The Noble Pundit

Well, At Least I'm In Good Company

I've mentioned before my desire to see the Supreme Court look only to the US Constitution for guidance, not foreign court rulings. Apparently, Antonin Scalia feels the same way.

I like that we have at least one justice who recognizes that the Court should not "impose foreign moods, fads, or fashions on Americans" because "...the practices of other countries are irrelevant because their constitutions are not at issue. International 'notions of justice are (thankfully) not always those of our people.'"

If things continue as they are, I'm still standing by my earlier statement that it may be time to remove a few justices via Article III, Sec. I. Breyer and Ginsburg would be a good start.

The Gutting Of The 4th

Friday afternoon the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans released a ruling that has essentially said the 4th Amendment no longer applies in cases of that "unreasonable search" thing.

I'm normally a law and order type person, but taking away the checks and balances required to get a search warrant is too much. I would rather see a couple of crimes go unpunished than to have the cops able to waltz into my house at any point, with no verified legitimate basis for the search. Especially if one of the reasons that can be given for the search is that the officer fears for his safety. That is much to subjective, unverifiable, and subject to abuse.

I have to put myself in agreement with the two dissenting judges that this is "the Road to Hell." Living in an Orwellian police state would be Hell.

I hope, I hope, I hope that the Supreme Court takes this case up and corrects the wrongs that have been inflicted by this ruling. If it is allowed to stand, what is the point of having the Constitution?

UPDATE: Jack at Random Fate links to a different article from the ABC affiliate in New Orleans that points out just how much worse this actually is. Very soon there will be nothing left of the Fourth to defend. The Bill of Rights were never intended to be negotiable. This cannot stand.

A Government Agency Held Accountable? How Can It Be?!?

Right after 9/11, one of the very actions that government strove to undertake was the creation of a new huge bureaucracy charged with protecting our transportation infrastructure. At the time, there were the cries of "But this bureaucracy will be different!," even as some lawmakers were expressing misgivings about such a bloated government endeavor. In the end, public pressure won out and the Transportation Security Administration was created.

Over the last few years, TSA has attempted to get its act together. It has subjected us to grandmothers being stripped searched, women being forced to consume their own breast milk, and the confiscation of untold thousands of nail clippers. We have been regaled with tales of the difficulties the TSA has had in finding quality personnel to man the checkpoints. We have witnessed TSA firing employees because they were hired without proper due diligence being conducted. We have stood there in line, holding our shoes instead of wearing them, wondering why TSA wasn't using some sort of profiling scheme. But most of all we fumed, because this time - despite the promises and assurances, things were the same.

But lawmakers, probably unintentionally, left us an out. Beginning November 19, three years to the day from the foundation of our newest bloated bureaucracy, airports can apply to opt out of government provided screeners.

The airports would have to hire in their own private security, supervised by TSA, of course. But in return they would have the freedom to staff as needed, when needed. No longer would the airline passengers be forced to adjust their schedule to the vagaries of government agency staffing plans. No longer would there be two screening stations open at 7 am and ten at 11 am (7 am is usually the big morning push, 11 is usually dead, awaiting the 12:30 arrivals). Instead, the airport could require the dictate to the screeners the right staffing for the flight schedule, rather than scheduling staff around the most convenient times for the employees.

The government and the unions have got to be starting to scramble, trying to figure out how they're going to stop the madness. For an airport like Melbourne, FL to go private is one thing - most people will never notice the difference, as they'll never go to Melbourne. But imagine if an Atlanta, a New York, or a Chicago goes private (don't expect to see Boston on that list until the very, very last moment, when John Kerry declares that he's been for security privatization ever since the day after he last voted for federalization). Start showing large segments of the traveling public the benefits of privatization and the game' up.

I'm guessing that when November 19 comes and the applications start rolling in, we'll probably see the unions cut a deal with the TSA to keep the big airports federalized. Some smaller airports will be privatized as a sop to the people, but the government will maintain its hold on the biggies.

And for most people, we'll hear the same refrain "But this time it will be different!"

And once again, nothing will fundamentally change. Accountability will still be a foreign concept to government agencies.

Another Addition To The Pantheon Of Exceedingly Bad Ideas

Here I was trying to avoid politics tonight, and I found one of the most singularly bad ideas I have ever seen proposed by a member of Congress. It violates the most important basic premise of our nation - that each of the three branches of government is governed by a system of checks and balances.

For the short version, Congressman Lewis of Kentucky has introduced a bill to the House that would allow Congress, with a supermajority vote, to overrule findings of the Supreme Court.

I'll agree with the Congressman that judicial activism has gone too far and we need to find a way to reign it in. But is the gutting of the Constitutional seperation of powers the best way to go? Not a chance in hell.

There are two checks on the power of the Legislature written into the Constitution. First, the President (or the Executive branch) can veto the law. That check is not an absolute one, however, with the ability of Congress to override the veto with a, here's an interesting suprise, supermajority vote. The Supreme Court has a more limited scope of things that they can examine, but a contrary Supreme Court ruling has always had the effect of scrapping the law.

If Congress thought the law to be necessary anyways, they have always had the Amendment process available to them to overrule the Supreme Court, but an Amendment requires the buyin of the states.

This bill would essentially circumvent the Amendment process.

First of all, I strongly believe that a simple law will not be enough to put this in force. It changes the basic structure of the Constitution. That, by definition, should require an Amendment.

Second off, I don't believe that we should put that much power into the hands of any one branch. Even the Imperial Judiciary doesn't have this much power. This law would put us at the mercy of a tyranny of the Congress.

Passing this law would take away any pretense of a need for responsible action on the part of Congress. No longer would they be bound by the constaints of checks and balances: they wouldn't have any.

This bill likely has no chance of going anywhere, but I think that its introduction raises some pretty serious red flags. We are going too far in the other direction in our quest to save the country from the Judiciary.

We have to find the proper balance. I don't know what the ultimate answer will be, but I know that this should not be it.

Replacing one tyranny with another is pretty unproductive, all in all.

Souvenirs Vs. Historical Artifacts

There seems to be a big brouhaha brewing over the final disposition of a number of objects from the World Trade Center and the Pentagon attacks of 9/11. Some folks are understandably upset that a number of items have been appropriated as souvenirs.

If items are taken simply as momentos or some other kind of personal use, then I agree that there is something abjectly perverted about it.

If the taking of a momento puts an investigation or prosecution in jeopardy, then it needs to be punished.

But not all taking of items is wrong. In some cases, a greater good may be found in the effort.

In the middle of the article there is a few short paragraphs:

The report also states the special agent in charge of the FBI's office in Knoxville, Tenn., Joe Clark, contacted FBI officials in New York requesting a piece of debris to display in an exhibit dealing with hate crimes. A 100-pound piece of steel was sent to Clark, the report said.

The report stated FBI agents who worked in New York repeatedly expressed their disgust that visiting agents and supervisors would seek souvenirs from the terrorist attacks.

Many interviewed regarded the debris as sacred, the reported stated, "and were disgusted by the fact that anyone would want to take items, including pieces of the building which were contaminated with blood and human body parts."

The implication is that there was something wrong with Mr. Clark's request. But I honestly don't believe that there was.

His intention is not to put the piece in his personal collection. His intention is not to try to profit either financially or emotionally from having the piece. Rather he is using it to try to educate.

9/11 is part of our history - an important part. It is not an event that can be ignored. It is not event which should have all evidence of it destroyed. There need to be a few pieces out there where people can see them. There need to be a few pieces out there to remind us of the horror of that day - and of the resolve and unity that followed.

There need to be a few unsanitized pieces, ones that still show the human toll of that day. 9/11 was not clinical. Neither was our reaction.

On the Temple Mount in Jerusalem the Palestinians have set up some museum to the people killed in the fighting on and around the Mount itself. Most of the museum is displays of guns or rocks or flags, with lots of text panels.

But the last display showing a few of the bloody shirts of those wounded or killed on the Mount grabs the visitor. I probably learned more at that last display than I did in the entire rest of the museum.

Was it wrong to display the bloody shirts? I don't think so. History is not always happy. Sometimes history is brutal. Sometimes history is bloody. That part of history needs to be confronted and studied just as much as the Renaissance or the Reformation.

I would commend Agent Clark for trying to make an effort at gaining some good out of such an awful tragedy. Maybe his exhibit won't influence a single person; maybe it will influence countless numbers. We don't know and probably never can or will know. But at least an attempt is being made.

When I look back through my photo albums, I come across a picture of me standing on the observation deck on the top of the Center in 1986. I look at that photo and then I see images from the destruction of the Towers and it makes me sick.

But over time the impact of photos has a tendency to fade. Images can be manipulated. Images can be denied. In the end, they are but colors and patterns on paper that create a representative record of a moment in time. But they are not real.

It is much easier to deny a photograph than it is a block of steel. It is much easier to deny a memory than it is a bloody shirt. It is much easier to deny a textual account than it is a real and tangible artifact of the event. Holocaust deniers can deny the photographs and records of Dachau, but they cannot deny its existence or that of the ovens. We need to keep the memory of 9/11 alive by keeping pieces and parts of the horror where people can see them and remember for themselves their individual horrors of that day.

Now what about Rumsfeld and the piece of metal he keeps on display on a table in his office? That's a little bit tougher.

I would like to see the piece out on display where more people can see, but I don't think we can really pass judgment until he leaves office. If he takes the piece with him, that would be wrong and contemptible. If he leaves it behind as a permanent memorial, then I don't really have any problem with it except for its location.

When we look back at history, we see days of abject tragedy. We remember and try to learn from those days so that the mistakes that brought them on are not made again.

But for the battles we best remember we have physical reminders. It may be the fields of Gettysburg or it may be the hulk of the USS Arizona sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. But with 9/11, the Pentagon has already been repaired and the WTC is going to be rebuilt. There is still the field of Shanksville and there will certainly be some kind of memorial park or stone in Lower Manhattan, but for most people, the physical reminders of that horrible day will be erased. The day will become but a memory, with all the deniability that memory entails.

There is a difference between souvenirs and historical artifacts. I can empathize with the families of the victims of 9/11 in their disgust over the former. But I can also see and appreciate the need for the latter.

We owe it to the victims to not let their day become nothing more than a bad memory.

Guilty, Guilty, Guilty & Guilty

Those were the verdicts on the four remaining charges against Martha Stewart. After the judge threw out the most serious charge, the jury nailed her on the other four.

And I think that they were right.

Martha Stewart was not just a happy homemaker investing in the market. She was an astute businesswoman; she was a former stockbroker.

Got that?

A former stockbroker.

That statement right there, I believe, changed the whole set of standards by which she should have been - and was - judged. When I earned my Series 7 license back in the day, I was told that passing the 7 was the same as proving that you knew more about investments, investment law, and the regulations surrounding the stock market than 85% of the population. After having done my tour of duty as a broker, I believe that it is pretty close to an accurate statement.

For the 7, and the Series 63 blue sky exam (which allows you to be registered in different states), one of the biggest focuses of the law portion of the exam is insider trading. Martha has to have known the laws - which is why she was able to concoct a good enough story to beat the insider trading rap (it was never filed).

But what she forgot is that by virtue of having been a broker, she is held to a higher standard. My 7 lapsed last week. But still, I have a filing cabinet full of papers related to various trades, actual or considered. I have anything that might be considered pertinent if there was ever a question as to why I made a particular trade. Martha should have had the same. It's part of the ongoing price to pay for having played in the industry.

And that's why I feel no real sympathy for Martha. She had an opportunity (neigh: obligation)at the time of the trades (and before) to accumulate the documentation and reasonings that would have proved her contention - if it were true.

But instead, she failed to do what was required of her. She allowed herself, likely through neglect, to arrive in a situation where she could be endangered by a person's word. She had an opportunity to give herself an airtight defense, but instead she allowed herself to be impeached by a 27 year old drug user.

Do I personally buy the story of the stop order at 60? Not really. I would have expected the broker to do more than to make a handwritten notation in Martha's position statement indicating the sell order. Maybe it's just me, but if that is what Bacanovic really did, I would almost say that he's guilty of a breach of fiduciary responsibility (a very bad thing in the investment world, believe you me).

There are just too many things that don't add up in the parts of the story I've been able to follow. Martha's explanation just doesn't really seem to be up to snuff.

Hopefully her Jailhouse Living edition will be.

Gay Marriage Dealt A Setback In NY

Finally, a government official who understands his duty. Eliot Spitzer, the Attorney General in New York, has come out and said that he personally supports the gay marriage movement, but that he is required to uphold the law as written - despite his personal beliefs.

Spitzer is absolutely correct in his position. His attitude towards the existing law should be the attitude that every member of the executive branch, whether they be President, Governor, AG, or mayor.

The proponents of gay marriage keep pushing this issue all the wrong ways. Instead of trying to change the law from within, they are attmepting all these extralegal manuevers which I think are doing nothing more than seriously polarizing the issue. The advocates for gay marriage had a relatively favorable environment for making their case a year ago. When the general population was relatively apathetic towards the issue, it was easy to swing the fence sitters to the pro-marriage side. But through their actions, the proponents have mobilized the anti-gay marriage forces and have given them ammunition to use in the form of the legal end-arounds.

The gay marriage proponents need more Eliot Spitzers and fewer Gavin Newsoms or Jason Wests. Too bad it's probably already too late.

This Should Be Happening In More Places (Like San Francisco)

The mayor of New Paltz, NY has been criminally charged for marrying homosexual couples in his town.

He only faces $500 in fines and potentially a year in jail (which I would seriously doubt will happen), but it still sends a pretty strong message - and one that needs to be sent: the laws must be obeyed, even when they are disagreeable.

The mayor of a town, a burg, a village, or a metropolis has no right to decide to violate a law with impunity. He is as bound to them as the rest of us. No person is above the law.

I really hope that they do throw Mayor West in jail. It would set a powerful and chilling precedent for other potential righteous mayors.

Some people will have a problem with that statement saying that it would also cast a chilling effect on the national debate surrounding gay marriage. I disagree.

Just as we must seperate the illegal marriage cerimonies from the debate, we must also seperate the consequences of the illegalities. The issue is distinct from the acts that are occuring.

Where this really needs to happen, though, is San Francisco. Gavin Newsom needs to be charged like this. He, like the mayor of New Paltz, has openly and deliberately violated the law. A criminal act is a criminal act. Period.

D.W.W.TV?

I'm rather stunned that there is actually a charge for driving while watching television.

That one just strikes me as bizarre. Who would have thought that we needed to explicitly outlaw driving an automobile while watching the boob tube?

Now this guy also managed to take the concept of driving while watching the boob tube to a new level by getting pulled over while watching porn. He was caught because the cops could see the film showing on the headrest mounted screens.

Maybe it's time to come up with a new charge for situations like this: driving while being undeniably stupid. It would certainly be easier than trying to make sure that you are charging with the use of the proper banned electronic device.

Driving while watching television. That is just too funny.

This Pretty Well Sums It Up

If this isn't reason enough for removing Gavin Newsom from office in San Francisco, I don't know what it:

Yet what really matters to Mayor Gavin Newsom is what they're saying in the neighborhoods of San Francisco - that his decision to buck California law and grant marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples makes him a hero. (emphasis mine)

"At the end of the day I sleep well, and in life there is nothing more important than that," Newsom said Saturday during an interview at City Hall, where nearly 3,200 same-sex couples have taken vows in the last 10 days. "What matters is doing the right thing and being true to yourself and standing up on principle." (emphasis mine again)

He claims to have based his decision "based on his reading of the California Constitution."

Now would this be the same Constitution that provided for a seperation of powers in the government? Would this be the same Constitution that he is essentially ignoring based on his view of "doing the right thing?"

Gay marriage is not on par with murder. Right and wrong is not as clear cut, no matter how much the extremists, like Mr. Newsom, might want us to believe. I'm sure that Mr. Newsom would complain vociferously about a marriage amendment being an imposition of someone else's morality, yet what he has done is to impose his vision of morality on his city. What makes his version better? What makes his vision superior to everyone elses?

Mr. Newsom needs to understand that there are ideals in our government that are more important than his status as a "hero." Our system of government is far more important than Mr. Newsom's ability to sleep better at night.

If he's willing to act the little tyrant for pride, then Mr. Newsom has no business being in office.

Right Idea, Wrong Time

So the city of San Francisco has decided that now it is time to sue the State of California in order to have the same sex marriage ban declared unconstitutional. I'll give the city credit for realizing how the process should have worked from day one, but it still doesn't make the actions of the mayor right.

Even if the law is declared unconstitutional, it doesn't change the fact that the mayor still willfully and knowingly violated it. It doesn't make the mayor right and it does not change the fact that I believe that the mayor should be removed from office for violating the law.

The mayor has a responsibility to enforce all the laws, not just the ones that he agrees with. If he disagrees with a particular law, he has the right to appeal to the court to have the law overturned - that is the essence of the system of checks and balances, two branches of government can overrule the third to keep power from investing itself in any one branch.

But the mayor did not use a legal recourse in approaching this matter. He instead chose civil disobedience. That is certainly his right, but he needs to acknowledge that violating the law, even as part of a peaceful protest, has consequences. If you're a politician in power, that should include involuntary removal from office.

It's nice that the city finally decided to act in a legal, responsible manner, but in my opinion, it is too little, too late to be able to save the mayor. He needs to be forced from office.

Does The Phrase "All-Volunteer" Mean Anything?

Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal Constitution has written a column in which she decrys the unfairness of the all-volunteer military claiming because we don't have a draft that affulent whites are being given a free pass on military service.

I guess the concept of "all-volunteer" escapes Ms. Tucker. In a volunteer force, no one is compelled to join the military. For minorities, they may find the military to be a haven of non-discrimination, and the poorer among us may find the military to be a respectable and reasonable path to middle classdom. But everyone who joins does so of their own free will. In some way, shape or form, they have decided that the military provides the best answer to their needs at this point.

If the military meets the needs of these people - and these people meet the needs of the military - where is the problem? Not everyone is suited for the military. If there is a problem here it is because we are not making the military an attractive option to everyone.

I find Ms. Tucker's assertation that 500 American soldiers have died in Iraq with scarcely a mention to be very odd. The deaths have been examined in almost excruciating detail in the media. In wars past we would hear, say, 25 soldiers died this week - and that, plus a list of their names, would be it. In this conflict (and the peacekeeping that has followed) we not only learn about each and every soldier that dies, we also learn the manner of their death, the events surrounding it, theorizing about failures that may have led to the death, the reaction of the family and friends - all of which stands in stark contrast to conflicts past. Each death is much more personal. And our resolve to make sure that they are not in vain is that much greater.

For Ms. Tucker to claim that we are where we are because of a lack of affluent soldiers is preposterous. We are where we are because of Saddam Hussein and the dithering of previous administrations dating back to 1991.

I would really like to know what Ms. Tucker's solution to this "problem" would be.

OK, This Is Too Much

First we had the slutty dress defense against rape - you know "The way she dressed, she was asking for it" - and now we have a new version - "He was so attractive, I couldn't help myself." This is not only the stated defense, it was the successful defense used by a gay man who bought crystal meth for an undercover cop in Ft. Lauderdale!

Had the argument been that he had been badgered into doing something he might not have otherwise done, I might buy it (he was apparently asked multiple times to do so). But no, instead they release the guy because he was entrapped by "nonverbal communication."

Give me a break.

I don't believe that the "victim" was truly entrapped. He willingly bought the narcotics. His motive may not have been the most idealistic (he was apparently doing it in an effort to further his relationship with the cop), but I would also find it very hard to actually convict the guy of selling narcotics (if that was indeed the charge, rather than simple possession) as it doesn't sound like he expected the cop to pay, at least not monetarily. Convict him of being incredibly stupid and desperate. Maybe even convict him of possession.

But remember he chose to act this way of his own free will, regardless of the attractiveness of the cop in question.

This Is Inspiring

So someone had the bright idea to try to ask NASA how much the mission to Mars is going to cost. NASA's answer? Don't know and don't want to know yet.

For some strange reason, I'm guessing that beyond the general idea of sending a man to Mars, NASA probably has no idea how they're even going to begin to approach this challenge.

I'm sorry to say it, but at some point NASA has got to quite thinking in abstracts and start setting limitations on the scope of the project. I would even be so bold as to venture that a good place to start would be to set a date. From there we can start working backwards to determine what technology exists that would be useful and also what technology needs to be developed and by when.

At that point we could start having real discussions with the Russians about how they might be able to contribute (As they want to and as they should. We need to tap this willing and able resource).

NASA needs to accept that the Mars mission will not be the blank check, cutting edge program that they fantasize about. It's going to have to be a practical program, gently pushing the boundaries, rather than pushing them farther than imaginable. The mission to Mars will be special, not because of the sheer magnitude of it, like the Apollo missions, but simply because it is a taking our exploration to a new level.

The mission to Mars is a worthy and admirable goal. It is one worth pursuing. But it needs to have some definition besides "Going to Mars." Effective goals contain an element that makes them specific and makes them measureable. Our current statement of the goal is too vague. It needs to be better defined.

Of course, you do realize that once we're successful in this venture, as my father points out, the feminists and trial lawyers will be getting together to force a mission to put a woman on Venus. It just wouldn't be fair otherwise....

The Depravity Of Some People

Hey! I'm still alive! Or at least I think I am. Been working myself to death the last few weeks and spending what free time I have with the family which is the reasoning for the minimal posting, but this one this morning really got me going.

I was supposed to have an appointment early this afternoon, but it was changed to Monday, so I was sitting home this morning thinking that I would have a nice relaxing free day, maybe even updating the site. But then I got a phone call. Not just any phone call. This one was from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department (for reference I live in Seminole County about 150 miles to north) asking questions about a friend of our oldest child.

As it turns out, the moron (I've thrown him out of the house a couple of times already) was one of the two perpetrators in the beating of a homeless deaf-mute in Jupiter.

What possesses a person to do something like this? As a point of irony, CSI: Miami Monday night had as part of the storyline the beating (to death in that case) of a mentally handicapped person.

Now I'll admit that I am not the best person in the world when it comes to the mentally handicapped. More often than not, I find myself at a loss for how to act properly. There are times when I have very liitle patience and I generally feel very awkward and tried when trying to work with a mentally handicapped person (not always true, but more often than not unfortunately). But never, even in my greatest fits of frustration would I even consider hitting, much less beating to critical condition, someone - not even a person completely in command of faculties. Yet that is exactly what was done here.

For the record, the jerk in question tried to tell the cops that he lived here and that our oldest would bail his sorry butt out of jail. I told the cops that as far as I was concerned, if he was trying to use our address, he was homeless because he most certainly does not live here and that our daughter would be in now way, shape, or form coming down to bail his sorry excuse out.

One of these days, I'm going to make my fortune by figuring out what possesses people to be such idiots. God only knows I've got enough study subjects around me.

Slavery?

Geesh. Accusations of slavery in Florida are flying once again.

If the accusations are true, it would be truly deplorable. I am interested in finding out if we have a bit of hyperbole going here, though.

Slavery is a serious accusation and needs to be investigated and prosecuted as such.

Al Gore Busted For Smoking Pot!

Well, actually it was his son, Al Gore III, but it still makes for a good title, no? As it turns out, Gore #3 was cruising around Bethesda, MD with his lights off, his sunroof and windows open, in the freezing cold middle of the night. Cops found, besides a driver who was very likely wasted out of his mind, a partially smoked joint, a box with some extra weed in it, and the "odor of marijuana coming from inside the car."

Gore has been charged with misdemeanor possession of pot, as have his two male passengers.

I'll be interested to see how the Gore family reacts to this issue. When Jeb's daughter had her issues, she ended up in rehab. Will Al Gore end up there also? Inquiring minds want to know!

When Flag Burning Is Not Free Speech

Getting away from Saddam for a while, we have an article about a man banned from the Columbia, SC courthouse grounds for burning a Confederate flag.

Flag burning is a protected act, right? So why is this guy being punished for engaging in a protected act?

Burning a flag is protected speech, and should be, provided the flag is yours. The problem that this guy really ran into was that the flag belonged to the state.

He is now complaining that his sentence is restricting his right to petition his government. Well, it does. But he abused that right by destroying public property. His right to petition has not been denied. He may not have his favorite avenue available to him, but he is still permitted to petition for redress.

The best part of the story though: he burned the flag - dressed as a black Santa Claus. Got to give him creativity points for that one.

What A Wierd News Day!

OK. Today has definitely had a few odd articles floating around.

First we have Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States, actually praising the fight against terror. He also agrees that the obstructionists like France and Germany don't deserve to get any reconstruction contracts. Did we ever expect to hear any Saudi official make such blunt statements?

And then, courtesy of Opinion Journal's Best Of The Web today, we find out that some of our friends over at Democratic Underground are actually upset that the economy is starting to show signs of rebound! And then to make it even better, is their link to a post from Lance Collins in whcih he bemoans the fact that low income folks like Republicans too. So according to these two, the Democrats are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Such is the state of confusion amongst their ranks. And they wonder why Dean, who seems to be pandering to both sides, sounds like he contradicts himself so often...

Saudi's supporting the war on terror and Democrats admitting that they don't want the economy to rebound solely for political reasons. What an odd day!

More Gun Violence

How long before the anti-gun nuts latch onto this story about a homeowner who attacked a teenager with a Revolutionary era musket? They will, of course, fail to mention that the kid was breaking and entering into the guy's home or that the kid was merely clubbed, not shot.

Too bad that the kid probably still didn't learn his lesson.

Just one more example of how having a gun in the home can help to promote home safety.

Outing Activist Teachers

The Sierra Times has a great column todayexposing some of the ways in which activist teachers try to indoctrinate our kids in school.

Their main tactic is to promote the idea of "critical thinking," but while critical thinking is important to developing your own beliefs it does not neccessarily mean a complete and total rejection of values previously held. Too often, teachers talk about critical thinking, but instead push for the student to take up a position in line with the values of the teacher.

There seems to be a real and genuine identity crises going on in the educational world between the teachers who truly want to teach and those who want to be intellectual parents. The teachers want family to be involved, want parents to help guide their children through life. The activists want to indoctrinate, which means that they really want to cause a schism between the kids and the parents so as to make the reeducation easier. Anymore, it seems like the members of the profession can't decide who or what they should be.

There need to be more administrators, like the one in the article, who recognize the problem for what it is. Parents need to spend more time being involved in their child's education.

But most importantly, we need to figure out how to rein in the activists.

The Mayoral Imperium In Orlando

Yesterday, I expressed my anger with the vote of the Orlando City Council to allow the demolition of the Jaymont Block in downtown Orlando. Today, I actually found myself in agreement with Orlando Sentinel columnist Myriam Marquez and her assertation that Mayor Buddy Dyer is acting like he possess the purple.

What he did was even worse than I had originally thought. At first, I must have overlooked certain words in the original articles I linked to as I thought that the City Council vote the other night was a real vote on the action. Turns out that it was simply a non-binding resolution. Even if the City Council had voted against the demo work, the permits were already pulled; the preliminary work had already begun. How secret was His Majesty Dyer's dealings with the developer? City Council members who voted for the resolution even expressed surprise at how advanced the preperations and such were.

Dyer claimed that we should accept his process because the public was allowed to comment. Unfortunately, the public comments meant just as much as the Council resolution - not a damn thing. Dyer claims that the process was open and public, yet he allowed everything to be hidden with confidentiality agreements and stifled any potential public debate by allowing the destruction of the property before anyone could use the courts to try to reign in his Imperial Mayoraldom.

Like I said, I rarely agree with Mrs. Marquez when it comes to opinion pieces, but in her column today she levelled some pretty serious factual charges. Conflicts of interest. Skirting of the State Sunshine Laws (laws in Florida designed to make sure that all government meetings are open to the public so that backroom dealing is minimized). Attempting to bypass the checks and balances in place to prevent an executive imperialism.

Buddy Dyer is an arrogant, apparently ethically challenged politician, who is in desperate need of a recall. Reviewing his actions, I would have to seriously question if he has the best interests of the citizens of Orlando at heart. If I lived within the city limits, I would be leading the charge to throw the bum out of office.

Buddy needs to have his imperial arrogance taken down a notch or two.

And People Wonder Why There Is No History In Orlando

Orlando's City Council laid a giant egg last night, voting to allow the complete demolition of the historic Jaymont Block in downtown with a mere "promise" to try to preserve the terra cotta of the old Woolworth's facade and with no attempt to save the 1942 facade of the old McCrory's building - one of the more familiar and unique storefronts in the downtown area.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not opposed to progress or even to redevelopment of the Jaymont Block - one of the prime downtown real estate parcels. I just think that there should be more of an effort made to preserve the history of Orlando as much as possible. Sometimes that might require making compromises. In this case, I think a fair compromise would have been for the developer to incorporate the historic facades into the new complex.

But instead, we have the midnight demolition. Mayor Buddy Dyer says the public had ample time to make their point of view heard - 4 hours during a City Council meeting. I think that he's wrong. He claims that the whole process was conducted openly - yet he allowed the City Preservation Board to be bypassed and asked Council members to sign confidentiality agreements before seeing the details of the plan a few weeks ago. Is that open? Or does it fail the smell test? Personally, I give it a big, fat F.

So now the Jaymont block facades go the way of the San Juan Hotel, the Beecham Theater, and numerous other historic structures in the city. Orlando has little history outside of Church Street because our city leaders are too weak to try to keep something of our past around. Progress is important and should be given priority, but not at the complete expense of heritage and history. Orlando deserves better.

Oops! Not Looking Good For The Wal-Mart Lady

Helpful things to keep in mind. If you're going to go after a store like Wal-Mart, it is not a good idea to have the media figure out that you've sued 16 times in the past.

It's kind of sad that she has turned herself into a professional victim. It's even more sad that in her scams she seems to be netting around $400. A good scam artist would at least figure out how to get something worthwhile out of the deal.

I'm starting to believe that this woman should be the poster child for punishing filers of frivolous lawsuits. I'm not going to comment on the accuracy or legitimacy of this complaint - my mother was trying to get the same DVD at another WalMart and had a less than stellar experience - but I really have to believe that this lady is gaming the system. She's been so obvious that she had one case thrown out in 10 minutes.

What this woman did was shameful. She managed not only to bring the glare of the spotlight on WalMart (that in and of itself is not a bad thing - the way they conducted the sale was deplorable - but her method was wrong), but she has given rise to the whole "Christmas is too commercialized" crowd. She became their poster child.

It's time to make her another.

Illegal Bologna Smuggling

Gee, first it was illegal aliens, then it was illegal narcotics, now people are trying to smuggle bologna across the border.

How did someone think that a border agent wouldn't notice the 756 lb car seat in the back of the truck, even with the kids sitting on it? Are they really so unimpressed with our border security that they think that they can smuggle over a third of a ton of bologna without getting caught?

I can understand the Customs point that the bologna was potentially dangerous. After all who would want to eat bologna that little kids had been sitting on (in addition to the refrigeration issues)? But why are they only going after the guy civilly? What not find some way to charge him with something like endangerment?

We're now smuggling bologna. What's next?

More Banned Computer Terms

Remember how Los Angeles wanted to ban certain computer terms? Well, BBSpot has a list of other computer terms banned by Los Angeles County, along with suggested replacement terms:

11. SCSI - Cleanliness impaired
10. Killer App - Socially Maladjusted App
9. USB - USA
8. Floppy Drive - Erectile Dysfunction Drive
7. DIP Switches - Mentally Challenged Switches
6. HyperThreading - Attention Deficit Disability Threading
5. Heat Sink - He/Sheat Sink
4. Winmodem - Funmodem
3. ATAPI Device - Native American Device
2. Motherboard - Non-gender Specific Parentboard
1. Cancel/Retry/Abort - Cancel/Retry/Allow Woman to Choose

You're A Mean Pair, Messrs. Grinch

"Twas three weeks 'til Christmas and all through the town, not a Rotarian was stirring, not even a clown. When in the night rose such a clatter, Grinch 1 and Grinch 2 stole the club Christmas trees, it did not matter.

Into their van they did cram and stack and then off on their quest they left, looking for crack.

"Trade the trees for crack or food" is what they told the cop, being more stupid than rude.

"The sad part of it is that anyone would steal Christmas trees," the Rotarians did deplore. But their $350 of trees and stands are on the lam no more.

No one knew if the two had retained attorneys that night, but one thing was for certain, Grinch 1 and Grinch 2 had had their brains squeezed a little too tight.

Guns Drawn, No Drugs Found

Nothing like a little overzealousness on the part of law enforcement. In a scene reminiscent of something that would happen in the little town I live in, 14 officers raided a high school looking for drugs. During the raid 12 to 14 kids were restrained with plastic handcuffs, 3 officers drew their weapons, and no drugs were found.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with the idea that the cops should be able to enter a public school and to search kids for illegal narcotics. And by no means do I expect them to be successful in every search.

The officers were there based on school officials’ suspicions of pot sales. If the cops had conducted a normal, reasonable search, then I would have been cheering this as a wonderful example of the school system and law enforcement working together trying to clean up the schools to make them safer for everyone.

But what justification could there be for drawing weapons in a hallway inside a school? There are no reports of weapons being found on any of the students. There are no reports of students getting violent or threatening the safety of the officers. It sounds more like a couple of cops with a John Wayne syndrome going on, probably overreacting to a kid with a fresh mouth (surprise that would be).

I'm going to have to watch this one, looking to see what the Solicitor in the county has to say. I'm guessing that unless there is absolutely clear cut, unavoidable evidence of illegalities on the part of the cops, he'll probably decline to press charges. But the tone of his report, and any suggestions of imprudent action by the officers, will be interesting to see. I think that it will tell us more about what really happened in that hallway than anything else.

What Goes Up....

You know, I don't know who is the stupider party in this story, the guy tied to the tree with a noose around his neck or the moron firing live rounds into the air.

Joining the Klan or not, what would possess a man to willingly allow a noose to be placed on his neck as he's tied to a tree? From the sounds of it, the only difference between an initiation and a lynching is where the rope is tied to the tree.

And didn't the guy firing the gun understand basic physics? You fire a live round, that lead slug has to come down somewhere. It doesn't just harmlessly disappear into thin air if it doesn't hit anything on the way up. Hell, even the Palestinians have figured this out - they at least hold their AK-47s at a slight angle when they fire off their celebratory shots. Is it extraordinarily unlucky that Jeffery Murr ended up getting hit in the head with a bullet from heaven? Yes. Was it unforseeable? Not to anyone who had passed eighth grade science (which as I think about it is probably doubtful for Freeman).

God Almighty these guys are clueless.

Link via: A Small Victory

Well, Boo Hoo

Seated in the cabin was a 22-year-old New York City resident plucked from his bed in Queens who had just opened his own cell-phone store on the Upper West Side and thought he was legal until agents raided his family's home before dawn last winter.

A few rows away sat Mohammad Akbar, 48, who had befriended beat cops and other customers over coffee at the 7-Eleven where he worked in suburban Philadelphia. He submitted in April to the administration's "special registration" for men from Muslim countries, only to be shackled before the afternoon was out.

Not far from him was a supervisor of car-wash workers who was caught dozing in his car behind a Schaumburg office complex. Authorities detained him on a nearly 8-year-old deportation order. He's now jobless in Pakistan while the wife he left behind in a suburban apartment struggles to pay the bills....

Nearby, a teenager carried a cell phone to alert his mother the moment his older brother was home safely. It was the brother's string of jobs at Baltimore gas stations that had been the family's lifeline.

"[He] was our only hope," the young man said. "Now they're sending him back, so God knows what will happen."....

Those deported through the campaign, he predicted, will say: "We were a good ambassador to this country. We worked hard. We paid our taxes. We committed no crimes. And they kicked us out."....

All had been in the U.S. illegally (emphasis mine)

The Chicago Tribune is apparently deciding to run one of those long series in which they essentially bemoan the fact that people breaking the laws got caught and had to pay the price.

I feel bad for the genuinely good guys here that got deported for visa violations. Those who had jobs and were trying to become productive members of society should have the right to immediately reapply for their visa and their efforts in the US should be rewarded with an easier path to getting their visas. They have already proven that they aren't freeloaders and they should be given the benefit of the doubt.

That does not, however, excuse them from consequence from violating the law in the first place. They broke it, pure and simple, and for their violation, the law requires deportation. It may be unfortunate; it may be inconvenient, but it is what has to happen.

The Trib is making it sound as though there is some sinister dirty dealing going on here. They make it sound like Bush and Ashcroft got together to figure out the easiest way to deport the greatest number of Muslims.

I'm really sorry that the Tribune writers seem to have such a great problem with our laws being enforced. Is the enforcement targeted? In this case, yes. But it is also being done in response to a perceived national security threat. If a few hundred illegals get deported earlier than they might otherwise be, well that's just too bad. It may not be karmic justice, but that's not the goal of our legal system. We seek legal justice. That's a big difference.

In my opinion, if the Tribune wanted to provide these men with a real service instead of simply trying to spread an anti-Bush agenda, then they would be looking at ways to expedite the return of the gainfully employed deportees.

But this is not a problem solving article or series. It is merely a political hit piece disguised as news.

About the only thing they were missing was the "Oh, the humanity!" statement.

A New Federal Hate Crime Law?

Orrin Hatch and Teddy Kennedy are trying to push through the Senate a new Hate Crime law allowing the Federal government to step up the penalties on people who commit a crime against a protected group.

The hate crime laws, both the proposed federal version and the existing state versions, are, in my opinion, overly vague and a distortion of the "equal under the law" ideal. What is the objective determination of a hate crime? Where is the standard written down?

I don't think it exists. Too often, talking heads or reporters can legitimately say "This might be classified as a hate crime." That's a problem. There should be no "might." There should be no question one way or the other. It either is or it isn't.

But under the current hate crime law regime there is a subjective component. Not everyone is assured of being treated equally. What is a distasteful, but non-hate act to one prosecutor may be a hate crime to another. Without an evenly applied objective standard, it is not right.

The law appears to be designed to allow the targeting of unpopular ideas. One of our core beliefs is that unpopular ideas should be allowed as much as the popular ones. The First Amendment was designed in part to protect unpopular speech. The hate crime law would not only subvert that ideal, but it would allow a tyranny of the minority by giving every minority the right to declare virtually any perceived slight as a hate crime worthy of federal prosecution.

There is no need for a federal hate crime law, but then again, there was no real need for the state versions, either. They are merely the results of politicians trying to prove themselves "tough on crime" without ever considering the real consequences of their well-intended laws.

The saying goes "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Well, in our case Hell is an unfree society in which people are prosecuted and persecuted for their ideas. The hate crime laws are but a stepping stone on that road.

UPDATE: Found an article in Penn State's student newspaper that is germaine to the discussion. The Office of Multicultural Affairs at PSU selectively enforces diveristy, which is exactly what would happen with a federal hate crime law. Favored minorities get preferrential treatement, while everyone else gets accused. It is just wrong.

Viagra: A Marriage Killer?

"Nobody had bothered to ask, might there be a downside, a dark underbelly to Viagra?"

Divorce lawyers are running around placing blame for the breakup of some marriages on the husband's use of Viagra. Personally, I find this argument to be intellectually weak and feel that this is more a case of the lawyers trying to build the groundwork for an eventual assault on Pfizer, the manufacturer of Viagra.

Just as "guns don't kill people, people kill people" Viagra does not cheat on its wife, the husband does. It is very weak to blame the tool for the actions of the person wielding the tool. Viagra doesn't screw women, men screw women. It is not the fault of the drug.

Yes the drug makes it more possible. But the drug does not force him to cheat, it is some greater underlying factor. Maybe the fling was cute; maybe his wife wasn't; maybe there was some other factor that made him want to get out of the relationship. In any event, it is his choice and his alone. It is not Pfizer's choice. It is not his wife's choice. His, and only his.

Perhaps Viagra exposes some of the rifts that would have otherwise stayed hidden in a loveless or faltering marriage. Is that something that Pfizer should be sued for? I don't think so.

Cheating on your mate is not a side effect of taking Viagra. Doing a clinical trial to ascertain if Viagra could create a tendency to cheat would be nearly impossible I would think as it would require an absolute determination of an impotent man's desire to cheat on his wife. It strikes me that making that determination would be an almost unattainable burden of proof.

Seeing as how a scientific study would be nearly impossible to achieve, I believe that some lawyers out looking for a big payday are starting to build an anecdotal case against Pfizer. I'll bet at some point we see a class action lawsuit against Pfizer based on the "evidence" that Viagra was named as a cause of a marriage failure in "X" number of divorce cases, or some junk scientist will publish a report based on "facts" found in divorce proceedings. Some way, some how Viagra being named in so many cases, without a real study or challenge will come back to hit Pfizer.

But for every bit of "evidence" being fabricated in divorce cases nationwide there is also evidence that suggests that the problem really isn't Viagra:

"My wife and I decided to separate. All this time, I'd thought that if I could have sex with her again, everything would work out fine. But it turns out that our problems are bigger than the sex thing. So we're splitting up."

"...our problems are bigger than the sex thing..." So is this proof of Viagra value or its "dark underbelly"? Is it better that these two people split up because he took Viagra and they discovered that their marriage had real problems? Or should they have stayed together longer, becoming more and more miserable together as the tensions mounted, until they either got a divorce or major health problems? Is it better to stay in a failing marriage through ignorance of the real irreconcilable differences or is it better to understand the depth of the problem facing you and then deciding to move forward to either counseling or divorce while there is still time to live life? It's a tough call, but I personally prefer the latter.

Viagra is not the perfect wonderdrug bereft of side effects. But causing infidelity is not one of them.

Viagra is not killing marriages. But failing marriages may kill Viagra.

Dusting Off Greenpeace By Dusting Off The Law Books

Greenpeace is now up in arms over the fact that the US Department of Justice has dusted off an 1872 law against "sailor mongering" to go after the organization. The law prohibits the boarding of a ship before its arrival in port and the conspiracy to do so. This is exactly what Greenpeace did.

They boarded a ship passing up the Florida coast (it's final destination was Charleston, South Carolina) to unfurl a banner protesting illegal logging of mahogany. Greenpeace chose this particular ship because they suspected it of transporting Brazilian mahogany.

Freedom of speech? Sure. Whether the ship was transporting mahogany or not, Greenpeace has an absolute right to protest illegal logging. However, if they choose to break the law, even unknowingly, while doing so, they must accept the consequences.

They broke the sailor mongering law. The law does not require success in the mongering endeavor, it prohibits the boarding. That is the illegal act. And that is what Greenpeace did. They boarded APL Jade.

Civil disobedience is not grounds for an exemption from the punishments associated with the acts. In this case, the DOJ appears to be bringing the charges against the organization itself. It would be hard for Greenpeace to argue that there was no organizational conspiracy to board the ship.

The DOJ seems to be approaching this with the goal of gaining a conviction, not because of the prison time or fines, but instead because they can then go to the IRS using the conviction as the basis for revoking the tax exempt status of the organization.

Is it an attempt to silence free speech? Maybe, I'll even say probably. But Greenpeace is being given every opportunity through the court system to defend their actions and to cast reasonable doubt. The DOJ isn't arbitrarily silencing Greenpeace, it is working the system, just like the protest organizations do.

There are consequences to breaking the law, even if it is being broken with the best of intentions. Greenpeace needs to remember that. They are no more above the law, even the obscure and unused ones, any more than you or I.

Marriage, Lesbians, and Adultery

The New Hampshire Supreme Court has decided, in a 3-2 decision, that homosexual sex is not adultery.

The basis for their decision? The "...definition of adultery in the 1961 edition of Webster's Third New International Dictionary..."

Apparently the decision had to be made after a man sued his wife for divorce, claiming that she had been engaging in an adulterous lesbian relationship during their marriage, which led to the ultimate breakup. He and his lawyer believe that the affair violated the sanctity of the marriage covenant.

I believe that they're right.

The problem I have with basing a legal decision on a strict interpretation of a 42 year old dictionary definition of a word is that dictionary definitions change. I'm guessing that when the Webster's people sat down in 1961 to commit to paper their definition of adultery they probably didn't ask "So is it adultery if two chicks get it on? Or what about two guys?" In 1961, these weren't big questions. Marriage was the norm and homosexuality was viewed as a deviant perversion. In the intervening 42 years, we have gone through a radical revolution in the way in which we view marriage and homosexuality. Which makes the 1961 definition a relic of a time long gone - and ripe for being updated in the next version of Webster's.

In my view, this creates a problem. What happens if the definition of adultery gets updated in the Fourth Webster's? Does that change the legitimacy of this ruling? If I found a more favorable definition in, say, the Second Webster's, could I use that? It strikes me that by basing the ruling on a dictionary definition - a very specific definition decided by a party other than the court - creates a situation in which court decisions could be changed or nullified by the editors of that dictionary.

I think that the dissenters in this decision have an excellent argument:

"We respectfully dissent because we believe that the majority's narrow construction of the word 'adultery' contravenes the legislature's intended purpose in sanctioning fault-based divorce for the protection of the injured spouse. To strictly adhere to the primary definition of adultery in the 1961 edition of Webster's Third New International Dictionary and a corollary definition of sexual intercourse, which on its face does not require coitus, is to avert one's eyes from the sexual realities of our world."

I'm guessing that the three justices didn't want to make a real decision. They didn't want to truly address homosexuality and it's relationship with heterosexual marriages. It was a decision in which no one would end up happy, no matter what the final decision was. So they found a cop-out instead. They passed the responsibility for exercising judgment off to the editors of Webster's in 1961.

What they did was not right, was not fair, was not what they were paid for, and was not surprising given the cowardice of most judges in the face of political correctness.

They shirked from their duty of calling adultery what it is, an unacceptable betrayal of the bonds of marriage.

How To Win Support For Your School

So, if you attend a school that is under attack for being offensive to a large segment of the population would you go and dress up as undercover cops posing as prostitutes for the purpose of robbing the johns? It doesn't strike me as the best way to win over the affections of the general population, but that is exactly what five transgender students have gone and done.

These guys are now going to be the poster children for why this school is not a wise idea. Cross dressing, homosexuality, prostitution, deceit, and illegal activities all rolled into one. Like it or not, they now epitomize all of the objections of the school's opponents.

Now for as much as wonder what the kids were thinking, I really have to wonder what the "johns" were thinking. They actually propositioned underage crossdressers posing as police officers and not only fell for all that, but they willingly turned over their ATM cards and PIN numbers, along with cash. I don't want to say that these guys deserved it (as no one does), but honestly, how clueless can you be?

This seems to be a story in which no one had any semblance of common sense. And unfortunately, I think that a lack of common sense is becoming much more prevalent.

Love The Security In The New $20

Well, it looks like our new redesigned and supposedly better $20 bill isn't quite all it's cracked up to be. Two men in Utah were arrested last night while in the process of counterfeiting the new bill in a hotel room. They were caught after a clerk noticed that the counterfeit bills weren't real and the morons paid for a room at that hotel anyways.

Now that sounds like the bill did its job right? Wrong. They were able to pass them off as legit:

Counterfeit bills with the same serial number as the bill on the scanner have turned up in Riverdale, Ogden and South Ogden.

One of the biggest problems with the printing of currency is that people are always looking for a way to make a quick buck. No bill is completely counterfeit-proof and no bill ever will be. Scam artists can always find a way to work around any new security feature.

I'm just surpirsed that these two were able to get working on this so quickly. I still haven't even seen the new Monopoly money, except on commercials and advertisements superimposed on football fields.

I wonder how long before the next redesign?

From Each According To His Ability (To Pay)

The University of California Board of Regents is proving itself once again to be a bastion of Marxism.

In their latest brilliant move, they are considering a plan under which rich kids, those defined as have familial incomes of more than $90,000, will pay up to $3,000 a year more in tuition that a kid whose family income is less than $90,000. The reasoning is pure Marxist - the rich kid is able to pay more, so they should have to.

The University of California is a state supported institution. The folks paying this surcharge have already paid taxes. Why is California going to charge one taxpayer more than another for the same basic service?

Should rich folks pay a higher sales tax? They could afford it. Should they pay more to register their car? They could afford that too. Wealthy people can afford to pay more than poor folks for everything. Is that a justification for deliberately charging them more? No.

I'm sure that somewhere, the University of California has some declaration that they don't discriminate based on, among other things, income level. Chances are, this was put in as a justification for some special tuition assistance program for "underprivileged" people. Well, it cuts both ways. If you can discriminate against poor people based on their wealth, you can't discriminate against rich people based on theirs. Fair is fair is fair.

It's truly a shame to see how bad a mess the state of California has gotten itself into. The bills for all the years of fiscal irresponsibility are now coming due.

No Redneck Days?

This is getting simply ridiculous. First they insisted on diversity and acceptance of cultures "different" than your own. But now some parent up near Pensacola has declared that Redneck Day at school is a celebration of the "ignorant, white racist."

Bull. The term redneck applies to any white manual laborer who works outside. Planting crops, harvesting them, digging ditches, mowing lawns all involve looking down at the ground which has the effect of exposing the back of the neck to the sun. On us white folks, this will normally lead to a sunburn on the neck, hence the term "redneck."

"Redneck" does not connotate racism. We already have a term for that, it called racist. If you don't like that term, we also have an adequate synonym, bigot. If the person is of a lower socio-economic background we have to word poor to append as an adjective. You could possibly even use the phrase low-class. Why the necessity to twist the meaning of a perfectly good word when we already have a decent vocabulary with which to describe a low-class, poor, racist bigot?

Is it because it is a word that is often used to describe white people, particularly some of us in the South?

It doesn't have the historical connotations of a word like "cracker" (which is another I'm not particularly thrilled that they have turned into a racist term) which was a description originally of white, slave owning Floridians - a corruption of the sound, or crack, of the whip. It later, during the last part of the 19th century and into the 20th century became a term used to describe Floridians who wanted nothing more out of life than to sit on the front porch of their cracker homes, watching the world go by and the crops growing.

It doesn't have the undertones of Klansman or supremacist. It's a term to describe a hardworking, low wage earning white person. Why are we looking to automatically declare that person a racist?

At my kids' bus stop in the morning there is a parent like the one who made the racist quote. Everything that might possibly even be thought that it could be construed as a racist comment is over-reacted to and blown completely out of proportion. In this case, the parent is reacting to a stereotyped prejudice against poor, rural white folks. Is that not racism itself?

Kind of sounds like the pot calling the kettle black to me.

Less Then 300 Ships?

It's official: the US Navy has the fewest number of ships since prior to World War I. What was that Santayana quote? Those who fail to learn from history?

Like it or not, America has been, is, and will continue to be a maritime nation. We cannot function effectively without waterborne access to foreign supplies, particularly of oil. The sea lanes are our lifeblood, without them we lose much of our strength.

As such, we have a real need to maintain the freedom of travel on the high seas. Sure we've got the Coast Guard to help in that regard, but the blue water Navy is still the ultimate guarantor of our unfettered access to the oceans.

The Navy is also critical in quickly, effectively, and forcefully projecting American power in remote parts of the world. I've said it before and I'll say it again, when an overseas crisis rears its ugly head, the President doesn't ask where the artillery is, he asks where the carriers are. Many times, they are still the best, quickest, and most forceful way to make our interests understood by those who don't seem to appreciate the nuances of diplomacy. No one is scared by the sight of C-17s flying towards bases hundreds of miles away, but when you can see that looming mass that is an aircraft carrier on the horizon, you know then that your goose is cooked.

But what really scares me are quotes like this:

While many conservatives worry about the growing Chinese threat, several analysts said China's navy is decades away from challenging the U.S. fleet.

"No one is going to challenge us at sea for the next 20 years," said analyst and naval historian Norman Polmar.

20 years? I don't think so. How long did it take for Nazi Germany to create a credible blue water threat? How long did it take for the Soviet Navy to create a real threat? What makes us think that the Chinese can't have a credible blue water navy in the next five or ten years if they decide to focus on that goal? Maybe they can't launch a Nimitz, a Ticonderoga, or an Arleigh Burke, maybe they can't build a Los Angeles class or a Seawolf, but they damn sure can build a threat in short order. We fight with technology. They can choose to go the old Soviet route and fight with numbers. Don't believe for a second that they can't build a real and credible threat in less than 20 years.

Do we need a 600 ship Navy? No. The threats are different than they were during the Soviet years. But we do need more than 296. With all the support ships, that makes it real tough for to sail an adequate number of warships to both protect the sea lanes and our interests overseas.

We have cut too deep across all branches of the military, not just the Navy. This needs to be reversed before we slip to a point where we have foolishly exposed ourselves to potential threats. If we have to take care of Kim Jong Il while we're still in Iraq, what happens if there is a threat from Hugo Chavez in Venezuela or our old nemesis Castro in Cuba? Will we have the resources to defend our interests or possibly even ourselves? Anymore, I don't know and that is very disconcerting.

One of the most basic duties of our government is to provide for the national defense. Are we giving them a pass on that responsibility?

This Is A Weak Teacher

An eighth grader has been suspended for harrassing a teacher with a religious pamphlet. Rather than being a failure on the part of the student, this is a failure on the part of the teacher and the administration.

Apparently during a discussion of the big bang theory a few students brought up the Creationism theory at which point the teacher told them she couldn't lead a religious discussion. OK, I can understand that position, although I don't like it.

This led to a rumor mill about the teacher's religious beliefs "that was harmful to the teacher" and that culminated in a student being suspended for "encouraging another pupil to put a religious pamphlet on the teacher's desk."

This is where I believe that the teacher and the school's administration failed. They never should have let the issue get to the point that it did. As soon as there was an indication of a problem, someone from the administration should have come into the classroom to have a discussion about why it was considered inappropriate for the teacher to hold a religious discussion.

The issue was never acknowledged and was allowed to fester. Combine that with a thinskinned teacher and you have a recipe for an overreaction - which is exactly what happened.

Is placing a pamphlet on a desk a form of harassment? Only if you're emotionally weak.

The teacher should have shown more maturity. Rather than sending the student off with an overwrought office referral that led to a suspension, she should have sat the student down and had a discussion about the appropriateness of the action. In my opinion, the teacher failed to handle this like an adult.

This was a wonderful opportunity for the teacher and the school administration to teach the students about the idea of the separation of church and state. It was an opportunity to discuss using better judgment. In short it was an educational opportunity that was ignored in favor of punishment. Given the fact that the mission of the school is to educate, this is unacceptable.

Debt, Debt, Debt & More Debt

In a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) it is now being reported that excessive debt is being blamed as a reason for the rise in personal bankruptcies. Well, duh.

During the later half of the Nineties people, myself included, were piling on huge, unsustainable, amounts of debt. To a point, it hasn't stopped and we're building a huge housing price bubble on the back of excessive lending. And now, as the recession is becoming protracted instead of being short, the chickens are coming home to roost.

When I worked as a broker, I saw people taking on huge debt loads, without ever realizing it. Think about how much debt you really have?

Got a mortgage? How about a car loan? Credit cards? Here's one that trips a lot of people up - do you own any investments on margin? Making payments on a boat, an RV, a Jet-Ski maybe? A business loan? Remember, not all debt, margin is a significant exception, has to be paid on each month.

I used to see folks that had accounts with $200,000 worth of stock and they were $125,000 on margin. They never thought of it as debt - the firm didn't hold them to a repayment schedule.

I used to talk to people who knew they had too much credit card debt. Many of them didn't care - they figured they would just declare bankruptcy if it got to be too much to handle.

I'd talk to people who were talking about taking out home equity loans so that they could invest the excess equity in Treasury Bonds.

Almost never would I talk to someone who understood that they were taking on too much debt by doing these things. They figured they always had an out - bankruptcy.

A few months back, I started the process of getting my financial life back together somewhat. It hasn't been easy, but it's working. Little by little, things are getting better.

But I'm watching people continuing to take on huge debt burdens with no real consideration for how they plan to repay those debts (my current employer does this). I watch people thinking that home equity loans or another credit card will be the route to their financial salvation.

If this recession deepens or even worse, turns into a deflationary recession, many of these people will find that they have no way to repay these debts. And then the burden will shift to the lenders, who in turn will shift it to the employees, which in turn will lead to more recessionary and/or deflationary pressures. The bursting of the credit bubble will not be a pleasant experience, to say the least.

Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but I think that over the next few years, the people who will do the best and will become the financial foundations for the next boom (yes, it will come - everything is cyclical) are the people who are currently living on a cash or close to cash basis.

It's going to be tough, but again, responsibility will be rewarded.

So We've Identified The Sympton

The Census Bureau released a new finding this morning which shows that the number of Americans without health insurance has risen. The primary reason given was a decline in the number of people covered under employer sponsored healthcare plans (our local news station, which has no website, mentioned this morning that the decline in employer sponsored plans was due to rising costs - a completely reasonable statement, but one that is not made in the press release).

OK, so we've diagnosed a symptom. We've even found evidence of the true underlying issue, but it is the one that everyone seems to be afraid to touch.

Healthcare costs are going through the roof. A lot of people say that also, but again, it's only a symptom.

Why are healthcare costs going through the roof? Mainly due to extortionist malpractice lawsuits brought on by greedy lawyers and patients.

If a doctor commits true malpractice, they deserve everything they get. But too often anymore, the definition of malpractice is getting expanded far beyond its intent. Malpractice was never intended as a bludgeon against good faith errors in diagnosis. It was intended as a way of punishing those who deliberately or through egregious oversight did harm.

Yet too often, lawyers will file lawsuits with the intention of forcing the doctor or insurance company into an out of court settlement due to the cost in both money and time of fighting a lawsuit, no matter how unmeritorious it may be.

These payoffs lead to the insurance companies having to raise malpractice rates to cover their expenses and to make a profit. This in turn causes the doctors to have to raise their rates to cover the excessive malpractice insurance premiums. This causes the health insurance companies to have to raise their coverage rates to insure profits after paying the doctors for services rendered. This in turn causes employers to drop sponsored healthcare coverage, in order to protect their profits.

All of which leads to the employee becoming uninsured, just like the Census Bureau has found.

We do not need national health insurance. We really don't need reform of the malpractice laws.

We do need a reform of the legal system to discourage or punish those who file unmeritorious lawsuits in order to benefit the lawyers at the expense of society.

Why are more Americans going without healthcare coverage? Too many lawyers acting like they're better doctors than the doctors.

DWS: Driving While Sleepy?

About a month ago New Jersey put a law on the books that makes it a crime to drive while sleepy. Again, it's a law that takes the place of basic common sense, but this one isn't a bad law, right?

Apparently, the law states that a person must have been awake for at least 24 hours (ok, so far) and must be knowingly driving while drowsy. Now how do you prove, outside of a confession, that someone was knowingly driving while drowsy? It is a very subjective requirement. Without there being an objective standard, I don't see this as being really an enforceable law. I can even see a court striking it down as being too vague as I don't think that there is a reasonable acceptance or standard for "knowingly driving while drowsy."

Like I said before, it is a law that really just codifies common sense. It really says something about how far away from the concept of personal responsibility we are as a society that we need to pass a law like this. But given how far away from that concept we are, I can grudingly accept the need for the law.

It just simply needs to be better written to take away any ambiguity or subjectiveness.

Exploitation At Its Purest

The shock rock group Hell on Earth has decided that, despite the illegality of their action, they will go on with their concert this weekend which features them opening for a public suicide.

The city of St. Petersburg has just passed a new ordinance making the commercial exploitation of a suicide illegal (why in God's name we have to pass such common sense laws I will never understand or accept). Under Florida state law it is already manslaughter to assist in a suicide.

Yet the band plans to defy both laws. Apparently, the show must go on.

I can understand the band's desire to work to change the assisted suicide laws in Florida. I don't agree with them, but I can understand. But how does the exploitation of a terminally ill person's desire for death further their cause?

Do they think that some lawmaker watching this suicide take place (and I'm sure more than a few will) is going to turn around and change their position on assisted suicide? Do they think that the people watching on their website are going to suddenly be stirred to writing letters to their lawmakers urging the legalization of assisted suicide?

No. The people watching it will be voyeurs. They have little to no interest in the assisted suicide laws. They have little to no interest in the politics that surround the issue. They want to see someone die. In their sick, twisted way, they want to see the blood and carnage of an unnatural end.

In that way, they are simply the extreme end of the people who watch NASCAR solely for the wrecks. They are the extreme end of the people who search the web for autopsy photos. They are the extreme fringe of violence voyeurism.

Unfortunately, as a society we cannot go after the viewers, no matter how contemptable their taste in viewing may be.

But the State must go after the band. The band is not doing this for altruistic reasons. The band is doing this to raise awareness of who they are (will anyone know the victim by anything other than "The Dead Guy?") and to make money. That's all well and fine when it's done legally. But this involves premeditated illegalities. They plan to use the death of another human being for their commercial gain. It is sick. It is contemptable. And it is backfiring on them (look at the gigs they've already lost because of this).

But at its core, this is exploitation at its purest.

Time For The Tables To Turn

The gay community fights tooth and nail to keep the church out of governmental affairs claiming separation of church and state. When they do so, they lose the moral high ground on which to build a case for the right to impose the government on the church.

O'Hara Catholic School.

It's a private school run by the Catholic Church. Right there are two reasons why there is no justification for the courts to get involved in this matter.

Fair is fair, if you want to keep the Church out of the courts, you have to keep the courts out of the Church (criminal acts excepted).

Is Amtrak Trying To Commit Suicide?

Today when I got home from work I turned on the TV and found it on the local all news channel. One of the big stories they were talking about was the possibility of Amtrak workers walking out on Friday.

If you're an employee in a failing business that is in desperate need of a bailout, what do you do? Do you look for another job? Do you make sacrifices for the company? Or do you threaten to go on strike if the bankers don't give you enough money?

Someone needs to remind the TWU that Amtrak is not fighting for market share or for greater profits, it is fighting for relevance. If the Amtrak workers walk out, will very many people really care? If Amtrak stops operating, is it really going to have a significant impact on our nation's transportation grid?

The answer to both questions is "No."

When Eastern Airlines or Continental Airlines or Pan Am went through strikes there was a measure of sympathy that could be had for these great corporate icons. When the private railroads turned passenger rail operations over to Amtrak in 1971, there was a sense of loss as people realized it was the passing of an era.

If Amtrak suffers a strike that permanently shuts the company down there will be none of those feelings. Amtrak isn't a great company, it's been a ward of the state since inception. It won't lead to the mourning of the passing of an era as that would indicate that people actually felt nostalgic about the Amtrak era. Even among railbuffs Amtrak is referred to derisively as either Slamtrack or AmCrash.

I like riding passenger trains, I really do. I even support the idea that intercity passenger rail service should qualify for public funding as a common good. But Amtrak has been a government boondoggle since day one.

The only reason it has survived this long feeding from the public trough is because of political inertia and pork barrel politics. It operates too many money losing routes and misses the basic point of travel: it rarely takes anyone where they want to go.

There are entire states that have no rail service via Amtrak. There are other states that have only one or two stops. And then there is Florida where, on a good day, you have so many stops it takes at least four and half hours to go from Orlando to Ft. Lauderdale - a three and a half hour drive. No one ever rationalized the Amtrak route structure. No ever looked at real market demand. The trips cost too much, don't go where you want them to, and tend to drop you off in a fairly rough part of someplace you don't want to be when you get there.

And for the most part, they tend to accomplish all this with a surly, don't care attitude.

The TWU is claiming that they fear a major accident or disruption in the next year. OK, but why do they fear that? Excepting the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak doesn't own the rails they travel over. Is the union claiming that there will be some sort of equipment failure? If so, how will increasing the funding help? If it's a major wreck that they're anticipating, that tells me that it is because the equipment is simply worn out and needs replacement - something that most likely cannot be accomplished in one year or for even a billion dollars.

How would the TWU propose that Amtrak spend the extra money? Or are they going to simply propose that their members need to get paid more money so that these types of accidents don't happen?

I hate to say this, but if the workers walk out on Friday, it will almost certainly be the end of Amtrak. And I can't really say that I'll mourn it's passing.

It's long since been time to denationalize the passenger rail network anyway.

Residency For Illegal Aliens?

The U.S.A. Family Act, proposed by Rep. Luis V. Guiterrez (D-Il), is proposing to give illegal immigrants legal US resident status because they "take part in the economic development of the country."

According to the National Immigration Law Center, legal-illegal immigrants comprised 12.4 percent of the U.S labor force in 2000.

First question is: what exactly is a legal-illegal immigrant? If they're legal, they cannot be illegal and if they're illegal, they cannot be legal.

But ignoring a suspect statistic whether the immigrant is legal or illegal, why exactly are we going to grant illegals US residency?

Is it because they have violated the law for a minimum of five years? Or is it because they are contributing to the welfare state by taking jobs that would otherwise be held by legal US residents?

OK, I'll give you that there are probably a few farms that would fold without access to illegals. But economically, are those good business ventures?

Pure economics says no. A business that cannot cover expenses at market rates is not an efficient use of capital. Which would mean that that capital would be better and more productively (to the overall economy) used if it were directed elsewhere.

In other words, a farm that cannot survive using market rate labor should fail.

Now I'll also give you that our current labor markets are not truly efficient as the minimum wage laws put an artificial restriction on the true "market rate" for labor.

But stop and look at the effects of this U.S.A Family Act for a moment. If all these illegals become legal US residents then their employers can no longer exploit them at substandard wage rates. They can no longer hold up the threat of deportation over an incorrigible worker who is demanding the federally assured minimum wage.

This bill would have the effect of imposing a minimum wage on the current crop of illegals, giving them the same employability issues as our existing involuntary welfare class. We would create about eight million new public dependents who would then be replaced in the labor market by a new crop of illegal workers.

But if immigrants are so dastardly with their taking jobs from American citizens, why would the unions be putting in such a massive effort such as the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride?

It's actually pretty simple. The average American citizen has figured out that the union doesn't really give a damn about them. The unions only care about money, perceived importance and its attendant political clout. This is part of the reason why union membership has been declining over the last few decades, even as businesses become more ruthless in their efficiency.

The unions view the legalization of illegals as an opportunity to try to boost their flagging membership and to create a new class of European or South American type of union militants. If the U.S.A Family Act passes there becomes a small window of opportunity for the unions to organize the newly recognized US residents.

The unions would undoubtedly push for higher wages, benefits, and most importantly more job security than the market would dictate that these workers were worth. If they could succeed in their organization drives before the business community could react and bring in the new illegals, then the unions could push themselves back into the forefront and could possible regain some of the luster they had lost.

I don't think that the timing here is much of a coincidence. On a purely political level, this has the potential of being a masterstroke. As these folks joined the union, their union dues would undoubtedly be used to fund political campaigns. And as they obtained their citizenship, it would be almost eight million new Democratic voters.

But on an economic level, it would be nearly disaster. The farms and businesses that currently employ these people would almost certainly go out of business - or would move (anyone hear the giant sucking sound again?). There might be a temporary boost to the employment figures (measured in tenth or hundreds of a percent, but no mind there!), but ultimately it would lead to higher unemployment and consequent higher social spending.

This bill, the U.S.A. Family Act, is not the bright idea that it appears to be on the surface. The only right illegal immigrants should have is the right to leave. If they want to be here, they need to play by the rules and that includes coming to the country legally (and doing what is necessary to maintain their legal status).

This bill would promote equality only in that it would make more people equally miserable and unemployed.

American residency and citizenship are not concepts to be tossed around like party beads during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. They are rights and privileges - rights and privileges which entail responsibility also.

One of the key responsibilities of American residency or citizenship is a respect for the laws of the land. A general amnesty for lawbreakers undermines that responsibility.

The U.S.A. Family Act would do nothing more than to hasten the demise of the American Family.

They're Wrong, But Good For Them

OK, so there's an organization, Veterans for Peace, that is running around telling their stories to school kids to try to open their eyes about war. Now this, of course, gets the anti-hippie crowd up in arms (especially once they see the picture of the guy in the hippie shirt). But are these guys really doing something evil?

I'll give you that they should not be in preaching to middle schoolers. That's a little too young to be hitting kids with nuanced arguments about when killing might or might not be appropriate. But is it a bad thing for high school kids - or college students - to get exposed to ideas that may be different than their own beliefs?

I do not agree with their message, beyond the simplistic statement that war is bad. It is a bad thing. But sometimes, a bad thing is better than a worse thing. You might even be able to convince me that there have been times that we've gone to war unnecessarily. But that doesn't change the fact that sometimes war, death and destruction are needed to maintain order. It's an unfortunate, but undeniable, fact of life.

All that being said, I'm glad that these two are out there challenging kids to think before enlisting. The true strength of our military lies not in superior weaponry, but in a superior conviction in the good intentions of our action (Yeah, yeah, I know the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. You know what I meant.). These two act almost as a filter to weed out the kids lacking that conviction. And in the long run, that can only help the effectiveness of the military.

By telling their stories these two will challenge the convictions of the students. Those who have strong, defensible convictions will withstand the challenge. Those who don't will have to reconsider and reform their positions. That process of critical thinking cannot be bad for the kids.

It's kind of ironic that the anti-warriors may in fact be strengthening our military simply helping to provide the service with kids that are able to absorb, comprehend, and critically analyze information better.

But the purpose of VFP, he adds, is that "we have a responsibility to make sure young people hear both sides of the story."

So long as they hear both sides of the story, it's fine by me.

I Wonder How Much This Cost?

Kids do best when they are raised in homes with loving authority and faith.

I think that this is what they call a "blinding flash of the obvious."

Of course kids need structure in their life. Of course kids doing better emotionally and psychologically when they're loved. Is there really anyone out there that thinks we'd be better off if we let our kids run wild and treated them with contempt and disdain?

All that this study points out is the importance of family: biological and extended.

A loving family gives a child a sense of security. A loving family gives a child a feeling that they can try something - and it'll be ok even if they fail. A loving family gives a kid the empathy, understanding, compassion and judgment - all the social skills - that they'll need to survive in the real world.

Now maybe it's the website I found the linked article on, or maybe it's really in the study (I'm going to try to have to find an original copy. Tried googling it without success.) but there almost seems to be a "revelation" that religion can help kids to adjust better. I don't think that it's because of the religious lesson per se, but rather because the Church reinforces those same social skills - empathy, understanding, compassion, and judgment - that the immediate family teaches. And the multigenerational aspect of that reinforcement only makes it stronger.

Perhaps the influence of religion is understudied. Perhaps that would have been a better topic of study for this report. Did we honestly need a study to tell us that family is important? I'm glad to see that someone is interested in studying things that might help children, but we do we really need to reinvent the wheel?

Research money is not unlimited. What money there is needs to be spent a little more wisely, I think.

Should The Times Be Sued For Blair?

The Village Voice has a short blurb (see the third item down) in which a professor discusses the possibility of suing the New York Times for "journalistic malpractice" over the Jayson Blair incidents.

Now as bad as the accusations in the Blair case are (that the Times continued to publish his stories, even after they knew they were false) I don't see a need for the instigation of litigation here.

The Times screwed up, bad. And they deserve a punishment for having done so.

That punishment has been meted out by our society. The Times has lost a huge chunk of respectability and perceived integrity. For a self-respecting journalist, even those at the Times, losing those two intangibles is a fate worse than virtually any monetary penalty that could be imposed.

For without respect or integrity, a journalist is nothing. To last in their chosen field, they must have both. Whether the Times reporters like it or not, they've lost a measure of both. That is the punishment for the Blair episodes.

An unemployed journalist with respect and integrity will soon find employment in the journalistic field. A rich shyster like Blair will end up at the National Enquirer or the World Weekly News before he ever works at someplace like the Times of Podunk again.

Besides which, how do these lawyers intend to quantify the damage done by Jayson's joshes? Ok, so Blair did wrong - we'll assume he committed malpractice for a moment. Where is the harm? Where is the loss? If a doctor commits malpractice there are physical consequences, which can be quantified. If a CPA commits malpractice there are financial consequences, which can be quantified. Where is the quantifiable harm caused by Blair's actions?

I have no great love for the Times, but there is no justification for manufacturing a new legal peril to rectify a self-correcting and non-harming problem. This sounds to me like some lawyer angling for massive class-action fees.

A Murderer Is Not A Martyr

Today, at 6 pm, the State of Florida carried out the execution of Paul Hill, a convicted - and confessed - double murderer.

Hill declared himself in the days leading up to his death to be a martyr. Death penalty opponents pleaded with Gov. Bush to halt his execution by making the same claim.

Hill was unrepentant to the end:

"If you believe abortion is a lethal force, you should oppose the force and do what you have to do to stop it," Hill said as he lay strapped to the gurney in the execution chamber. "May God help you to protect the unborn as you would want to be protected."

Now it is not my goal to debate the propriety or impropriety of abortion in America. It is not my goal to debate the propriety or impropriety of the death penalty in America.

I do, however, want to take exception with the claim that, somehow, Paul Hill is a martyr.

Paul Hill is not a martyr. He is a murderer. He directly and deliberately took the lives of two men, not as an act of self-defense, but as a premeditated act of hatred.

Paul Hill hated abortion. He hated abortion doctors. And his hatred led him to buy a shotgun and to take it upon himself to act as judge, jury and executioner because he so hated the profession that these two men had chosen.

And for taking the law into his own hands, for his vigilantism, a true judge and jury sentenced him, as permitted under Florida law and as they have hundreds of others, to die for his crime.

Paul Hill was not above the state, yet he acted as though he was. His double murder was an absolute and inexcusable usurpation of the State's responsibilities to enforce the laws as they are decided by the population of the State.

Today, for his crime - not for his belief, his anti-abortion position, or for anything other than his crime - Paul Hill met Florida's legal executioner.

Like it or not, Mr. Hill committed a grand and elaborate form of suicide. He took actions that he knew could, and likely would, lead to his death. When he aimed that shotgun and pulled the trigger, he not only caused the immediate death of his target, he began the process that led to his own death.

In this respect, Mr. Hill wasn't much different from a Hamas bomber who blows himself up at a checkpoint and kills two Israeli soldiers. His intent, like that of the Hamas bomber, was to create an atmosphere of terror. He wanted to scare abortion doctors out of their offices, much like Hamas wants to scare Israelis out of the settlements. And he was about as effective.

No, Mr. Hill was not a martyr. He wasn't persecuted for his beliefs. He wasn't executed for being a pious man.

No, he was a terrorist. He was a murderer. He was a sickening example of extremism gone too far in America.

Paul Hill may have acted for religious reasons, but he was executed for his crime.

A murderer is not, and never will be, a martyr.

What A Wonderful, Wacky World We Live In

Reading along this morning I came across two articles in the New York Post that just hit as being a riot.

The first, 'ALIVE' OSAMA PLOTS DOOMSDAY BIO-STRIKE, describes everyone's favorite terrorist clown as living in "good health" in a "secure, remote mountain lair".

All that I can picture is Osama sitting in a big Dr. Evil type lair trying to figure out how to work his fancy Captain Kirk chair. Up and down, go around a few circles in each direction and then get dumped off. A "secure, remote mountain lair" just seems to add a level of comedy to the whole Osama story that makes it hard to take the whole thing seriously anymore. The threat of terrorism is still real and serious, but Osama himself seems to have been turned into the Chevy Chase of terrorist leaders.

The second article, CARDS TARGET TOP ISRAELIS shows just how far "me, too"-ism has gone in the world today.

The deck of cards handed out in Iraq was a novel idea. At the time, I thought it was a cute, but effective, way of targeting certain people.

Then the Israeli paper Ma'ariv create a deck of 34 Palestinian terrorists.

Now Hamas has taken it a step further and has created a deck of their 34 most wanted Israelis, but they took it to a new level of classlessness by "X"ing over Rechavam Zeevi, the Israeli Tourism Minister who was assassinated.

In the course of what, four months, the "most wanted" deck has gone from a cutesy gimmick to a tired and trite cliche.

I just find it funny to see how much effort and thought went into Hamas creating their deck, only to have it come out being such a crass embarrassment to decency. In their quest to go "Me, too! Me, too!" as quickly as possible they have once again damaged their cause in the community of decent people. In their one-upmanship with the "X", they crossed the line and went to totally tasteless.

But I still can't get the picture of Osama trying to work his chair out of my head.

Is It A Wonder Our Schools Are Screwed Up?

Priorities.

It seems like such a simple concept. You've got to have your priorities in life straight. God only know how much time I spend in trying to make sure that mine are in order. When I read stories like this one about a certain administrator who spent $10,000 on new furniture as the school district was facing a $32 million deficit.

Granted, $10K in the face of a $32 million shortfall is bordering on insignificant. But that's still $10K that couldn't be spent on education. That's still $10K that couldn't be spent on providing more benefits or opportunities for the students.

Now I also work in a furniture store at the moment. If we take the spokesperson at face value that the administrator needed new furniture, she probably could have made more cost effective choices. $6500 for a desk and credenza tells me that the choices were made for appearance’s sake, not for basic functionality.

Our school administrators do not need ostentatious furniture. It's not as if they have to project a certain appearance to seal a deal. They have to have basic function so that they can fulfill their ultimate job: providing a quality education for our kids.

Some administrators have lost perspective on why they were hired. And it reflects in their setting of priorities.

There is no justification for a school administrator to have ordered $10K worth of furniture when the same function could have been had for a fraction of the cost.

It's time for our educators to get back to educating and to quit focusing on appearances.

Priorities.

An Offer Of Help We Should Refuse

Vladimir Putin has made a statement that an international force in Iraq would be acceptable to Russia but he goes on to condition his acceptance. He wants to see the UN play a greater role in reconstructing Iraq, particularly in "the process of democratization in Iraqi society and the creation of organs of power."

Sorry Vlad, but I think that that is an unacceptable compromise. The last thing the world needs is another French-style socialist state. Iraq needs to have a functioning government, not a utopian pipe dream. Every organization the UN has set up has ended up being some kind of laughable mess. But they're only laughable because the UN is only as significant as we allow it to be. The Iraqi government will be very significant to the lives of the ordinary Iraqis. Do we really want to saddle them with a UN creation?

The rest of the world still hasn't caught onto (or they don't want to catch on) the fact that when Bush says "no," he means "no." They don't seem to be catching that we don't want to hear from the peanut gallery. Countries that have a stake in the state of Iraq - countries like Britain and Australia - can influence our decision making. The final call is still ours, but since they're right there with us, we accord them the proper respect.

Bush has basically said that he's willing to bring other countries in under the same rules. We're not going to let France, Russia or the UN join the effort, after they refused to participate the first time 'round, with more power or authority than those who have been there with us through thick and thin. They have done nothing to earn special consideration and it should not be granted.

Sorry, Vlad. It's a great PR ploy to make yourself look better, but it's not a good move for us. Come back in a couple of months when you realize that we're serious about seeing this through the right way. Just remember to leave your conditions at home next time.

Flags At UCF

As a graduate of the University of Central Florida, I tend to follow any of lunacy out there pretty closely. Apparently, last night the student senate voted to deny funding to put an American flag in every classroom on campus.

"I would consider this an invasion of what is supposed to be a bastion of critical thought, the university," said Robert Coffman, 23, a junior majoring in English. "What's the next proposal? Let's have President Bush's photo in every classroom?"

An invasion? An invasion? Isn't that just a little much? The flag represents the very speech Mr. Coffman is claiming that it is putting at risk.

Having a flag in the classroom is not an invasion. Having a picture of Bush in every classroom - OK, that would be creepy. But no one has suggested that.

I've always felt (but I'm probably not impartial) that UCF was a bit more grounded in reality than most ivory towers. And the administration has proven that by supporting the flags in the classrooms, but letting the debate wind its way through the proper channels.

I also like the fact that the students of ROCK, having been handed defeat at the hands of the anti-flag brigade in the student senate are now looking for alternative ways of accomplishing their goals. They're looking at raising private funding, while the anti-flaggers are looking for their next opportunity to grandstand.

I like the fact that ROCK knows the local community. The metro Orlando area isn't exactly a hotbed of anti-flag sentiment. They know that they can go to the community and chances are, the community is going to respond. ROCK is planning action; the opposition is planning rhetoric.

I'm considering heading back out to UCF to begin working on my Master's degree. I'm glad to see that the dreamers are still in dreamland while the doers are still making things get done.

ElBaradei is El Loco

So Mohamed ElBaradei is proposing that the US "set an example" by unilaterally disarming our nuclear force. And what "example" exactly are we trying to set?

Unilateral disarmament is just about the nuttiest idea that's floating around out there. No missile defense and no nukes. Are we trying to bait the next Hitler or what?

ElBaradei does bring up one good point: "...there are no good or bad nuclear weapons." That's true. Just like there are no good or bad guns. It is the person in possession of the weapon that determines its use.

Which makes me wonder why someone would want the US to unilaterally disarm. The nuclear Pandora's Box has been opened. There is no going back. Someone will always have nuclear weapons. Who would you rather have have them? The US or some third rate third world dictator/warlord?

Do you really think that Saddam wouldn't have used the Bomb if he had it? How about the theothugs in Iran? What if Somalia had been a nuclear civil war? Or Liberia? The list of potential possessors of the Bomb can go on and on and on.

And right now, the US has really only one effective deterrent against nuclear attack: our own nuke forces. We are, in most cases, no longer subject to the old rules of MAD (Russia being a notable exception - if their bombs still work they could still turn us into a giant radioactive ant pile as we do the same to them). But they certainly do apply to our would-be nuclear foes. They go to bed every night resting assured that if they try to go nuclear on us, they might kill a few million of us, but there will be nothing left in their country. Disarm and what is there to hold them back?

Once the missile shield is built, tested, and in place, then maybe we can talk about altruistic disarmament.

Until then, ElBaradei needs to go back to playing the role of nuclear proliferation fire brigade. After all, that is supposed to be his job.

Ah, Victorian Prudishness

I always enjoy it when the British get into their humorous mood. They have an incredible ability to take satire and sarcasm to a higher level. Today's Telegraph has a wonderful example of this trait.

Now I'll grant you that eight months for indecent exposure (not safe for work) is a bit much. Jemma certainly isn't a Liz Hurley, but eight months for something that might show up in Girls Gone Wild? And from a country that is proposing new Olympic brothels? Come on now.

Obviously the Greek authorities have taken Spring Break crowd control lessons from Fort Lauderdale.

This Is Long Overdue

Congress targets frivolous lawsuits

This shouldn't have come down to Congress having to pass laws to rein in an out of control judicial lottery system. Many of the most egregious lawsuits should have been thrown out and lawyer's awards limited by the courts. Had the lawyers and judges shown a little responsibility or restraint then perhaps this kind of measure wouldn't have been needed.

The worst part about this is the precedent it sets. Now that the wall of prohibition has been breached, how far will Congress go in protecting businesses from fair and legitimate lawsuits? Yeah, suing a company for your abdication of personal responsibility is wrong, but will they decide to cap awards on something like the next Ford Pinto? Without the specter of a real lawsuit, based on merit, with real consequences there are some unethical people who may decide that it is cheaper to kill consumers than to build a safe product.

It is truly a bad thing that we are now reduced to the point of calling for limitations on the judiciary. A little restraint could have prevented this.

Raise Your Hand If You're Surprised

Truck used in UN bombing came from Syria.

Now no one has alleged that Syria was in any other way involved. And of course, the truck could have been stolen.

But is anyone really sitting there going "Hmmm. Syria might have played a part. How odd!"? I kind of doubt it. Most likely the reaction was "Syria. OK, I can believe that."

Syria is concerned because they know that they have to watch their step. Hezbollah is a de facto Syrian group. They are already responsible for a fair amount of the violence in Israel. They cannot afford to be linked with terrorism in Iraq.

Unless, of course, the want to be linked up with the Marines.

The Palestinians Want A Cease-Fire!

Oh glorious day! The Palestinian leadership is now attempting to broker a new cease-fire to replace the one that just fell apart. Isn't this wonderful news?

Let's review for a moment. Hamas and its cronies agree to a "hudna," and temporarily stop their attacks on Israel. Israel continues to hunt down the very terrorists who have shown absolutely no respect for cease-fires or human life. Israel is successful. Hamas & friends break the "hudna" to retaliate. Israel rightly responds to the reescalation of violence. The terrorist leadership begins trying to negotiate a new cease-fire in which they receive "guarantees from Israel that it will cooperate."

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but it wasn't a suicidal Jew that blew up a bus full of Muslims on their way home from the mosque. And even when the Palestinians have been attempting to provoke the Israelis, the responses have been less than lethal. The Palestinians are killing the Israelis, literally. The Israelis are retaliating by injuring, not killing - injuring, Palestinians who are trying to kill them by any means available (including throwing rocks).

"We want a hudna (truce) between the whole Palestinian Authority and Israel, that Israel commit itself to as much as we do," Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath told reporters.

Umm. No you don't. You don't want Israel to be as committed as the PA. Do you really want the IDF to act independently, like Fatah does? Do you want the Israelis to create a paramilitary group like Hamas that also operates outside the control of the government? I think not.

As long as the double standard continues, they will be no peace. It is not right, it is not fair, and it is not acting in good faith to break the cease-fire and then call for a new one when the heat comes down, blaming Israel for the failure the whole time.

If the Palestinian leadership really wants a cease-fire, they need to "have a discussion" Mafia-style with the leadership of Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, and all the other loon groups.

If they really want peace, they'll start by cleaning their own house.

No Sympathy Here

So if you're driving along with no valid driver's license and a cop pulls you over, what can reasonably be expected to happen? Get a ticket, maybe go to jail, and you will almost certainly have your car impounded. This is pretty much normal everywhere that I'm aware of.

But in California, some Hispanics are complaining because the undocumented immigrants (also known as illegal aliens) are having their vehicles get impounded when the cops pull them over. They complain that they have to have documentation in order to get a license.

Of course! If you're here illegally why should the state grant you the privilege of driving legally? Obeying of the law is not an a la carte option. You have to obey them all. It isn't right to ignore the immigration laws while complaining about not being able to drive legally.

And if you get busted for driving without a license, whatever the reason for not having it, you have to have a reasonable expectation of paying a penalty, which includes the impounding of your car.

This isn't a racial matter. It's a matter of law enforcement. If the city is really "99.9% Hispanic" doesn't it kind of follow logically that the vast majority of people stopped and/or arrested will be Hispanics. Doesn't really matter what the race of the cops is. With that many Hispanics, they're going to be the most commonly detained.

If there was a real racial issue at play here, I might feel differently. But I have absolutely no sympathy for the argument that undocumented immigrants are having their cars impounded simply because they're Hispanic. I don't buy it. Their cars are being impounded because they're acting in an illegal manner.

Crying racism when it doesn't exist = crying wolf.

Britain Is Our "Lone Supporter?"

OK, why are we back screwing around with the UN again? The organization in general, and France in particular, is ticked about our being even somewhat successful in Iraq, and is now trying to condition a multi-national force on a surrender of American control in post-war Iraq.

Now weren't they the ones screaming for a multi-national force to begin with? Are Annan and Chirac upset that they didn't get to ride in a glorious triumph? We're offering what they wanted and now it isn't good enough.

Why would we want to cede any real control over to the UN? So that they can create a new "oil-for-food" program? So that French and Russian oil companies can get back those contracts that they paid so much in bribes for?

Rebuilding in Iraq is not, and has never been pitched as, an easy process. It is going to take time and effort; blood and sweat. But our (meaning the US and Britain, primarily) efforts are focused towards actually improving the lot of the Iraqi people.

Can we unequivocally say the same about Chirac or Annan? I don't believe so.

Oh yeah, someone needs to tell the Thai's that they're not supposed to be helping us. It might make them look like they're supporting our efforts. (This is actually a very good thing and a credit to the Thai people and the Thai government. It looks like they understand the concept of "humanitarian" better than Annan, Chirac or any of the other "leaders" at the UN.)

Moore Is Becoming Less

Back on July 3, I first discussed the adventures of Judge Roy Moore and his Ten Commandments monument. I said at that time that if the rulings went against him, he was obligated to comply ("But as a judge, he should also respect the rule of law. If and when the game is up, he needs to either remove or modify the monument.").

Judge Moore, however, has taken a different tact. He has chosen to defy the order. And now, he has been suspended.

I still believe that the Ten Commandments should be acceptable, but the decision was no more mine than it was Judge Moore's. The courts have ruled that the monument needs to go, and the Supreme Court has refused to hear the case.

It's time for them to go.

Judge Moore, as an official of the court, should know more than the average Joe the importance of obeying the directives of the court. Our society is based on a trust that everyone is playing by the same rules and is subject to the same penalties. If Judge Moore sets a precedent of willfully ignoring the directives of the court because he doesn't agree with them, he puts that glue of trust at risk.

The game is over. It's time to graciously admit defeat and move on.

Change needs to be effected through working within the system, not by challenging and ignoring it.

Do They Think He's GW Chamberlain?

The North Koreans are now demanding a non-aggression pact in their negotiations with us. In return, they are refusing to allow an early inspection of their nuclear facilities.

Do they really think that Bush is the modern day equivalent of Neville? Do they think that there is any real chance of the US agreeing to such a demand? Or are they simply trying to force us to object which would allow them to avoid any scrutiny while blaming it all on the uncooperative Americans?

There needs to be no security guarantee without some kind of real inspection. There is absolutely no reason to cave in and appease the North Koreans now.

The more they keep pushing for concessions, the more it looks like they're getting ready to implode. Bush needs to keep applying the pressure.

Oops, Another Al-Qaeda Failure

OK, so it's DEBKA - take it with a grain of salt.

But this is still very interesting, and has a better ring of truth than some DEBKAfile articles. Apparently, a major counter-espionage effort thwarted a major Al-Qaeda offensive.

It does say something, however, when even the rumors of a "mega-terror offensive" are all centered around events that were supposed to happen in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Kenya. So, even in their greatest plans for right now, they aren't figuring on hitting us.

This isn't to say that they aren't still a threat to the US; they most certainly are. But they aren't anywhere as severe a threat as they were say 18 months ago.

We have made some pretty decent strides in our war on terrorism. The fact that they are trying to hit us outside our borders is a good sign.

We still have a ways to go, but we're in pretty good shape so far.

Next Target: Apple Pie

You figure that in the US there would always be three things sacrosanct: moms, the flag, and apple pie.

Well, Planned Parenthood has put two of the three under attack. Their mission, of course, helps some women to avoid becoming mothers. But now, the have successfully gotten the US Flag banned from the public right of way in Bryan, Texas unless you have the government's permission to display it.

Now you can debate about the virtues and vices of Planned Parenthood's mission all day long, but going after the US Flag like this is just plain wrong, in my opinion. The flag represents freedom of speech, which is exactly what was silenced with the complaint.

The position of Planned Parenthood and the views of the veteran aside, if he chooses to fly the flag as a symbol of protest, it is his right. If he chooses a public place to conduct his protest, so long as he remains orderly, that's his right too.

In no way should the flag ever be classed as a "sign." It is more than a mere sign. It is not an ad for "free credit repair" or "we buy homes for cash", it is a symbol of our nation. To ban our public symbol from a public place is just wrong - simply wrong.

The city attorney needs to get a clue. Had he just used a little bit of common sense this could have all been averted.

Instead, we get treated to the spectacle of a city banning the American Flag from the public right of way.

Big Day For The Terrorists

Today has been one of the biggest days in a while for the terrorists. Two successful suicide attacks in Israel and, as an added bonus, Mullah Omar has issued some new threats in Afghanistan! If only Osama or Saddam had joined today's party, it would have been complete.

I do love how Omar is calling the aid organizations the "greatest enemies of Islam." I just think that's a riot. Why? Because the organizations are providing them with food, water, medical care, education, opportunity, and a degree of freedom? Or maybe it's because the aid organizations are making the Taliban look like the corrupt, violent, oppressive thugs that they are.

Now, that's not to say the aid organizations are perfect. Omar probably has support on the far right fringe about the aid organizations being the "greatest enemies," just not of Islam. Often, only a fraction of the intended aid actually gets through after the organization takes its cut. But something is still better than nothing (and the inefficiency of the aid organizations is another debate altogether).

The terrorists won two small battles today and got an opportunity to beat their chest. But since 9/11 they have been getting their butt kicked every which way from Afghanistan to Iraq. In every war there will be setbacks. This one is no different. But like we always manage to do, we will persevere to victory.

"Hudna, Schmudna"

Avner Shalom agrees with my sentiment in the last post.

"...They [the Palestinians] are not reliable, and we know it."

It's truly a shame that one people can say that about another, but it's becoming harder and harder to feel otherwise anymore.

So Explain This To Me

Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas says that the Palestinians didn't break their ceasefire, despite today's bombings.

And just how would that be?

One bombing was proudly claimed by Hamas. The other by Fatah - you know, Arafat's group.

If I recall correctly, Abbas talked Hamas into accepting the latest ceasefire in order to "fulfill" on his responsibilities on the Road Map. And the PA, which includes Arafat and therefore should include Fatah, was also supposed to be party to the cessation of violence.

Yet these are the two groups who decided it would be fun to kill a few Jews today. Both bombers apparently came from Nablus, a PA town. Yet some way, somehow, the PA is blaming the Israelis for the "security deterioration in the region."

And Abbas has already stated that he has no plans to confront the terrorists. So what's the point of working with him any more?

He is supposed to be the Palestinian point man for the Road Map. When something goes wrong, the US, Israel and the EU go to Abbas to lodge their complaints. It is his responsibility to then take those complaints and take an appropriate action on them.

Some complaints are probably without merit and deserve no action. But is there really a justification for throwing your hands up in the air when it's over a suicide bombing?

The parties all sat down when this whole Road Map thing started and agreed on certain goals for each party. For Abbas, he was supposed to rein in the terrorists. The terrorists took two shots today; Abbas walks away basically going "Oops, sorry. Hopefully it won't happen again."

This is not the mark of a real leader. A real leader would have been initiating an immediate crackdown on the terrorists. Can't do that because the people wouldn't support it? Bull. If Abbas were a real leader he would have the guts to make the unpopular decision. He would keep his promise to his people to work towards a peace with Israel and he would already have a bunch of the top terrorists beginning their rot in prison. Swift, decisive action by Abbas would throw the terrorists off balance - they thrive on weakness - giving him a window of opportunity to consolidate the rule of law in the territories, instead of the rule of the terrorists.

But Abbas is not a real leader. He is a puppet - a puppet of the terrorists and of the king terrorist himself, Yassar Arafat.

These bombings are but two more nails in the coffin for the Road Map. So long as the terrorists hold sway in the territories there will be no peace in Israel.

And there will be no Palestine.

Maybe This Isn't So Bad

David Clark is complaining in the Guardian that the war in Iraq has damaged the argument for humanitarian war.

So why would this be a good thing?

Humanitarian wars aren't bad in and of themselves. There is a point and time when it really does become necessary to help our fellow man to throw off a murderous, uncaring tyrant.

But that justification is in danger of being abused. The argument could be used as justification for military intervention in just about any third world country: people are suffering and the dictator isn't doing enough to help them.

Now the justification for Kosovo was decent. For Iraq it was ok. Liberia - I still don't feel real comfortable with Liberia. What about Columbia? Or Cuba? Or Venezuela? Where does the line get drawn?

It has been the left, as defined by Mr. Clark, that has been the traditional primary proponents of the "humanitarian war." But if they feel as though they've lost the moral high ground, perhaps there won't be the push to send the Marines into every African civil war.

If the left is split on the humanitarian justification it becomes possible to have a debate on the facts. Too often we have one side arguing facts while the other side is arguing the need to save humanity from any and every evil.

I don't have a problem with the humanitarian justification, but I think that we need to have a real debate about it first.

It would be a nice irony if one of the few real humanitarian wars splits the left's stranglehold on the humanitarian justification.

An Amtrak Success Story

So as most people know, I support the idea of reintegrating passenger rail service into the national transportation system. For all their other problems California is showing that it can be done successfully.

Now granted, even in California, they have many of the same problems as Amtrak does everywhere else. The freight railroads don't uphold their end of the agreements and often there isn't enough money to do the things that would be necessary to attract more ridership. So while the routes are a success, they still haven't made a real dent in the congestion on the local highways.

If the freight railroads would ever start upholding their end of the bargain, and if Amtrak every started to run a real frequency on some of these "corridor" routes there might be a real possibility of rail transportation supplementing the existing system and doing so with a minimum of public funding.

Those are two big ifs, but the fact that we can even talk in terms of ifs is an improvement. For too many years Amtrak has been a money pit into which millions upon millions of dollars were sunk without there ever being a corresponding level of service. Before now, Amtrak has never really had to be business conscious.

But now that they are, they're finding ways to make their services useful and relatively cost efficient.

The government, both federal and at the state level, needs to find ways to spread this new model for Amtrak. Start rebuilding the passenger transportation system.

As long as it doesn't get too expensive (there's the challenge) we can't end up worse off for trying.

They Earned It

222 sailors sworn in as Americans under presidential order .

They came here and volunteered to risk their lives for a nation that they didn't officially belong to. They understand the American Dream and appreciate the sacrifice that has to be made from time to time to ensure that perpetuation of that dream.

They came here with the hope of one day being able to call themselves "an American citizen." They have worked and sacrificed to be able to call themselves " an American citizen." And today, they can go home calling themselves "an American citizen."

Congratulations, gentlemen. You've earned your citizenship.

So This Is Why Kite Flying Was Illegal

So now we figure out why the Taliban banned kites. It wasn't because of religion, it was a safety issue.

What possesses people to coat their kite strings in ground glass or to use wire? Are they so unhappy with their lives that they have to destroy anything that might bring joy to someone else?

These folks don't need anti-kite legislation. They need common sense.

Is North Korea Next?

The liberals are already starting to sound the warning about a possible US war with North Korea.

Now North Korea itself is of course engaged in a vast propaganda effort to secure their safety. But now the media in the West has begun the usual process of warning of "quagmire" and talking about how we're "bogged down" other places.

A nuclear armed North Korea is a problem that cannot be allowed to develop. Kim Jong Il is not exactly a model of sane leadership. A nuclear weapon in his hand is nearly as bad as one in Bin Laden's. The only difference is that Kim has a nation to lose in addition to his life, Bin Laden only has his life.

The fact that the Pentagon is talking about a thirty to sixty day war as we go into talks with the NKs is a good thing. It puts them on notice that we've already advanced pretty deeply into the planning process for their elimination as a threat to world security. Having the NKs looking over their shoulder in paranoia (more than they already do) will be a good thing. The more they are distracted by trying to figure us out, the more likely they are to make a mistake.

I'd like to see NK implode economically and become a non-factor in the world. It may still happen, but in the mean time, we have got to prepare to take them on militarily should they become a nuclear threat.

The ball is really in NKs court. We are going to react to whatever path they choose. If you want to change the current collision course, talk to Kim. He's running the show.

Separation of Mosque & State In Iran?

Could it be? Could there actually be a budding movement afoot in Iran to split the stranglehold of Islam on the government in Tehran? It sounds like the grandson of the Ayatollah Khomeini is trying to do just that.

Hussein Khomeini is apparently enough of a threat to the regime in Tehran that they have sent out their thugs, the Revolutionary Guard, to try and track him down and assassinate him.

But where is he "hiding?" In Iraq. Specifically, in Najaf. The same city where the top religious leadership is accepting the American military as liberators, not oppressors.

So Khomeini, the grandson of the Yankee-hating revolutionary, is now taking refuge in a city whose freedom and security is being assured by a US-led military coalition. It says something about the US that he, the blood descendant of one of the most anti-American people in history, knows that he can enter an area under US military control and feel safe.

But even that isn't the most intriguing part of this story. Instead it is the fact that he, of all people, is calling a spade a spade. He has called out the Iranian clerics as "...the tyrannical rule of religion that was reminiscent of the rule of the Church during Europe's Dark Ages." He also refers to the clerics as "the world's worst dictatorship."

If you're Ali Khameini sitting there exploiting the situation left by the Ayatollah Khomeini, then getting called out by his blood is probably the worst thing that could happen to you. You're people are already disaffected with you, to put it mildly. The students are nearly ready to turn you into the next Mussolini. And now, the one person who can probably have the most damaging effect on your last shred of credibility or legitimacy comes out with a comment like this: "All those who took control of the centers of power of Iran after my grandfather are exploiting his name, the name of Islam, and the religious regime so as to continue their tyrannical rule."

Looking back, the Iranian dissidents have really been missing one thing in their quest for freedom: a vocal, unafraid, charismatic person to rally around. Sure, the Son of the Shah has tried, but he just strikes me as not quite having what it takes. He's sitting thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, wearing Armani, broadcasting back messages. Hussein Khomeini is there, on the ground, his distance from Tehran measured in hundreds, not thousands, of miles. He is talking and rallying under the threat of death from the Revolutionary Guard.

Khomeini has the potential to be the leader of the next revolution, if he wants it. Pundits looking in on Iran from a distance have noted that the government is a house of cards, more likely to fall from within than due to external pressure. Khomeini appears, at first blush, to be one of the key cards in that house. Khomeini may be able to split the Iranian regime from within and to speed to collapse of the tyrannical terrorists running things in Tehran.

Khomeini may not be the best choice out there (I don't know, but he sure seems better than the LA playboy), but he seems to be thinking in terms of real freedom for Iran. The mainstream media has picked up the story and is starting to spread the word. It's time for Bush to make a quick decision.

Do we support the grandson of the Ayatollah Khomeini or do we hold out for someone else?

I think it's time for us to support the (new) Khomeini-led Revolution.

Using A Laser To Get Rid Of Nuclear Waste

Now I'm no nuclear physicist (I don't even play one on TV), but this new experiment showing it might be possible to make radioactive waste safe using a laser sounds real intriguing.

I found this article while trolling the boards at Free Republic. They seem to have a pretty good discussion going in the comments in which the feasibility of the idea is being discussed. So far, I think I've been able to follow it pretty well and the idea would require a somewhat specialized laser and there is still a question of large scale viability of the idea (in other words, can you process a large quantity of nuclear waste with this or is it only applicable in a small quantity lab environment?).

But the important thing is that the idea seems to have some merit. If we can find a way to get rid of the nuclear waste problem, we may have just found the perfect way to start rapidly reducing our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

And that alone, is good enough reason to keep pursuing this.

Are Gays Better Parents?

3. Gild Every Lily. When the media are riding a giant story like this one, they can be relied on to throw caution to the wind and start buying into pure silliness. Thus, homosexuals are not just human beings deserving of all the rights and privileges of other human beings. They're now superhuman, capable of stunning feats no hetero could hope to achieve.

In a health column of July 1, Times columnist Jane Brody noted that there's extensive research showing that "children raised by gay parents are not significantly different from those raised by straight parents." Fair enough, but that's not all. A new study reveals "that if anything, gay parents might do better, having gone to considerable trouble to become parents and being determined to raise children who respect themselves and others while remaining tolerant of diversity."

Got that? Gay men and women are not like other parents -- who, last time I checked, were good, bad, and mediocre, depending on the individual. No, gays actually have an edge. To report on such a study is legitimate. To report on it uncritically, as Brody did, is absurd. In their enthusiasm for a noble cause, media people often wind up undermining it.

So this has been a big summer for the homosexual movement. The gay train does seem to have left the station and it's picking up steam as it moves towards general mainstream acceptance, right?

In some respects, yes. But, for me, the above quoted passage illustrates why the gay movement won't be achieving complete acceptance anytime soon.

Are gays better parents than heterosexuals? In some cases, sure. Is it because of their sexual preference? Not a chance.

A parent, gay or straight, will develop decent parenting skills if they love the child and they're interested in being a parent. I saw a story on the 11 o'clock news last night about a lady who locked her teenage kids in their rooms (windows boarded with plywood) because she didn't want to deal with them. She had no parenting skills simply because she wasn't interested in being a parent; they interfered with her lifestyle.

She was a terrible parent. Did her sexual preference play any role in her treatment of the kids? No. She wasn't interested in being a mom so she wasn't.

And there have been many gay parents who do a just fine job of raising normal, mentally healthy kids. Does their sexual preference have anything to do with it? No. If the kid comes out good, it's because they cared enough to work on being the best possible parent they could be. It is a function of love and effort.

Now both groups, heterosexual parents and homosexual parents are large enough to be described with a Bell Curve. In each group a certain number of parents will be excellent, most are decent, and a few suck. And I find it hard to believe that sexual orientation is going to do anything to shift those Curves in favor of the homosexuals.

Homosexuals are, like heterosexuals, regular human beings who are bound to make mistakes. Some gays will be better people than others, but that holds true for the heterosexuals also.

Reporting like this (blatantly fawning and unresearched efforts) will do more harm to the gay movement than anything else. It's usually considered to be poor form to have your minions fight for your acceptance by berating those whom you want to accept you.

Can't They Be Happy?

Can't the media ever be happy with anything?

They are now using an FBI analysis to cast doubt on the idea that the passengers of Flight 93 forced the airplane to the ground.

So the hijackers may have deliberately crashed the airplane to end a passenger uprising. Or they may not have. Either way, the actions of the passengers on that flight directly led to the series of events that brought the plane down in Pennsylvania instead of Pennsylvania Avenue.

The passengers are still heroes. Maybe they didn't get to the hijackers before the plane plowed the field, but the hijackers didn't get to their goal either. The passenger died in a valiant and successful effort to prevent the deaths of thousands more Americans; the terrorists died in a blaze of abject failure.

Short of the revelation that Flight 93 crashed due to a combination of a massive computer and mechanical failure, we don't need to be calling into question the value of the heroism of the passengers. They took action to earn our respect; they deserve to be honored with it.

Ashcroft Doesn't Like Porn?!?

Surprise, surprise. John Ashcroft has begun his great anti-porn crusade. Civil libertarians, the left and those who believe that the Attorney General isn't doing enough in the war on terrorism are all, of course, up in arms about this.

"....what an absolute waste of tax payers money, and limited law enforcement resources this is. Leave them alone."

"I am a pretty uptight conservative but shouldn't we be tracking down alqueda terrorists instead of these (sick) people?"

"Your tax dollars at work and your personal safety being disregarded."

(All quotes taken from the posting at Free Republic.com)

Now I think that we could probably be doing a more effective job in the war on terror. But the AG is responsible for upholding all the laws of the land, not just those that are the most popular or that the public thinks are the most pressing issues of the day. He doesn't get to decide which laws he wants to enforce today; they have to all be equal as far as he is concerned.

Now if someone wants to partake in pornography, that's their business. I personally don't really care what people watch in the privacy of their homes.

However, if the community has decided that a certain act being portrayed on paper or cellulose is obscene, then the porn companies have a responsibility to observe that community standard. Using the Postal Service for an out of state company to violate the local laws is a federal issue, which makes it the business of the AG, John Ashcroft.

And Ashcroft is doing exactly what we hired him to do: he's enforcing the laws as they are written.

Now you might be able to argue that sex, rape and murder aren't really obscene. And taken individually, they generally aren't considered to be so. On many mainstream TV shows all three are considered to be acceptable, if risque, topics.

But a graphic combination of two out of the three is the question here. And, in my opinion, a combination of two of those acts is obscene. These aren't NYPD in the buff, these are "knock her up and knock her off." It's a little much.

If someone wants to buy a tape of people engaging in various acts, hetero or homosexual, that's fine. It's just that some people are pushing the extremes a little too far right now.

And if Ashcroft wants to use existing federal law, as it was intended, to bring them down - that's just fine by me.

When They Burn Books....

Religion seems to be a popular theme here with me lately. Found another interesting story, but one in which I will not support the Church.

The Jesus Non-Denominational Church in Greenville, Michigan had a book burning recently.

They burned Harry Potter, non-King James versions of the Bible, Shania Twain CDs, Dan Aykroyd movies and who knows what else.

This is too much. There is no justifiable reason for something like this. I don't care how bad you think "Coneheads" was, there is no reason for declaring it the work of Satan.

Burning other people's ideas, whether expressed through books or recordings is an extreme step, and one which it really concerns me to see someone take.

And besides, what makes the King James Bible so sacrosanct? It's just one particular translation of a translation. It is no more right or wrong than any other interpretation.

My, What An Evil Oppressor We Are!

At the end of World War I, the Great Powers imposed the Treaty of Versailles on Germany as a form of retribution for the damage caused by the war. At the end of World War II, the United States imposed the brutally oppressive Marshall Plan as retribution for the damage Germany and Japan caused. And now, we are brutally oppressing the Iraqis by making them fill out claim forms if they think that we caused them damage. Over 2500 claims have been filed against us since the end of major hostilities.

Victorious nations around the world will be cringing at the wicked precedent we are setting here. To the victor goes the spoils, right? What kind of deranged victor pays the vanquished for damages caused?

Maybe the kind that has actually gone to war for (to an extent) humanitarian reasons. Maybe the kind that actually has true concern for the welfare of the innocents.

Maybe it's the kind of victor that is guided by an internal moral compass that can make judgmental distinctions between right and wrong.

Maybe it's the American people.

We said from day one that this wasn't a war against the Iraqi people, it was a war against Saddam and his cadre of loonies. That was the promise we made to the Iraqi people before we went in. And our moral compass says that if we damage the property or well-being of an innocent, we have to make it as close to right as possible.

In the case of property damage, we pay to repair the property; to make it whole again. In the case of personal injury, we are obviously taking a bit more thorough approach, not out of a desire to minimize the suffering of the Iraqi claimant, but to make sure that proper restitution is paid out or proper care provided.

Our accurate moral compass has also garnered other benefits for us.

The four main clerics in Najaf have lined up behind the US, calling for the rule of law and order. In the cities under the influence of the clerics, US troops have been welcomed as "liberators rather than occupiers."

But even more significantly, under the instigation of one young radical cleric there has been some discontent and calls for an immediate American withdrawal.

But instead of the Iraqis rallying to the anti-American rhetoric, they have instead made a public notice of their intention to defend the four moderate clerics.

If we were truly oppressive or unconcerned for the plight of the Iraqi people, the Iraqis themselves would have rallied around the young cleric Sadr. Our moral compass, our sense of right and wrong, has been helping the Shi'ites to feel more comfortable in working with us, rather than against us. They realize we're not perfect, but as the claims program shows, we try to make right our mistakes.

We must maintain the course our compass charts for us.

So Who's The Navigator For The Road Map?

This morning, while I was pulling MapQuest directions for a delivery at work, I surfed on over to the Jerusalem Post and found this article and thought to myself "Here's a story only a conspiracy theorist could love." So I emailed myself the link, so that I would be able to write something about how far fetched the satire was.

Now that's not to say that there isn't duplicity in the dealings in the Middle East, God only knows there is. It's just that at first blush, it all just seemed too fanciful to be true.

But tonight, as I was rereading it again, I started trying to really poke hole in the espoused theories. But I found it really difficult to do so, as while they were all extreme theories, there was a logic behind them. I don't think that Bush or Sharon are playing the Arabian Nights game, but I do believe that Abu Mazen might be and Hamas most certainly is.

Hamas is definitely playing everyone for the fool. Which I find really to be amazing since they aren't even a party to the Road Map. But they have positioned and parlayed themselves into a power broker spot and they are exploiting it to the max.

Hamas, not Bush, not Sharon, is propping up Abu Mazen. If Hamas says Abu Mazen goes; he goes. Bush and Sharon don't hold that kind of sway over the Palestinian Authority. Hamas is the real power in the territories now.

And it's not is if they're using their power for peaceful ends. The ceasefire was agreed to in order to give Hamas an opportunity to retrench and rearm in anticipation of the next wave of attacks on Israel. And now it looks as if they will succeed in upping the ante for the next time round.

The J-Post article was almost the conspiracy theorists perfect dream. It still may be. Hamas is playing a duplicitous game. Do Bush and Sharon or even Abu Mazen have what it takes to untangle the web of lies?

NEA Invades South Korea

When your nation's very existence is dependant on the US, is it really a wise idea to keep tweaking us? In South Korea, the Korea Teachers and Educational Workers Union thinks so.

The more I see this kind of stuff coming out of Korea, the more I think that our men there would be better stationed someplace friendly like Australia or even back home.

I think that South Korean President would change his mind about the quiz if we left him to deal with Kim Jong Il on his own.

After all, we should strive to be more like that fourth choice, right?

Isn't A Search Warrant Supposed To Violate Privacy?

But this does actually bring up an interesting dilemma.

A search warrant is supposed to allow law enforcement to find something you want to keep private. Violation of privacy is the whole idea of the warrant.

But, the defendant is supposed to have the ability to challenge the basis on which the warrant was obtained, as a protection against abuse by the government.

The defendant has the right to defend himself against the evidence presented against him - including the manner in which it was acquired. In this case, it doesn't seem as though the defendant is being afforded that right.

I understand the national security concerns involved here, but we also have to balance that against the need to protect the rights of the accused until such time as they are convicted. The government has got to find a better of way of handling these situations.

A defendant shouldn't have his only defense reduced to the fact that a search warrant violates his privacy. The government got to present their case to a judge; the defense is entitled to rebut that government's cases point by point.

To take away that right is to take away too much. The potential consequences of abuse are just too great.

Oh, Great. Another Potential Entitlement

Isn't it bad enough that we already have people that vote like they're drunk? Now the Norwegians will allow you to actually be drunk while voting.

How long before some special interest group like "The United Alcoholics of America" or Gray Davis decides that this is an excellent idea for America, so as to not disenfranchise those with some "minor" alcohol issues?

US Supreme Court Basing Decisions On Foreign Precedent?

I think that this is pushing the bounds of "good behavior" as defined in the Constitution (Article III, Section I).

The job of a Supreme Court Justice is to interpret laws written by Congress and to defend the Constitution as the supreme law of the land.

The only tools needed for the job are the Constitution itself and common sense.

The Supreme Court is not supposed to formulate law. It is not supposed to make popular decisions (only ones that are consistent with the Constitution). It is most certainly not supposed to be looking to foreign courts for "guidance" on important issues.

To do so is to abdicate the Court's responsibility in favor of some "global view of judicial decision-making."

We don't pay Justice Ginsburg to care what the French think, we pay her to make judgments about US laws as they relate to the Constitution. That is it.

If Justice Ginsburg wants to introduce foreign legal concepts into the American legal system, that's fine. There is an avenue available to her in which she can fulfill those desires.

She can run for Congress.

As long as she stays on the Supreme Court, though, she needs to stick to the job we hired her for.

To do otherwise would be insubordination, which isn't exactly good behavior, now is it?

Free College Education For Illegal Immigrants?

In the State of Nevada it may very well be happening. The State Treasurer is against it; the State Attorney General hasn't ruled yet.

I can understand providing illegals with a basic (read: K-12) education. It's really a difficult choice as they are here because their parents are engaging in an illegal behavior, but I don't think it right to punish the kids for the parent's behavior. That being said, if the parent gets deported, the kids need to go with them.

But they have no right to a free college education at taxpayer expense. College is an earned privilege. No one is "entitled" to go to college, citizen or not. It has to be earned.

If an illegal graduates from a Nevada high school and decides that they want to go to UNLV, they should have to go back to their home country and apply as a foreign national. Get accepted, get the proper visa documentation and then come back.

If you qualify for a scholarship, great. You've earned it. But you are not entitled to a scholarship fund that requires that you be a resident of the State of Nevada. I can't get it if I go to school there as I'm a resident of Florida.

Just because you lived there and graduated from a Nevada high school does not make you a resident. It is wrong for someone to be able to profit from an illegal act. I can tolerate (barely) putting you through the public school system at taxpayer expense when you're here illegally, but I won't stand for you taking tax money to obtain a college education.

A basic education is necessary to give the kid a chance at success in their home country or here if they decide to legalize themselves. A college education is a luxury that many of our real citizens cannot afford.

Nobody tell Gray Davis about this. He'll be giving away free UC Berkeley educations with every driver's license issued to an illegal alien.

Another Reason We're Different

For some strange reason, I've been finding articles on the web the last few days that highlight American traits that make us different from everyone else. The latest is the announcement that we have buried Uday and Qusay Hussein in their father's hometown.

From the descriptions of the event, they were given proper, even respectful, burials. Their coffins were wrapped in Iraqi flags. Even in spite of their patently evil nature, we were still respectful in death.

We could have held the bodies until next of kin came to claim them (not real likely). We could have ignored Muslim tradition and stored them in a freezer until Judgment Day. We could have dumped them in a pauper's grave. We could have dumped the bodies at sea. We could have done pretty much anything we wanted.

Yet we showed them respect. Not because they had earned it - they most certainly had not - but because it was the right thing to do.

Would they have showed the same respect if they had gotten Tommy Franks? I don't think so.

Very few other nations on Earth would have handled this the way we did. Most would have taken the unmarked grave route because it was expedient. A few probably would have gone in for mutilation and desecration.

But we handled it right. Why?

Because that's the way we Americans do things.

What Makes Americans Special

We have been hearing quite a bit lately about the slow but steady trickle of American deaths in Iraq. But the one thing we don't hear much about is how the families of the deceased are reacting. We haven't been getting much insight into the real effects of the ultimate sacrifice. Until now.

The Telegraph from London has done an excellent job of bringing us a view, a small view no doubt, into what happens emotionally to a family that has just been notified of their son or daughter's death.

I'm sure that not everyone reacts like this, but this is the kind of reaction that makes us special. A man loses his son, one of the most difficult sacrifices a man can make, yet he can look around his home, see all the memories, and feel as though the sacrifice of his son was not in vain.

I feel for Mr. Childers and his family. They have now given more to this nation than most of us could ever think of. And they deserve to be honored for the magnitude of the sacrifice.

It is the internal strength of men like this that makes this nation great.

Gees, How Far Do We Have To Go?

I'm a picky eater. I tend to only like certain kinds of foods, so going out to eat in foreign countries can be a bit of an adventure in asking, "what is this?" So I have trouble building up much sympathy for this Muslim who ate pork, because he didn't know what it was and didn't ask. He made an assumption and it turned out to be wrong.

When I do that, I deal with whatever revolting delicacy I end up with. It's a matter of personal responsibility. I screwed up; I deal with the consequences.

This Palestinian made an assumption and it was wrong. The package didn't specifically state that it was pork. So instead of chalking it up to experience and asking for forgiveness (since it was a major religious faux pas), he is suing.

I'm sorry, but I can't help but to shake my head. This is too much. The guy ran into a cultural delicacy (country style ribs) and bought them without question. When he asked, after the fact, he was told what it was. It's not like the store was trying to hide it. The buyer was uninformed and apparently made no attempt to educate himself.

Now I also have a problem with his claim that the package wasn't labeled, but that he was unaware of what "country style ribs" were. If the package wasn't labeled, how did he know that they were "country style ribs" and that he therefore was unaware of what they were? It just doesn't make sense.

But then again the whole thing is ridiculous. Sometimes the proper answer is acceptance of personal responsibility, not the initiation of legal action.

But, I Swore I Lived Here...

And here I thought I had some really bad luck. This guy goes away for a few days and comes back to his new vacations home, only to find that the house itself was stolen.

That's rough. Having your stuff stolen from the house is bad enough. Having the whole house taken, that's just adding insult to injury.

After all, what's the thief going to do? Sell the house on eBay? Or maybe sell it though a classified? I do like that the owner is putting out posters with pictures of the home.

Maybe we'll see it on the back of a milk carton soon. That'll make this whole thing just classic. Almost impossible to top classic.

Next, They'll Propose Buy American

So some marketing professor out at Cal State has determined that when Californians buy produce grown in California, they create more jobs and revenue for the state. He says that simply by switching their buying habits to include 10% more California grown produce instead of that imported from other states would add approximately $188 million in tax revenue for the state and local governments.

OK. I can accept the idea that Californians should try to buy more Californian produce when they can because it would help out the state. It's going to probably hurt people in some other states, which is unfortunate, but I can't really say that I have a big problem with the idea. They're finally trying something to get the state moving again, and I'll give credit where credit is do. No nitpicking Gray on this one.

I just want to know where this professor came up with the statistic that the average Californian over 21 spends $855/year on food and wine. That's only $2.34 per day. It's that one statistic that makes me question the whole story. $2.34 per day, just doesn't seem right.

Democrats For States Rights???

Wow. Talk about a reversal of the norm. The liberals who feel strongly about the medical marijuana laws are now really enamored with the Tenth Amendment and its concept of states' rights.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Essentially, the medical marijuana users are arguing that the Constitution doesn't give Congress the right to outlaw the use of mind altering drugs. The other side is arguing that the "common good" clause, which has been used to justify the unchecked expansion of government so often, is sufficient enough reason to allow the government to ban the drugs.

Now I'm not interested in debating the morality of medical marijuana right now. I go back and forth on my position with it. Sometimes my compassionate side (yes, I do have one!) comes out and says it might be okay in certain, narrowly defined circumstances, yada, yada, yada. Other times, the "retentive" side of me comes out and says it's against the law, it's a drug being self-administered in varying dosages, it appears to affect intelligence, yada, yada, yada. So at this point, I don't have a really opinion one way or the other. I'm open about the whole thing.

The real shame here is that, while the proponents of legalization are actually working through the system properly, they are still whining to the point that it turns me off to their argument:

...federal raids confiscated the pot stocks of very sick people who consider marijuana to be a benign medicine.

This is the perfect example of what ticks me off so bad. Marijuana is still illegal. Regardless of what very sick people believe, it is still against the law and if you have or are using it, you have to expect that there will be consequences, regardless of how badly you wish there wasn't.

Go about it the right way. Change the laws, then pass the pipe.

Telemarketers Starting To Get Nasty

Ever had that experience with a rude and nasty telemarketer? You know the one who just really had a bad attitude problem?

Well, now the entire industry is suffering from that same attitude problem.

I have to admit that I'm not real sympathetic to the arguments of the telemarketers. They have a right to try to sell their product, but to say that they have a First Amendment right to call my phone, that I pay for, to get rude and nasty because I don't want the scam of the day that they're trying to push - well let's just say that, in my opinion, their First Amendment right ends when they push the last button in my phone number.

It'll be fun to hear some judge telling his telemarketer experiences as he throws their cases out of court.

How To End Mandatory Background Checks

OK. Let's say you're a politician who, for whatever reason makes you different from all the other politicians, wants to get rid of mandatory background checks. What would you decide on as the best way to effect your change?

How about this: use the media's self-preservation instinct to get them to start screaming about the potential misuse of the information by the government.

And it looks like that is exactly what is starting to happen in places like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where reporters have to have an annual background check to cover the state government and in Chicago, where the city government requires both a background check and fingerprints.

And all the sudden reporters are coming up with the same concerns that they so flippantly dismissed when the background checks didn't involve them:

"Who would have access to these background checks? It's hard for me to believe the police department will do background checks and not put that information in a file. Who will get it? An alderman with a grudge? Even if there's nothing illegal (in the background check), who knows what will show up? You should see the messages I'm getting from members. The scenarios are endless."

It's amazing how they're just now starting to realize that government doesn't always keep its promises. They're now starting to realize that having the FBI amass a great big file on you isn't as great an idea as them getting a big file on the nutcase down the street.

Background checks are useful in some areas, like with childcare workers or law enforcement or the medical profession. But over the last few years they've been getting abused by overzealous regulators who would require background checks for the guy working the midnight Quiki-Mart shift if they could figure out a "rationale" for requiring it. As such, with so many checks being done, the effectiveness of the system is going down and the possibility for error is climbing - with pretty nasty and hard to reverse consequences to the investigated if there's a mistake made.

Maybe now that the reporters are the target of the investigations we'll start to see them calling for a rationalization of them.

But I doubt it. Once they scale back the investigations on the media it'll be back to the same old: good enough for thee, but not for me.

A Striking Contrast

For those who want to believe that taxes and regulation don't affect the economy, contrast these two articles:

High taxes and lots of rules prompt some firms to leave state - from the San Francisco Chronicle

Florida's job creation grows for the 15th straight month - a recent press release from Jeb

Now I'm not convinced that the job growth here in Florida is as rosy as Jeb would have you believe. Most of the growth that I've seen lately has been in the low wage world. For the better, higher paying jobs, the market here is still terrible, just like everywhere else. But regardless, the economic lesson here is unavoidable: people don't like onerous taxation and obnoxious over-regulation.

This is something that economists, or even Economics 101 graduates, have known for years. However, the tax and spenders still haven't recognized this reality. A large chunk of the SF Chronicle is devoted to bemoaning the fact that other states are poaching California businesses and using financial incentives, both direct and indirect, to do so.

Maybe it's time for the next governor of California to take a long hard look at the effects of out-of-control government on the state's economy.

I Have To Agree With This

MSNBC has decided to write about the current heat wave in the Phoenix area. The article is mostly just the normal make-you-feel-good-you're-not-there type of story. But towards the end they attempt to pull the usual feel bad for the plight of the prisoners in jail:

About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts.

On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 degrees inside the week before. Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks.

"It feels like you are in a furnace," said James Zanzo't, an inmate who has lived in the tents for 1½ years. "It's inhumane."

To which the sheriff of Maricopa County responded:

"It's 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths."

I got to admit that the sheriff has a pretty good point, if it's good enough for the men and women in uniform, it is more than adequate for a common petty criminal. 'Nuff said.

This Must Be A Sick Attempt To Make Me Happy

No matter what this "scientist" says, I'm not going to accept the idea that not having vacation time is a good thing. I can't deal with the idea that if I take one day off from work I can't eat for a week and a half. I'll take a few points off my IQ for a little bit of mental sanity.

No vacation time is not a good thing, even if it makes me smarter. I refuse to be happy about the no benefits gig.

Boeing Loses $1B in Rocket Contracts

Something just doesn't seem to be right with Boeing any more. Phil Condit was a great program manager (the 777 was originally his baby), but he just doesn't seem to be too hot as a CEO. Politically he is tone deaf (Chicago over Dallas or Long Beach for the HQ?). And now Boeing, that great symbol of American industry, is losing $1 Billion in rocket contracts to Lockheed Martin as a penalty for the illegal theft of documents.

The Air Force is really taking some pretty harsh shots at Boeing. Lockheed is certainly a capable alternative in the industry and it really won't do too much damage to the viability of the US launch capacity to change the contracts. But this is the stiffest penalty that anyone can find on record and the Undersecretary was indicating that they had been lenient on Boeing.

And all this because of the actions of two former McDonnell Douglas employees (Boeing acquired McDD and eventually fired the two for a lack of ethics). But of course, Boeing didn't make things any better by being less than completely truthful with the Air Force. And therein lies the difference between former Boeing CEO Bill Allen and Phil Condit.

Allen didn't tolerate such actions, and if they did occur he would take decisive and ethical action, up front. Here, Allen would have sanctioned Boeing before the AF ever got a chance. Heads would have rolled and a complete and thorough reporting would have been made to AF immediately.

Instead, we get Condit apologizing for his company's actions and claiming to be "disappointed by the circumstances." He then hired former Senator Rudman to help review the company's ethics.

The review needs to start at the top. Maybe I'm wrong, but Condit doesn't seem, to me at least, to really be too contrite about the whole thing. Boeing has been aware of this since 1999 and has understated the significance of the situation and the quantities of documentation they had in their possession. After four years and being caught in their understatement, saying sorry isn't really the right answer.

Boeing knows where the problem lies. After four years they should know if it lies with one person condoning this in his department or if it is a product of the corporate culture. Sorry doesn't correct the problem. Sorry isn't enough. Changes need to be made. They've had four years in which to determine what to do. There aren't too many acceptable reasons for not having acted by now.

Boeing is a special company in American industry. They are like a GE, a Coca-Cola, or an IBM. We hold them to a higher standard and we expect them to exceed that standard. And we should. As one of our biggest exporters, they are an example to the rest of the world of what America is all about. It may not be fair to Boeing to expect more of them than we do from most other companies, but that's life. They hold a powerful position in US industry and therefore also have powerful responsibilities.

And one of those responsibilities is to conduct themselves in the most ethical manner possible.

Palestinian Authority, Meet Dale Carnegie

They really do need to send these guys to a Carnegie course.

For some reason, I don't think that using religiously offensive cartoons or depictions of your advesary as a violent, razor toothed octopus ripping people limb from limb is an integral part of the course of "How to win friends." It might influence people, but probably not in the manner that you desire if you're Yassar or Abu Mazen.

Sometimes, it's almost as if the PA forgets that it is the US that really forced Israel back to the table this time (before Israel was really ready to go back) or that the US can basically turn around, walk away, and let this "peace process" collapse. More often than not, we are convincing the Israelis to act in a manner that is counter to their interests. Does the PA really think that the EU will have the same influence?

Why is it that many of these nations that need our help, either militarily of economically or for their very existance, feel as though they have the right to disrespect us on the one hand while coming begging with the other. They certainly have the right to express their opinions, I won't deny them that, but when they we also have the right to cut support for them for doing so. It's not censorship, it's simply our choice to not support those who express such contempt for us.

They have a choice and so do we. They are exercising their choice through political cartoons.

It's time that we start looking at exercising our choice. A little lesson on the concept of consequences seems to be in order.

Understand that the cartoons are not the only reason I say this, there has been an accumulating pile of this kind of editorializing on the part of the PA, they are just an excellent and timely representation of the overall problem.

Berkeley Students Sue Board Of Regents

They're claiming a breach of contract because their fees and tuition are going up and they are also demanding refunds for some of their previous tuition increases.

A UC spokesman has said that: "We understand students' concerns about the fee increases, but they are a product of a difficult budget time facing the state."

I have an idea for UC that might help. Quit funding studies like the Reagan/Hitler one. Maybe your professors need to spend more time teaching or interacting with the real world. It couldn't make them any worse.....

When Women Aren't Women

It's amazing what kind of stuff comes out of an unaccountable bureaucracy. Today's latest example is from Brussels where they are essentially trying to outlaw anything that might indicate that there is any difference whatsoever between men and women.

The bureaucrats are trying to acquire the power of censorship to suppress anything that might offend their sensibilities. They want to strip TV programs of anything that might perpetuate the stereotype of men and women being different. They want to get rid of the Page Three girls (yeah, good idea, tweak the British male just a bit more....). They want to censor advertising and most importantly, they want to go after the insurance companies.

They are offended that actuarial data the insurance companies use ends up paying smaller annuity payments to women than to men. They believe that without a shadow of a doubt that they annuities should pay the same amount, regardless of gender.

What they forget is that women often pay lower premiums than men, based on the fact that they live longer (and the insurance company can profit from the accumlated pay-ins for a longer period of time before they have to make the final death payment, if one is specified by the contract.). they also fail to acknowledge the basis on which an annuity works.

Let's say that a man and a woman, the same age, both begin taking payments from an annuity at the exact same time. They both have the same amount in their annuity fund when the payments commence. The man's payment will be higher. Why?

The insurance company is using actuarial data which says that men have shorter lives than women. The idea of the annuity is that the annuity fund is reaches zero on the data when statistics say the insured will die. If the initial pool of funds are the same for both the man and the woman, the woman's longer life span indicates that she has to receive less in each payment in order to stretch the money over a longer period of time as the goal is still for the annuity funds to zero out as you die.

The insurance compeny is essentially betting that you will die on or before the data statistics say you will. If you live longer, the insurance company will lose money on you, an amount that increases with every payment.

So what would happen if the payments were normalized genderwise? One of two things:

One, men would receive less than their paid in amount for annuities. Insurance companies would begin calculating payouts based solely on the female lifespan. Men would get cheated out of money and nothing would change, save psychologically, for women.

Or two, women would pay a higher premium than they currently do so that the annuity payout could be maintained at the current level of the male payout structure. In that case, women would pay more now, to receive the same amount later, but still with the annuity zeroing on the expected date of death.

The second option would seem to be the more fair of the two, as women would pay a higher amount now for their extended benefits later, but I would see the bureaucrats in Brussels implementing the first plan instead. Why do I see this?

Simple, they would then find a way to tax the excess paid in amount of the male annuity funds on the death of the insured. It would screw the men, screw their families and the insurance companies, all while being implemented as a sop to "gender equalization."

It is every socialist-feminist's dream.

And Gray Davis Rejoices

Gray Davis is about to become born-again. As he heads into his recall election, out comes this article that indicates that the Diebold electronic voting system, used in California among other places, can be fairly easily hacked with votes able to be changed after the fact and people being able to vote early and often (I wonder if this thing was designed in Chicago?).

Just remember, Gray, if hacking the voting machinery fails, just outsource the tabulation to the Palm Beach County Elections office. They'll help you in divining the true intent of all those votes to recall you. You just better hope that the recall ballot has Pat Buchanan on it somewhere.

Forget The Marines, Send In The Mercenaries!

This is interesting. A company named Northbridge Services is offering to deploy to Liberia instead of the US or UK military. They are offering to undertake peacekeeping missions and to detain everyone's favorite Liberian, Charlie Taylor.

Privatization is good, right? So why haven't these guys been given plane tickets and hearty "good luck?"

There are only a few legitimate functions of government. The military is one of them. It provides for the common defense and is an instrument of foreign policy.

And a private military company, if operated under some strict guidelines, would not be in violation of any part of the Constitution or even illegal for Congress to hire to provide certain security services. So, again, why not hire them?

In the case of Liberia, as we've learned from past UN peacekeeping operations - like Kosovo - peacekeeping usually involves very little actual peacekeeping and may involve quite a bit of real fighting.

Imposing a peace, like current "peacekeeping" operations require, is pretty close to conducting foreign policy. Being former military, I'm sure that these PMC guys are cognizant of the fact that there are political goals in play and understand the importance of following orders.

But what happens when Northbridge becomes stretched too thin? What happens when we have Joe's Peacekeeping and Wrecker Service conducting operations for us? Once you start the process of hiring mercenaries to impose your will, how far down the food chain do you go?

I agree that the US military is stretched way too thin and needs help. A PMC like Northbridge may be very helpful in relieving some of the soldiers in the boonies of Iraq. Where it's already relatively quiet, hire these guys to go in and act like glorified rent-a-cops, helping the locals to establish law enforcement and restoring or improving various services.

Our men and women in uniform, under the direct control of the government, should be the ones to take on the most difficult tasks, like imposing a peace, or securing restless areas such as Baghdad.

PMCs like Northbridge need to be used in support of the military, not in place of it.

If we're going to go into Liberia, let's do it right. And then once it's settled down some, send our folks home and let Northbridge work on some real peacekeeping instead of trying to create the peace.

Here's To A Speedy Trip

For Uday and Qusay as they commence that final trip to the special circle of Hell where they will toil endlessly as Reuters editors, completely incapable of admitting that the West has done anything right without pointing out at least two failures.

This is simply more proof that we're making progress in Iraq. Just the simple fact that an Iraqi was willing to rat out their hiding place is proof enough that the world is a'changin' over there.

Enjoy your trip to Satan's dominion, boys - you've earned it. And if you watched South Park - you'll know where to find Daddy.

Well, Which Is It Already?

Love these two headlines from today:

Reuters: White House ignored CIA over Iraq uranium claim

AP: Bush: CIA Cleared Iraq Uranium Claim

It's almost comical. Only a few people know what really happened. Everything else is speculation and muckraking.

What is the new news that's coming out here? Nothing. Once again, we have found out that our intelligence was wrong and that we used bad information in making a decision. It's not the first time this has happened and I'm guessing it won't be the last.

The CIA is doing an excellent job with the limited resources and tools it can use. But too often it is unable to get firsthand intelligence on something and is forced to rely on secondhand information (like the British report on the uranium).

I hate to admit it, but John Kerry is partially right. There does need to be a full and honest accounting of recent intelligence failures. But with that, there also needs to be a proposed solution - how do we intend to fix it? A Congressional Inquiry is all well and fine, but once you know the problems you can't just shrug your shoulders and go "Oh. OK" and walk away. Something has to be done to correct the shortcomings.

Increased funding and more operational latitude will most likely be the necessary solutions to our current problems. Maybe it's time to start working with "unsavory" characters again - after all they're more likely to steal secrets for us than upstanding members of the community.

Maybe it's time to let the boys at the CIA be cowboys again.

More Foggy Thinking From Foggy Bottom

Stay away from the "family fight," that's the advice that Powell is giving for handling the Iranian situation.

Now I know that I had said a while back that we should let events in Iran unfold without military intervention. But there is no reason that we can't take advantage of a favorable situation when it presents itself.

Instability in Iran is our friend. We want it to be unstable; we want the clerics and thugs looking over their shoulders.

Khatami is an elected President like any good dictator. The clerics vetted him and eliminated his competition. The clerics basically appointed him. So why does Powell even entertain the thought that the Iranian President might make concessions to the protestors?

Part of it is because that's Powell's job. He is supposed to look for any and every opportunity to promote diplomacy. But part of it is because of a lack of clear thought at the lower levels of the State Department.

The State Department would probably not call a cow a cow if it might offend some bovine support group somewhere. There are so sensitive to political correctness that they seem to be afraid of the truth.

Iran is not a democracy. It is a theocracy that puts on airs of being a democracy. Their "democracy" is nothing more than a cheap sop to the Iranian people to try to manipulate them into believing that they are free, while tightly controlling their actual freedom.

I have no problem with Powell wanting to seek a diplomatic solution to the Iranian problem. That's his job and I expect him to do it.

However, he needs to understand that sometimes the diplomatic solution can be advanced by intervention on behalf of those we support.

Opportunity for intervention is fleeting, especially in today's high tech world. The recognize and respond cycle has gotten extremely short. We must be poised to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.

Powell needs to start looking for an opportunity to clear house at the lower levels of Foggy Bottom. The thinking down there just isn't too clear.

Look At The Evil We Commit In Iraq

As part of an on-going public service that I try to provide on this site, I have been attempting to catalogue much of the evil that the US has wrought in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In today's segment we have a new listing from Accuracy In Media - Some Good News In Post-War Iraq.

So just how evil have we been? Well just look at what AIM is reporting:

Funding for the rebuilding of Iraq: it was estimated at $80-$100 billion of taxpayers money. So far, we've appropriated a mere $1.7 billion.

Schools: We awarded a contract for $62 million to rebuild Iraq's education system. They are installing new computers, buying new textbooks and new desks for the students. They are also looking at expanding education to girls.

And the list of evils goes on and on. It includes such terrible deeds as modernizing the airports and seaports. We have also put some pretty decent money into the health care system over there.

How can we continue to live with ourselves as we commit such heinous acts?

Why?

Why are we "exploring all options" when it comes to sending troops to Liberia? What is our real interest over there?

I am a big believer in using military force to impose solutions, in most cases. But before we can do that, we have to have a clear understanding of the problem and a clear solution to it. So what is our problem in Liberia? What is our great national interest in putting our military in harm's way again?

Howard Dean tries to argue that it's humanitarian. But I'm not buying that. Especially not from him (who thinks that the Iraq war was not humanitarian despite the discovery of mass graves and executions in the days right before US forces entered Baghdad).

Iraq had a humanitarian crisis that could be solved by military force. A small group of men was brutally murdering thousands upon thousands of defenseless citizens. Some were being killed through government-induced famine. Some were dying because of a lack of adequate medical care. Many were flat out executed, often times in unspeakably horrible ways.

Liberia is not Iraq. Liberia is in a civil war. Armed combatants for both sides are killing civilians and each other. Removing Saddam virtually ended the insanity in Iraq; removing Charles Taylor will not achieve the same in Liberia. Liberia is not about Charles Taylor; it's about tribalistic slaughter.

You cannot impose a solution to a civil war with a mere 5000 peacekeepers. That's too much to ask, even of our soldiers. If you want to end the civil war, you need to send in a large number of troops or you end up like the French in the Ivory Coast - protecting a few special people while watching the slaughter continue around you.

But that still leaves the question of why go in the first place?

Dean argues that al-Qaeda is trading "conflict diamonds." OK, I'll accept that. But how do we know that it involves Liberia in anyway? How does taking over Liberia put a crimp in their operation? Give me some names, some cities in Liberia, some idea of how the system is working and why Liberia is so important to its success. Show me why we can't pressure the buyers of these illegal diamonds. I don't want a divulgence of sensitive information or means of collection - we should never jeopardize our safety like that - but I do want something more than a claim of a "credible report." Or is there something that makes Dean's "credible reports" more credible than Bush's?

Sending our men and women into conflict is never a decision that should be taken lightly. In the run up to Afghanistan and Iraq both there was a significant national debate about sending them. With Liberia, that's not true yet.

We still need to know what they will be fighting for. What is it that is worth our soldiers' lives?

That question needs to be better answered before we commit the first soldier.

Well, It's One Way To Cut Spending

So someone in Washington has finally woken up and has decided to enforce our national sovereignty. In a fit of brilliance they have decided to suspend military aid to certain nations that have not signed Article 98 exceptions with the US.

Some of the affected nations include: Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia and South Africa. Sure it's only $47 million, but why were we even giving these guys military assistance in the first place? What value did we get for our money?

And further, why did we exempt NATO and a few select allies? Do we really trust the French or Belgians to not abuse the ICC in a pique of non-relevance fury?

The ICC is a bad idea. Its lofty ideals will be turned on their head and it will be used as weapon by every two bit radical running around who doesn't like the leader du jour.

We can't stop the insanity of the ICC, but we can protect our citizens from it. It's refreshing to see our government actually looking out for the people for once.

Let's Play Connect The Dots

OK. Connect the Dots.

You have 225 grams of uranium oxide (dot 1) and 23 pages on how to make a dirty bomb (dot 2). A government agency confirms that the uranium oxide was capable of producing a nice sized problem if blown up with conventional explosives.

Draw a line from dot 1 to dot 2 and what do you get?

Apparently in Bangladesh, they haven't figured it out yet.

"It is too early to say who was behind smuggling [the uranium] and what was the purpose," says a spokesman for Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia.

I don't really care who was behind the smuggling. But I do know that the purpose was to make - a dirty bomb. Kill and terrorize with radiation, that was the purpose.

al-Qaeda with radioactive uranium. Quite a picture from two dots.

We Started War On Hamas?

Hmmm. I must have missed the formal declaration of war against Hamas. I know we declared war on terror, and well, they are a terrorist group, but are they just now catching on?

Apparently the good doctor must have missed the "War on Terror" memo. Requesting the extradition of a murderer of US citizens isn't a declaration of war - it's what any nation should do when their citizens are murdered.

The guy is right though. There is no difference in terms of enmity between the US and Israel towards the Palestinians. We both want peace, to the point of doing some really stupid stuff (unreciprocated concessions anyone?). Perhaps he meant that there's no difference in enmity for the Palestinians towards either the US or Israel.

Hamas, the first roadblock on the Road Map, needs to be removed. Now.

Would The PA Do The Same?

So an Israeli soldier commits a stupid crime and she gets held responsible for her action. For some reason, I don't believe that the PA "security" force would have held a Palestinian responsible for a similar action.

If the allegations are true, then the IDF soldier should be, and will be, held accountable. Forcing someone to perform an action at gunpoint, even one as simple as drinking, is wrong.

It's good to see that someone in the Middle East is willing to enforce their laws, regardless of the religion or race of the victim.

It's a lesson that the Palestinians need to learn before they can really aspire to statehood.

Palestinians Don't Like Condi

According to the Jerusalem Post, the Palestinian newspaper al-Ayyam has taken some shots at Condi Rice. They have called her a "black widow," and a "Lady of Steel." They also call her "as pretty as supermodel Naomi Campbell" and "more intelligent than the iron woman Margaret Thatcher."

Now those last two insults really don't strike me as too insulting. I think what is happening is that the Palestinians are having trouble reconciling the idea that they might have to actually deal with a woman, a powerful woman. And they don't like it.

I guess the institutional racism of the PA knows no bounds.

They should be very grateful that Rice and Powell are intelligent enough to rise above the PA's petty racism.

Move On - Nothing To See Here

Hmmm. Ship apparently leaves from the Black Sea, heading to an undisclosed African port and it's carrying 680 metric tons of explosives. Just a little suspicious, huh?

The optimist in me wants to believe that there is nothing funny going on here, but the realist in me thinks that there is some terrorist group is very unhappy right now.

One more small victory in the war on the terror.

Freedom Iranian Style - For Now

The regime in Tehran is really starting to feel the heat. They now have the scooter thugs out riding around destroying sattelite dishes and either beating or fining the owners.

As the protests continue and as the pressure continues to mount on the regime, I expect to see more of these types of heavy handed "enforcement actions." They indicate an attempt to regain control through terror. The problem that the clerics will have is that the current spotlight that is on them, along with the US military threat to the north and west, will restrict their ability to bring down the hammer like they need to.

The desperation of the regime is growing by the day. The US needs to find a way to quietly support the protestors. A revolution against the revolution will only serve to ultimately improve the security and stability of the Middle East.

The American Empire - Again??

There are a few things that get me really, really ticked off. Complaining about the "American Empire" is one of them.

If you look at my other site, you'll notice that most everything I have for sale is related to a real empire. The Romans knew how to run an empire. Even the Byzantines had a pretty decent empire for a while. But the United States has never even come close to acting similarly.

We are not out conquering for pride. We are not out conquering for tribute. We are not out conquering for food. We are not trying to support the social structure of a failing state.

The author contends that every empire has some great cultural idea to spread. That is false. The spread of a cultural idea is just a side effect of empire building. Rome didn't conquer Egypt to spread the idea of Republicanism or aqueducts, they conquered Egypt for food.

Food, tribute, security and pride are the foundations of any empire. The US has food, has the ability to provide for our own security (if we would ever put our minds to it), we don't need tribute - we actually pay other states, and if pride were a real issue for us we would have completely conquered the entire Western Hemisphere by now.

But we do have a great cultural idea to spread, one that is relatively unique in history. Liberty.

Not democracy. Not republicanism. Liberty.

Our great idea is more powerful than Islamic fundamentalism. It is more powerful than communism. It is an ideology that believes in humanity. Instead of trying to repress certain traits or to make everyone equal in outcome, liberty allows every person to make their life the way that they want. The other ideologies all presuppose that man is evil and must be given rules and controls to prevent him from hurting himself or others. Liberty presupposes that man is good and able of making rational decisions that will benefit both himself and others.

Neither absolute is completely true, but I believe that the basic assumptions of liberty are closer to the truth. And so do most other people. If man is evil, why would Iranian students be calling for liberty's twin sister, freedom? Fundamentalism runs contrary to the human spirit; liberty quenches the thirst of the spirit.

We must remember that our great idea is not a form of government. Our government, our economy, our way of life are all derived from that basic idea of liberty.

As I read the article on Free Republic this morning, I was reading through the comments after the post and noticed that some people were keying in on this phrase:

"...but democracy is a vehicle for resolving disputes. It is not an ideology like communism or Islamic fundamentalism..."

Democracy (by which most people actually mean republicanism) is a product of our idea - liberty. Liberty and totalitarianism don't go together. A liberal form of government is required to most fully realize our idea. Therefore, we ended up with republicanism as the best way of protecting our liberty from the whims of tyrants and from the tyranny of the majority.

When we engage in nation building around the world, everyone looks at what tangible traits we bring to the table and then they decry of imperialism. They never realize the power of the intangible we bring. If liberty is such a bad thing, why do the nations of Europe still have, for the moment, representative forms of government? Why hasn't Japan reverted back to the reign of the Emperor? Why did the nations of Eastern Europe all change to representative forms of government?

Because liberty is a more powerful idea than communism, fundamentalism or any other -ism that's out there. Liberty speaks to the soul. The -isms speak down to the mind.

In Iraq, they are just beginning to find out about the idea again. They have not reached the point of unfettered liberty yet, but economically, they're experiencing it. And they're loving it. Their standard of living is already on the way up. But notice, that they are currently paying no taxes. What real empire doesn't collect taxes (also called tribute)?

We are not an empire. To become one, we would have to sacrifice our national foundation - liberty. As a people, we're not ready to do that.

We want to spread our idea because we, as a people, believe in the basic goodness of man. But we cannot impose it, we can only expose it. It is up to the other party to embrace liberty as their own.

Iraq was/is an exercise in ensuring our security. Afghanistan is also. Iran, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, wherever our travails take us next, we will bring our idea with us. If the people decide that they want to embrace it, we will support them in every way possible. If they don't want to, we will let them go the way of Western Europe, allowing them to establish a non-representative government. The choice is theirs, just as it always has been.

The American Empire. Great expansionist emperors like Augustus, Vespasian, Trajan and Hadrian would laugh at the "American Empire." They would be amazed at the empire building potential of the nation. They would be dumbfounded that we could let a little idea like liberty stand in the way of total domination of the known world. They didn't. They knew how to build and run an empire.

Like the author of the first article, they would never comprehend that we don't want an empire.

America is an idea, not an empire.

More Pressure On Iran

Looks like we're still ratcheting up the pressure on Iran with the latest statement from the Bush Administration that the US reserves right of military action on Iran.

The clerics responded in the most effective way they know how and "encouraged" the courts to order the execution of the protesters.

They also warned us that they will not be the same as Afghanistan or Iraq. They said that we should not "think" that we can enter Iran by force.

If we did, what would they do? Maybe order the execution of a few more people? Or perhaps they'll chant "Death To America" six times a day instead of five? Certainly even the mullahs can't believe that the Iranian military would have any better chance of stopping the US military than Iraq or the Taliban's forces could.

The panic is getting deeper and deeper among the mullahs. This current bout of "confidence" is nothing more than a front to cover their real fear - that they will lose their jobs, their power and possibly their lives.

We need more pressure on them. We must not take military action off the table just for that reason.

A Glimmer Of Understanding?

So if you're the notorious anti-American known as Jacques, what's the last thing that you'd want to see? How about a memo from the EU stating that, among other things, Europe has got to recognize the "seminal effect of the events of Sept. 11, 2001 on American fears, thinking and strategy."

Hey, we're only 18 months removed from the event. In America, we were talking about the change in about, what, 18 minutes? It's not as it was kept a secret. We changed on 9/11.

Osama figured it out (the hard way). Saddam figured it out (again, the hard way). The clerics in Iran know that this time things are different. They even figured it out to a point (but it still won't be easy to convince them).

Poor Europe, their bureaucracies are still sending out memos about the possibility of there actually being a change in the US.

But the memos are not completely without merit. The writers did take care to propose solutions to what they view as a problem of poor US public perception of Europe.

They express concern about "mutual suspicion" and "crude stereotyping." But instead of talking of "poor depictions of the President" or his advisors the article goes on to detail out the charges of Bush being a "reckless cowboy" and of Wolfowitz and Perle of "hijacking US foreign policy. Instead of discussing "differences in policy" the article notes that the memo refrains from "criticism of Washington's unilateral actions."

The memo wants to see Europe more effectively market itself outside of New York and Washington. They want to "expose Americans to our brand of democracy." I already know about the EU "brand" of democracy. I've read up on the first draft of the EU Constitution. Their brand of democracy strikes me more a great leap forward into the past of feudalism, with the Lords living in their palace in Belgium as the serfs toil everywhere else around the Continent for the benefit of the egos in Brussels. I want no part of EU democracy. It might be a nice place to visit, but that's about it.

Old Europe is starting to come around just a bit.

But it's going to take more than a memo to change American views towards Europe.

Saddam Wasn't A Bad Man

Ann Clwyd, a Labour MP, has come out with a scathing smack down of the "Where's the WMD?" crowd. Why do they continue to ignore the mounting evidence of the base evilness of Saddam's regime? Why do they continue to ignore what is shaping up to be the worst human rights catastrophe since Cambodia?

Are they so blinded by their hatred of George W. Bush as to be willing to ignore 800,000 + dead?

I said before that even if there is never any evidence of WMDs in Iraq, the human rights violations would be sufficient reason for war.

I find it incredulous that anyone could read a report like Mrs. Clwyd's and dismiss it as unimportant.

This is not a report that can justify a "yeah, but..." This is reality. This is the hundreds of thousands of dead civilians we were warned about. Does the fact that Saddam killed them make their deaths any less significant?

I don't think so. And I can't believe that anyone who professes to "value human life" or "human rights" could ever blow off something like this.

800,000 dead.

You want to hold a Congressional inquiry into the run up to the war?

Ask why we didn't go in sooner. Ask why we needlessly let people die in these Nazistic concentration camps. Ask why the "human rights champions" in Congress weren't championing human rights. Ask how we could ignore this for 12 years.

Saddam wasn't a bad man. He didn't have any WMDs to justify his removal. </sarcasm>

Just ask the 800,000 dead.

The Mullahs Are Power Hungry?!?

I would hate to be an Iranian mullah today. 252 new enemies of the state have now pointed out that they may be practicing a form of polytheism, in direct contravention of the teachings of the Qu'ran.

Now maybe it's just me, but I think that this is an excellent, excellent sign. These 252 signatories can't be completely stupid. They have to realize that by questioning and challenging the basis of the Iranian nutocracy they are putting themselves at substantial risk.

It's not quite a Declaration of Independence, but it's pretty close. 252 men put themselves on the line - their homes, their lives, their families are at risk - to call for the same concept of a representative government.

The battle is now becoming clear: it is a battle for the hearts of the general population or the Army of Iran. The students and these 252 respected men have staked out their battle lines in opposition to the nutocracy.

The nuts can win by themselves - they have the weight of the State to back them. If neither the people nor the military join the neo-revolutionaries, then the battle for freedom is lost.

The general population of Iran is timid. They don't know which way this is going to go. So they're going to sit and wait unless something kicks them off the fence.

There are two things that could bring them over to the fight for freedom.

First off, the Army could side with the freedom seekers and that alone would be enough to decide the fate of the battle. Take away the doubt about the outcome and the people will join the fight.

The second thing that could bring the general population around is time. The longer the protests continue with minimal repercussions for the students, the more bold the people will become. As the regime appears to be weaker and weaker, the general population will feel more and more potent.

The one scenario I don't see playing out, this time, is the military turning on the general population or the students - unless the revolution is definitively squashed. I think that it's fairly significant that the military hasn't been front and center in trying to quell the protests. I think that it's an indication that maybe the mullahs are concerned that unleashing the military may let loose a civil war or coup that could lead to their swinging in the breeze.

I think that the students and the signatories of the open letter all realize that their best bet is to win over the general population. The upcoming propaganda battle should be fascinating to watch. Threats, bluster, cajoling, begging, demanding - I expect to see all this and more over the next few weeks as the bloodless battle intensifies.

I hope the neo-revolutionaries are successful for the sake of the students, the Iranian people and the 252 would-be John Hancocks.

When Wahabbi Isn't Enough

Found a whole series of interesting photos and stories about the recent Iranian demonstrations. I though that they might be of some interest even though they've been discussed quite a bit in the blogosphere already.

Now we all know about the protests, now heading into their sixth day. Apparently tonight, the hardliners were shooting in the area of the demonstrations and were just generally being pretty heavy handed in their approach to ending the movement.

But they haven't exactly been peace loving little thugs the last few days either:

A broken door of a student's room is seen at the Hemmat dormitory of Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 14, 2003. Dozens of militants stormed at least two university dormitories, beating up students in their beds and detaining several of them as violence aimed at silencing government critics raged through Iran's capital. (AP Photo/ILNA)

Broken doors of the student's room are seen at the Hemmat dormitory of the Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 14, 2003. Dozens of hard-line militants stormed at least two university dormitories, beating up students in their beds and detaining several of them as violence aimed at silencing government critics raged through Iran's capital. (AP Photo/ILNA)

And they're not just going after property either. There is a human toll to their evil:

An injured student from the Hemmat dormitory of Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 14, 2003 shows a knife wound in the back. Dozens of militants stormed at least two university dormitories, beating up students in their beds and detaining several of them as violence aimed at silencing government critics raged through Iran's capital. (AP Photo/ILNA)

At least the demonstrators aren't being cowed by the terror tactics of the hardliner militants, as evidenced by the photo from the day after the ones above:

Iranian students chant during an overnight anti-government demonstration outside the campus of Tehran University.(AFP/File/Atta Kenare)

The demonstrations by both students and residents:

Local residents join students at the gates of the Tehran University dormitory complex June 13, 2003. Protests against clerical rule continued in the Iranian capital for a third night Friday. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl

are starting to have an effect on the security of the current regimes of the region, as evidenced by this offer from Saudi Arabia of refuge to 300 Iranian clerics in case of revolt. The end is getting near for the Iranian nutcases.

And as our "friend" Saudi Arabia decides that Wahhabi isn't enough extremism for one nation and takes these nuts in, well then they're sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

I wonder how long it will be before Bashar of Syria and Arafat make the move to the sands of Arabia.

Sanity is coming to the region, one totalitarian dictatorship at a time.

I'll Bet They're Real Scared Now

Hamas has now been threatened with the dreaded EU "scowl of disapproval."

Actually they threatened them with "consequences," specifically with discussions about eliminating external support.

Apparently they see nothing wrong with trying to have a dialogue with terrorists. They call on Hamas to observe an immediate cease-fire to allow the implementation of the Road Map.

So what happens after the Road Map? Does Hamas get released to push for the total annihilation of Israel, now with a safe haven in a foreign country?

This is one of the things that bothers me the most about massive, unaccountable bureaucracies. They are more concerned with the process than the outcome. The Eurocrats seem to think that as long as the Road Map is implemented everybody will be happy and will live in a utopian peace.

It's kind of like the anti-Machiavelli: the ends no longer justify the means; the means now justify the ends - no matter what the ends are.

The destruction of Israel through terrorism is OK, so long as the Road Map process is followed.

What a crock.

France Doesn't Have An Islam Problem

France has one of the largest Muslim populations outside of the Middle East. It also has one of the most militant Islamic populations. Yet Paris continues to look the other way as more and more stories like this one about Islamists causing problems at a French university keep cropping up.

Administrators commenting that female students going from jeans to burqas in four months is a problem. Students complaining that they came 1700 km to school to get away from the Muslim fanatics. And reports indicate that the worst rabble-rousers aren't even students.

Students are showing up at classes and exams with burqas, refusing to reveal their faces to men for identity checks. One student sent her brother – dressed in a burqa – to take an oral exam for her. His large feet apparently gave him away.

And the government doesn't do anything to protect the educational integrity of the school. The best that has been done is that the head of the school has called an emergency meeting of the board to discuss how to deal with the problem.

Muslim students complain that they paid their tuition so teachers should respect their faith. Yet they have no concern for the wishes and desires of anyone who paid their tuition to get a real education.

The fanatical students are attempting to impose their beliefs on others - and they cite "egalite" as their reason for doing so. They believe that it is their right to have their wishes and desires adhered to "equally."

They are true to the French Socialist dream - equality of outcome. They want everyone to worship as they do - to believe as they do - because only then will there be equality.

The students fear the idea of equality of opportunity because they know that their ideas are intellectually bankrupt. They know that their own people are fleeing great distances to get away from the religious fanaticism. They know that if secularism, Judaism, or Christianity is given an equal opportunity, the backwardness of the fanatical Islam will be exposed.

The wake up call is being given. Who is going to open their eyes?

Protecting Iraqi Culture?

Looks like the National Museum in Baghdad is back at the top of some people's compilation of complaints. ALESCO is holding meetings on how the Arab nations are going to protect Iraqi culture in the aftermath of the US-led war.

Their main complaint? The National Museum, again. This despite even the BBC reporting that the number of items missing from the main collection totals up to the whopping total of...........

47 items.

Not the bulk of the collection. Not the majority of it. Not even a significant number out of the 18,000 pieces.

There are 47 pieces unaccounted for.

It's time for the anti-warriors to find something else to latch on to. The looting of the Baghdad museum is becoming almost as discredited as the Afghani death totals.

The looting of the Museum of been pretty well proved to be a non-event. It's time to move on.

Why Bother?

Oh, the horror!

The Norwegians are getting ready to pull their soldiers out of Afghanistan because of the risk involved.

I guess no one ever told them that when you're in the military sometimes bad people shoot at you. Sometimes you might get hurt.

The fact that they're part of a "Security Force" doesn't change the fact that it's dangerous over there still. Helping to establish a secure environment sometimes means coming in to conflict with those who, for whatever reason, prefer anarchy.

This is why we shouldn't be relying on fair weather friends. If Norway doesn't want to risk their soldiers, but they want to contribute to the war on terror, maybe they should just stick to trying to talk the EU out of supporting the terrorists.

But then if they were really serious about contributing, they wouldn't be pulling out when everyone else is counting on their support.

But We'll Have An Agreement

Oops. Looks like the IAEA isn't thinking too highly of the Iranian nuclear program. They have announced that Iran has failed to comply with safeguards.

They imported nuclear material and processed it without declaring it. They have a uranium enrichment plant that is in an "advanced stage." They have nuclear equipment that is likely stolen.

But they promise not to make a Bomb.

They'll promise to return the spent nuclear fuel.

And Mike Tyson will promise not to rape another woman. Promises from some people just aren't worth a damn.

Are they in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty? I don't know. Probably, but let's let the UN guys decide (it'll make them feel important).

But before things go any further, we need more than promises. We need more than assurances.

If Iran can't come completely clean and can't stomach the idea of US or international oversight, then they don't need a reactor.

The power of the atom is different than the power of saltpeter and sulfur. Only the US and Japan truly understand the power and consequences of the unleashing of these weapons. Because we taught the world unequivocally the lessons of the awesome power of the atom, we have a special responsibility to ensure that it doesn't get used in a flippant or irresponsible manner.

Is that atomic imperialism? Maybe. But being the world's sole superpower does entail special responsibility.

It's our responsibility to ensure that, until Iran reforms, they can't have the Bomb.

It's All The Jews Fault

Found these two articles juxtaposed against each other today. Very interesting contrast.

Haaretz - Hamas repeats pledge to continue suicide attacks

JPost: Settlement outpost removals to begin

So, Hamas is going to continue the intifada because they're ticked off at Abu Mazen, but the Israelis are going to begin dismantling settlements.

This is why land for peace or any other plan that requires Israel to make any concessions before the Palestinians make substantial changes will be doomed to failure. The Israelis have tried time and time again to start the process by making unilateral and unreciprocated concessions.

It has got to be becoming painfully clear to even the most diehard peacenik that the Palestinians, as represented by Arafat, Hamas and the other suicide groups, want nothing to do with peace. Peace means the end of their reason for being. Peace means a shift from being blameless revolutionaries to actually having to govern and be accountable.

Peace means no more buying ambulances to transport weapons; it means have to transport patients to hospitals that have real drugs and real doctors.

Peace means no more blowing up roads and bridges; it means having to build and maintain them.

Peace means no more relying on Israel to divert the attention of the malcontents created by years of disinformation and indoctrination; it means having to deal with your own security and education.

Peace means the end of Hamas and Arafat's Fatah organization. They can only tear down that which others have built. They have no purpose in a functional society.

Israel needs to quit playing these games and the US needs to quit organizing them. When the Palestinians want peace, they'll begin by making real and tangible concessions - the first of which will be the real acceptance of a Jewish state in the Middle East.

Want To See A Real Crusade?

Some Muslim extremist group has made a threat to kill the head infidel - the Pope - in "the name of Allah."

Now I'm not Catholic and I certainly haven't agreed with many things the John Paul has said. But he is a man who, more than anyone else alive today that I can think of, tries to live his life according to his religion.

John Paul is more than a man, he is a symbol. Despite the times when he is wrong, he is a symbol of all that is right with Christianity. I'm not trying to minimize the faults of the Church or the man, but he does seem to stand just a step above. He seems to suffer his (and the Church's) faults with the stoicism of a man who knows that he's comfortable in meeting his Maker.

John Paul is a good man and one who commands respect, even from non-Catholics. What would the Muslims achieve by his assassination?

They would strike at a symbol. They would kill the man. They would celebrate and sing paeans to Allah. For a few minutes, a few extremists would exalt themselves with the fantasy that they defeated Christianity and proved the supremacy of Mohammed.

But they don't realize that the Church is more than one man. The Vatican would mourn and move on. A new Pope would take the place of John Paul. The Christian religion would survive, easily.

And there would be a unity in the Church that hasn't been seen in years. Catholics and non-Catholics alike would be aghast at the assassination. The "live and let live" moderates of the Christian faith would swing in great numbers to the side of "eliminate Islamic extremism."

The wakeup call for Christianity would be the equivalent of a foreign power assassinating President Bush. The fury unleashed by John Paul's death would be enormous; the effects certain.

The extremists would be hunted down and eliminated. They claim that they are fighting a holy war. They would find out what a real holy war is about.

We, the Christians, would, of course, win. The carnage on the Muslim side would be widespread and terrible. It would almost be a Crusade of medieval proportions.

The cleansing of the Muslim faith would be nearly complete. The extremist elements would be destroyed and they would remember that there is a fear greater than the fear of Allah.

They would remember to fear a united and angry Christianity.

Laurence Simon over at Amish Tech Support has also commented on this.

French Muslims Upset With Rules

There has been a pretty good controversy brewing in France about the "rights" of Muslims to practice their religion in contradiction of the rules and laws of France. The latest round of the battle appears to be becoming the right of Muslim girls to were a veil in the French public schools.

One of the things that the French have done very well is to keep their government secular. There is very little religious influence on governmental decisions. Even on a personal level, the leadership never seems to take their cues from any belief other than pure rationalism. On occasion, their dogmatic adherence to secularism has led them to make poor decisions (Iraq was a prime example. For the French, the rational response was to oppose the overthrow of Saddam because of the commercial ties. However any assessment based on any form of values of right and wrong would have led them to support the US, but this is all a topic for another day).

The French public schools were set up as centers of scientific, secular reasoning and education. They don't teach religion of any type. The French government is so anti-religion-in-schools that it is trying to pass a law banning skullcaps and crosses along with the veil (which is the right thing to do, in my opinion).

The Muslim students do have other options, although the other options do have costs. They can attend private, Islamic schools. They can graduate via correspondence schools, as the first person in the article did. It may not be free, but there are other options.

However, if they are going to take advantage of the state funded educational system, they have to understand that they, like everyone else, must follow the rules. If the dress code says no veils - no veils. If the graduation requirements say that you must take biology and must read Voltaire - you have to do it if you want to graduate. Perhaps being exposed to the ideas of the rest of humanity might not be that bad a thing.

France does allow a great deal of religious freedom. If a Muslim woman wants to wear a burqa while walking down the streets of Paris, that's her right. But as soon as she wants to take advantage of the benefits of a state funded institution, she needs to conform to the rules of the institution.

Freedom of religion is not freedom from rules. Your freedom does not extend to the point of tearing apart the rules that allow protect everyone's freedom. We start with the veils, but what's next? Do we stop school five times a day to allow the Muslim students to pray? Do we close schools for every religious holiday?

Schools have a mission of educating students. France has decided that they want their educational system (when the teachers aren't on strike) to be extremely rational and secular. They attempt to teach their students the skills that they will need to compete and survive in today's global environment.

If banning the veil (or the skullcap or the cross) leads to the establishment of more religious schools, so be it. Those schools still have to achieve the same mission - creating well-rounded, well-educated graduates. If the religious schools fail in that mission, then they will eventually lose support.

At least the French government is thinking clearly on this issue.

Aww. The Palestinians Are Disappointed

The initial reviews are coming in on the summit between Bush, Sharon, and Abu Mazen and they don't look to good for the Palestinians.

Talking to residents of Gaza, most Palestinians were disappointed by the talks. Specifically, they didn't like Abu Mazen calling for an end to the intifada. Instead, they were looking for a call to demilitarize the Jewish settlers.

This is why the peace process is doomed to failure without reeducation. The Palestinian people still seem to be operating under the paradigm of pushing the Jews back into the sea. Disarming the Jews while continuing the intifada plays right into that mentality.

That is why the call to end the intifada has been received so poorly. Ending the intifada means that the dream of a Jew-free Palestine will have to wait a little longer.

Now the Jewish settlers are not without blame here. They have brought many problems on themselves. But that being said, who is more likely to be a serious problem, the settlers or Hamas?

At least with the settlers there is a pretty good chance that Israel will hold them accountable for their actions. With Hamas, there is no accountability. There is no restraint.

The article does point out that there are some Palestinians are rational. Some understand that the intifada is not the way to peace and prosperity.

Too bad the rational ones are overshadowed by the disappointed majority.

Something Postive & French???

It's been a while since we've seen much that was both positive and French. The backstabbing and lunacy of Chirac and de Villepin have given us a bit of an skewed view of France. There are some French people like Sabine Herold who have got a clue.

She is against the disruptive nature of the labor union strikes. She actually wants her tax money to pay for services like public transportation or education or to be spent in ways that the majority, not the tyrannical minority, wants.

She's a very bright young woman, having written an excellent essay in which she takes on the idea that freedom is a western concept. It's very well written and well thought out. For anyone who thinks that there are regions of the world that are incapable of freedom, this should be required reading.

It's kind of hard to believe, given the current anti-French slant in the news that something good could actually come out of France. But Mlle. Herold is living proof that there is hope, even for France.

Oh, I Feel Much Safer Now

I wonder if people are really as clueless as they seem sometimes.

Vladimir Putin has decided that the Iranian nuclear program must be subjected to increased scrutiny to make sure that it doesn't become a threat to the world.

That's all well and fine. I'm in total agreement with the idea that there needs to be closer supervision of the Iranian nuke program. I'll even go out on a limb and say that the IAEA might even be an acceptable overseer (although I'm not real confident on that point).

But Russia is the country supplying everything to Iran here. They have, more than anyone else out there, some say in the Iranian nuke program.

So what are the Russians doing to ensure world safety? How are they using this influence?

They want a written agreement from Iran to return the spent fuel when their done with it. 10 years they get to play with it, refine it, do whatever they want with and all they have to do is to sign a piece of paper promising to send it back when they're done.

How must trust do you put in the "word" of an Iranian terrorist government? Would you be willing to bet your future on their "promise to behave?"

I wouldn't.

If this goes through, Iran will have the Bomb before a decade is up. When it comes time to return the fuel, some nutcase in Tehran may very well decide to send it back to Moscow on the tip of a missile.

How long before the concerns about missing fuel start to surface? Think it was scary when Russia was the only one losing nuclear waste? Wait until the Iranians, those paragons of peace in the Middle East, declare that they lost some. Wait until they announce that they have given a couple kilos of nuclear material to al-Qaida scientists to "study."

Giving Tehran a nuclear capability is like giving a drug addict free access to the police evidence rooms. Pretty soon all his friends will be there, everything will be gone and the neighborhood will be a more dangerous place.

Iran just puts it all on a larger scale. The weapons out on the street will be much more lethal. The neighborhood that they're terrorizing will be much, much larger. The concept is the same.

Putin won't stand up to this. Blair, Schroeder and Bush are going to hide behind the IAEA because they don't want to risk the political fallout for making a stand. Chirac, well he can't stand - he's too busy hiding from his own shadow (plus he has no spine).

Looks like once again, we will be forced to count on the Israelis to stand up and do what no one else will - the right thing. For all their faults and warts the Israelis have an uncanny sense of threats to their security. Give Iran the Bomb, first place to get nuked is Tel Aviv.

I hope that someone can stop the madness. Let Iran get the Bomb and we may have the Cold War all over again - this time without a halfway rational foe.

Oh, yeah. Amidst all the doom and gloom here I almost forgot. Read the article. It's actually pretty good. <sarcasm>Chirac provides some wonderful comedic relief at points </sarcasm>.

The World, It's A'Changing

Not a good day to be a tyrannical dictator of your own little Third World slum pit. One of our best friends, Bashar Assad has sold out the dictator occupation by allowing the publication of a letter to him in which his own subjects call for reform.

Now this certainly isn't a modern day Declaration of Independence. It is basically a letter expressing concern about how Syria is going to handle to situation it now finds itself in. Heck, it wasn't even published in Syria.

But the fact that the Syrian government would release to foreign news groups a letter calling for reform in the Syrian government shows that Assad is starting to really feel the heat. Once again, he's reacting to external pressure. It's almost as if he's sensing that pure Ba'athism is no longer an option.

But, of course, he has to save face and show that he's not caving to US or Israeli pressure. So he releases a letter, from his own citizens, calling for exactly many of the reforms he has to make in order to keep power.

So he's no longer the tyrannical nutcase dictator. Now he's the benevolent leader, who through the virtue of his great wisdom has become the sole leader of his nation.

Change is coming in Syria in one form or another. It may be externally applied change in the form of a US regime change; it may be an internal change in which Assad loosens his iron-fisted grip on the country.

More likely, I see it as being a change towards him tightening that grip. I see him cracking down even harder and pushing his nation of the edge into lunacy.

I just hope he doesn't take too many people's lives with him.

Obscene, Obscene, Obscene

Today must be a day for stupid news. Really, really stupid news.

Now we have reports coming out of the Territories formerly known as those Territories destined to become Palestine in the mind of Yassar that Arafat himself is celebrating.

Specifically, he is urging a celebration. By the children. For International Children's Day. What's wrong with that?

He wants all the little tykes to celebrate by becoming shahids - suicide bombers.

Encouraging children to blow themselves up in a "celebration." How sick and low can any one person get?

This is wrong. Pure and simple, wrong. No excuse can justify this kind of talk and encouragement. No "war against the oppressor" can justify the call for kids to destroy their lives before they ever get a chance to find out what life is about.

Abu Mazen and the Road Map notwithstanding, if the Palestinians don't remove the cancer that is Arafat, they don't deserve a state. There is no question of moral relevancy. This is wrong. To not remove him from office after something like this is tantamount to agreeing with him.

Arafat stepped way over any line of civil decency. Surely the Palestinian people cannot agree with this abhorrent rhetoric. No sane or reasonable person could.

Someone needs to lay it out now: No Arafat or no state.

I Gotta Become A Scottish Cop

I am definitely in the wrong line of work.

Cops in Scotland are going to be investigating skimpy underwear.

Now maybe it's just the libertarian in me coming out, but why are the cops wasting resources investigating underwear? I know it's Scotland, but surely they have to have more important crimes to investigate. I mean really, what harm is there in a lingerie shop selling "naughties?"

It's not like this is stuff that's being sold in the local department store. Anyone would expect to see underwear in a lingerie shop (and if they don't, they need to be slapped upside the head). Some will be a bit racier than others, but as long as the store doesn't have live models in the window showing off the goods, so what?

I'll bet there will be long line of applicants for the job of Head Inspector of Racy Women's Underwear.

What a waste of taxpayer money and law enforcement's time.

Send In The Surrender Squads!

From the AP Wire today (didn't find a link for it though):

EVIAN, France - In a sign of reconciliation, French President Jacques Chirac told President Bush on Monday that he will send French special forces to operate alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

"This decision taken by France corresponds both to a wish from the United States and a wish from our country to take part in the stabilization of Afghanistan, so it's a shared interest," said Chirac spokeswoman Catherine Colonna.

She would not say how many special forces would be sent.

The new troops will be separate from several hundred French soldiers already in Afghanistan. Those troops are part of an international force operating in the war-torn country or are working as advisers training Afghan soldiers.

The decision comes as Chirac and Bush are working to put aside their feud over the war in Iraq. They met Monday on the sidelines of a summit of the powerful Group of Eight nations in Evian, France.

Chirac riled the U.S. leader and many Americans by strongly opposing the military campaign that ousted Saddam Hussein.

"Working as advisers training Afghan soldiers?" Are we now sending in the specialized surrender squadrons?

Actually, I think the key line is the one in which they say "...a wish from our country to take part in the stabilization..."

France, in general, and Jacques in particular is realizing just how far they marginalized themselves during the run up to Iraq. The understanding that France is all but insignificant has got to be galling the Francocentricity of Chirac. It is becoming painfully obvious to Jacques that that the world really doesn't revolve around Paris.

And so, he has to save face. If he opposed military action in Iraq, the most sensible alternative for him is to send troops to Afghanistan. He can't send them to Iraq because that would be a tacit admission of error, so he sends them to the last fight that he supported.

Chirac is starting to get a clue as to the "new world order." He's just about, oh, nine months too late.

They Don't Get It

4500 protesters have descended on the French town of Annemasse to protest the G8 meeting in Evian. The protesters are so united in their hatred of all things organized that they even attacked a meeting of the French Socialist Party.

The article talks about the protesters attacking stores and pasting signs over gas pumps at closed gas stations.

It never occurs to them that the fact that many commercial establishments in town are closed in spite of a potential bonanza. 4500 normal people stopping in town for a couple of days should be a great deal for business. But these are not normal people.

Even one of their leaders has admitted that there is a small contingent among them "who want to break things just for the sake of breaking things."

So if we look at the protesters agenda, what are they really looking to accomplish? They want to end the move towards globalization. They want to highlight the woes of refugees in Europe. They want to talk about African development and debt relief.

So what about the African agenda? Is debt relief really going to help them? Will forgiving their debt really help them to learn the concept of financial responsibility? I don't think so. It will only make the problem worse. And what about development on the African continent? We have sent billions upon billions of foreign aid, food aid and all kinds of other aid. Yet nothing changes. Corruption still reigns across much of the continent. Until there is a fundamental move among the Africans themselves to stop corruption, no amount of aid will help. For proof we need to look no further than when many of these nations got their independence back in the 1960s, many of them regressed. They were drawn back by the lethal combination of corruption and tribal rivalries. Read the section on Africa in Conquest & Cultures by Thomas Sowell (Buy your copy from Amazon.com!) to get a better feel for what happened post-independence and why it did.

And why are refugees in the situation that they're in? Is it because they were fleeing to Europe to fight the evil forces of globalization? Or would it be because they want to take advantage of the possibilities offered by globalization and the evil corporate machine? If they want to improve the plight of refugees, they need to stop the spread of the cult of victimization in the refugees homelands. Don't tell the Palestinians that they are victims of the evil Zionist Jews. Teach them how to pick themselves up. The protesters always scream about "root causes," but they promptly turn around and misidentify the real root. The cult of the victim, not complex, evil, Zionist capitalist plot are the real root.

And I don't have the patience to go into the folly of trying to stop the globalization freight train by sitting in front of it.

I have yet to hear any of the protesters come up with a viable alternative to the policies that their protesting. Their normal rant is along the lines of "We don't like this so it should stop."

If they want to make a difference, they should become debaters, not protesters. In a debate, they would offer alternatives and would discuss the issues. As protesters, they throw temper tantrums and destroy stuff, but they never offer any ways of improving what their protesting.

But of course, debate requires a certain level of understanding. And the fact that they haven't learned that shopkeepers closing shop when they come to town isn't a good thing tells me they have a ways to go before gaining the understanding needed to engage in real debate.

Russian Contradictions

I found this post over on Free Republic. The article quoted is apparently a subscription only article, so I'll have to link just to the FR post, which means I have no idea how long it will be available.

I know that the United States often gets accused of taking contradictory positions. But these two from the Russians are a little tough to swallow.

First, the Russians are expressing concern about Iran's nuclear program. They even want to engage in "an exhaustive discussion of this problem" (italics mine) at the next IAEA meeting. You know, the one at which we want to declare Iran in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty? Sounds like the Russians are in pretty good agreement with us about the fact that a problem exists on their southern border, right?

Not exactly. They still plan to keep helping the Iranians in their construction of a reactor in Bushehr.

Now maybe there's just a slight disconnect between the Foreign Ministry and the Atomic Energy Ministry. Maybe some internal discussion will bring clarification as to what the true position of the Russian government is in regards to the nuclear program of the Iranians.

I don't think so, though. I think that the Russians are trying to play us again. They desperately need the $800 million that's coming from the deal. But they also need to try to protect their relations with the US.

So the Foreign Ministry tells us what we want to hear, the Russians are on our side. They're concerned, too. Let's keep talking about how we're going to solve this problem.

In the meantime, the Atomic Energy Ministry keeps working towards fulfillment of the contract. They keep working towards getting that $800 million into the Russian treasury. They don't care so much about the proliferation of nukes to Iran. After all Iran was a friend of the Soviet Union, right?

And when we, the US, notice what's going on and starts to make noise about it, the Russian's can blame all on "miscommunication." The AE Ministry didn't quite understand. And by that point, the reactor should be far enough along that the AE Ministry can ceremoniously cancel the contract - and complete the work using "independent contractors."

Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky and smart. But also incredibly stupid.

Yeah, they'll figure out how to outsmart us. Iran will get the Bomb with Russian help - official help or unofficial, doesn't matter. But what do the Russians get out of the deal?

They get $800 million. They also get an unstably fundamentalist regime with nuclear weapons on their southern border. Give the Iranians the Bomb and I can see them losing some of their fear of destabilizing a number of the -stan nations. I can see them fomenting a religious uprising through much of the southern tier of the former Soviet Union where Islam is strong anyways.

The Russians may very well end up with a hostile, nuclear armed, terrorist nation calling for the Islamification of the Kremlin.

Scary thought.

Now for the second item. The Russians and mainland China are trying to stop proliferation of nukes on the Korean peninsula also. That's all well and fine, although I'm not sure how much their really trying, but that's not the part that throws me.

It's this:

the security of North Korea must be guaranteed and favourable conditions created for its social and economic development

Now maybe I'm not quite catching this. NK is the most Stalinist state still left today. Repression and government control still exist to an unfathomable degree. The only way to create favorable conditions for the social and economic development of NK is to change the government. Nothing, save Kim Jung Il, is standing in the way of NK moving into the 1950s.

Yet the Russians and the ChiComs are opposed to "scenarios of forceful pressure or use of force for solving the existing problems." So are they proposing that we sit back and await the implosion of NK? Do they think that we should condemn millions of people to a life of misery through our inaction?

I think that NK is a different situation than Iraq was. Economically, it is ready to implode. Overt use of military force isn't called for, right now (who knows what next week or next month will bring). But we should be actively encouraging the final collapse of the NK economy. It will mean the end of the reign of Kim Jung Il. It won't immediately improve the lot of the NK people, in fact it will probably make their situation worse at first. But we (meaning the SK and Japanese, with some help from the US) could get started on the rebuilding of NK quicker. The suffering will happen; the implosion will come - that die has already been cast. Why would we not want to get the process over with as soon as possible? Why would we want to let the NK people continue to suffer for even a day longer than absolutely necessary?

For some reason, I don't think the Russians or the Chinese will have the answer for us.

Rapproachement With Iran

"...very, very crude."

That's how the Europeans are describing US pressure on Iran. Apparently it is causing concern around the world that our rhetoric could boost Iran's hard-liners.

I think that there are some valid criticisms that we have used too much stick and not enough carrot in dealing with Iran. We have taken a rather hard-line, belligerent stance towards Iran, one which is not unjustified.

But, if anything I think we haven't used enough of the stick. And the carrot has been completely misused. We need to use the carrot to show the Iranian people that we will reward them, not the Iranian government, for acts of goodness (like helping with Afghanistan or turning away the fleeing Saddamites). At the same time that we're dangling the carrot before the people we need to be whipping the Iranian government with the stick. How to do these? I don't have any specific ideas, but it would seem to me that we should be able to apply pressures and rewards where we want to an extent.

I also believe that the People's Mujahadeen should probably be taken off the list of terrorist organizations. In the aftermath of the Iraq war, they have shown a willingness to work alongside and for common goals with the US. And what of the accusations of "double standards?" Remember, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. That excuse is a two way street. The clerics can go sit in a corner and sulk about it. The People's Mujahadeen has earned the right of a hearing in the US.

The good thing in this story is the fact that Iran is in a purely reactionary mode. They are only responding to our actions or words. That means that we have them off-balance; we have the initiative.

They're confused. They're scared. They're starting to think that the US might actually be willing to back up some of this rhetoric. They no longer are threatening us daily with annihilation, they now are threatening us with patriotism and nationalism. We have changed the rules of the game, and they no longer know how to play. But they know full well that they've been playing a losing hand up until now.

I would love to see rapprochement with Iran. The people are by and large friendly and intelligent. They could be a real asset in building a peaceful and prosperous Middle East. The only thing standing in the way are the nutcases running the asylum (and no, I don't think that the Son of Shah would be much better. They need a real government there.).

If crude is what it's going to take to get there, crude it is.

Probably just a French official complaining about our lack of Continental sophistication anyways.

The Temple Mount

Back during my visit to Israel, I went to Jerusalem. Twice while in the city I visited the Temple Mount - once on a guided tour, once with my father. Of all the places I went in Israel, the Temple Mount was almost certainly the most historically interesting.

It is supposedly the site of Solomon's Temple. It is certainly the site of Herod's Second Temple that was destroyed by Titus, leaving only the Western Wall. And it is currently the home of both the Dome of the Rock and of the Al-Asqa Mosque, Islamic holy sites.

During the tour, which was given by an Israeli tour company with a Jewish tour guide, I learned a number of interesting anecdotes (I don't know whether or not to call them facts, as I have never really researched them too much, mainly because many of them I had also heard during one of my religion courses at Florida Southern. If you can prove any of these false, please leave a note in the comments complete with a URL to your source.)

The Jewish Temple contained a room, the Holy of the Holies, in which the Ark of the Covenant, with the Ten Commandments inside, was housed. This was the holiest site in Judaism. No one, save the high priest once per year, was allowed into the Holy of the Holies. After the destruction of the Temple, the exact location of the Holy was lost, so Jews were banned from climbing atop the Temple Mount for fear of desecrating the holy ground.

So after the end of Roman rule in the region, the Temple Mount remained in shambles as devout Jewish workers would not ascend to build a third Temple.

In time came the Muslim conquests and the construction of the Dome of the Rock, supposedly the mountaintop from which Mohammad began his nighttime ride. The Al-Asqa Mosque soon followed as another Muslim holy building.

The Muslims had heard the stories of the Jews and the Christians that the Messiah would enter Jerusalem from the East from across the valley and when he passed through the gates of the city the Temple Mount would be leveled and the third Temple would arise.

So the Muslims bricked up the East Gate of the city and placed an unmarked cemetery outside the walls on the theory that a priest could not defile the dead by walking on their graves. They figured that that would be enough to kill the prophecy. During the Crusades, the Christians unbricked the gate and cleared a path to it; after the Muslims resealed it and cluttered the path again.

So why do I bother to relate all these stories or legends? Well, it looks like the Arabs in Jordan are claiming that reports of Israeli attempts to negotiate renewed access to the Mount are part of a Zionist plot to eventually rebuild the Temple.

Sharon may not be a lover of all things Muslim, but I don't think that even he has any designs on the building of the third Temple. I really think that he is simply trying to reopen the Mount to non-Muslims, whose religion allows them to ascend the Mount. In other words, he would be trying to open it to everyone, except for the ones most likely to destroy it, as their faith won't allow them to set foot on the platform, much less in the buildings themselves.

I can understand the Muslim's desire to protect these two sacred shrines. But they also made pretty good money selling tickets to enter the buildings, money that is needed to ensure their proper upkeep. If they don't want to reopen access to the buildings that's fine. I just wish they would leave the "evil Zionist" rhetoric out.

There are non-Muslims that don't wish to see the destruction of the buildings. Historically, they are significant and architecturally the Dome is impressive (I didn't like the looks of Al-Asqa too much. Too squat and too many dreary colors on the outside).

Their concerns are valid, but their response is out of whack. If Islam wants to distinguish itself from the radicals, this would be a good place to start. No one would begrudge them additional security and searches before entering the grounds of the Mount.

And drop the rhetoric. Not every non-Muslim that wants to come to the Mount is a Zionist.

Not even me.

Saw This One Coming A Mile Away

Don't worry, even with my investing diatribes I haven't forgotten that there is much more fun going on in the world.

Here's one that we should have seen coming, Turkey's military is threatening a coup unless the government makes sure that it respects the Turkish Constitution.

If you go back and read my posts back at the end of February/beginning of March, you'll see that I was taken by surprise when the Turkish government screwed us on the northern front in Iraq.

The Turkish military is the real power in that country. The military wanted us there. They understood the importance of standing beside your allies in a time of need. The military knew who Turkey's real friends were. Which still leaves me surprised that there wasn't a coup back then.

I figured at the time that the military was giving the new government an opportunity to prove that the actions of early March were an aberration. I figured that they wanted to give the fundamentalist government an opportunity to prove that they respected the basic core of the Turkish State - its Constitution.

From this article it sounds like the government didn't get the hint the first time around. They don't understand the military's secularist stance. The stories being leaked by the military sound like a shot across the bow of the Islamofacists.

The Turkish military is not going to shrink from their obligation to uphold and defend their Constitution - they've done it four times in forty years already. The government would be wise to heed the warnings.

Gotta Love Baby Bashar

The President of Syria, Baby Bashar, has lodged a number of complaints about the West in one of his latest interviews. Nothing terribly surprising about that, or about the complaints themselves. They just go to show the depth of the fantasy world in which some of these Arab "leaders" are operating.

He begins by questioning the very existence of al-Qaida. He goes on the claim that since bin Laden "cannot talk on the phone or use the internet" that it would be impossible for the big cheese to even be leading such a phantom organization.

Short of the incredibly delusional, no one is denying the existence of al-Qaida. Even the mildly delusional, as represented by such luminaries as Sen. Graham and Gov. Dean, acknowledge that al-Qaida exists. To take it a step further, even much of the Arab leadership admits (and fears) the existence of al-Qaida.

Besides, bin Laden doesn't need to talk directly to the members of al-Qaida via telephone or internet. He has messenger lackeys to do it for him. Some of the messengers will be individuals; some are the news media (think he hasn't tried to use Al-Jazeera a few times to get messages out?). Just as Baby Bashar doesn't call Hezbollah every time he needs a distraction along the Israeli border, bin Laden doesn't make the calls himself. He has someone else, who can communicate more freely, do it for him.

The distractions along the Israeli border bring us to the second complaint of Bashar: that he has to deal with Israel.

Baby Bashar doesn't like having to deal with Israel. He believes that the US is the true power in the region and that as such he should be able to deal directly with us instead of having to work with the Israelis, which would mean taking Israeli concerns into account.

He believes that he shouldn’t have to deal with Israel because they are occupying "our land." And he's right; Israel has taken over the Golan Heights. Israel won the fight; his country lost. If he wants to discuss the territorial issue, then he will have to take Israeli concerns into account. Israel has the right of demand in these negotiations, not Syria - that is part of being the victor in a war.

Baby Bashar knows this. He knows that Israel will put conditions on the return of the Golan to Syria - conditions that are unacceptable to Hezbollah. But he also knows that there is a large contingent in the US that would sell Israel down the river in a heartbeat, if they thought it might bring peace. So Bashar tries to drive a wedge - to separate the US and Israel. A clumsy sort of divide and conquer scheme (except that it ignores the reality that the Israeli military can still take over Damascus before the Syrian military could even begin to see the city of Jerusalem).

Bashar is starting to act as if the pressure is getting to him. The more the focus of the US centers on Syria (and Iran) the more unhinged he starts to act. Just since the end of the fighting in Iraq, he has gone from pretending to sound reasonable to irrational ranting.

I think it might be time for him to take a cue from bin Laden and quit talking. His mouth will only cause him more problems.

The Dollar "Meltdown"

Who knows more about the economy: Reuters or the Federal Reserve? Reuters is pretty sure that they know more than the Fed.

They are claiming that the current weakening dollar is threatening the US economy with inflation. The Fed and most knowledgeable economists are worrying more about deflation right now. Why the difference?

Reuters is correct in that depreciation can eventually lead to inflation. But to understand why, we need to really understand the mechanics of inflation and deflation.

Simply put inflation occurs when there are too many dollars chasing too few goods. Prices (or production) have to increase in order to keep the demand equation in balance.

Deflation is the opposite. There are too many goods out there and not enough money circulating. Prices (or production) have to drop in order to bring the equation back into balance.

With depreciation, our exports to foreign buyers become cheaper. So they buy more of them, increasing the supply of dollars in the US. More dollars without a corresponding increase in the availability of goods eventually leads to inflation.

So Reuters is right. Depreciation leads to inflation - eventually. And it is the eventually part that makes their advice of defending the dollar a bad idea.

Right now, the bigger threat is deflation.

Our economy has slowed too much. The job market is much, much too soft. Unemployment still isn't too bad, but underemployment - people working in jobs beneath their qualifications - is becoming a real problem. Due to the perceived weakness in the economy, people are unwilling to spend their money on anything besides the basic necessities.

We haven't entered the deflationary cycle yet, but we're coming pretty close. And we only need to look at a decade of economic suffering in Japan to know that we don't want to go down that route.

So how would a depreciatory regime help?

By depreciating the dollar, we make foreign goods more expensive here and American goods cheaper over there. Our imports will decrease and our exports will increase. That means more dollars going to American businesses and hopefully a trickle down effect from there.

The real risk comes in that what we actually accomplish is the exportation of the deflationary threat. Europe will be the primary recipient of the threat, as it is the Euro that has been strengthening the most against the dollar.

As the dollar depreciates, our goods would become cheaper in Europe. The flip side of our benefits is that in Europe, in the Eurozone, it would substantial pressure on the already shaky economies of Europe. If we push Europe into a deflationary cycle, it wouldn't take much to drag us into the cycle despite our efforts to avoid it.

So what to do?

The depreciation route is probably the best option right now. The best hope seems to be to try to jumpstart the US economy before the Eurozone economies collapse under the deflationary pressure. It's an extremely risky path, with a pretty substantial chance of failure. But the alternative is certain deflation.

This is not an election issue like the author of the story is claiming. This is a real threat to the health of the world economy. During the end of the '90s we got too far extended economically; we are now paying the price of our "irrational exuberance." It wouldn't matter who was running the country. It is almost certain that we'd be in this same situation.

It's a risky situation. The chance of failure is high. But at least this time, on this issue of deflation, it sounds like the Bush economic team has their ships sailing in the same direction. They are planning to take on the threat of deflation.

Even if it means depreciating the dollar.

We Need More Of This

I know that I have a tendency to challenge people to live up to their professed beliefs. I believe that it is very important to do so. When I can read something like this about a Cub Scout who crawls grave to grave, to honor the dead for Memorial Day, it is truly uplifting.

This 10 year old, James Milam, already knows more about how to live life than most adults do. He is informed. He acts on his beliefs. He views his life as being in his control - despite his physical issues, he is not a victim.

It is because of children like this that I have little concern about the future of our nation. The youth of today seem to be developing very, very well. They seem to understand the responsibilities of being American more than my generation did (and to a large part does).

We have great kids in this country today. I wish that these kind of articles about them weren't so few and far between. If the children are our future, right now I'd have to say it's pretty bright.

Israeli Suicide

There are a lot of really bad ideas floating around the world today. The worst of the worst has got to be Israel weighing EU membership.

Israel joining the EU would be the equivalent of national suicide. The EU is no friend of Israel. If Israel were to join, the neo-appeasers would sell them up the river in no time. Probably in some kind of a Munich summit, knowing their grasp of their own history.

Joining the EU would take away the Israeli right of self-defense. Should there be an attack from the newly formed Palestine (that will be a requirement of membership), the Israelis won't be able to counter-attack or even to mount a self-defense. They will have to wait for permission and authorization from Brussels.

They'll end up with French "military advisors" advising them on the proper methods and techniques for surrendering. They'll end up with German bureaucrats deciding their fate. Maybe the Germans will be nice enough to set up some UN style concentration refugee camps for the Jews to stay in after they get displaced from Israel.

Joining the EU and subjecting themselves to the whim and folly of Brussels bureaucrats will, in the end, only open up a new terrorist front. No longer will Arafat have to be content with sending in the dumb bombs. He (or his successor in terror) will be able to prod, goad, and bully the EU into surrendering the Israeli territories.

Then after the terrorists have won and the Jews have left the Holy Land again, the farms will turn brown and the cities will fall into disrepair. Why? Because the terrorists are good only at destroying, they know not how to build. The EU and the US will end up supporting what is currently a fairly self-sufficient land. And the anti-Semites of the world will blame the Jews for the decline.

Israel needs to make sure that it does not give up the dream of two millennia. For over fifty years they have been building a real civilization out of the dust, dirt and despair of Judea. There is no reason for them to sacrifice it all for the illusion of peace.

Terror? What Terror?

Venomous Kate has been putting together an interesting story Al-Qaeda May Be Shopping But Americans Aren't Buying, in which she combines the desire for chemical weapons, the increased "chatter" from al-Qaeda, and the apparent lack of interest on the part of ordinary Americans. All in all it paints a pretty worrisome picture.

I have to admit that I haven't been following the shenanigans of Bin Laden and company all too much. This provided a good overview to get me caught up and her analysis is pretty solid.

Especially the part about the recent attacks possibly being designed to distract us. If that was the design, it has been pretty effective. The conventional wisdom now says that al-Qaeda is on the ropes; that they're incapable of mounting a large-scale attack on the US.

Before 9/11 that was the prevailing CW then, too. We thought that they might be able to pull off a truck bomb or maybe even a small bio/chem attack. Never did we imagine something on the scale of 9/11.

And that is the secret to the success of al-Qaeda. They are audacious beyond our comprehension. We think they're capable of a car bomb; they come up with airplanes into the WTC. Right now we think that they're only capable of overseas attacks. al-Qaeda might just be bold enough to try to pull something here. They just might be.

And we'll play right into it. We can't prepare for an attack because it is likely to not happen. We can't completely ignore the threat. So Americans acknowledge that al-Qaeda is still out there, but we pretend that they aren't a real threat to us. Hence our lack of concern, despite the obvious clouds on the horizon.

Someone Understands

Looks like someone in power is staring to catch on that France is not our friend, anymore.

Maybe this will be the message that Jacques needs to make him wake up and see the new world order. We train with just about everyone, except our diehard enemies, like Iran and North Korea. The sight of F-15s and F-16s training against tri-color Mirages should get the attention of Paris.

This decision should have been made quite a while back. It's been pretty clear that we weren't going to be working with the French anytime soon anyway (unless we want to invade some civil-war torn African nations for fun). I only wish that a bigger deal had been made of this.

That might have shocked the French population into understanding the depth of the damage done by Jacques.

He Never Seems To Learn

It looks like our good friend Jacques Chirac is up to his old tricks again. This time he has set out to try to embarrass Bush at the G8 meeting coming up in June. I'm really beginning to think the Wile E. Coyote was a quicker study than Jacques.

He's planning on taking advantage of his role as host to promote an Internationalist agenda. He wants to build a stronger world democracy. He wants to try to embarrass the US into accepted the Kyoto protocols. He plans to lecture us on "the principles of the responsible market economy" (???). He wants us to "build solidarity" with the poor nations of the world.

It is his goal to try to pretend on a grand scale that France is still a world power.

But we have, what, at least seven bombings worldwide in the last week? Moroccans were planning a 9/11-style attack on the Saudis. Palestinians are still plotting the death of as many Israelis as possible. al-Qaida appears to be attempting to regroup and to reassert itself as a "player."

Terrorism, in all its wondrous guises, is still the biggest threat to world security - and in turn to the world economy. Addressing economic issues is the purview of the G8, not social engineering on a worldwide scale.

But Jacques, being the host of this illustrious summit, really doesn't want to discuss terrorism. He fears that doing so would remind the rest of the G8 that rather than discuss, dither and debate, Bush took action. Bush made a difference in the fight against terrorism. How can Jacques counter that? Will he remind everyone that he stood steadfastly for the status quo - no matter how bad it was?

Jacques knows that any discussion of security will doom him to irrelevance - even with the summit being in his own nation. He knows that he has no credibility whatsoever for discussing terroristic threats.

So instead he, the leader of one of the largest socialist experiments outside of the Soviet Union, will lecture the rest of us on the market economy. Maybe Germany will learn something, but Jacques would do well to listen to the rest of us if he wants to know something about the free market.

French diplomats remain baffled and exasperated at how the Americans have frozen them out since the Iraq war.

Jacques is already starting to learn about the free market. Lesson #1 to be discussed at Evian - national choices can have great consequences in the free market of the world economy.

Jacques is finding out that a free market means that there isn't always a quota or protection from self-stupidity (and tweaking the nose of the US for spite or show is pretty stupid).

In a way though I hope that Jacques pulls this publicity stunt off. Because the only way it will work is no one dies from a terrorist bombing during the summit. If Bush wins the summit, it will only be because we all lost.

Ignorant Terrorists?

I've always wondered why some people feel a need to defend the actions of terrorists. The reasons that I usually see thrown about including oppression, diversity, understanding, empathy for their situation or some new age psychobabble like that. How do they reconcile that belief with the truth on the ground: the terrorists are ignorant.

Just look at the understanding of others exhibited by the bombers in Morocco.

They attacked a Jewish community center - on Friday. On Saturday the center would have been packed. The residents of the city knew this. Anyone with any knowledge of the Jewish faith could have figured it out. But the terrorists didn’t. Why not? A little effort would have gone a long way to making a successful terrorist attack.

Of course, the guy going after the Jewish cemetery wasn't much better. It doesn't take too much going on upstairs to be able to tell where a cemetery is. But this genius got within 150 feet - and then picked a fountain outside the cemetery. Then he blew himself up, killing only one person - himself. He didn't even cause any damage to the cemetery. He managed to miss one of the easiest targets to identify.

Did these guys care about cultural diversity? Did they care to learn about the ways of the people they were about to kill? Or were they just blinded by their hatred and contempt for the Jews?

The terrorists had no desire to learn anything about those that they were about to kill. They didn't feel that the Jews were worthy of their time. They had no concern for the feelings of those they wanted to blow up. Infidels are to be killed, not to be concerned for. They didn't want to live in peace with their neighbors. They didn't value diversity of culture. Instead of people, they saw targets.

The terrorists are beyond indefensible. Everything about them is anathema to cause of the diversity crowd. The terrorists are the anti-diversity crowd.

Which still leaves my question: how can people justify defending them?

Be Careful What You Wish For

Great news! Some Arabs are now expressing their displeasure at the recent spate of bombings.

At first glance this is wonderful news. It appears to be indicative of their culture starting to understand the value of human life. But looking just under the surface, we can see how it is actually just another expression of the same Arab position.

This week's terrorist attacks have angered millions across the region not just because of their brutality, but because innocents — including Arabs and Muslims — were caught up in the violence.

"If those people want to harm the Americans, let them target military locations, but never civilians," said Palestinian Awni Shatarat, speaking from a Jordanian refugee camp.

.....................................

A leader of Egypt's largest Islamic group, the Muslim Brotherhood, said the entire Islamic community was opposed to suicide bombings targeting civilians.

So the Arabs aren't upset with bombings per se, just ones that kill Arab and Muslim civilians. In other words, they acknowledge that they have been prosecuting a war against the US and the Jewish populations around the world. If they're not at war, why aren't they condemning all bombings? Why they distinction about bombings of civilians?

They, of course, fear provoking the US (or Israel) into a real war. 9/11 woke them up to the fact that a determined and focused United States is the most fearsome opponent the world has ever seen. A real war against the United States (or Israel) will mean annihilation or permanent displacement. Bin Laden and Saddam have already proved the folly of direct confrontation with the US.

So they work through pinprick attacks. A bomb kills five, ten, twenty-five people. Then the terrorists come out and condemn the bombings, if they kill only Arabic or Muslim civilians, and praise it if the succeed in killing any Americans or Jews.

The result is that the Arab Street celebrates the successes and the apologists defend them in the aftermath of their mistakes. And as long as we look at the bombings as an annoyance, and not a threat, then everything is fine.

But with success being dependant on our not recognizing the attacks as a threat anything that serves to raise our awareness would is itself a threat to the terrorist's plan.

Right now, it is only the apologist media's glossing over of threatening comments that is keeping us from realizing the depth of the threat. The Arab Street is acting arrogant and boastful. The media cannot squash all of the comments made against us. But they try to ignore the ones that slip through. As a result, most of the American people go along every day happy and ignorant of the world around them.

The main difference between the attitude of the Israelis and the Americans is due to proximity to the terrorists. The Israelis deal with the threat every single day and have realized the hatred of the Arab Street. The US, far away from a direct threat, downplays the significance of the terrorists’ actions. It is only because of our attitude that Israel has not attacked the terrorists with extreme prejudice.

Eventually the terrorists will tweak us a little too hard. When the giant turns its attention to them, they will rue the day that their wish of all out war with the US was granted.

US Oppression In Iraq

Read or watch the news these days and you'll certainly hear about how America is losing the peace in Iraq. We have oppressed the people, encouraged them to loot, and lied about our reasons for the war. But you almost never see articles like this one talking about political freedom unless you go searching them out.

It's significant that 1000 people came out to support a party who is openly calling for the end of the US military presence in Iraq. Saying the wrong thing during Saddam's reign would have gotten your tongue cut out. Criticizing the US is not only allowed, but accepted and encouraged.

This is not exactly the trademark of an oppressive occupier. We're supposed to be cracking heads and performing summary executions. We're not supposed to be allowing new political parties, especially not ones that are opposed to us. Even our administrator in Iraq is being called "nice."

Someone here has a lot to learn. Either we need to be more violent and oppressive in our occupation or the media and the Iraqis need to be more understanding that we are there to liberate them - the ultimate goal being to turn the government over to an Iraqi government.

At least they've already figured out that they don't want the UN running the show. Progress is being made.

Three Months?

The Palestinian Authority is claiming to need at least three months to establish some sort of security in the territories. They claim that Israeli interference has degraded their security force to the point that is has to be rebuilt in order to perform its job.

Israel asked them provide security along one border within one month if Israel promised to withdraw from the area. One border. Not the entire territory, mind you. One single border, the northern Gaza-Israeli border, that isn't all that long.

And the Palestinian Authority says it needs three months. Why?

It's not like they don't have the weaponry to arm a security force. How many police forces really need to arm every officer with AK-47s? Do they not have enough missiles? Do they need a few more Scuds to secure the border?

Or maybe the three months is a crock. Maybe it's going to take three years or even three decades.

Maybe they've understood that they won't be able to provide real security until the Palestinian people learn the basics of self-government.

Why is it that in the US we have relatively safe cities and yet the standard officer on the beat is armed with only a 9mm pistol while the Palestinian's feel that they need to arm their cops with military style weapons?

It's a basic cultural difference. In the US we are, to a large extent, self-policing. Not self-policing like a Stalinist society, but more along the lines of peer pressure. Our society values the ideas of private property and personal rights. We also put enormous pressure on those who violate those ideas. It isn't so much the official sanction that keeps people in line; it is the societal pressure that keeps us in line.

In regions like those under the control of the Palestinian Authority, there is no value to private property, personal rights, and to an extent human life. In order to bring real security to the area, they would have to bring about a reeducation of the people in the territories. The only alternative is to impose a martial law type of regime like Israel has done. But since that would be politically unacceptable to the PA, it won't be done.

With the alternatives being Israeli occupation, reeducation of the population (and the PA itself), or imposition of martial law, the PA has come up with a fourth alternative: lie.

What will happen in three months? Will there be real security? I don't think so. I think in three months we'll hear about how the evil Israelis haven't properly supported the PA in setting up a security force based around the concept of armored warfare, or some such thing. And then we'll hear about how they need three more months or six more months or more money or more weapons, anything but the truth that they are incapable of providing security.

It wouldn't matter if they had asked for three years instead of three months. They're really asking for the impossible.

Expel Arafat?

After the "summit" yesterday and the bombing in Jerusalem, some members of the Israeli government are talking about seriously considering expulsion for Arafat. For his part, Arafat has come out today and said that, for him, expulsion would be unacceptable. As far as I know, the Israeli cabinet hasn't made any great decisions on Yassar quite yet.

As I said earlier, I don't think that Arafat is going to be a true partner for peace. If anything, he's going to be a significant obstacle to the process as he, more than anyone else in the region, stands to lose tremendously in the event of a real peace.

So expulsion of Arafat will likely be one of the necessary, if unwritten, steps in the peace process. If it’s got to happen at some point, and there is political cover to protect Israel from the EU, why not go ahead and do it now? Get past the painful part and get started on building a real basis for moving forward.

Sure, Arafat will sit there and scream, whine and complain, but what can he really do about it? He is truly in a position of weakness. Israel has the power, maybe not the authority, but they certainly have the power, to remove Arafat by force, if necessary. If they decide that his removal is needed, there isn't a thing that he can do about it.

And doing so would put everyone else on the spot. Who would accept him? Certainly not Jordan or Iraq. Probably not Syria or Iran. Most every Arab nation will support him as he "fights" Israel, but they are deathly scared of the instability and corruption that he brings. So he would probably end up in Europe somewhere, most likely in Paris with some of the other members of his family.

At that point, the Israelis and a hopefully reformed Palestinian Authority could get started on building a lasting peace.

Although if there were one attack by Arafat's cronies, we might have to declare Paris a state sponsor of terrorism.

Sounds like a no lose situation for us.