Sadly, No!

Dr. Condoleezza Rice, October 8, 2003:

Saddam would have remained in power — with all that entails: More mass graves, more children in prison, and more daily depredations of the Iraqi people. [Emphasis added]

President Bush, April 16, 2003:

Two weeks ago, the Iraqi regime operated a gulag for dissidents, and incredibly enough, a prison for young children. [Emphasis added]

President Bush, July 10, 2003:

We discovered a prison for children — all aimed at — for Saddam Hussein to intimidate the people of Iraq. [Emphasis added]

Germany’s Spiegel Magazine, July 4, 2004 [Original in German — our translation. -S,N!:]

US Soldiers said to have abused jailed children

According to the International Red Cross, more than one hundred children find themselves in Iraqi prisons, including the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. According to a report aired on the TV program “Report,” [see here -S,N!] coalition troops are also thought to have abused children and minors.

According to a press release issued by the network that broadcast the report:

In an exclusive interview granted to Report Mainz, Samuel Provance, a non-commissioned officer who served in the Abu Ghraib prison, US military intelligence officers harrassed a young girl in her cell. Military police intervened only when the 15 to 16-year old girl had been partially undressed. […]

Suhaib Badr-Addin Al-Baz, a reporter for the Al-Jazeera network who spent 74 days at Abu Ghraib, says that a girl of approximately 12 years of age was beaten by US soldiers. […]

UNICEF has confirmed that Iraqi children have been imprisoned by foreign troops in Iraq.

[Original report in .RTF format.]

More on Provance here and there.

Edit: Trish Wilson comments on the incarceration of minors in the US.

Edit 2: Edit: Full translation of the Spiegel article here. (Thanks to idleworm.)

Sadly, No! is proud to introduce one John T. Plecnik to its readers. You hear this a lot, but we believe that John is the hottest new conservative writer on the web. Anyway, on to the shorter: The Duke Professor Is Vulnerable

After a careful and unbiased review of the evidence, I have concluded that a candidate for Congress I endorsed has a very good chance of winning.

Bonus points: Plecnik argues that the Democratic incumbent, one David Price, has done little in Congress because:

Price has neglected his constituency to the point of abandonment. From 1999 to 2002, Price was the primary sponsor of a paltry 4 bills.

North Carolina has 7 House members who are Republicans. In the 108th Congress, Rep. Howard Coble has sponsored 7 bills, Rep. Robin Hayes 12 bills, Rep. Cass Ballenger 6 bills, and Rep. Charles H. Taylor 9 bills. (David Price sponsored 8 bills during that time.)

No doubt Jason will be accusing those Republicans of abandoning their constituents in an upcoming column.

From a long piece in the New Yorker on Ahmad Chalabi:

In an unusual arrangement, two months before the invasion began, the chief correspondent for the Times, Patrick E. Tyler, who was in charge of overseeing the paper?s war coverage, hired Chalabi?s niece, Sarah Khalil, to be the paper?s office manager in Kuwait. Chalabi had long been a source for Tyler. Chalabi?s daughter Tamara, who was in Kuwait at the time, told me that Khalil helped her father?s efforts while she was working for the Times.

(Via The Poor Man.)

This clip of Colin Powell singing YMCA features much annoying commentary from an Associated Press reporter, but it’s the best we can offer for now. (1.5MB file, RealMedia format. Right click, save as to be able to enjoy it over and over again…)

(Via Insomnia.)

Because Sadly, No!’s management team resides in Europe, we are able to take advantage of World O’Crap‘s weekend of celebration and take the first turn at Doug Giles’ new column, entitled: Imprecatory Prayer: The Intercessor?s Elephant Gun. All columns need a strong opening (a requirement not made of blog posts fortunately) and Doug doesn’t disappoint:

I hate to ruin your light summer beach reading, but America and much of the world are still in deep yogurt when it comes to the war on terror.

Fear not friends, Doug isn’t going to take it, uh, lying down:

I, for one, will not take a passive stance against this aggressive enemy. You cannot be lame and win this game with these guys. So, as a Christian, I suggest the following?

A plan! Let us taunt them! They may become so cross, that they will make a mistake! Wait — wrong plan:

One: Back President Bush and his aggressive armed attitude against terrorists and terror supporting nations.

Hey Iraqis, did you enjoy the can of whoop ass attitude that was unleashed on your ass? We bet you did.

Three: Aggressively support the rooting out of the multitudinous terrorist cells that are concocting their villainous crap in our very own cul de sacs.

Doug says he doesn’t do drugs anymore. We think not.

Four: Make it ridiculously impossible for a pro-radical Islamic professor to pee in one of our university?s bathrooms, much less teach in one of our classrooms.

It is, however, ok if a pro-radical Islamic professor pees in Doug’s backyard.

Five: As people of faith, dust off and use what?s afforded to the believer within the Old and New Testaments, namely the imprecatory prayers.

Yes! We have the holy hand grenade!

Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Precious Moments Figurine Collector, the Bible is filled with maledictions prayed by saints and speedily answered by God against violently impenitent enemies of liberty and righteousness.

Why do we need to do that now? It’s so simple, you’re going to feel very dumb for asking:

It’s simple: when our enemies move from being foes who have personally wronged us, or have made fun of our bad combover, or have flamed us in a TBN chat room, to becoming jihadic death jockeys wanting to eradicate our memory from the earth, then it is time to stop praying the “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep” stuff and start asking God to thwart and stamp out these bug eyed terrorists who want to hijack the planet and make it conform to their jacked up view of “life.”

It is now official: Doug Giles’ columns are written by a computer program. Most likely the Kaye Grogan Automatic 2000.

Edit: Trish Wilson has much interesting background on Stephen.

One year. Around a thousand posts and over three thousand comments. It’s been quite a ride for us, we have to say. If we succeeded at anything during that time, we hope it was in becoming increasingly more shrill.
Read the rest of this entry »

In yet another entry in the series of “the war in Iraq is going slendidly well if you compare it to other wars,” Karl Zinsmeister unleashes this comparison with World War II:

By the end of that year, 40 percent of the world’s Jews, for instance, would be dead.

If you need us, we’ll be banging our head against the wall.

Roger Ailes smacks Andrew Sullivan on the, well:

If you’re going to exaggerate about length, Sully, do it in a personal ad.

Roy Edroso at alicublog points out that Peggy Noonan has some curious affiliations.

August J. Pollack explains why Andrew is one of the very few people that considers Jackass a documentary.

Points of Information kindly draws our attention to more tortured logic by David Frum.

Mithras (sadly) concludes he was right last year about a little something called violating human rights.

Richard Cranium at The All Spin Zone gives us an update on the box office results for Fahrenheit 9/11.

David “The Lion’s Share” Frum, taking a break from writing his upcoming book An End to Sadly, No!: How to Win the War on Amber Pawlik, writes the management to say that our work (click here or see below) is “carelessly embarrassing.”

Why? Let’s take a look, ok?

I did not “insult” Brad DeLong. In fact I praised his forthcoming book. I just wish he had a better temper.

In his National Review post, Frum wrote:

all in all, a very smart guy, even if he has been driven into the intellectual’s version of Tourette’s syndrome by President Bush.

Compliment or an insult? We quote, you decide.

Frum continues:

As for the statistic that you dispute, again if you read carefully, you’ll see I cited Canadian household incomes [Frum actually cited cash income only -S,N!,] not family incomes. They’re different: households include people living alone. [Editor’s note: Adam Yoshida doesn’t count, because although he is alone he lives in his mother’s basement.]

In his post and email, Frum doesn’t tell us what report from the Fraser Institute he was using, so we’re left to our own devices. Looking at the reports we quoted earlier [Table 6.8, page 76,] we see that:

The average income for families and unattached individuals was C$58,782, with a tax bill of C$27,460.

The average income for families with two or more individuals was C$73,718, with a tax bill of C$35,808.

The average income for families of four (2+2) was C$84,318 with a total tax bill of C$39,475.

What we see is that whether your standard of living improved (using Frum’s new criteria) very much depended on your situation. Families with two or more individuals and families of four did not see the dramatic increase in their tax bill Frum predicted would send the Liberals to their defeat. [Our earlier post showed that the average Canadian family saw an increase of slightly more than C$5,000 in their tax bill from 1993 to 2003.]

What we also see here is that the Fraser Institute seems a bit fuzzy itself about what constitutes an average household, family, or whatever. It writes here:

In 2003, the average Canadian family earned an income of $58,782 and paid total taxes equaling $27,640. [Emphasis added]

Frum says these numbers are for “the average household.” The Fraser Institute writes [here] they are for “families and unattached individuals.” Yet above they say it’s for “the average Canadian family.” We’re out of order Mr. Frum? No, you’re out of order.

As for Fraser’s final 100K+ number for “average family income,” that refers to Canadian families of 4: a different group yet again[!].

Yes Mr. Frum they are a different group. So let’s take a look at the relevant group: In 2003, average total income for families and unattached individuals was C$90,458. What was it in 1995? We don’t know, but we think Frum should tell us. As long as we’re going to use total taxes paid, let’s use total income, deal?

All these figures are in Canadian dollars; I did no currency conversions, as you carelessly assumed.

It can’t be easy being David Frum: While he’s got us there, his argument remains full of holes (i.e. the tax burden did not increase dramatically as he suggests for all taxpayers.) Besides, Frum corrected a point DeLong didn’t make in order to avoid having to correct his own (amateurish and entirely obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of economic statistics) mistake. We recognize and admit ours. See any difference?

Frum concludes with:

You might want to consider correcting your embarrassingly careless work.

You know what Mr. Frum? If we had called 1/8th of something “the lion’s share” we’d pretty careful calling other people’s work careless. Pretty. Damn. Careful.

There was one thing in Frum’s email that made us very, very mad however:

Dear Ms Pawlik:

Dear Mr. Frum — if you’re going to write to Amber Pawlik, you sure as hell better call her Miss.

Earlier this week, we pointed out that David Frum needed intensive remedial training in all matters economics. Frum, you might remember, argued that between 1993 and 2003, “the lion’s share of Canadian economic growth” was pocketed by the federal government. How did he know?

Easy: while Canada’s GDP grew by 67% during that time, federal tax revenue grew by 45%. 45% is almost all of 67% after all — hence, the lion’s share. Because we are a helpful people here at Sadly, No! we had emailed Brad DeLong who also pointed out the error of his ways to David Frum.

Well, today Frum responded and, in case you were wondering, he pretends not to get the point. After throwing in a few gratuitous insults aimed at Brad (who does that moron Frum think he is, Sadly, No!?) Frum writes:

Anyway, DeLong disputes my claim that the cost of government has depressed Canadian living standards since 1993.

David you ignorant slut. DeLong (and we!) pointed out that 1/8 isn’t the lion’s share of anything. DeLong doesn’t even discuss living standards in his post, so he can hardly be said to be disputing that “claim.” What DeLong (and we!) pointed out is that you (Frum!) obviously didn’t understand the numbers you were throwing around. That mistake was indefensible and — to his credit — Frum doesn’t try to do so. Instead he moves on to greener pastures, calling in the Fraser Institute for backup:

In 1993, the average Canadian household had cash income of $44,375 C$59,165 and paid $18,815 C$25,086 in taxes of all kinds. In 2003, the average household had cash income of $58,286 C$77,712 ? and paid $28,415 C$37,886 in taxes.

In other words, cash incomes rose by about $14,000 C$18,666 per household over the period, while taxes rose by almost exactly $10,000 C$13,333. You can see why people would be feeling restless. [Frum used US$ figures, which we converted using Oanda to avoid converting those used by the Fraser Institute.]

We can see — unfortunately the numbers Frum quotes (without a direct link) don’t match those contained in this PDF report from the Fraser Institute. [link to a PDF file with the relevant page only.] If we read the data correctly, from 1993 to 2003 federal taxes on the average Canadian family increased from just above C$15,000 to just above C$20,000. Total taxes went from slightly less than C$30,000 to slightly more than C$35,000.

In this other Fraser Institute report, in 2003 the average Canadian family is said to have had a total income before tax of C$113,612, with an income tax bill of C$12,081. (And a total tax bill of C$35,808.) So what happened?

For one thing, Frum apparently pulled numbers out of his ass, messed up when he converted them into US$, or the Fraser Institute can’t add and hence comes up with different answers in different reports. In addition boys and girls, Frum uses total taxes paid but only part of the income earned by the average Canadian family. Now that’s being creative! Is it at all possible that non-cash income grew as a share of total income during those years? Would you compare total taxes paid using as your baseline only part of your income? We wouldn’t.

Frum then opines:

On the other hand, the federal government collects more taxes than anybody else, and especially more of the highly visible direct taxes on incomes.

According to the Fraser Institute, income tax for the average Canadian family was C$11,855 in 2003. Is that the lion’s share of the total tax bill of C$35,808? You. Tell. Us. (In 2004 total federal taxes, at C$20,577 were at least more than half of the total tax bill of $C36,369.)

Yet another Fraser Institute table shows that the average tax rate paid by the average Canadian family went from 45.9% in 1995 to 48.3% in 2003. So how is it possible that an average increase of C$14,000 in income from 1993 to 2003 led to an increase in one’s tax bill of C$10,000. Try this: it isn’t.

Frum concludes with:

In other words: the lions are hungry.

No David: In other words, the lions are stupid. Tr?s stupid.