:: Cato The Youngest ::

Riyadh Delenda Est!

:: Friday, October 31, 2003 ::

If you were looking for Cato the Youngest, and Google or some other search engine sent you here, you really want to go here. The move to catotheyoungest.com is complete, and the only new posts you'll see here are ones related to the status of the new site.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 11:02:00 AM Link
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I think my ISP has finally gotten things sorted out, and my new hosting company seems to have things sorted out. Google seems to have slowed googlebot's crawling of the new site. The first couple of times they tried to crawl it, they took the site down-town.

If you are still getting the old site (it has a "search" box in the sidebar), please click the e-mail link at the top of this page and drop me a line.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 12:48:00 AM Link
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I'm still getting the old web host company for catotheyoungest.com. I put up a new post there. The top story on the old "new" site is titled "This is Al Gore's Fault". I guess this is what I get, for using an internet that he invented.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 11:43:00 AM Link
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Moved my "new" site catotheyoungest.com to a new web host. I don't know how far along the DNS propagation is, but my traffic is way down. If you're still getting the old host (the top article is about the DNS migration), drop me a line. Leave a comment here, or use the e-mail link on the version of catotheyoungest.com you're getting. One way or another, the e-mail address should work, because they're both autoforwards.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 8:02:00 PM Link
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New site's back up. catotheyoungest.com
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 2:42:00 PM Link
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On Hiatus

My regular website, www.catotheyoungest.com is having host problems. The host company I signed up with, and a company that bought them out are in a pissing contest, and the sites are down. I can't even download my archives from the site to move the site to another provider.

I was hoping they would get things straightened out, but it looks like that's not happening anytime soon. If and when I get things straightened out, I'll try to let people know.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 9:59:00 AM Link
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Letters from San Francisco

Bill Quick whacks a local idiot. The doofus accuses the Bush administration of a "new McCarthyism". Here's what Bill had to say about it.

Gosh, Paul H. Taylor, the left is so tired. And stupid. It's nice to see that some things never change. Get it through your extremely numb skull: Criticism is not censorship. Disagreement is not destruction. Which, exactly, of your "civil liberties" have been dismantled? Certainly not your ability to bray like a witless ass in the public square without reprisal. As far as "assaults on the Constitution" go, I'm more worried about the assault your ilk has been waging on the 2nd Amendment for the past seventy years, and on the first by your PC legions as well

He also agreed with a writer who thought the San Francisco Giants organization should have played the national anthem, instead of "God Bless America", before Tuesday's World Series game.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 10:13:00 AM Link
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Steven Den Beste on Iraqi Debt

Steven thinks we must repudiate Iraq's debts to France and Russia.

On a purely practical level, it is necessary now for us to punish both nations for their support of Saddam during the last ten years. Both must suffer, because we must establish the precedent that this kind of behavior can lead to ruin. If we were to honor those debts and retain those deals, then it would encourage them further, and others as well, to try to shaft us, secure in the knowledge that there's much to be gained and nothing to lose by doing so.

It would also mean that the French and Russian companies who violated the sanctions (at least in spirit) by getting in early to make lucrative deals in Iraq would be rewarded, and the companies in other nations who played straight and honored the sanctions would not be.

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The Europeans are already beginning to learn that lesson in how the Bush administration is treating Schröder, and if the French economy crashes because of their equivalent behavior then the message will become impossible to ignore: Gratuitously lambasting America can be very expensive.

Because France must suffer for this, Russia will have to appear to suffer, too, but it looks as if what's going to happen is that we'll make some compensating deals with Russia. The situation isn't really the same, and there hasn't been anything like as much Russian commercial dealings in the last ten years. (Most of the Iraqi debt to Russia is left over from the 1980's when the USSR sold a lot of arms to Iraq on credit.)

Steven also draws an interesting paralell with the post-WWII Marshall Plan. We didn't just give Germany money to pay for reconstruction. We forgave all of Germany's pre-war debts. If Germany had been forced to pay her old debts, plus reparations for WWII damages, it's doubtful that she could ever have recovered from the devastation of the war.

France is Saddam's chief enabler. If anyone deserves to bear the financial hardship associated with his removal, it is France.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 9:36:00 AM Link
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A Tiny Gulf Kingdom Bets Its Stability on Support for U.S.

The NY Times has this story.

Thanks to an enlightened emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who took over from his father in a bloodless palace coup seven years ago, Qatar is now one of the most liberal, democratic countries in the traditionally tribal-ruled neighborhood.

The country has already held municipal elections, in which women both voted and ran for office (though none of them won). It has drafted a Constitution that provides for an elected Parliament. It has even broken ranks with its Arab neighbors by establishing ties with Israel.

Alcohol is available, and many women walk in public without head scarves. The government not only encourages a free press, it also sponsors the satellite television station Al Jazeera, a flagship of free speech so uncontrolled that even the United States wants it toned down.

All of that is unsettling for Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islam's holiest shrines and the long-established patriarch of the Arabian peninsula. Last month, the Saudis recalled their ambassador to Qatar, ostensibly for a slight made against the royal family by a guest on Al Jazeera.

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As a sort of insurance policy against the hostility of his neighbors, the emir years ago began building a billion-dollar air base on a scale clearly too large for his own small air force. That was a tacit invitation to the United States, and it did not take long before America was at his door.

Qatar's pro-Western atmosphere and the carte blanche offered the American military have proved irresistible to Washington, particularly when compared with Saudi Arabia.

A huge air base in Qatar, and a government willing to let us use it. Once Saddam's gone, we'll have all the bases in the region that we could possibly want. Once Iraq's oil fields are back to full production, oil prices will drop to a point where we no longer have to kiss the Saudis' butts. We'll need the House of Sods about as much as we need a toothache. I'm going to enjoy it, when we finally tell them to shove it.
:: Riyadh Delenda Est 1:39:00 AM Link
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