† As The Armenian Vote Goes, So Goes The Nation?: In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) urges President Barack Obama to use the occasion of his visit to Turkey to “fulfill a campaign promise by preparing the Turkish government for official American recognition of the Armenian genocide of 1915-23”:

 

As a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama argued forcefully throughout the campaign that "America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides." ...

 

In 2006, for example, our ambassador to Turkey, John Evans, was recalled for using the term "genocide" to describe the events of 1915-23. In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on July 28 of that year, then Sen. Obama ... reminded Ms. Rice that "the occurrence of the Armenian genocide in 1915 is not an 'allegation,' a 'personal opinion,' or a 'point of view.' Supported by overwhelming evidence, it is a widely documented fact." …

 

On Nov. 11, 2007, in one of the most memorable speeches of his campaign, the future president told a South Carolina crowd that "I am running because of what Dr. King called 'the fierce urgency of now.' I am running because I do believe there's such a thing as being too late. And that hour is almost here." For the precious few victims of the Armenian genocide still with us - in their 90s and beyond - that time has come.

 

As The Wall Street Journal is staffed with Armenian Genocide deniers and Turkish apologists, The Stiletto is surprised Schiff’s op-ed was accepted for publication - albeit during the week-end when fewer readers will see it. The Stiletto is waiting for the editorial staff to write one or more rebuttals (second item) to Schiff's op-ed in the coming days, in particular the sections in which he refutes Turkey’s delusional claims about why the time is still “not right” for the U.S. to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

This Just In:  Here’s how the relentlessly pro-Turkey Wall Street Journal describes Obama’s remarks to Turkey’s leaders regarding the Armenian Genocide: “Barack Obama, in his first appearance as U.S. president in a Muslim nation, waded Monday into Turkey's thorniest issues - the slaughter of Armenians in World War I and the rising power of political Islam in a secular state.” Here’s how the “fair and balanced” FOX News characterizes Obama’s remarks: “President Obama on Monday declined to repeat his claim that the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians during World War I was a "genocide," stepping back from his campaign pledge to Armenian Americans that the "widely documented fact" would be fully commemorated during his presidency.” [Emphasis in both cases, The Stiletto.]

†MSM Lax When It Comes To Disclosure And Exposure Of Their Own Conflicts Of Interest: Bad enough the MSM did not vet Barack Obama throughout the more than two-year primary and general campaign season and continually ran articles that put his opponents – particularly John McCain – in a bad light, various media outlets paid Obama advisors and surrogates to talk up his economic plans and policies, reports The Washington Post:

 

Some of President Obama's top economic advisers were paid, in some cases handsomely, for their commentaries in 2008 about tax policy, government bailouts of financial institutions, global trade and the economic recession, according to financial disclosure forms made public by the White House late Friday.

 

Four White House economic aides, including, received thousands of dollars in payments for newspaper opinion columns or cable television appearances, the documents show.

 

The officials received income for their commentaries before joining Obama's administration in January. Yet at the same time that some were advising Obama's presidential campaign, they were being paid by news organizations, in some cases for commentating on President George W. Bush's economic policies or advocating for policies that Obama supported on the campaign trail.

 

National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers earned $34,000 by the Financial Times for writing eight columns in 2008, as well as another $60,000 for a speech; National Economic Council Deputy Director Jason Furman was paid $5,000 writing columns for Slate and $400 for a Los Angeles Times column; Austan Goolsbee, a member of Ohama’s Council of Economic Advisers, got $2,000 by the New York Times for a column; and Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden's chief economic policy adviser, made $70,000 for more than 130 appearances on CNBC’s "The Kudlow Report," "Squawk on the Street" and "Closing Bell."

 

 

† April Fools Jokes: When The Stiletto found out that the iPod President Barack Obama gave Queen Elizabeth II was preloaded with his speeches (OK, not MO’s arm exercises - but it’s almost the same thing, if you think about it), plus 40 tracks from Broadway shows the first thing she thought was: "Isn’t this a violation of copyright law?' Well, Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann looked into it.

 

The long and the short of it is that Obama would have been on solid ground if he had given the Queen a “greatest hits” compilation of Broadway show tunes, or a collection of 40 individual CDs, under the "first sale" doctrine, which permits you to give away or resell a CD you have purchased. But since the tracks were downloaded digitally, things get murky real fast, according to von Lohmann:

 

[S]uddenly it's a legal quagmire. (And, for the remainder of this discussion, I am going to set aside the Presidential immunity issues and the UK copyright law issues, which make it even more of a quagmire.) …

 

Copyright owners have consistently argued in court that many digital products … are "licensed," not "owned," and therefore you're not entitled to resell them or give them away. …

 

[W]hat about the additional copies made on the iPod? iTunes does not download directly to an iPod. So President Obama's staff made an additional copy onto the Queen's intended iPod. … The iTunes terms of service say that downloads are "only for personal, noncommercial use." Is giving a copy to a head of state a "personal" use? Seems more like a "diplomatic use," doesn't it? So copyright owners could argue that the copy on the iPod was not authorized, because it was beyond the scope of the iTunes "license." …

 

Of course, no one thinks that copyright owners are going to send lawyers after either President Obama or the Queen over this. But none of us should want a world where even our leaders - much less the rest of us - can't figure out how copyright law operates in their daily lives.

 

[Hip Tip: Media Daily News]

 

 

† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: With bonuses shrinking or being taken away by acts of Congress, Manhattanites living in posh co-ops and condos are trying to economize by pulling their kids out of private schools and scrambling to get them into one of several schools in the borough with stellar academic reputations – even if they live outside the school’s zone, reports The New York Times:

 

As many would-be private school parents scramble for a good public school, there is a despairing recognition that in this respect, geography is destiny: With odds of being accepted into a popular school in another zone slimmer than ever, they either live in a neighborhood with a decent elementary or they don’t.

 

[L]andlocked owners - unable or unwilling to sell in a down market or to spend around $33,000 a year to send their child to private school - are panicking.

 

Trapped by their real estate, these parents are swallowing a bitter pill: had they sold their apartments a year ago, their profits might have financed an entire private school education.

 

Some parents are considering renting an apartment in a desirable zone - at least for the time it takes to prove residency. And some otherwise law-abiding parents plan to flout the system by establishing a fake residency in their school zone of choice. …

 

“Moving your kid out of private school is usually one of the last things to go,” said Kathy M. Braddock, a partner at Charles Rutenberg Realty. “You give up vacations and cars and take away summer camp first.

 

“But I hear people evaluating everything now. I know lawyers who have been laid off, Wall Street people, the Madoff victims. These are people who never thought they would be in a financial situation where they would have to start making certain choices.”

 

Moreover, whereas “saying you’re interested in sending your kids to public schools used to be a taboo among a certain group of people,” Ms. Braddock said. “Now it’s actually kind of cool and in vogue.”

 

These snippets don’t do justice to the monumental sense of entitlement these odious folks have. Every one of them has a bright kid who is too good for just any public school – and they have no compunctions about using their wealth to bend or break the rules to have their way. Wanna bet that they collectively vote for candidates who oppose vouchers so parents of more modest means could send their kids to private schools better and safer than the public schools in their inner city neighborhoods?

 

 

† A Missed Speech, A Speech That Missed: The Stiletto took Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) to task for glossing over the nearly $100 billion in taxpayer dollars allocated to Hurricane Katrina recovery - half of it going to his state – in his rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s first speech to Congress in February. Turns out that it wasn’t just “spirit” that “got LA through the hurricanes” – it was mostly money, reports The New York Times:

 

Years before Washington spent $787 billion on a national stimulus bill, it staged an unintended trial run in Louisiana, a huge injection of some $51 billion for which historians find few, if any, precedents in a single state. …

 

The state’s unemployment rate of 5.7 percent in February was considerably below the national average of 8.1 percent, and it was the only state to see a drop in unemployment from December to January. It was also the only state with an increase in non-farm employment in February. …

 

Largely a result of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, construction projects have not dried up as they have elsewhere, and a few can even be seen in downtown New Orleans. …

 

One of the governor’s leading aides, the state’s recovery director, Paul Rainwater, praised the federal relief effort in Louisiana in recent remarks to Congress, the day after his boss scorned federal help on national television in the Republican Party’s response to President Obama’s first address to Congress. …

 

In the preceding 18 months, some $25 million a week had been given out in the public-assistance program, which helps local governments rebuild vital facilities, among other functions. …

 

Because of that history, the governor’s anti-stimulus stance - as well as his threat to reject the stimulus package’s supplemental unemployment aid as an unwarranted burden on business interests - has provoked some skepticism and incomprehension here.

 

The Stiletto doesn’t disagree with Jindal’s anti-stimulus arguments – she just thinks he’s the wrong person to be making them.

 

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (Is This Why We Fight?): The Washington Post reports that “the legal repression of Afghan Shiite women has created a global uproar, bringing condemnation from Western governments and U.N. officials”:

 

Critics charge that the new Shiite Personal Status Law, signed last week by President Hamid Karzai, would enshrine the rights of Shiite men to sexually enslave their wives and keep them imprisoned at home. Western leaders have compared the law to the Taliban era of 1996 to 2001, when Sunni extremists ruled Afghanistan and banned women from work and school.

 

Karzai defended the law at a news conference Saturday, saying he had seen nothing in it that justified international concerns and suggesting that Western critics had misinterpreted the contents. However, he said he would have his justice minister review the law "very carefully" to make sure it does not contradict the Afghan constitution.

 

"I have studied the law. … What I saw did not reflect what has been said in the Western media," Karzai told reporters in his palace. Reading from one section, he said, "a woman may leave home for legitimate purposes … it does not say she is not allowed to go out."

 

But the law does not spell out such “legitimate purposes” so a woman would have to explain why she is going out to her husband or father, and leave it to him to decide whether her purpose is “legitimate” and give his permission.

 

The New York Times reports that the law says that “unless the wife is ill,” she “is bound” to give her husband sex:

 

The law also outlines rules on divorce, child custody and marriage, all in ways that discriminate against women, said Soraya Sobhrang, commissioner for women’s rights at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

 

While the law applies only to Shiites, who represent approximately 10 percent of the population, its passage could influence a proposed family law for the Sunni majority and a draft law on violence against women, Ms. Sobhrang said. “This opens the way for more discrimination,” she said. …

 

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said the law represented a “huge step in the wrong direction.”

 

“For a new law in 2009 to target women in this way is extraordinary, reprehensible and reminiscent of the decrees made by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the 1990s,” Ms. Pillay said in a statement posted on her agency’s Web site. “This is another clear indication that the human rights situation in Afghanistan is getting worse, not better.”

 

In addition to the clauses on when women may leave the home and must submit to their husbands, Ms. Pillay said she was concerned about a section that forbids women from working or receiving education without their husband‘s permission.

 

NATO’s secretary general wondered why the alliance was sending men and women to fight in Afghanistan when discrimination against women was condoned by law – a question The Stiletto has repeatedly asked about the U.S. mission in Iraq and Afghanistan. Reuters reports that Italian defense minister Ignazio La Russa may protest the law by temporarily pulling out his country’s female personnel serving in Afghanistan.

 

For his part, when asked about the law at a news conference in Strasbourg, France, on Saturday, President Barack Obama said “[I]t is very important for us to be sensitive to local culture, but … there are certain basic principles that all nations should uphold, and respect for women and respect for their freedom and integrity is an important principle.” Principles aside, Obama added that the primary reason that U.S. troops are fighting in Afghanistan is to protect Americans from terrorist attacks, reports The Associated Press. How pragmatic (read: cynical).

 

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, We Fight Them Over There So We Don’t Have To Fight Them Over Here?: Part III): Last June, Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 26, pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists for making a video that showed how to turn remote-controlled devices into bomb detonators. His friend, Youssef Samir Megahed, went to trial and was acquitted of charges that he and Mohamed were carrying explosives across state lines and possessing a destructive device, reports The Associated Press:

 

Prosecutors said deputies found PVC pipes, fuses, and other materials that could have been combined with gasoline to build a destructive device when the former University of South Florida student and a friend were pulled over in South Carolina in August 2007. The attorney for Megahed … had argued that the items were no more harmful than a road flare, and that his friend, Ahmed Mohamed, put the items in the car trunk without Megahed's knowledge.

 

The case was filled with terrorist overtones, and came nearly four months after Mohamed was sentenced to 15 years in prison for making a YouTube video showing would-be terrorists how to turn a remote-control toy into a bomb detonator. The 12-minute clip was found on a laptop computer inside the men's car. …

 

The video was not shown to jurors in Megahed's trial. … A Tampa federal judge deemed it irrelevant to the case, and a U.S. appeals court upheld his ruling. …

 

Megahed said he plans to go back to the University of South Florida to finish his engineering degree. He was one course shy of graduation at the time of his arrest. And then? "Get a job," he said.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador concerns Domino’s Pizza honoring an Internet promotion it never intended to offer. Before the snafu got straightened out, 11,000 people benefitted with a free meal, and the company’s headquarters promised to reimburse franchisees in the Cincinnati area and Northern Kentucky for the medium pizza giveaway, reports The Cincinnati Enquirer:

 

In December, Domino's created an online-only promotion for a free pizza using the codeword "bailout," but it never got the green light, said Tim McIntyre, Domino's vice president of communications. "It had never technically been activated, but we hadn't turned it off, either."

 

Monday night, an "enterprising customer" discovered the deal and spread it on the Internet, McIntyre said.

 

The franchisees were in a no-win situation: Either turn away customers believing they were entitled to a free pizza and create ill will, or lose hundreds of dollars. Kudos to Domino’s management, who did the right thing.

 

Editorial Note: Rumor has it the “enterprising customer” may have hacked into the Domino’s Web site, rather than somehow stumbling upon the offer.