama’s electoral campaign manifesto, I thought, ‘this is a man that is capable of change inside America.’ As for potential change in the Middle East, he can also do that. I think he can bring peace to the area, or at least this is what we hope.

REPORTER: And the game plan? Ibrahim and his friends call random numbers in the U.S. before every primary to deliver one simple message:

ABU JAYYAB: [in English] Elect Senator Obama. I will change. I will achieve… the justice in the Middle East.

How about the endowments of major universities? Massachusetts is thinking about doing just that.

WSJ:

Massachusetts legislators, demonstrating a growing resentment against the wealth of elite universities in tight economic times, are studying a plan to levy a 2.5% annual tax on the portion of college endowments that exceed $1 billion.

After all, as Jim Manzi notes:

Viewed purely in terms of economics, Harvard is really a $40 billion tax-free hedge fund with a very large marketing and PR arm called Harvard University that has the job of raising the investment capital and protecting the fund’s preferential tax treatment.

Hat tip to David Nix.

George C. Scott plays General Patton Slapping a Malingering Soldier in 1943

The Wall Street Journal explains liberalism’s latest atrocity: first, cowardice is promoted to a medical condition; then it becomes possible to argue that cowards should receive medals for their war-time sufferings.

With an increasing number of troops being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (Completely undocumented journalist’s factoid – JDZ) the modern military is debating an idea Gen. Washington never considered — awarding one of the nation’s top military citations to veterans with psychological wounds, not just physical ones.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered cautious support for such a change on a trip to a military base in Texas this month.

“It’s an interesting idea,” Mr. Gates said in response to a question. “I think it is clearly something that needs to be looked at.”

In order to assist in some necessary cozying back up to liberal Jewish voters after his recent endorsement by Hamas, Jeffrey Goldberg did a softball interview with his Obamatude in the Atlantic.

Obama assures Goldberg that some of his best intellectual influences are Jewish and that he thinks Zionism is peachy keen, then he puts his foot in it.

JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy.

Referring to “infecting” is a nice touch, too.

Somehow I don’t think this interview is going to help him much in Palm Beach County.

AP:

The Marine Corps far surpassed its recruiting goal last month and could eventually be more than a year ahead of schedule in its plan to grow the force to 202,000 members.

All military services met or exceeded their monthly recruiting goals in April, with the Marine Corps signing 142 percent of the number it was looking for, the Pentagon said.

I guess the spells Code Pink cast last Friday didn’t work.

AP reports that the recent wave of coyote attacks on small children in the Greater Los Angeles is part of a larger pattern, and is now the subject of academic study.

The coyote was limping as it approached a girl in a sand box at a public park — but it was still dangerous. It snapped its jaws on the girl’s buttocks and her nanny had to pry the toddler from the wild animal.

Less than a week later, a coyote in a mountain resort town some 35 miles away grabbed a girl by the head and tried to drag her from a front yard until her mother scared it away.

A spate of coyote attacks in the fast-growing suburbs east of Los Angeles have left parents on edge and puzzled wildlife officials.

“Their aggressive behavior seems to be on the upswing,” said Steve Martarano, a spokesman with the state Department of Fish and Game. “They just seem to lose their fear of humans.” …

“We’re not sure what pushes them over the edge,” said Robert Timm, a wildlife specialist with the University of California system. “There may be no single explanation for it.” …

Since last year, there have been seven coyote attacks in the Chino Hills area, including four in which children were bitten. State wildlife officials have killed 23 coyotes to protect the public.

Timm, the University of California scientist, said coyotes behave in predictable ways when they turn aggressive such as snatching pets during the daytime or chasing joggers and bicyclists.

If people recognize these signs, they may be able to thwart an attack, he said.

Timm has created a Web site, CoyoteBytes.org, where residents in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties can report coyote bites or sightings. Scientists use the information to study the scope of the problem.

It isn’t really terribly confusing, actually. Today’s America, in the West, frequently features the close proximity of Nature in the wild with dense urban areas. Nobody in California’s cities and suburbs has the old-fashioned 12 gauge shotgun propped up behind the kitchen door ready for invading predators. Without hunting pressure to make Western predators fearful of human beings, they will inevitably grow bolder over time and sooner or later incidents of human predation will occur.

Hat tip to Frank Dobbs.

Earlier postings.

Members of today’s rising generation (for some mysterious reason) love pirates. They turn pirate movies into hits, frequent pirate bars, throw pirate parties, and as the Boston Globe explains, they even look to pirates as a political model.

Marcus Rediker, the author of the pirate histories “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” and “Villains of All Nations,” sees pirate democracy less as a means for order than as a political statement, a pointed reaction to the working sailor’s life. When pirates roamed the seas, Rediker says, it was the law-abiding merchant ships that were run like miniature tyrannies. Captains held absolute power. Floggings were routine and often deadly. When pirates recruited sailors from the ships they pillaged, they opened a window to a different kind of society – far from the one the working-class sailors would otherwise find on land or sea. Rediker argues that pirate democracy “is not about human nature at all. It’s about the specific experience of sailors and the way that they wanted to imagine a better world.”

Piracy, says Rediker, a history professor at the University of Pittsburgh, was “a fascinating, almost utopian kind of experiment.” Indeed, he says, pirate democracy was purer than what was practiced in Athens: The Greeks didn’t give slaves the vote, but pirates offered the right to everyone, black or white. (It’s probably also safe to say that pirates didn’t have superdelegates.) Before each voyage, the crew elected a captain who could be deposed at any time, as well as a quartermaster whose main purpose was to make sure the captain didn’t have too much power. A written charter outlined ship rules, which tended to prohibit theft and violence aboard and set strict rules for the presence of women. (Contrary to popular myth, Leeson, says, pirates usually set limits on drinking. “A drunken pirate crew,” he points out, “would be less effective than a sober crew.”)

Pirates even conducted a version of a fair trial, Rediker says, when determining the fate of captured captains. If any pirate on board knew the man from his merchant ship days, he could testify about his treatment. A captain who turned out to be kind was sometimes spared his life. And in a precursor of our own democratic love of political satire, pirates wrote coarse, hilarious plays that mocked the upper classes’ criminal justice system.

August J. Pollak has a very good cartoon commenting on the noticeable partisanship of the MSM’s commentary.

via HuffPo.

Yale’s Harkness Tower

Bert Prelutsky, at PJM, has a few choice remarks on presidential politics and the Ivies.

Ivy certainly looks nice, but you wouldn’t want to stroll through it. Here in Southern California, it’s common knowledge that most of our rodents hang out in the stuff. If bubonic plague ever breaks out in L.A., the source will be found lurking in the shrubbery.

What has me dwelling on ivy is my recent realization that much of what I don’t like about American politics — namely, American politicians — can be traced back to Ivy League schools. It can’t just be a coincidence that four or five universities keep spitting out presidential candidates and their spouses with the sort of regularity that Notre Dame used to turn out All American football players.

Read the whole thing.

Hat tip to Bird Dog.

Susan Estrich reads some of the handwriting on the democrat party’s wall, then tries to be optimistic anyway.

It is a thought that sends shivers down the backs of Democrats, a name that brings to mind memories of an election lost that might have been won, against a war hero once referred to in headlines as a “wimp” who won not so much by his own strengths but because of the skill of his operatives in painting his lesser-known opponent as an out of touch “liberal” who refused to salute the flag or admit his mistakes, not to mention his supposedly unpatriotic wife.

Could Obama be another Dukakis?

It isn’t just die-hard Clinton supporters who are pointing out the similarities. Even some Obama backers who believe that the nomination fight is over see the possible parallels, and are determined to avoid them, or at least try.

Fox News:

Members of the anti-war group Code Pink gathered Friday with a cauldron of flowers outside a controversial Marine Corps Recruiting Center in Berkeley, Calif., to use witchcraft to rally against the Iraq war.

Code Pink members unfurled a pink banner reading “Troops Home Now” and waved signs as they began the protest, which they promised would include incantations and pointy hats for a “witches, crones and sirens” day.

“Women are coming to cast spells and do rituals and to impart wisdom to figure out how we’re going to end war,” Zanne Sam Joi of Bay Area Code Pink told FOXNews.com.

Code Pink‘s announcement promised that Friday, May 9th: Witches, Crones, Sirens: perform rituals of leaving, cast a spell of peace and love over the station, rendering nil the recruiting of our youth to become fodder for this occupation of Iraq.

Link to earlier Code Pink vs. USMC postings.

The London Times reports, 4/26, on another ethical breakthrough in the home of the cuckoo clock.

Under a new Swiss law enshrining rights for animals, dog owners will require a qualification, anglers will take lessons in compassion and horses will go only in twos.

From guinea-pigs to budgerigars, any animal classified as a “social species” will be a victim of abuse if it does not cohabit, or at least have contact, with others of its own kind.

The new regulation stipulates that aquariums for pet fish should not be transparent on all sides and that owners must make sure that the natural cycle of day and night is maintained in terms of light. Goldfish are considered social animals, or Gruppentiere in German.

The creator of this animal Utopia is the Swiss federal parliament, the Bundesrat, which adopted a law this week extending to four legs the kind of rights usually reserved for two. The law, which comes into force from September 1, is particularly strict over dogs: prospective owners will have to pay for and complete a two-part course — a theory section on the needs and wishes of the animal, and a practice section, where students will be instructed in how to walk their dog and react to various situations that might arise during the process. The details of the courses are yet to be fixed, but they are likely to comprise about five theory lessons and at least five sessions “in the field”.

The law extends to unlikely regions of the animal kingdom.

Anglers will also be required to complete a course on catching fish humanely, with the Government citing studies indicating that fish can suffer too.

The regulations will affect farmers, who will no longer be allowed to tether horses, sheep and goats, nor keep pigs and cows in areas with hard floors.

The legislation even mentions the appropriate keeping of rhinoceroses, although it was not clear immediately how many, if any, were being kept as pets in Switzerland.

Also in Switzerland: Rights for Vegetables