On July 31, 2006 the United Nations Security Council endorsed Resolution 1696, giving the Islamic Republic of Iran exactly one month to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities. This is a major turnaround for the international body; just weeks ago it seemed as if China and Russia were going to stall any and all efforts designed to put more international pressure on Tehran.

The major “power players” in passing this resolution were the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – Russia, China, France, the U.K., and the U.S. – plus, surprisingly, Germany. Berlin has been quite active in the international coalition to stop Tehran’s uranium enrichment of late. This is mostly due to the November 2005 election of the center-right German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. She is now Washington’s biggest ally behind Blair, a voice of reason stuck in between France’s pacifist Chirac and Russia’s autocratic Putin.

Tehran learned a hard lesson today. It will not distract the international community, through its funneling of weapons and monetary support to Hezbollah’s murderous campaign, in an attempt to conceal its nuclear ambitions. The cities of Tyre, Bint Jbail, and Haifa may be dominating the news now, but Tehran will be in the headlines again. The “Perm 5+1” only signed a piece of paper today, but, given the divisive situation around the world and inside the U.N., that is a sufficient start.

Kerry Eskenas has more thoughts on the current conflict in the Middle East:

The reaction of the international community to Israel’s defensive war against Hamas and Hezbollah was all too predictable. Israel, along with the United States, understands that it is time to act in a strategic rather than diplomatic manner. Israel has already compromised with terrorists a number of times — most notably, the surrendering of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank last summer. Yet the countries that blame Hamas and Hezbollah for instigating this war, with the exception of the United States, do not back up their rhetoric with support for Israel’s military response. The world’s constant calls for “restraint” by Israel as it works to defend its land and people from terrorists — which, it should be noted, are integral parts of neighboring nations’ elected governments — prove what Israel has long suspected: successfully winning over world opinion cannot protect Israel from the terrorist threat. As one Israeli soldier said, “If we don’t defend Israel, who will?” Israel must disregard world opinion and do what any other state would do in the event of attack. Namely, Israel must respond to these acts of war and crush Hamas and Hezbollah with force so that these threats are eliminated. A small-scale response in which these terrorist organizations are allowed to survive would only bring greater conflict in the future, when these terrorists build their strength up beyond the current level and determine that they are ready to attack Israel once again…

As I was walking back from doing physics homework yesterday, I came across these relics on the sidewalk.

The election was April 25-27, three months ago. From what I have heard, chalk is only supposed to last one day, so I am mystified. The only explanation I can think of is magic chalk.

across the Bay Area… mzmeg of Baseball and Brioche mentions us in a post entitled ‘My Blog Can Kick Your Blog’s Ass‘:

Blog #4 Cal Patriot Blog, UC Berkeley College Republicans

Let me put it this way, any 19 year-old college student, who’s parents are most likely footing the bill for his/her development of rampant fascism, should not get to start out any essay/paper/blog entry with, “as a fiscal conservative”.

I’m all for freedom of expression but that statement makes me want to forkstab a motherfucker or (see above for American History X description) It really chaps my hide that the Patriot is linked and not Baseball and Brioche. My blog can beat up the CP blog because I have the real slim shady’s on my side. Imagine:
1) Barry Bonds vs. George Bush in a thumb war (Bonds wins)
2) Lou Seal vs. Condoleeza Rice in a hoola hoop contest (Conde loses, barely)
3) Arnold vs. Omar Vizquel in a Dance Dance Revolution-off (Not even close, Omar is still on the machine)
4) Meg’s Female Friends vs. Cal Patriot Staff in a knife fight….

As a fiscal conservative… any time, any place, it’s on! Just remember that we Republicans play dirty…

Late this afternoon around 10 Berkeley students attended a city meeting to let the city council know they wanted them to stay out of ASUC matters. The item which will be considered during tomorrow’s meeting declares the city’s support of the disqualified Student Action executive candidates. The measure not only contains a few errors, but also infringes upon the internal matters of the ASUC.

Speaking for the sign holders, incoming CalSERVE Senator Lisa Ang addressed those assembled. She stressed the importance of ASUC autonomy. Then students placed pawns (actually bishops) in front of the city council members. The pieces symbolized the students desire to keep the council from trying to control the ASUC.

If you wish to join the bipartisan effort to keep ASUC matters inside the organization or to help Student Action get a resolution in their favor you can attend the council meeting tomorrow at Old City Hall from 7-7:30 to voice your opinion.

Daily Cal Letters
Today there were Daily Cal letters in support of and against the Student Action supporting city council resolution. I give credit to Mickey for being one of the few people willing to sign his name to pro-SA commentary.

Anthony Gregory, Cal Libertarians alum and contributor to LewRockwell.com, holds no punches in criticizing the incarceration state in today’s Contra Costa Times.

Gregory starts off with some background info:

In response to a crisis of massive prison overcrowding, Gov. Schwarzenegger has called for the construction of two more prisons…

With about 170,000 inmates, it has a higher per-capita incarceration rate than the rest of the United States, which itself has the highest per-capita prison population in the industrialized world…

In a typical example of the failure of big government, we see that no matter how many prisons are built, no matter how much money the politicians throw at the problem, there is overcrowding.

Then he zeroes in on the culprit:

Surely America isn’t the most criminal culture on earth. Why does the United States have the most prisoners? The main reason is too many laws.

More prisoners are locked away for drug violations than all violent crimes combined. It used to be perfectly legal for anyone to walk into a store and buy heroin or cocaine. Then the progressives took over in the early 20th century and began waging a war on drugs, which blossomed under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, when marijuana became nationally illegal.

People have a right to liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. It is an affront to the founding principles of America to lock peaceful people into cages just because they consume or sell drugs…

At a cost of about $35,000 per inmate per year, not only is keeping them in prison enormously expensive, draining resources that could be used to pursue actual violent criminals, but it is downright immoral.

This all seems so obvious to the informed citizen, but a variety of groups have a vested interest in solidifying the status quo. Gregory goes on to attack prison labor, which has both distorted the free market and enticed corporations to support a never-ending flow of slaves inmates. Combined with the general inclination to legislate morality, we have a disgusting recipe for more state and less freedom.

It’s funny to me to see the bickering over President Bush’s very first veto.

Don’t get me wrong, I think more federal funding for stem cell research would be a good thing, but you know what? As a fiscal conservative, I can now point to one federal spending bill the President has vetoed! I hope the trend continues.

As for stem cell research funding, I’m not that angry about the veto. There is still� limited federal funding available and there is no ban on the research. States, like California, can pass spending measures to fund stem cell research. I don’t see this as putting us behind the curve in terms of research.

And besides,� Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bill Frist prove that there is room in the Republican� Party for those of us in favor of publicly funding stem cell research (social conservative Frist voted in favor of the funding bill.)� � �

From an AP report on today’s meeting of the UC Board of Regents:

Acting on a request from Regent Frederick Ruiz and student regent Maria Ledesma, the board decided to reconvene a task force of students, staff and faculty to look at how the university was complying with Proposition 209.

Details of the group’s new charge and a timeline for its work still have to be worked out, but several regents said they hoped it would delve more deeply into whether the initiative that required the university to abandon its traditional affirmative action programs undermined efforts to improve student diversity.

“African-Americans are disappearing from the UC at an alarming rate,” said Regent Eddie Island. “If 209 brought about this result, we ought to lay it on the table, and we ought to know it. The public ought to know it.”

The UCLA Daily Bruin has further coverage of the meeting:

Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante said the UC should look for a way to increase admissions of underrepresented minority students while still remaining inside the restraints set by Proposition 209.

“Perhaps we’ll be able to find how Proposition 209 was interpreted by the university. Is there a way to implement 209 in the university that will allow us to admit minorities along with the voters’ intent?” Bustamante said.

In other words, is there any way to screw 209 and get away with it?

Meanwhile, supporters of the proposition are in a celebratory mood:

“The 10th anniversary of Proposition 209 is cause for celebration, not consternation, because it enshrined the principle of equal rights in California law, including at the UC system,” [Pacific Legal Foundation spokesman Howard Johnson] said. “That’s Prop. 209’s bedrock rule, and any tinkering with UC admissions that would depart from that rule would be immoral and illegal.

The Chronicle reports:

A federal Department of Homeland Security agent passed along information about student protests against military recruiters at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, landing the demonstrations on a database tracking foreign terrorism, according to government documents released Tuesday.

The documents were released by the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of student groups that protested against recruiters who visited their campuses in April 2005.

The students were angry when they turned up in the database of a Pentagon program called Threat and Local Observation Notice, or TALON, which the government started in 2003 as a way to collect data that could help stop terrorist attacks. Officials have acknowledged that the reports on protests should not have been included.

PDFs of the relevant documents are available on the ACLU website. There really isn’t much to see besides copies of emails that you and I have probably received and comments along the lines of “something could happen.” Still, do we really want the feds to be using their valuable resources on something so obviously unthreatening? They might be loud, annoying, and tremendously ineffective, but potential terrorists? I doubt it. What’s your take?

The SF Weekly has an interesting cover story on Michael Savage. Savage is the host of a wildly popular right-wing talk show hosted, somewhat ironically, from the Bay Area. What most people don’t know about is his colorful past:

He wasn’t always Michael Savage. A native New Yorker, he was born in the Bronx and grew up in Queens as Michael Alan Weiner, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His father, Ben… was a street vendor who worked his way up to owning a small antiques store on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and was socially conservative…

The father would have surely disapproved of Weiner’s interest in beatnik culture once he enrolled at Queens College. Zaitz recalls weekends when he and Weiner slipped away to Greenwich Village to hang out in coffee houses, smoke pot, and troll for women. In those days, he says, the future Michael Savage kept a paperback copy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road in his pants pocket.

And there’s much more:

Once, while living in Queens, where he had taken a job as a high school biology teacher, he made a spur-of-the-moment suggestion that they visit Timothy Leary (whom neither of them knew) at the psychedelic drug advocate’s farm in upstate New York, Ely says. Leary took a liking to Weiner and made him a “gatekeeper” at the farm “since Michael was maybe the only person there who wasn’t into psychedelic drugs.” On a trip to Los Angeles, she says, Weiner once left her at a hotel while he made an unannounced visit to the widow of author Aldous Huxley, whose work he admired…

Weiner arrived in the Bay Area to take up doctoral studies at UC Berkeley. Having hosted [Allen] Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti in Hawaii, he enjoyed instant credibility as he burrowed in among the bohemians of the North Beach cafe scene. “He went around showing people a photo of him and Ginsberg swimming in the buff in Hawaii,” says Stephen Schwartz, an ex-Chronicle reporter and former leftist-turned-conservative scholar, who was a North Beach regular at the time. “It was like his calling card. He traded on his association with Allen to get a toehold.”

The question remains how/why Savage/Weiner became what he is now. Savage denies ever being a leftist, which is completely plausible (Timothy Leary having been a Ron Paul-supporting Libertarian himself). Did he just become totally disillusioned, prompting him to take a reactionary turn?

No one knows, but there are some hints:

“Michael was unpredictable and could be tyrannical, but the one constant about him was his desire for success and to find fame and fortune,” his ex-wife says.

[Friend Ira Rifkin]: “But I could see then how motivated he was for public affection and how determined he was to pursue it.“

It could just be that Savage had a change of heart. In this case, an extremely lucrative one. I just don’t know, but maybe the case of Michelle Malkin can shed some light…

With all this in mind… Die Commie-Homo-Islamo-Femi-Nazi Vegan Scum!!!

You know those little “puzzles” you have to figure out before signing up for a site or posting a blog comment? Techies term the feature “CAPTCHA,” while everyone else calls them “annoying.” Anyway, some hackers have added a new twist to the formula: Demonstrate that you are a real human by picking the three hottest girls (or guys) from a grid of nine. It’s an entertaining use of the HOT or NOT database (UC Berkeley’s cherished contribution to the dotcom world).

Check it out, it’s a lot of fun. For added challenge, try the Male version. My roommates and I tried it tonight. There’s nothing like three straight guys having a good time trying to pick out the hottest guys on the Internet.

(HT O’Reilly Radar)

It seems like a day isn’t a day without us hearing more about how cool Al Gore is. How surreal is it to see the public’s perception of Gore do a complete 180? In an alternate universe, this would be like Citizen Bush penning Pulitzer Prize-winning, allegorical novels excoriating the Gore Administration’s excesses. Strange stuff…

But while walking through San Francisco today, I saw a billboard that put the breaks on Gore’s “Tool to Cool” Tour. On August 26 and 27 at the Moscone Convention Center, Al Gore will be speaking at the one and only… Real Estate Wealth Expo (presented by the Learning Annex). George Foreman and that guy from Survivor will also be featured.

And he was doing so well…

The appeal of Ratto v. Vakil was heard earlier today. No substantial new arguments were brought up, just the stuff from the briefs gone over.

The SA side had input from lawyers in preparing their papers. I am tired and the arguments were all from the briefs, which were all from the original decision so here are a few of the events:

6:45 Scheduled start time
7:33 Pretrial motions heard
9:30 Case arguments start
11:41 Laughter over how good video cameras can be
12:49 The Ratto side led by Ben starts their arguments
1:00 Beetle almost falls out of his chair
1:46 It is argued former J-Council Chair Greg’s resignation is not valid as he must resign to the chair and cannot resign to himself
2:26 One of the Justices sneezes scaring another Justice
2:41 End of closing statements, Justices ask questions
3:07 End of hearing

Beetle predicted early on that the hearing would be over around 3. However, he was not in my pool where I predicted a 3:10 end, so I got Jack in the Box from the kind Martin and Matt.

Ben had the best performance of the night. He had his arguments straight and argued them very well. Lauren created mischief and did whatever she always does. Chair Banerjee did an excellent job keeping the proceedings under control.

I think the Judicial Council will stand behind its earlier judgment. There was no new evidence presented. All the arguments on the Vakil side were already refuted in the original Direct Judgment decision. If the earlier judgment stands and the SA candidates remain disqualified, I will be making another trip to court in Oakland.

A Berkeley resident is being recognized for his terrible writing. Samples available here. Just kidding… the contest was for intentionally bad prose:

Bill Mac Iver of Berkeley the coveted “purple prose” award in the annual Bulwer-Lytton literary competition, which challenges scribes to write the worst opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels.

Mac Iver was up to the challenge, with this winning passage:

“A single sparkling tear fell from Little Mary’s cheek onto the sidewalk, then slid into the storm drain, there to join in its course the mighty waters of the Los Angeles River and, eventually, Long Beach Harbor, with it’s state-of-the-art container freight processing facilities.”