Those discussing the phrase "natural born citizen" in the debate if McCain qualified to run for president under that phrase haven't investigated to find what that phrase meant to the founders of the United States.

Law, like theological questions, uses phrases that those without experience may reinterpret literally to bolster their own beliefs or agendas. Hence the right wing sites that hyperventillate that a man born of military parents on a military base on US territory isn't "natural born".

But this brings up the question: Why did the founders use the phrase "Natural born citizen" rather than the phrase "a person born in the United States".

The 14th amendment did extend citizenship to those born or naturalized withint the United States, to emphasize that blacks and Native Americans were indeed citizens, but the part of the constitution that refers to the president uses the phrase "natural born citizen"
Luckily, the law professors at the Volokh Conspiracy blog have done our homework for us, and dug out the 18th century legal papers that define that word under British law.

If the drafters of the Constitution had wanted to require that presidents be born in the United States, they could have done so. Instead, they invoked the then-standard idea of natural citizenship as reflecting natural allegiance to the king or the state.

Standard 18th century dictionaries and commentaries couldn’t have been clearer on this point. For example, Giles Jacob in The New Law-Dictionary (1743) and The Common Law Common-plac’d (1733) made clear who was an alien and who was a "natural born subject”:

The Children of Ambassadors in a foreign Country, are natural born Subjects, and not Aliens. Id. at 22 (Eighteenth Century Collections Online)

They then go on to post a long discussion from Blackstone's Commenteries, a book quite influential and used by many lawyers in early America to help them define what the law meant:

this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general principle, that every man owes natural allegiance where he is born, and cannot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once. Yet the children of the king's embassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England's allegiance, represented by his father, the embassador. ..

Blackstone explains why in much detail, and then goes on to explain why the law had evolved to include even children of merchants living overseas.
Professor Lindgren then wryly notes:

According to even the most technical meaning of "natural born" citizen in the 1780s, John McCain is a natural born citizen of the United States, but George Washington and Thomas Jefferson may not have been (since they were born before 1776), though they would have been generally treated as such at the time.

If the right wing extremists want to continue pursuing the matter, they should be warned that two prominent Senators, McCaskill and Obama, have announced they plan to introduce legislation that allows all children born of military personnel stationed overseas to be included in the definition of "natural born".

"Those who serve and sacrifice for their country, like John McCain and his father, deserve every honor and privilege that our nation can possibly provide, and that includes the ability to run for the highest office in the land," Obama said in a statement.

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Crossposted BNN....

It’s still on line, and it’s scary. An open threat to bomb buildings and the homes of those they consider their enemy. Yet except for a few segments on the TV show “Law and Order”, it is a topic that rarely hits the news: the ongoing threat to scientists who do research on animals so that they might cure human disease.

Last week, one professor’s home was firebombed; no one was home, but this was not the first attack on this professor’s home. Nor is this the first terrorist attack in that state. There has been a rash of arson attacks in California by environmental terrorists, but the most evil of these attacks are those directed at researchers who are trying to alleviate human suffering.

In response to the growing violence, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science has released a statement deploring the attacks, and the Utah legislature has made it illegal to disclose personal data on researchers.
UCLA has had to have a judge issue a restraining order to those who have harassed and even placed incendiary devices at employee’s homes three times since June 2006:

The order by Superior Court Judge Gerald Rosenberg forbids the activists from engaging in acts of harassment and threats of violence, and requires that they stay away from anybody who is known to be a university employee involved in animal research…

It also ordered the activists and their groups to remove the researchers’ personal information from Web sites that name them as targets of their protest.

Well, even though the court order was placed five days ago, the website is still up. I removed the name and address for obvious reasons:

X (Name Deleted), you and your work are deplorable. You are given paychecks in exchange for addicting primates, the closest kin that the human species knows, to numerous sickeningly addicting drugs like crystal meth. For forcing these innocent and sensitive beings to suffer through a type of hell that they would never encounter if it wasn’t for your deranged science you deserve to know true justice.

This is why on February 3rd 2008 we left an incendiary device at your house at (address deleted)xxxx in Beverly Hills. X(name deleted), the fire that night was exactly ther size we wanted it to be. It was just a little outreach because we want to see you make the sound ethical choice to stop vivisecting primates. We know what we are doing and fires can be much larger.

Yup. It’s not a game, it’s scary stuff. Some scientists have actually quit research for fear of their own and their family’s safety. And one researcher who does cancer research on mice describes the terror:

PETA might warm the cockles of the average Hollywood blond, but their inverted concern that makes animals more important than people is chilling.

Here in the Philippines, animal rights protesters protest eating chickens (chicken meat and eggs are the cheapest source of protein here) while ignoring nearby rural migrants who are camping out under the street overpasses.

In SriLanka, the Tamil Tigers are an especially vicious terrorist group known for their suicide bombings. In response to one bomb near the Zoo that wounded at least four people, PETA was quick to protest:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, said in a letter dated Feb. 15 to Velupillai Prabhakaran, the reclusive rebel leader, that “the explosive device that was set off near the zoo’s bird enclosures terrified many animals at the zoo.”

PETA president Ingrid E. Newkirk pleaded with the rebel leader “to leave animals out of this conflict,” the letter said.

Critternewsblog sarcastically commented:

Next time you toss a few grenades in a public place, how about a pre-school instead? But watch out for Nibbles the hamster in the back of the classroom. He gets very jumpy when grenades go off near his cage…

In Africa, they are busy protesting the culling of Elephants, who if left alone would overgraze the area and cause massive deforestation, and would migrate out of the parkland, eating crops of local villagers who rely on those crops to survive.

So who speaks for the poor people who won’t have enough to eat?

Sorry, I’m old enough to think that the ecology movement should go back to their roots, and remember to put people first.What they have forgotten is balance: to see stewardship should be the goal.

The choice is not between “preserving traditional lifestyles” (a pretty word for ignoring the horrors of backbreaking poverty) and environmental destruction. There is a third choice: recognizing that prudent stewardship of resources should be encouraged.

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Thanks to SecondhandSmokeBlog for bringing the issue to my attention.

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Cross posted to BNN...

A lot of the headlines are implying that the recent elections in Pakistan, which resulted in Musharraf’s party losing, was a defeat for Bush’s policies and the war on terror.

This type of superficial reporting (all the bad news all the time, especially if it can be made to bash Bush) is wrong.

Such reporting ignores the nuances of  Pakistan: clan/ethnic voting, the growing vigorous middle class entrepeneurs of Pakistan, and the disenchantment of tribal areas with “religious party” politicians who preach nice but aren’t competent enough to guarantee little things like running water.

As I noted a couple days ago:

As a result of violence, public opinion turned against the extremists in the tribal areas, and the incompetence of those politicians in religious based parties led to these parties losing in the recent election.
So the recent elections turn out to be a defeat for Musharraf but not necessarily a defeat for Bush’s war on terror.

So the good news is that the Islamicist party that backed the Taliban in tribal areas was defeated. This means people voted for peace. Whether or not the defeated will stay quiet, or will start a war against elected officials is another question. But car bombs are tricky: They may scare people but they may not make you more popular...and like Texas, the locals have guns...

The real question of Pakistan's election is if the new (coalition) government will be formed and allow Musharraf to stay in office.

Bill Roggio explains that if the Bhutto party combines with the second largest winner, which is from Kashmir, it may lead to weakening the war against Islamic extremists. The US however had hoped they will combine with Musharraf’s party…something unlikely since many blame Bhutto’s assassination on the failure of the Army (and Musharraf) to protect her life. So does this mean the US has lost?

William M Arkin in the WaPost is a bit more optimistic. In an article with the title

The War in Pakistan: Mission Being Accomplished?

he faults the headlines that paint Musharraf’s defeat in the election as a defeat for Bush, and the implication that the war against extremists in Pakistan will now end with the extremists winning.

Arkin then reminds people about the existence of “special ops” and cooperation between countries on a very hush hush level…the real danger may not be the Pakistani election as much as an American election that pulls the plug on this secret but successful war on terror:

Now the domestic changes unfolding in Democratic Pakistan worry U.S. officials: the “new” operations and the “far more aggressive strategy” and the new arrangements arm twisted out of Musharraf could be curtailed. It isn’t at all clear that the new political coalition in Pakistan will actually restrict what is going on (or will be willing to challenge the Pakistani military at a time when it is just attempting to govern), and there is always the prospect that for domestic consumption, the new leaders will say one thing and do another. So the jury’s still out.

Sucessful elections in Pakistan is a big win for Bush's policies, since it was Bush that pressured Musharraf into holding the elections.

The vital election is now the one that is coming in the USA.

The real worry is that Obama, if elected, will go along with simplistic cliches of the left and just withdraw troops from Iraq in the name of making peace while being willing to "expand" into Afghanistan and Pakistan, as his 2006 speech suggested.  One suspects a premature US withdrawal from Iraq will merely lead to an invigorated (and perhaps nuclear) Iran...and remember, the Taliban was originally backed by Pakistan to stop Iran from expanding it's influence in Afghanistan....

In other words, Obama's 2006 speech back then was unrealistic, and in 2008 seems to be more delusional than prophetic.

One hopes he starts being realistic. 

If Pakistan falls to extremists and become destablized, the entire area may descend into anarchy and war. And this has wider implications that allowing headlines to slant the news to help certain candidates win elections.

To start with, there are a lot more players in the “great game” …India and China also have interests that Pakistan remains peaceful… and China has ties with Pakistan’s military.

When the left shills about the US trading blood for oil, when it comes to Afghanistan and Pakistan, they are only partly right…it’s China that needs the oil and natural gas from the Central Asian Republic… while the US may have been pacifying the area, China has found this allows them to expand economically into this vital area.

Indeed, China may be the long term “winner” if the US policies establish peace in the area, and then a more pacifist President withdraws US troops, leaving a power vacuum that will allow Chinese influence to expand even furthur.

——————-crossposted BNN

We live fairly far up country, and rarely hear airplanes or helicopters, but in the past few days there has been several low flying planes or helicopters.

Since we are not that far from Fort Magsaysay, I looked it up and sure enough, the US has troops there, with the local Philippine Army teaching them “jungle survival”.

photo:Lance Cpl. Kevin M. Knallay

That’s Tech Sargent Jaime Donato teaching the US soldier to get back on a rope.

They’ll learn all sorts of other things, such as how to catch and eat a cobra, eating local grubs and insects, finding water, and other “jungle survival” skills.

But the joint training is more than just jungle warfare: the troops will be bringing in supplies for schools, and setting up medical clinics in isolated areas.

Balikatan 2008 will focus on training both armed forces to provide relief and assistance in the event of natural disasters and other crises that endanger public health and safety.

I was here when the Tsunami hit, and the US Ships doing routine exercizes were diverted to Indonesia. People who insist that the US should be less warlike forget that a Naval presence does a lot more than cause trouble on shore leave: They keep down the pirates, rescue people, and can bring in supplies for emergencies, whether it be the landslides in the Philippines, the Tsunami in Indonesia, or against pirates off of Somalia.

Up here, things are quiet politically, but down south after a firefight between the Philippine military and the Abu Sayyaf terror group in Jolo left some civilians dead…the soldiers are being investigated, and the left started spreading unconfirmed rumors that US troops were involved in the botched raid.

To calm things down, the US Embassador flew down to Mindanao and talked with the main Muslim rebels, the MILF (who are in the midst of negotiation with the government about a truce), and they now have withdrawn their objections.

So this will probably be a good “war game” practice for both sides.

One note: The official reports mention that the New Mexico National Guard will be along, as well as the Army Guard from Guam.

I once lived in New Mexico and our church still had a small plaque in memorial for those who fought and died at Bataan and on the death march. That history is little noted elsewhere, but remembered by the families of those that served, whether they be Native American Indian, Mexican or Anglo in heritage.

So the desert dwellers of New Mexico are again in the area where their units fought and died. Hopefully they’ll take a side trip to Cabanatuan and lay a wreath at Camp O’Donnell…

Not just for those of your unit who fought, but also the thousands of Filipinos who fought and died back then along side of America for their country’s freedom

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The press seems to be busy canonizing Obama as the next Messiah, with one story after another discussing his charisma, his success among minorities, and contrasting his “successful” campaign against that of Hillary Clinton, who is noticed mainly in news stories reporting her impending demise.

I predict that by convention time, Democrats will face the problem that they may have chosen another McGovern, and the irony is that the choice will be that they could have nominated a real challenger, a hard nosed and competent Hillary Clinton.

Novelty triumphs over experience in this case…and missing from the news is the little fact that Obama’s future foreign policy advisors were busy visiting terror supporting Syria discussing peace about the same time as a major terrorist (called a “mythic figure” by the IHTribune), one who killed the Marines in Beruit, arranged airline hijacking and had complicity in the deaths of a couple thousand of New Yorkers, got himself blown up by somebody who planted a car bomb.

Obama has won many votes as a pacifist, supporting an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq lets many peace activists back him, but a combination of troop withdrawal and peace making with Syria, a major supporter of terrosism, sends a dangerous message to Iran hardliners at at time when reformers in that country are trying to reestablish democracy.

So where are the hard questions on these policies by the media?

Another speech may come back to haunt Obama now that the press doesn’t have Hillary Clinton to push around any more.

Back then ABC News called it a “Bold Speech about War on Terror”.

In a strikingly bold speech about terrorism Wednesday, Democratic presidential candidate Illinois Sen. Barack Obama called not only for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but a redeployment of troops into Afghanistan and even Pakistan — with or without the permission of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf.

“I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges,” Obama said, “but let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

The problem?

Well, since then a lot has changed.

At the time of the speech, Musharraf had made peace with tribal areas, essentially allowing the religious extremists alone. But it didn’t work. The terrorists started making trouble, including killing Pakistani troops, and Musharraf sent troops back in. The Islamicist backed polititicians trying to run things in the tribal areas turned out to be incompetent.

As a result of violence, public opinion turned against the extremists in the tribal areas, and the incompetence of those politicians in religious based parties led to these parties losing in the recent election.
So the recent elections turn out to be a defeat for Musharraf but not necessarily a defeat for Bush’s war on terror.

Even Musharraf may not resign: since the Pakistan election system is parliamentary, a coalition must be made between various parties. The Late President Bhutto’s party was the big winner, meaning her husband Zabari will have to make a coalition with Sharif, a leader of another party and different ethnic region.

So now that the Bush policies have resulted in a shaky but viable reemergence of democracy in Pakistan, where does Obama’s “bomb Pakistan” speech stand?

Making him look naive.

Indeed, within eight hours of the election reports, McCain has used the speech to ridicule Obama:

It’s slightly counter-intuitive that Obama could sound more hawkish than McCain, but when it comes to Pakistan, that may be the case. Last night at his Wisconsin victory speech in Columbus, Ohio, McCain came out swinging against what he perceives as the Illinois senator’s naiveté of international affairs and world events.

Providing a potential sneak preview of his general election talking points, he asked, “Will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan?” The likely nominee’s comments referenced a counter-terrorism policy speech that the presidential hopeful gave in August in Washington, DC.

Hmm…sounds like McCain has inherited someone from Clinton’s war room’s “quick response” attack machine.

Some families do fight back.

After his Taliban father was killed, a 12 year old boy was told he was to be trained as a suicide bomber to avenge his father’s death.

But instead, when his desperate mother found this out, she asked her family to help save his life:

worried family members pulled all their resources together and paid for him to be spirited out of Afghanistan to escape the clutches of evil Taliban leaders.After a traumatic journey across several countries, the boy was smuggled into Britain, probably hidden on the back of a lorry. Later he was questioned by immigration officials in Croydon, Surrey.

Of course, a lot of the parents in his new UK school are worried, and if the article is right, they should be worried because he isn’t the only jihadi trained boy smuggled into the UK: the difference is that, unlike him, we don’t know if the famlies of these other children will try to reeducate them into the ways of peace.
If one peruses the anti Jihadi web pages, one reads of children being indoctrinated as suicide bombers.

Those who see Islam as a monolith then use this terrible information to stress the problem is not with extremism but with that religion itself, because they rightly ask why the parents don’t stop the children’s indoctrination.

Well, one could point out that parents who object to such indoctrination might be killed. And those of us who remember World War II know that a similar indoctrination was done by the Nazis to Hitler youth.

As this pamphlet shows, many back then questioned if such indoctrinated youth could be taught the ways of peaceful democracy.

But the real lesson is that not every family supports the radicals, and one prays that their opposition will not result in their being killed by local Taliban.

Finally, not mentioned in the article: was the Taliban father, or a local man? The dirty little secret is that the Taliban included many foreigners who pressured locals into giving them a daughter for marriage. If this was the case, then the decision of the family to oppose the Taliban is more understandable, since this practice of forced marriage has been one reason for locals to turn against them not only in Afghanistan but in Iraq.

Even in areas where fathers, not the women themselves, choose the husbands, the fathers do usually try to chose someone who will love and care for their daughters.

crossposted BNN

My husband Lolo was watching the news yesterday, but this time it wasn’t super Tuesday, or even Brittney Spears.

There was “Jun” Lozada, surrounded by nuns and priests, having a press conference.

And later that day, he was there again, being grilled by the Philippine Senate about a broadband agreement with China that was so full of corruption that, even by Philippine standards, it made people just shake their head in amazement or despair. All sorts of people were in on the deal, including rumors that the First Gentleman and son of the ex Speaker of the House were involved. How much is true, I have no idea. If the sun came up tomorrow, some people would blame it on President Arroyo because politics here makes the Bush hating Kos kids seem polite.
Alas, much of the testimony was in Tagalog (and I’m not yet fluent), but the Manila Bulletin has the story summarized HERE, and it’s a blood pressure raiser.
Apparantly, there was a $330 million dollar Broadband contract, and the bid was won by a Chinese company, the ZTE Corporation. It has since been cancaled due to allegations of bribery.

The key claim in the six hour testimony is here:

Lozada asserted that Abalos, a close friend of the President’s husband, demanded that the contract be awarded to the Chinese firm.

“The trouble started when Abalos came to me to sell the [ZTE Corp.] proposal in September 2006,” he said under oath.

Lozada added that Abalos had told him “to protect” his $130-million “commission.”

“I warned him, that would stick out, but we might be able to get 65 [million dollars],” he said he told Abalos after consulting with Jose de Venecia….

Lozada said Neri, who eventually approved the revised contract, instructed him to “moderate their greed.”

Abalos of course denies all of this, and has sued Lozada for libel.

And there are countercharges of corruption against Lozada, that while working for a forestry agency he spent $1400 to buy 35 Australian goats to see if they would devour Jatropa, a plant being proposed as a source of biodiesel.
Then there is the question about who exactly excorted Lozada from the airport when he arrived the other day. Police said it might have been their men, but Lozada said they appeared to be from the military, not the police. (the latest update says the men were airport security guards).
In the meanwhile, Lozada is protected by nuns and priests, figuring that is the safest way to stay alive.

And the testimony is upsetting the Chinese Embassy, who is worried that the corruption scandal, coming on top of an earlier North Rail project that also generated claims of overpricing, bribery and kickbacks.

The Asia Sentinal points out the billions of dollars being invested by a China who wants to replace the US as the Philippines largest trading partner, combined with a Chinese pragmatism that ignores corruption results in an exacerbation of corruption in the Philippines.

However, unlike China, the Philippines still has an active press and an inefficient but vigorous democracy that will continue to investigate the corruption…despite witnesses flying to unknown destinations and papers being withheld under “executive privlege”.

So will the ex chairman of the Commission on Elections Abalos win his libel suit? Will others involved in the scandal come clean? Or was this a simple misunderstanding between friends?

One clue to the future might be found in an ABS CBN Story today, proclaiming:
DOJ to investigate Lozada but not F(irst)G(entleman) Arroyo…

“It’s unfair to call on people [whose involvement cannot be proven],” Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said.

According to the BBC, over a million people in Bogata protested FARC’s terrorist war against the Colombian people.

On the streets of Bogota, the message was blunter.

“No more Farc, we don’t want any more Farc, young people have to say no to the Farc and tell them to stop their violence,” student Jaime Martinez said.

Former hostage Clara Rojas, who was freed last month after nearly six years as a captive, said: “I hope the Farc is listening.”

And a woman marching with her three children told the BBC: “I think this march will set a precedent in Colombia because for the first time all Colombians are going to protest as one body.”

Schools were closed in many big cities, and businesses closed, allowing workers to march.

Gateway Pundit has a collection of photos of the crowds.

Al Jezeerah reports:

Similar demonstrations were also held in Madrid, the US, Canada, Japan and Venezuela organised by the Colombian embassies in the cities. In Paris, some 200 people mostly Colombians turned out

The protest in France was significant, since their leftist press tends to paint FARC as freedom fighters, and blame the government of Colombia as bad guys for not allowing FARC to get hundreds of their thugs out of jail, lots of money, and their own official ministate to grow cocaine and being taken off the list of terrorist organizations (so they can launder drug money easier) in exchange for a careless French lady politician…

AlJezeerah reports that

the rally received sharp condemnation from family of Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian politician held hostage by Farc.

“We condemn this manipulation. It’s propaganda, which while pretending to be against the Farc is completely organised by the government,” said Astrid Betancourt, sister to Ingrid Betancourt…

So much for French snobbery. A lot of the French press/elites see everything through an anti American lens, so see a million free people taking the day off to demonstrate as merely another US plot to undermine a Marxist group who they romanticize and whose atrocities they prefer to ignore.
Hello— Colombia is a democracy…

My son is Colombian and still lives there, and although people do demonstrate for all sorts of things, Colombians are not puppets who do these things under anyone’s orders.

Indeed, the ChristianScienceMonitor reports how grass roots organized the protest, using FACEBOOK…and although supported by the Colombian government and by many NGO’s, is in response to a growing anger among Colombians against FARC and it’s fellow Marxist movements:

What began as a group of young people venting their rage at the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on Facebook, an Internet social-networking site, has ballooned into an international event called “One Million Voices Against FARC.”"We expected the idea to resound with a lot of people but not so much and not so quickly,” says Oscar Morales, who started the Facebook group against the FARC, which now has 230,000 members. Organizers are expecting marches in 185 cities around the world…Some observers say it’s less a response to the FARC’s ideology than it is global public outrage over kidnapping as a weapon.

Colombia continues to be the world’s kidnapping capital with as many as 3,000 hostages now being held.

Of course, most of the Google headlines is about another prisoner exchange…FARC via Chavez is offering to release another 2…that makes 5, with 2,995 more to go….Like the Philippines, as prosperity allows alternative career moves for young men, the groups turn more toward crime, drug trafficing, and kidnapping to keep going.

Like the Philippines, there are atrocities by government related hit squads, but too often the communist related murders, extortions, and drug links are ignored by the overseas press.

And finally, like the Philippines, the “left/right” paradigm ignores the growing middle class who seem to be the ones behind this huge protest.

On the periphery of all this is the suspicion that Venezuela’s embrace of FARC is allowing that country to become more active of the drug trade.

Another ignored story: That money filled suitcase…drug laundering? funding Marxists in Argentina? Hmmm….

Call the FBI….Call Homeland security… Call the X Files….call ArtBell…
A fourth cable has been cut, this time off the coast of the UAE, disrupting communications in Qatar.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) said on Sunday a cable was damaged between the Qatari island of Haloul and the UAE island of Das on Friday, the fourth reported in the Middle East in less than a week….

Parts of the Gulf Arab region were plunged into a virtual internet blackout on Wednesday when two undersea cables were cut near Alexandria, on Egypt’s north coast….

The situation was made worse on Friday when Flag, part of India’s Reliance Communications, revealed a third cable, Falcon, had also been damaged off the UAE coast.

In the meanwhile, conspiracy theories abound, since some reports say that along with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and India,  Iran’s internet has been cut…and traffic is down to zero according to this site: LINK is the daily internet traffic report and indeed shows Iran at zero today…but it is also zero for Cali, Colombia and for Florida.

So is it true?

But the English language Iranian news, IRNA, doesn’t have any reports about it…

The IHTribune has noted the internet problems, but doesn’t mention Iran. However, they do worry that the incidents show how underseas cables that concentrate internet and telephone lines are vulnerable to damage, whether it be an errant ship, an earthquake, or sabotage.

Nonsense, replies the jihadi linked Uruknet. Iranian cable isn’t down…

A more reliable report from ArabBusinessNews says:

It is not clear how badly Iran’s internet access has been affected by the cable breaks.

The Iranian embassy in Abu Dhabi told ArabianBusiness.com that “everything is fine”, but internet connectivity reports on the web, citing a router in Tehran, appear to indicate that there is currently no connection to the outside world.

No one at the US embassy in Abu Dhabi was immediately available to comment.

So is the internet out, or slowed down, or being re routed from Iran? Hello?And the India BusinessStandard reports on various internet conspiracy theories, and quotes one blogger saying that Iran is back on line, but re routed via the UK so their traffic can be monitored. But again they only note local problems, not blackout (and note: The FLAG company whose cables were affected has Indian ties).

Now, technically, the latest cut off the Middle East were not caused by destruction: Slashdot corrects the reports: “… the cable wasn’t cut. It was taken offline due to power issues…”

A little truth would go a long way at stopping conspiracy theories.
Scott Adams at DilbertBlog notes the conspiracy theories, and sardonically notes similarities to one of his satires:

It seems highly coincidental that three undersea cables get cut and the only country entirely shut off is Iran. I doubt it is the first step before war, but you can’t help raising an eyebrow when reality starts to intersect with fiction.

Yet why don’t the news reports mention the Iranian internet blackout? Even Drudge isn’t reporting it…maybe because it isn’t true?
Some background maps:
Flashplayer map of the internet cable systems are here. And this map is from the UK Guardian via Digg:
The best explanation of the cables and the various damaged areas is found on the DailyWireless. Check out their maps and photos…but again, they don’t mention Iran…

The Egyptian cable essentially carries information for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Sudan, but it a major internet link carrying information west from the Middle East, Iran, and India.

India also sends a lot of their information East via Pacific/Asian cables, but their internet is so widely used that there is a disruption from excess traffic on the eastern cables, and there has been a lot of scrambling to reroute internet usage.

But the latest cuts off Qatar only affect branches of the main cable that link the smaller Gulf states with the main internet cables.

Map from ForeignPolicyPassport Blog:

Of course, cable damage isn’t unknown–the Wireless story also reports a cut or damage off the southern Coast of France about the same time as the Egyptian cable was cut. Like most local cable outages, this is a branch, not the main cable, so isn’t getting publicity.

So is Iran on line or off line?

Well, for what it’s worth, someone from Iran visited my joke blog yesterday so obviously reports of the “100% blackout” of the Iranian internet is not true.
Sorry, conspiracy theorists, another one bites the dust…
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Cross posted BNN and papercutblog...

Thailand rarely gets into the headlines unless there is a tsunami or bomb, but if you missed the news, they have a new Prime Minister.

Epicurious Blog Reports:

In Thailand a celebrity chef was just elected prime minister. Seriously. I’m not kidding! The guy even has a TV cooking show on the air.

And, indeed, the UKIndependent reports:

But Mr Samak’s premiership is unlikely to be a conventional one, and Thailand got a taster of it when – within minutes of his being elected – the TV star was seen at a high-class market buying groceries.

And yesterday he vowed that his television programme, called Tasting, Grumbling, would carry on while he was in office. “The constitution does not prohibit a prime minister from doing TV shows,” said Mr Samak, wondering round the market stalls. “We still have three months of our new cooking show on tape.”

Of course, there’s more to him than cooking.

In 2006, the military overthrew the government for too much corruption, but under international pressure, allowed elections, and the people promptly placed the ex Prime Minister’s party back into power. But he is under indictment, so Samak, who supports the PM, was elected Prime Minister by the Parliament.

There was a lot of worrying that the military would overthrow anyone elected who had such ties, but Al Jazeera reports that the coup leaders pledge to support Samak.

And the US, which had suspended 24 million dollars of military aid, says they will now restore the aid and resume joint training exercizes.

But the left wing UK Guardian calls Samak a “right winger” cautions he has a short fuse and could quickly get into hot water…

Samak, a right-winger in several army-backed governments that arrested and killed opponents, is himself is fighting a two-year jail sentence for defamation and is the subject of corruption allegations over the purchase of fire trucks while he was Bangkok governor.

His plain speaking endears him to many voters but his notoriously short fuse has got him in hot water more than once.

A two year sentence for “defamation”? Don’t laugh…the reason the generals gave for removing Mr. Thaksin, his predecessor, was that he had defamed the king.

Maybe he’d better keep that job cooking.

As for the charges of corruption: Firetrucks? He was governor and all they can find to accuse him is allegations of corruption over purchasing firetrucks?

In contrast, Mr. Thaksin, a telecom executive and billionaire, was accused of embezzling millions… the army has frozen two billion dollars of his assets…

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