Foundation

On my first commentary site, Rob and I talked an awful lot about UN Security Council Resolution 1441. That was the one that the UNSC supported unanimously to order Saddam Hussein to cooperate fully with Hans Blix. He didn’t, and so it meant war.

I believe UNSCR 1701 has the potential to work the same way. Passed unanimously, it tells Hezbollah to disarm, and Lebanon to take control of all its territory. I don’t think Hezbollah and Lebanon will cooperate, though, so it’s going to be incumbent on select Member States to force it to happen.

But the biggest variable at work: Ehud Olmert, Israel’s Prime Minister. If it’s true that the only reason this resolution was brokered by the US to begin with, is that he wanted to withdraw from Lebanon, then it’s not hopeful that he’ll sock it to Lebanon once the deal is broken.

We shall see, though, whether it takes a new Israeli election to get it going or not.

Unfortunately Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi is quitting next month, but he made the most of his final days in office by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender to the Allies in 1945. Apparently during his campaign to become head of the Liberal Democratic Party, he had promised to make a visit the shrine, which honors two million Japanese who died for the Emperor of Japan between 1867 and 1945, some year on August 15. Until now he made his annual visits on other days, though, in an attempt to avoid riling up Japan’s neighbors. But, says the Japan Times:

“I have always been criticized and opposed, even when I avoided (visiting Yasukuni) on Aug. 15,” the prime minister said. “It doesn’t make any difference when I go.”

Of course the feckless South Korean government took the opportunity to show far more hate for Koizumi and the Japanese government than they ever show for Kim Jong-Il and his brutal regime, as did Red China. That just shows how credible they are on the state of the world today, when they won’t let World War II end.

I just hope Koizumi’s successor will be as strong-willed about making his country a strong partner of the US in security and prosperity. I also hope Donald Rumsfeld will continue to move our troops in Korea away toward the south, as an acknowledgement that their priorities clearly differ from ours.

It’s not exactly the leakers I’d most want to see gotten, but a federal judge is now compelling testimony from San Francisco Chronicle reporters who wrote about leaks from the BALCO grand jury.

Sure, this isn’t exactly on the level of the national security-compromising leaks that the New York Times has been gleefully publishing, but it’s better than nothing. Any day when self-proclaimed guardians of the first amendment get slapped around for conspiring with lawbreakers, is a good day.

Quoting an email I got from the Apple Developer Connection today:

1 New Xcode 2.4 Release Available for Download

Xcode 2.4, the latest release of Apple’s integrated development environment for Mac OS X, is now available for download from the ADC Member Site. With this new release you can now develop for 64-bit Mac Pro Systems and create four-architecture Universal applications (32 and 64 bit for both Intel and PowerPC).

(https://connect.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/MemberSite.woa/wa/getSoftware?bundleID=19627)

Sounds great, I thought, so I went and downloaded Xcode 2.4, and decided to try to compile a 64-bit PrBoom, but no go. It compiled the first four (C) files OK, but once it hit some Objective C…

cc -arch ppc64 -arch x86_64 -arch ppc -arch i386 -isysroot /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk  -Os -Wno-pointer-sign -Wno-packed  -fobjc-exceptions  -I. -IMAC -I/Library/Frameworks/SDL.framework/Headers  -I/Library/Frameworks/SDL_net.framework/Headers   -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -o "MAC/i_system.o" -c MAC/i_system.m
In file included from /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Headers/NSObjCRuntime.h:42,
                 from /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Headers/NSObject.h:5,
                 from /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Headers/NSArray.h:5,
                 from MAC/i_system.m:51:
/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/usr/include/objc/objc.h:34:6: error: #error 64-bit not supported

Well gee, what does that file say?

#if __ppc64__
    #error 64-bit not supported
#endif

Would removing that line help? Probably not:

~> file /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Carbon

/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Carbon: Mach-O fat file with 2 architectures
/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Carbon (for architecture i386):   Mach-O dynamically linked shared library stub i386
/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/Carbon.framework/Versions/A/Carbon (for architecture ppc):    Mach-O dynamically linked shared library stub ppc

No 64-bit arches there at all, so they’re lying. This Xcode release does not give you what you need to build those binaries, because you don’t have the SDK (probably called something like MacOSX10.5u.sdk) needed to do so!

Apparently the last time the Giants were swept at Dodger Stadium was in 1989! What a win yesterday then!

Gee, and I thought Wikipedia was bad, but here comes ZioPedia which purports to include “all there is to know about Zionism!” Including such great articles as Jewish Power and The Influence of Israel and its American Lobby over US Middle East Policy, ZioPedia does us all that great service of reminding the world that anti-Zionism is just code for anti-Judaism.

What a great game. Greg Maddux: 8 innings, 0 runs, 2 hits, 68 pitches. Jason Schmidt: 8 innings, 0 runs, 5 hits, 115 pitches. On top of some classic pitching, the old guys brought some defense: Maddux and Barry Bonds each made an inning-saving catch that reminded us all of why they both won so many Gold Gloves.

The Dodgers got it all done late though. In the top of the 10th, Takashi Saito walked Bonds, but kept the pinch runner from making it to second before retiring the side. Then in the bottom the first batter, rookie catcher Russell Martin, parked a hanging curve right in the bleachers. Game over. Sweep.

I picked the right game to watch in its entirety.

There is now no more doubt: Fidel Castro is dead. The hostage photo of Castro holding the newspaper is the wrong color! It was printed in red, but the faked photo shows it black!

And I love that the jacket he’s in is even an old one, from the World Baseball Classic.

In reference to Adam C’s Red Hot post at Red State, here’s a solid Republican agenda that we ought to run on at all levels to appeal to frustrated men like Juan Williams and Bill Cosby:

• Abolish the minimum wage. Even if we can’t convince people to back such a plan for all people, we should at least end the minimum wage for employees under a certain age, perhaps 25. The easier we make it for employers to give entry level positions to part time American youth, the better. Because every person who gets a start down a productive path, will potentially become a positive role model for somebody.
• Prosecute employers of illegal aliens. It doesn’t help when part time American youth have to compete with full time illegal alien labor under the table.
• End the domestic drug war. Preventing the mass export of drugs from places like Colombia and Afghanistan into the United States is a great idea, but unlike with traditional crime, I see no evidence that tough enforcement has done anything positive for the affected communities.
• Fight for school choice. Public schools are run by unionized, bureaucratic, politicized teachers and administrators. Instead of adding more bureaucracy and centralized control, we need to break free of centralization and put control back into the hands of parents.
• Deregulate medical care. By allowing providers to distingush themselves and cut costs, medical care can be come affordable to more people, thus cutting out one more way people are made dependent on big government.

I know at least one of these will be controversial among Republicans, but any of them will take strong leadership to accomplish.

When I first heard of UN talks about a cease fire between Israel and Hezbollah/Lebanon (are the two distinguishable entities anymore?), my hope was that the UN and Israel would ignore it, and the talks would be fruitless.

So I was greatly surprised when not only did the US take part in the process, but both President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave full support to the results! A UN cease fire, complete with blue helmets, after blue helmets arleady there (in a years-long ‘interim’ deployment) did absolutely no good? What’s the point?

Despite my doubts, though, I decided it was best to give Olmert (Ariel Sharon’s #2 in his new Kadima party) and Bush (chief proponent of an aggressive War on Terror) the benefit of the doubt. I could only argue it so well though, having doubts on my own anyway.

So it cheered me up quite a bit to see Erick Erickson’s new piece on Red State saying that this could be a big PR boon for our side when (not if) Hezbollah violates the terms of the cease fire. Let’s just hope Olmert doesn’t hold back at that point!