Lazy Gopher Pachyderm

Dayton’s Tax on Savings and Jobs

2011-03-23T18:09:00.000-07:00

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton is trying to make the case that it would be in the interest of “fairness” to raise the top income bracket because “The newest study shows that low- and middle-income Minnesotans continue to pay a much larger share of their earnings in state and local taxes than our state's wealthiest citizens.”

First of all, notice the phrase “…continue to pay.” In other words, this has always been the case; it’s in the nature of our state’s tax mix. And it’s important to understand why.

Taxes are levied on either consumption (sales and property taxes) or income. Since the study he cites shows on page 30 that the income tax is indeed very progressive, that can’t be the source of the ‘inequity.’

That leaves consumption taxes, and the tables indeed show that the lower the income, the higher percentage of that income is paid in sales taxes. But we’ve always known this; ‘regressivity’ is the main argument against a sales tax. Quite simply, consumption does not rise equally with income. A family of four with a household income of $180,000 doesn’t necessarily spend three times as much on taxable food, clothing appliances, etc. as the family earning $60,000. The sales tax table on page 27 bears this out; as income goes up by about 115% (from the 5^th to 8^th decile), sales taxes rise by only 66%, a ratio of almost 2-to-1. Likewise, a family earning $800,000 doesn’t necessarily buy a house ten times the value of one purchased by the family making $80,000.

So…what happens with that increased income that avoids 'taxation through consumption?' It goes towards savings (emergency nest egg, college funds for the kids, etc.) or investments (IRA, 401-K, entrepreneurship, etc.). This is a good thing. ‘Savings’ results in thrift and reduced dependence on government programs. ‘Investments’ yield jobs. Yet because Minnesotans’ increased savings results in lower “effective tax rates” on consumption, the chimerical ‘effective rate inequity’ results. Governor Dayton thinks this is bad, so he wants to increase taxes on saved and invested income because those dollars are not taxed by being spent.

So there you have it. Mark Dayton wants to increase taxes on thrift and jobs. Not a very Minnesotan thing to do, is it?

Good night, Jim.

2008-02-25T18:15:00.000-08:00

It takes a lot to get me on front of the keyboard this year. It happened today when six Republicans voted with the DFL to give a one-vote override of Pawlenty’s veto of the Transportation pork barrel bill.

Time to loose the hounds, so to speak. I’ve already left a message with my own feckless Representative, Jim (en)Abeler. I’ve written the entire GOP House leadership asking not only that Mr. Abeler be disciplined, but that any Republican who voted with the DFL be removed from any leadership position that they might hold. If my research is correct, that would include the otherwise Gentlemanly Neil Peterson.

I suggest you do the same. You can find the e-mail list here.

The GOP is already adrift, so any argument that such action will cost us at the polls is silly; it’s useless to complain about getting a wet stateroom when the Titanic has sunk. Like it or not, the GOP is in a re-building year. Going wobbly on basic principles will not shore up the foundations we need for future victories. The base, and the electorate at large, will once again understand that voting GOP means something, and now is a golden opportunity.

Stinging the CGW-E Bee

2007-12-05T05:51:00.000-08:00

The Sacramento Bee is a disciple in the Church of Global Warming – Evangelical. Joel Schwartz over at the indispensable Planet Gore dissects a Bee editorial’s use of falsehood and half-truths often thrown about in the on-going debate, and presented one-sided style in the media.

Let’s star with a key paragraph in the editorial:

"How high will these oceans rise? Some computer models show that, without a significant reduction in greenhouse gases, the Greenland ice sheet could melt sometime after 2100. Such a steady melt-off would lead to a 7-meter (23-foot) increase in sea levels, according to the IPCC report. That would submerge most of San Diego, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Tidal action would swamp most of Sacramento."

Bzzzt! Wrong….and misleading…on many counts, as pointed out by Mr. Schwartz. To summarize:

1 - the computer models that predict melting of the Greenland ice sheet were run with the assumption that the CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere starts out and stays at four times the pre-industrial level and nearly three times the current level.
2 - Even with atmospheric CO₂ at three times current level, the models say it would take 270 years for Greenland to lose even 20% of its ice, and more than 1,700 years to lose 80% of its ice.
3 - Greenland was warmer than it is now for several long periods during the last few thousand years.
4 - The top of IPCC's range for 21st Century sea-level rise is 23 inches.
5 - Sea level has been flat for the last three decades or so, after rising steadily from the 1920s through the 1970s.

The IPCC wasn’t scary enough so the Bee had to embellish. However, had the Bee done some real reporting and fact checking into the IPCC report itself, they would have found that the IPCC report has a few flaws to start with:

"...the IPCC's estimate includes melting of land-bound ice and thermal expansion of the oceans, but excludes dynamical changes in ice flow—meaning it excludes the possibility of, for example, the Antarctic ice sheets sliding into the sea."

Fashionably, conveniently, late.

2007-11-22T18:22:00.000-08:00

Today the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has many good things to say about recently resigned St. Paul U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose. The story contains forceful praise for her work from various local law enforcement communities.

Two things strike me about this story. The first is, why are all these things being printed now and not reported during the midst of the controversy? Did Strib reporters only this week have the time to contact the people who knew best about her work and put their thoughts in the paper? To be fair, I have not read many of the stories the Strib may have published on Paulose, but can't imagine the STRIB would repeat themselves in such a fashion. So I asked someone who turns each page of the thing daily. While she could not be assured of having read each story that may have been published, she did read those of the past week and the article today. She does not recall any Strib story, or portion thereof, containing the sort of positive comments seen today.

Second, I’ve always been leery of the “turmoil that her management practices ignited” charges that have appeared in the press without a given basis or substantiation. Today’s story may yield a clue:

"Miller [executive director of Civil Society, a nonprofit agency that helps trafficking victims] said Paulose worked with her organization for nearly two years, helped it secure funds and made sure that someone from her office was available around the clock, seven days a week...

"Lt. Andrew Smith, head of the Minneapolis Police Department's Violent Offender Task Force, has praise for Paulose and her staff…'We've gotten very good service from her office. Attorneys have been available to us on weekends, holidays and at night.'"

Color me suspicious, but it sounds like Paulose required her staff to be ‘on call’ 24-7 in ways that they weren’t before. Let’s also throw in her (rightful) emphasis on D.C. Attorney General priorities instead of letting office goals be set by local prosecutors. That can certainly result in leaked-to-the-press charges of ‘bad management practices. Is that the case here? With the sorry state of local reporting on this issue from the ‘dead tree/boob tube’ media we’re not like to get any solid search for answers.

Powerline has more, including this observation:

"Rachel Paulose gets reassigned under a cloud for the way she ran her office while Amy Klobuchar, who had many, many more intra-office management issues, is in the Senate."

CGW-E: "Witches! More witches!! BUUUUURRRN ‘EM!!!!"

2007-11-20T17:44:00.000-08:00

Canada’s Financial Post from last Saturday (11/17) spotlights a British victim of the Church of Global Warming-Evangelical. Like their intellectual mob brethren from the Monty Python and the Holy Grail movie (watch the scene here), they are far more eager in rolling heads than engaging in academic debate. Scientifically based evidence of contrary conclusions be damned. Such deniers are, by definition, heretics.

Quite literally.

Professor David Bellamy, a botanist, is Special Professor of Geography at the University of Nottingham and Honorary Professor of the University of Central Queensland, with 45 books, 80 published papers, and 400 eco-television programs. On July 9, 2004, he gravely transgressed by publishing a full-page article in the London Daily Mail titled "What a load of poppycock!" The article said the following:

"Whatever the experts say about the howling gales, thunder and lightning we've had over the past two days, of one thing we can be certain. Someone, somewhere -- and there is every chance it will be a politician or an environmentalist -- will blame the weather on global warming…But they will be 100% wrong. Global warming -- at least the modern nightmare version -- is a myth."

Since committing this unpardonable sin of contrary expression, the Inquisition has stripped him of many positions and speaking invitations.

Is Dr. Bellamy some ‘throw-back’ to a fanatical right-wing Thatcherite faction? Hardly. He’s a life-long environment advocate and committed socialist who can’t stand to see money being wasted when it could go for progressive programs. He knows that the global warming movement consumes a great deal of government funds while producing nothing.

Read the whole story here.

Prosecuting while Republican? Guilty!!

2007-11-19T18:00:00.000-08:00

He just keeps digging deeper...

Minnesota Republicans’ own wind-tossed strand of boiled linguini, U.S. Senator Norm Coleman, abandoned Rachel Paulose, his successful nominee for the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Paul. Bowing to unsubstantiated, even false media speculation, Coleman pulled his support, which I'm guessing is what likely led to the end of her local tenure. How successful was her short time in office? Listen to St. Paul Chief of Police (and Dartmouth alum) John Harrington:

“Rachel Paulose has been the most aggressive U.S. Attorney that I have ever worked with and the most successful. Working with her has made the city of St. Paul a safer place. If you have any doubts, just ask the Latin Kings gang that terrorized an entire neighborhood with guns and drugs and murder. They are easy to find, since they are all doing time in federal custody. Or ask the kids at McDonough Recreational Center, where Rachel taught about Internet safety. Or better yet, ask the predators whom she put in prison, keeping them from being able to hurt children ever again."

And let’s not forget her highly successful breaking of a human trafficking ring (which, ironically, was one reason for her lack of support among Justice Department careerists in D.C.).

So what was she guilty of? Charges boil down to mishandling of classified information, mismanagement of the office, following D.C. directions on caseloads rather than local subordinates, and an anonymous charge of making a racist comment. Scott Johnson of Powerline deals the body blow to all the charges here.

But the local media wanted their own ‘lynch the GOP Federal Attorney’ trophy and they got it. KSTP 5 makes a hash of the issue. Its lead story on the 6pm news tonight can be seen here. Watch it after reading Scott Johnson’s article linked above and you’ll see how empty and self-serving the story is: it presents no case against Paulose, only unsupported charges. They claim she never responded. Wrong.

All of which had the principle-free Coleman scampering away with his tail between his legs.

So why is she gone? Scott Johnson sums up all the reasons left standing…

Let's see. She's a Republican. (The position of United States Attorney is a political appointmet.) She was appointed to the position by the Bush administration. (No one other than the president and the Attorney General had the legal authority to make the appointment.) She knew Monica Goodling. (Liberals used to oppose guilty by association.) And former United States Attorney Tom Heffelfinger might have been fired if he had not resigned when he did. I understand completely.

Paulose seems to understand as well:

"The McCarthyite hysteria that permits the anonymous smearing of any public servant who is now, or ever may have been, a member of the Federalist Society; a person of faith; and/or a conservative (especially a young, conservative woman of color) is truly a disservice to our country."

More here, here, here, and here.

No Waco, no Ruby Ridge, no Elian Gonzales. Yup. I understand, too.

Thanks again, Norm. You’re a peach…

Cub trumps Target – The Red Kettle Wars

2007-11-15T14:07:00.000-08:00

I have a tradition…never pass a Salvation Army kettle without making some kind of donation. Maybe it’s only some change, usually a bill or two. But for that reason I’ve been peeved at Target for their removal of said charity collection at their doors.

Cub, however, has not taken the same Scrooge-type route. In fact, they’re going two better. Not only are S.A. kettles at their stores, but Cub employees have volunteered to start the collections early by ringing the bells starting today. Plus, Cub will match the day’s donations.

I know this news may be late for most of you, but even if you can’t get there in time for the Cub matching day, let them know you appreciate their policy of allowing the Red Kettles to remain during the Christmas season.

NBC's Antarctic Tale

2007-11-06T21:36:00.000-08:00

The indispensible Planet Gore points out something I saw last night; NBC’s foray into a ‘Week of Green’ programming. No doubt the reportage will be akin to what I witnessed on their 5:30 news last night…worries about the North Pole. But Antarctica got some rare press as well. Seems things are getting warm ‘in some parts of the west’ there, causing unspoken worries about melting ice.

Except that doesn’t tell nearly the whole story, which is probably the intent. Truth to tell, Antarctica’s ice mass is increasing, which is why you hear so much about the North Pole and nothing about the South Pole, even though there are more permanent science stations in the latter than the former (tough to do that on shifting, floating ice sheets). And given the nature of Antarctica’s geography, including that ‘arm’ that sticks way out into the sea, regional variances can be huge.

Please note that when ‘warming symptoms’ are mentioned by the MSM, they usually say something like ‘Warming models predict that the North Pole will warm first.’ This, of course, is done to lend credence to the man-made warming models. But while true, it’s only half correct. The models don’t say just the North Pole, but both poles will warm first. Antarctica, though, isn’t warming, it’s cooling. To point that out would be, to borrow the phrase, an inconvenient truth.

Coleman gets one right…finally!

2007-10-31T19:53:00.000-07:00

Today was to begin a series highlighting Senator Norm Coleman’s recent serious mis-steps. I’ll not fully abandoned that commentary but will put it aside for now after listening to Mr. Coleman discuss the Law Of the Sea Treaty (LOST) on the Hugh Hewitt show. While prior attempts by at least one blog yielded no answer to his position, Coleman told Hewitt that he is against the treaty and voted ‘no’ on referring it out of his committee today. Excellent!

Why is LOST so bad? Because it give the U.N., that highly corrupt organization, tremendous power of regulation over private enterprise and governments on sea/ocean commerce, sovereignty and security and state's rights. You can read much about it at www.rejectlost.org, but to summarize the worst:

- Any disputes, governmental, business, or military, would be subject to mandatory UN dispute resolution, without appeal.
- Requires the transfer sensitive military information.
- It would establish an international organization that could and would impose fees, royalties, and other payments to the U.N., in effect, a taxation on Americans without representation or redress.
- The U.N. would effectively be given the authority to administer and oversee 70% of the earth’s surface.

For those of you in public school civics, since this is a treaty it will take 67 senators to ratify the thing. Prior to today, Fred Thompson, and the GOP leadership were on record against it. With Coleman coming on board in opposition it will make getting 34 ‘No’ votes a bit easier, and defeat looks better.

So for today I can say ‘I come not to bury Coleman but to praise him,’ and send a ‘Thank you’ call to his office.

Tomorrow, however, could be a different story.

‘Pro-life’ goes ‘Pop Culture’

2007-10-30T15:01:00.000-07:00

‘Bella’ is a movie. It won the People’s Choice award at the Toronto Film Festival, a ‘feeder’ for Oscars. It also embraces the pro-life side of unintended pregnancy (regardless of what Roger Ebert says, but he likes it anyway). I’m hoping that it achieves popular success and intend to find a theater that’s showing it (very limited release) and view it soon. So far the only metro area theater showing it is the Regal Eagan 16, and not until November 9th. Help me give this film some word of mouth.

The review at Inside Catholic makes an interesting point…this is not the first pro-life movie. Other recent such releases include Knocked Up, Waitress, and Children of God. An interesting development that I might explore…after I see the movie.

Other reviews can be found here and here.

Reasoned thinking illustrated

2007-10-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

I have a bit of trouble with the group blog Anti-Strib (not the least of which is the Rolling Stone-like application of profanity). But Tracy’s recent post, “Tim and Tina Treehugger grow up,” has the right touch of Minnesota folksy brilliance:

I will try for the last time to squash the asinine idea that everyone could save tons of gas by just “moving closer to work”. I’ll try to do this buy showing how even people with good intentions end up commuting for very good reasons and often through no fault of their own. My mythical couple is Tim and Tina Treehugger. Every thing that happens to them has happened to me or friends of mine.

Click the link and read what follows. It’s an excellent illustration of why ‘social engineering’ doesn’t work. In this case, the inability of ‘anointed visions’ like 'live close to your work' (or for that matter, mass transit), to function within the reality of normal life-changes. As Tracy succinctly sums up:

If you are married with children, there are a lot of variables when it comes to where you live. The location of your work may be a factor when you buy, but over the next 30 years, work will become less and less practical as the #1 housing criteria.

I’ll demur on the feasibility of a young couple recently out of college being able to afford a downtown Minneapolis condo, but as to the rest, Bingo.

Random thoughts and percolated conclusions. . .

2007-09-17T17:59:00.000-07:00

. . . from last Saturday’s events and Sunday’s posts:

- Will someone please get Mitch a watch that runs on Central time?

- When approached by someone from the ‘other side’ who says “Can I ask you a question,” the proper response is “No, but we can have a dialogue.” Those on the Left actually dislike dialogue, thus the request to ask you a question. If you simply agree, you’ve set yourself up for a straw man question/inquisition that can’t directly be answered in an honest fashion, like “Have you stopped beating your wife?” or “When will the war end?” You’re not allowed to challenge the question, thus, you are accused of “not answering the question.”

- It’s been said that our little counter-protest was a “huge success.” Really? By what measure? I don’t ask this flippantly but I’m not sure what that standard would be. We may have successfully shown that there is an opposing point of view out there, but it would be an error, I think, to describe a 1:50 counter-ratio as “huge.” On the other hand, given that more ‘cut-and-run’ marches aren’t ‘countered,’ just the existence of this one may be success enough. Yes, those of us on the ‘right’ (for lack of a better term at the moment) generally have more demands on their ‘real life’ plate than those on the left which means the population pool from which we draw may be much smaller (I don’t know how many of the marchers spent all week working on the road through Friday, only to return to week-long travel duties on the following Monday). And organized protest isn’t usually in the conservative ‘quiver of arrows’ when it comes to airing our grievances. But it may be true, as one fellow blogger put it, that "we doth (not) protest too much."

Give the left its due, they know how these things are done and we don’t. Rather than judge last Saturday as a “huge success” the local ‘Defeat Jihad’ movement should treat it as a learning experience. A greater presence during the 2008 GOP convention would indeed be a worthy goal.

- A personal answer to the previous point: one of my stated reasons for being there (as proven by my supporting performance on a U-Tube flick) is to show the troops that there are indeed Americans who believe in their mission as they do, and support them in the true context of the word. This was affirmed by a soldier who had served in Iraq that came up to our group and expressed how uplifted he and his fellow soldiers in Iraq were to see such support.

Success indeed.

A Day at the Marches

2007-09-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

I’ve never been the demonstrative type, particularly when it comes to openly public displays like protest marches. I find megaphones quite irritating and obnoxious, for example, but that’s the point, I suppose.

But anyway, there I was in St. Paul as part of a small group of counter-protesters to a much larger anti-war/anti-Bush/anti-Republican demonstration. It was kinda fun; I found myself on a couple U-Tube videos and actually met someone who admitted to (once in a while) reading this blog!

On the whole the Strib article covered it fairly well. The demonstrators were mostly well-behaved, although it might be mostly due to the fact that there were lots of old people on the crowd. There were also a number of younger types (read ‘high school’) who seemed puzzled at any concept that didn’t mesh with the spoon-fed bumper-sticker slogans of the march organizers. Any takers at how much of ‘both sides’ they’re getting at school?

They passed by us very closely, so there was opportunity to ‘reach out’ and shake a few hands, and a few responded positively. More scowled (so few smiles), and others got verbally vicious, which prompted some march managers to step on the curb and try to keep the marchers moving rather than ‘engaging’ us. Some kind folks still stopped and chatted, though. These were mostly the previously mentioned elderly who would make great neighbors and grow wonderful gardens.

Speaking of slogans, they were mostly retreads going back to Vietnam days, as well as the modern nonsensical/non sequitur stuff like “No blood for oil” and “Support bridges not war.” But what happens if the marchers get their wish and pull out of Iraq tomorrow? No clue. How/where better to fight Al Qaeda? No response. SHOULD we fight Jihad? Can’t say. Who are the REAL terrorists? Ah! That one leads us to…

Bush Derangement Syndrome…which was also on display. He’s a “fascist,” of course, and worthy of more vilification than suicide bombers, Osama Bin Laden, or Saddam himself. I myself was tossed multiple times from the ranks of humanity (“You’re not a human being!”). Four letter words were present, but tended to be focused among a few, like this dude who later gave me two F---s and three Sh—s in just one sentence.

Just to have some fun, I tried to engage the arriving protesters in some friendly exchange, just smiling and waving across the street, and I noticed a pattern…the longer the hair, the less likely I was to get a positive response. Most, though, seemed to have no idea with what do to with an ideological opponent that they couldn’t peg as viciously deranged. ‘Minnesota nice’ took a backseat to ‘Minnesota confused.’ I also offered some water to the marchers toward the end of their festivities. Most politely declined, a couple with ‘thank yous’ as well as ‘I’m not taking water from the likes of you’ responses.

At the end of it all we were packing up and I continued my attempts to elicit some sort of friendly response by waiving and saying ‘hi’ to the oil-hating protesters as they made their way back to their multiple vehicles. This time it got me a response of "Hope you enjoy your money!”

Huh?!? What money, we asked?

“The money the Republicans paid you to be here!”

Much laughter. “Sorry, but our grant from George Soros didn’t come through like it did for you MoveOn.org guys!”

More blogs comment here, here, here, here and here.

Not to be tolerated

2007-09-13T16:11:00.000-07:00

I don’t like lying. From politicians, certainly, but least of all from my kids.

This week my son returned from school with the results of a math test. He gave the answer to one problem as 10. The teacher, on the other hand, placed the true answer in red, 15, beside the problem.

I don’t know why my son lied with his answer on this test. But that’s really not the point. I punished him for his outrageous conduct.

Since then I have learned that his classmates lied in their answer to the math problem as well. No matter. My son should have known better, and his punishment will not be altered.

“You can trust us scientists…we’re government funded!!”

2007-09-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

I have a healthy first skepticism of all things done in the name of ‘science’ when governments get involved; office-seeking politicians and bureaucrats spending other people’s money just don’t vet stuff as well or as objectively as those who are risking their own fortunes. A prime example popped up today:

A 20-year government effort to restore the population of an endangered native trout in Colorado has made little progress because biologists have been stocking some of the waterways with the wrong fish, a new study says.

This is laugh-out-loud funny. For two decades learned, lettered, peer-reviewed science experts have declared most of the fish in question to be of a genus that that they not. Interestingly, “The cost of the program was not available.”

We humans accomplish SO much when the plebians simply stand aside and the patricians run with their visions…

CGW-E takes another hit; Recent years not so hot after all.

2007-09-05T07:33:00.000-07:00

No doubt you haven’t seen it in the media, but an error has been discovered in NASA’s temperature data calculation that marked 1998 as the hottest year of the previous century. You can read a more detailed account here, but the upshot is that 1998 has been relegated to second place, with 1934 now taking honors. 2006 dropped from second to fourth. The new ‘Top 10’ list is as follows (hottest first):

1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938, 1939.

A quick count places four of these years in the 1930s, three in the 1990s, and one each in the ‘20s, ‘50s, and 2ks.

The Church of Global Warming – Evangelical (CGW-E) doesn’t like this kind of news, which is why, perhaps, they’re trying to paint skeptics like me as evil, traitorous, or anti-scientific deniers. But it’s the CGW-E that does its best to hide their data and methodology in order to avoid scrutiny (as you can read in the link above). Fortunately, we’re still in a two-way discussion on the issue despite the CGW-E’s best efforts to stifle meaningful debate. A good thing, as NASA continues to examine its numbers.

Man bites dog (...and journalist eats crow)

2007-09-04T21:23:00.000-07:00

I love it when the media, as deeply steeped in Bush Derangement Syndrome as they are, wag their own dog. From Powerline today:

In 2003, President Bush rode on a Segway, and fell off. That caused British reporter Piers Morgan and his paper, the Daily Mail, to write, "You'd have to be an idiot to fall off, wouldn't you Mr President. If anyone can make a pig's ear of riding a sophisticated, self-balancing machine like this, Dubya can."
The wheels of justice grind slowly, it is said, but they grind exceedingly fine. Four years later, Morgan had his own first ride on a Segway...and fell off, cracking three ribs.

Priceless!

You access the video link here and the Daily mail story here.

“…with a capital ‘T’ and that rhymes with ‘G’ and that stands for ‘Gay!’”

2007-09-03T20:50:00.000-07:00

Last week an Iowa county judge declared that state’s law defining ‘marriage’ as unconstitutional. The whole deal again illustrated the point that judges aren’t going to leave this to elected legislatures, but rather invent ways of adding power to the bench that wasn’t supposed to exist.

In the words of the True North blog…

If there was to be an amendment on the ballot to approve gay marriages in Iowa, there wouldn't be a snowball's chance in hell of its passage; in fact, Iowans passed a law to preserve marriage as a legal and social contract between one man and one woman…
With one decision and a few strokes of a pen, an Iowa judge decided that he, himself knew what was best for Iowa, and struck down the voter-approved and instituted legislative ban on same-sex marriage; in effect, telling the vast majority of Iowans to take their sensibilities and "stick it where the sun don't shine."

Succinctly put.

Of course, this has implication for Minnesota as well. Sooner or later, our State court system will declare any definition of marriage as between one man and one woman as unconstitutional, displacing the rightful will of the people with their own self anointed vision. Yet attempts at constitutionally defined marriage have been stalled by the DFL at the legislative level. The arguments against constitutionally establishing such a definition does have substance (no minutia in the constitution), but that principle suffered when Minnesotans passed an amendment mandating that no less than 40% of all transportation tax dollars be spent on public transit. The DFL is oblivious to this disparity, but the DFL is rarely given to consistent reason, and will thus stall any marriage defining amendment, no matter how popular it is or how obviously needed. Meanwhile, Minnesota Republicans will have to face the reality that the state courts will someday overrule the electorate and mandate gay marriage.

There is a solution; a constitutional amendment that doesn’t define marriage, but takes it out of the hands of the courts. Basically something like ‘The definition of marriage shall be made by the citizens of Minnesota through their elected representatives. The state courts shall have no jurisdiction in this matter.’

This could be an electoral winner for the GOP. This proposed amendment doesn’t say what marriage should be, only that the people, not the courts, will decide. That’s a popular stance that properly frames the correct relationship between, and the limitations of, the branches of government on this issue. It’s a shame that something that should be so obvious would have to be spelled out so plainly. And I’d like to see the DFL oppose it.

Miller Time Once Again.

2007-08-21T03:19:00.000-07:00

Far be it from me to place myself in the same league as Gary Miller of (gulp!) Truth Vs. The Machine, but we do enjoy some common traits; We’re both Republicans, can’t stand those among the party elected who act witlessly, or outside of traditional Republican convictions or sacrifice the party in mere self-interest, wish our D.C. caucus would ignore the MSM and get a spine, and have not been inspired much to post since the last election.

Just to name a few.

We both seem to be posting a bit more lately, a happy development from the perspective of a G.M.M. reader (I need more material to steal for my own blog…).

However, Gary is much more a gentleman than I, and he appears to pull some punches against the Star-Tribune where, perhaps, a more forceful declaration would be reasonable. To wit:

Diaz quotes me saying something that would give the current king of the inane a run for his money:
“Coleman will have to differentiate himself from Bush in some way,” said Gary Miller, a conservative blogger who supported Kennedy’s campaign via his Kennedy vs. The Machine website. “I don’t know how he’s going to do it. It’s really a dilemma,” added Miller, who since has renamed his site www.truthvmachine.com.
Fair enough. Always happy to fit the meme. But it is was [sic] far from the essence of my point which was that there is very little downside to a visit from the President in light of the fact he will not be in the ballot next Fall.

Ok…chalk it up to my being ‘thick’ but a question, Gary…were you egregiously misquoted or not? If I read this correctly, you were, and (verbal) pistols at dawn may be an appropriate response.

Media Mirror x 2

2007-08-20T19:00:00.000-07:00

Hugh Hewitt has it, but this footnote from Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz bears much repetition:

In an embarrassment to the industry, some staffers at a Seattle Times news meeting cheered when Rove's resignation was announced. To his credit, Editor David Boardman made the incident public and warned that staff meetings should not "evolve into a liberal latte klatch."

Seattlites - know who your sources are.

There's a second, as much revealing section of the same column:

In media terms, Iraq is becoming the incredible shrinking war.
While the conflict consumed 15 percent of the space or airtime at many news outlets in the second quarter of 2007, that is down from 22 percent in the first three months of the year, says a new report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism. Filling the void in part is the 2008 presidential race, which rose from 7 percent to 9 percent of the news content in newspapers and on television, radio and the Internet.

I wonder, perhaps, if the increasing amount of good news coming out of Iraq hasn't something to do with it...

Memorializing

2007-08-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

The Star Tribune seems enjoy marginalizing any and all who take issue with the problems Islam presents to America. A story in the Sunday paper this week was headlined “A Father protests Flight 93 memorial: Tom Burnett Sr. wants to withhold the name of his son, who died in the crash, over the Islamic symbolism he sees in the design.”

The conflict over the design, entitled “Crescent of Embrace,” is not a new story, but the withholding of the Burnett name (at least until certain questions are answered to the satisfaction of Mr. Burnett Sr.) is. From reading the article, though, it seems pretty obvious where the STRIB stands, and it tips its hand here and there, revealing that they find Mr. Burnett’s position dismissible.

First the STRIB tries to minimize Mr. Burnett’s primary, obvious source of angst by saying “The crescent is considered by some a Muslim symbol.” Well, yes, including Muslims. One might as well say that the cross is considered by some to be a Christian symbol, although the designation is not as official or exclusive. The crescent can be representative of other things, including the moon, but it should be accounted for that this is a memorial to victims of a terrorist act whose perpetrators closely associated themselves with the common Muslim interpretation of that symbol.

The STRIB then can’t resist a mild denigration for Mr. Burnett, and they walk a fine line between that and due respect for the father of a 9/11 hero. While others have voiced Mr. Burnett’s concern, the STRIB attempts to point a ‘voice in the wilderness’ picture and picks one of them, blogger “…Alec Rawls of Palo Alto, Calif., who is reportedly writing a book on the subject.” The STRIB says “Burnett Sr. denied Saturday that he is following Rawls, even though both have raised similar concerns.”

The sentence itself is leadingly obtuse; it asserts that where “similar concerns” are raised, someone is leading while the rest are following. So why in the world would it enter the reporter’s head that Mr. Burnett is “following” Rawls?

This reveals an interesting world-view; apparently it’s beyond possibility that someone holding such objections is speaking or thinking for himself. That the question should be asked is demeaning, suggesting that Mr. Burnett is an empty headed robot who had the thought implanted by an outside source and is now, cult-like, having his strings pulled. Actually, concerned voices have included more than just a few bloggers, reaching into media such as National Review, The Wall Street Journal, and even a blurb or two on the nightly news.

I haven’t seen the latest designs for the memorial so can’t judge Mr. Burnett’s concerns. Neither am I able to discern from the STRIB story any facts that would be helpful in that regard. Perhaps that’s the most telling thing of all.

Another day, another panic.

2007-08-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

The Mattel toy recall boiled over during the week and I happened to be unlucky enough to be watching CNN one evening. A blow-dried baritone was (apparently) assigned to rake Mattel over the coals with as little background or context as possible. During an interview with the Mattel CEO, said interviewer was insistent on getting the CEO to admit that they’re only building toys in China so as to increase profit (as if there’s something wrong with that…).

Unfortunately, the CEO’s answers came off as mostly rehearsed spin, which made him look evasive and politician-like (which was not so bad given that the reporter came off like an agenda-driven shark instead of a thoughtful journalist). One thing I was waiting to hear from the CEO was the obvious; that Hot Wheels would probably cost $3 or more instead of $1 if they were made in the U.S. Companies produce overseas because American workers and regulations prohibit the manufacturing of goods at a price the American consumer is willing to pay.

Now my kid has about 40 Hot Wheels cars, if not more. Quite frankly, if I were told that one of them had lead in their paint my first reaction would probably be to shrug rather than dissolve into hysterics, as the CNN story seemed to demand (the reporter said he spent over an hour scouring his kid’s toy boxes). Lead is toxic, but like all toxins, the dose makes the poison. Is playing with one Hot Wheel car finished with lead paint going to hurt him? Not very likely…

Classless (or clueless?) Klobuchar

2007-08-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

It may be getting to the point that it’s too much to expect elected Democrats (or their media allies like Nick Coleman) to think, or even address sudden disaster without nasty political overtones, as evidenced by the anti-Pawlenty/Bush rapid (rabid?) response to the I-35 bridge collapse. First it was due to the lack if an increased gas tax in Minnesota during the Pawlenty administration. Now it’s the Iraq War, according to the supposedly gentle Senator Amy Klobuchar:

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, suggested Bush administration spending on the Iraq war may have crimped funding for domestic projects such as road and bridge construction, and for such infrastructure projects as new levees for New Orleans.
"We've spent $500 billion in Iraq and we have bridges falling down in this country," Klobuchar told MSNBC. "I see a connection between messed-up priorities."

Klobuchar’s case (and veracity) falls on three salient, unarguable points. 1) We don’t yet know why the bridge collapsed, 2) federal highway funding to Minnesota has surged under Bush, 3) MnDOT engineers didn’t think they needed to spend additional funds on the bridge.

It doesn’t take engineering expertise to conclude that Klobuchar is simply acting as a classless political hack.

The Democrat's war on your Retirement: Part 1

2007-08-03T15:34:00.000-07:00

If you’re under 50 the most likely way you’re going to have a comfortable retirement is through long-term investment in the equity markets. The reason is simple; that’s all there is anymore. Other sources of retirement income fall short or are disappearing:

Social Security was never meant to be more than a supplement to personal savings, and an actuarial fraud at that. Expect reduced benefits and/or higher taxes sometime in the future.
‘Defined benefit’ plans offered by employers were unsustainable and are gone. These were the plans that promised a pension check based on length of employment and salary.

Of course you could make a killing in real estate or build some other form of highly successful business. But these are less common and high risk.

That leaves ‘Defined Contribution’ plans; individual accounts where benefits are based solely on the amount contributed to the account, plus or minus income, gains, expenses and losses. These take the form of work-related plans like 401(k) or KEOGH plans, and IRAs. The investment of choice is the stock market, which historically provides the best long term returns.

In other words, healthy growing retirement accounts require healthy growing stock markets.

Enter the Democrats. Over the years they have tried to introduce regulations that make stock markets less efficient and strangle the corporate growth that is required to fund America’s retirements. We’ll start by examining Sarbanes-Oxley in the next post.

Shots across the bow

2007-08-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

Ok, someone has to be crass, so it might as well be me.

Actually, I can’t claim ‘first blood’ on the Minneapolis post-bridge collapse arguments that are about to commence; I was just wondering how long it would be before things started turning political.

Not too long, really. The first crack in the veneer occurred (if I recall correctly) between 9 and 10pm when a gentleman on channel 9 talked about just having met today with Representative Oberstar about the nation's infrastructure, and how it needs “funding.” Of course, not that it would have prevented this particular disaster, but you know, he said, there’s this problem out there…

Well, yes, probably true. But about an hour later a local reporter was being interviewed by a national news anchor and the reporter mentioned that the early finger pointing may be in Governor Pawlenty’s direction for having vetoed, or threatened to veto, gas tax increases aimed at road construction.

That the Democrats would bend this tragedy to electoral ends would hardly be surprising (and probably expected), so Republicans had better get ready for what the DFL will dish out and the local media gleefully parrot.

In the first place, those who complain of ‘no new taxes’ had best come up with some proof that passing a gas tax in the last two sessions would have prevented the collapse.

Secondly, we must not forget that Minnesota transportation funding got a huge boost in last November’s election with the passing of a Constitutional amendment that dedicated gas and vehicle taxes to that very purpose.

So quite frankly, the only way the ‘lack of higher taxes’ argument is going to work in such a high tax state as Minnesota is if Pawlenty and the Republicans allow it. The DFL, for it's part, better be careful and not overplay their hand. It could very well backfire.

Goodbye, Norm.

2007-07-11T13:04:00.000-07:00

Senator Norm Colman’s performance has become erratic and abysmal. He seems to have no direction except whichever way the wind is blowing at the time. His prior tepid support for our efforts in Iraq, his vacillation on the immigration bill, lack of certainty about the Bush tax cuts showed him to be generally rudderless.

Now the straw has fallen to break the camel’s back. By joining the Harry Reid caucus and supporting the Webb amendment that would undercut our current strategy that is paying dividends, Coleman is not looking at defeating America’s enemies, but trying to play politics with next year’s election. TvM points out that Coleman is already behind in the money race. The apparent ‘threading of the needle’ hasn’t worked with the previous issues, and his current attempt to undercut what is becoming a successful surge in Iraq is not going to yield any more positive results.

So it’s ‘Bye-bye’ Norm. This is one member of the base who can’t support your re-election. We need a leader who looks to understand situations, not a reed who bends with every breath of the Washington media wind.

Immigration post-mortem

2007-06-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

There is just so much than can be said about this week’s defeat of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill, but I’ll try sticking to the ‘clueless Republican’ caucus.

Captain Ed has some interesting quotes from the GOP chair Mel Martinez. Let’s start with:

“The Chairman of the Republican Party on Friday lambasted Democrats and Republicans who helped kill an immigration bill in the Senate and challenged them to come up with a solution beyond ‘just build a fence along the border.’”

This is rather like saying ‘Let’s come up with a method for procreation beyond just having sex.” Calling for a solution that, at the same time, dismisses the biggest piece of the puzzle is silly.

“The voices of negativity now have a responsibility to come up with an answer.”

This is an irresponsible canard for a man in Martinez’s position. Consigning opposing points of view as mere “negativity” is a Democrat device used side-step legitimate objections. Angrily confusing opposition to a bad bill with mere negativity will not set the party up for a successful 2008.

“How will you fix the situation to make peoples' lives better? How will you continue to grow the economy? How will we bring people out of the shadows for our national security and for the sake of being a country that is just?”

For starters, the purpose of the Federal Government should be to enforce current law, not create post-facto paths around it for those who have acted criminally. The economy will continue to grow just fine if we simply enforce the laws we already have and never received another illegal immigrant. And the Z-visa provision, along with an undefined ‘due process’ for deportation of criminal Z-visa holders are tailor-made for assisting sleeper cell terrorists.

For Mr. Martinez’s benefit, I have a “solution.” Start by realizing this bill died due to lack of trust the people have that immigration laws will be enforced. People who don’t trust you on an issue will not be receptive broad sweeping legislation. Trust will have to be built slowly, one successfully enforced law at a time.

Step 1: Start with the border security provisions of this bill first. Build the fence, get the agents in place, etc.

Step 2: Get workplace enforcement firmly established. Make it difficult for illegal aliens to be hired.

Step 3: Eliminate, at the Federal level, the existence of ‘Sanctuary cities.’

Once these steps are done and seen to be working, the American people will be receptive to possible laws that allow illegal aliens to stay in the country legally.

Heads they win, tails Isreal loses

2007-06-18T19:07:00.000-07:00

John Hinderacker at Powerline provides a tight, insightful post that not only capsulizes the current difficulty in Gaza, but the root mindset of western Palestinian apologists. I’ll steal two points here. Point one:

“The violence going on now in Gaza is horrific. What is striking, of course, is how little anyone seems to care. If Israelis were murdering Fatah members with the gusto now being shown by Hamas, the U.N. Security Council would be in special session, cranking out resolutions. It would be an international crisis, on which events in Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Egypt and Afghanistan would be blamed for decades to come. But no one seems to get too exercised about Palestinians killing one another.”

One could accurately add “…or anyone else” to the end of the thought. Outrage over violent events in and around Israel are highly selective and preemptively focused, depending on who’s doing the death-dealing in whatever TV clip is currently making the rounds.

Second point: John introduces a Reuters caption to a photo of a female Palestinian suicide bomber:

“Violent Muslim, Christian and Jewish extremists invoke the same rhetoric of 'good' and 'evil' and the best way to fight them is to tackle the problems that drive people to extremism, according to a report obtained by Reuters.”

John’s response gets to the heart of Reuters’ jaundiced world view:

“Yes, it all makes perfect sense: you have to watch out for those dangerous wackos who talk about "good" and "evil." Meanwhile, Reuters is looking for photos of Christian and Jewish suicide bombers and will publish them as soon as they can find them in their archives.”

There is, of course, no equivalence between “Violent Muslim, Christian and Jewish extremists” because there are no Christian or Jewish equivalents to the Islamic Jihadists populating and spreading around the world. It is a self-delusion designed to fit a ‘template,’ rather than decipher the root of the real “problems.”

Long ago, it seems, elites in politics and media abandoned the pursuit of ‘spiritual’ judgment and/or discerning philosophy required to recognize ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ instead relying on a materialist/relativist world view that demands policy solutions to moral rot. The ultimate end of such a methodology is appeasement and capitulation. Which, of course, only encourages more “extremism."

A mirror for the GOP Senate.

2007-06-09T16:26:00.000-07:00

The immigration debate this week provided a perfect encapsulation as to why Republican Senators have sown the seeds of their own defeat. Trent Lott’s speech prior to the second cloture vote is people’s exhibit ‘A.’

Columnist Mark Steyn conversed with Hugh Hewitt and encapsulated the GOP Senate political standing:

“…people like Trent Lott are in large part responsible for the debark last November, in that he embodies, both in his generally witless remarks, but also in the idea that he forms part of this permanent governing class, everything that the Republican base came to loathe about the Republican Congress….”
“…you have a situation where both parties in a two-party system are at odds with the vast majority of the American public. And if bipartisanship means that the two parties agree to gang up on the citizenry of this country, then I’d rather have none of it….”
“…I think if the Republican Party wants to reduce their base to undetectable levels, I think it would be a great idea to send Trent Lott on a nationwide tour of country Republican parties, because this is exactly what the Republican base doesn’t want to hear. It doesn’t want some puffed up grandee from the world’s greatest deliberative body, which by the way is a lot of nonsense by any reasonable measure, the Senate is a low-grade deliberative legislature….”
“…this is what they loathe about [Republican Senators], that they become clubby, process bores, and the process, their love of the process overrides everything else… The needs of the Senate club do not override the interests of the United States of America.”

Bingo!

A CGWE believer turns ‘atheist.’

2007-06-06T10:08:00.000-07:00

It happens more often than you hear, but there are former believers in the Church of Global Warming – Evangelical (CGWE) who have left the flock. One is David Evans, who was in charge of CO2 modeling for the government of Australia. He traces his path from ‘outsider’ to ‘insider’ back to ‘outsider’ here, but the Cliff Notes version is as follows:

In the late 90s the argument for global warming caused by CO2 emissions convinced Mr. Evans:

CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Since 1975, CO2 and global temperature have risen in tandem.
Ice core data confirms the in-tandem relationship long-term.
There were no other credible causes global warming.

But, as he points out, “…starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence outlined above fell away or reversed.”

The near-term CO2/temperature tandem broke down as you looked past 1975.
Further examination of the ice core data showed that CO2 was a lagging, not leading, indicator of global temperature.
Credible alternatives to CO2 have emerged as triggers for global warming, such as the sun’s recent hot phase, and the albedo effects of cosmic rays on cloud formation.

Mr. Evans doesn’t stop there, however. He notes how ‘science’ no longer drives discussions of the matter:

“Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. The science of global warming has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly supports carbon emissions as the cause of global warming, to the point of sometimes rubbishing or silencing critics.

The integrity of the scientific community will win out in the end, following the evidence wherever it leads. But in the meantime, the effects of the political climate is that most people are overestimating the evidence in favor of carbon emissions as the cause of global warming.”

I might add only one thing, and that is to address item #1. While CO2 is indeed a greenhouse gas, it is low in amount and weak in efficiency when compared to other greenhouse gasses. A tale, perhaps, for another time.

Minimum wage, maximum deceit

2007-05-25T07:04:00.001-07:00

Most of the arguments in favor of the minimum wage have always amused me for a variety of reasons, but the Star-Tribune highlights what I consider one major fallacy with the whole concept. The article is entitled “Congress approves $2.10 hike in minimum wage” with the sub-head “Congress sends first increase in the federal minimum wage in a decade to Bush for his signature.”

Parts of the article read as follows:

Congress handed a major victory to low-income workers, approving with little fanfare the first increase in the federal minimum wage in a decade.

President Bush was expected to sign the bill quickly, and workers who now make $5.15 an hour will see their paychecks go up by 70 cents per hour before the end of the summer. Another 70 cents will be added next year, and by summer 2009, all minimum-wage jobs will pay no less than $7.25 an hour….

…"Wages have been unconscionably frozen for the last decade" said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee...

...Rep. George Miller, D-Calif….said, "America's workers have been waiting for a raise for a long time."

Ok… will someone please point out to me ANY responsible able-bodied adult who’s been making the minimum wage for ten years? If you can, I’ll have little problem pointing out bad personal decisions or work habits keeping them there, not ‘the system’ or ‘the man’ or lack of a Congressional minimum wage hike.

Let me put it another way…if you take away my work history, resume, post-high school education, paint me any color you’d like (within humanly definable DNA patterns), and put me in a job paying $5.15 an hour, it’s not going to take ten years for me to reach $7.25. It’s not going to take 10 months or maybe even 10 weeks. In fact, before the end of the year I’d probably be making at least double that. How? Simply by being a good worker. Employers love reliable employees who show up on time, put in the required hours, don’t look for reasons to bitch and complain, and maybe even do a bit extra. That sort of approach to work yields a positive reputation, a commodity with which I can build a resume that commands higher compensation.

Congress actually gets in the way of all this by telling people that they don’t have it within themselves to achieve a better life without this kind of legislation.

One other amusing note; Nancy Pelosi just had to throw in her belief that "…we are raising wages for the hardest-working Americans."

I’m sorry, but the “hardest-working Americans” won’t be found in minimum wage jobs. They don’t limit themselves to 5 8-hour days a week. They work at least 60 hours a week (usually more), on weekends, and don’t depend on Democrats to give them a raise. They’re independent types who make it on their own and have no need for the government when it comes to making a higher wage. Which is probably why Democrats don’t talk about them very much.

The unbelievable shame of Minneapolis…and Hispanic activists…and Democrats.

2007-05-23T07:15:00.000-07:00

Powerline highlights an interesting facet of the recent bust of a Twin Cities ‘sex slave’ ring. You can read the Powerline post here, but the most alarming side aspect of this affair is Minneapolis’ bow to political correctness:

“The investigation and arrests were the product of a collaboration involving federal agencies, Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and the St. Paul Police Department. Notably absent was the Minneapolis Police Department, notwithstanding the fact that nearly all of the brothels were in Minneapolis. The city sent out emails to reporters explaining why it was AWOL: as a matter of policy, Minneapolis does not participate in investigations of illegal aliens.”

Let’s assume the above is accurate. That would mean Mayor Rybek and his fellow Democrats, who have controlled Minneapolis for years, would prefer doing nothing about a sex slave ring that might involve a few illegal aliens. What a wonderful message to send to any illegals living in the city!

One STRIB story on this is here. It contains the disgusting thought (courtesy of the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network) that, since Minneapolis police were present during the bust, “…many Hispanics may lose trust in the police and will be reluctant to report crimes.”

Oh. You mean crimes like forcing Hispanic women into sex slavery? Was the Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network a customer or what? Is this barbaric set of values common in the local Hispanic ‘community?’

Spinal transplant successful

2007-05-22T19:42:00.000-07:00

Sounds like a good day yesterday at the Minnesota State House. The GOP finally got its act together and shut down the tax juggernaut that the Democrats had been pushing just after the election. They also managed to stall $300 million in new pork spending passed by the Senate until it died due to clock expiration.

Especially sweet is the failure of the 5-cent gas tax increase. Governor Pawlenty vetoed the bill but it was thought to be in danger of a successful override due to four Republicans that were in favor of it. But they finally came home and supported the veto.

Final grades are still out, but let’s savor this for now: No new taxes.

Well done, gents.

Jimmy who?

2007-05-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

Count on one of two things happening when former President Jimmy Carter makes the headlines; either he’ll look like a buffoon now, or he’ll look like one later. His current brush with the spotlight pretty much fits in the former category.

On Saturday, Carter was quoted in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as saying "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history."

It’s not that Carter was ever good at thinking; it’s just that he now speaks quite a bit more without the benefit of same. So when he realized the nature of his remarks, he immediately went into semi-retreat/kill the messenger mode, saying that he was "careless or misinterpreted" (in itself a wonder of an excuse, but one foray into delirium at a time, please).

The paper stands by its account, so Carter has framed the issue as a ‘Who do you trust, me or the media?’ sort of thing. Very catch-22.

Regardless of whom you choose as whipping boy, Carter or the paper, one bright spot of agreement has emerged. White House spokesman Tony Fratto called Carter "increasingly irrelevant." Carter responded “"Well, I don't claim to have any relevancy.”

Q.E.D.

Coleman Adrift

2007-05-18T11:38:00.000-07:00

I have fun jabbing at MNPublius because they're so much into Democrat victories than sound/consistant policy or philosophy. But they've had a point when it comes to Norm Coleman and his tepid stand on the war.

Now Coleman seems to have put his finger to the wind on another equally important issue, immigration. The Kennedy-McCain bill is being set up to zoom through the Senate. It's the wrong thing to do on so many sound policy levels. Yet too many GOP Senators have their head in the beltway mentality. Funny thing is, standing firm on this issue against President Bush, Kennedy and McCain will gain GOP Senators some points. Americans are fore-square against the sort of amnesty and open boarders this bill allows. That they're trying to ram-rod this thing through before the public becomes too aware is telling.

You can begin reading about it here here and here.

I've just called Coleman's office, asking his position on this bill. The pleasant voice on the other end stated that he has not issued a statement on the bill yet. Amazing! This is not a nuanced, complicated measure. That it would take this much time for Coleman to take a stand can only mean (to me) that his finger is once again in the wind, looking for a safe place to land rather than lead with his principles on the issue. If Coleman wants to do the right thing for the nation (not to mention retain any possibility of my support for '08) that will also help the Minnesota GOP to boot, he'd come out quick with unambiguous opposition to the bill, even in support of a filibuster to keep this thing from being voted on until the public at large is wide-eyed at what it contains.

Coleman's number is 202-224-5641.

The Surge is . . . well . . .

2007-05-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

NBC led their newscast Friday night with a story titled “Frank Assessment.” Brian Williams led into the report saying it was “…a difficult message tonight for a lot of Americans to hear at this juncture in the war…”

Reporter Jim Miklaszewski narrated the segment about the violence:

“It was an unusually tough and candid assessment from a top U.S. military Commander in Iraq when he told reporters that he just doesn’t have enough troops to get control over increasing violence in Diyala province north of Baghdad.”

This is really bad news they’re telling here. Non-stop violence has led to the troop surge. But the surge is simply met with more violence. No matter what is done, all that happens is violence, violence, violence. Brian is right; it’s hard to hear this….that Harry Reid was right…the war is lost. This last chance was it. After this new strategy it’s all over.

The story goes on…

“Ironically, the recent surge into Baghdad drove insurgents and terrorist out of the capital and into Diyala province…”

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Time out!

What was that? That little ditty they tried to slip by? The surge is forcing terrorists and insurgents out of Baghdad? They’re on the run?!? That’s GREAT news! Hey! The surge is working! So why the long faces at NBC? Unless…

Unless…good news in Iraq is BAD news in NBC’s view. I mean…maybe things ARE getting bad in Iraq, as in it’s more difficult for NBC to paint a losing picture, perhaps? Just look at the very carefully, closely cropped sentence fragments of General Mixon’s comments to the media that are shown in the story. I would dearly love to see them broadcast Mixon’s full content.

But then I guess it would be harder to focus on the real story, that the Bush/Petraeus strategy is working. Because Brian Williams is right. That would be “a difficult message tonight for a lot of Americans to hear at this juncture in the war.”

Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Hagel, Olympia Snowe, all the Democrat presidential hopefulls...

Bonfire of the Vanities

2007-05-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

There was an employee protest yesterday over job cuts at the Star Tribune. It’s never a funny thing when someone loses their job, but some of the signs were both amusing and revealing:

“Save Quality Journalism."

“Newspaper job cuts endanger democracy”

“Help! Journalism is in peril!”

The delusion born of self-importance and the old media echo chamber is heavily evident in the above sentiments. First, that each and every newspaper must and/or will forever have some sort of sanctified first claim on the First Amendment. Second, that newspapers are not subject to market forces or emerging technologies. Third, that declining circulation is not a consumer comment on ‘quality.’

If the Star Tribune protesters want to see some basic reasons why they are losing their jobs, they can read the interview by departing editor Jim Boyd and reactions to same from Hugh Hewitt, Scott Johnson at Powerline (here, here and here) and Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters.

Perhaps the most amusing quote comes from STRIB columnist Nick Coleman in his TV commentary on channel 9 when he said “People need to know what’s going on.” Of course there are lots of things that the STRIB doesn’t cover, like the Appeal for Courage petition that soldiers presented to Congress this week. This sort of mindset is wrapped in Jim Boyd's comments:

“…you kind of held your nose when you ran Mona Charon or Debra Saunders. I mean good grief. Jonah Goldberg? Finally, we were able to get rid of that bugger.”

Obviously, covering all viewpoints in news or commentary was not on the STRIB radar screen. Despite an excellent layout and style, the news and comment content drove customers away, leaving an opening for what’s happening now. Consumers can quickly see what they’re missing, and with the STRIB they miss a lot. Witness the huge lack of objective examination of DFL candidate Keith Ellison last year. Powerline did more digging and examination than the STRIB did (here, here, here and here), exposing the ‘news gap.’ The STRIBs 'see no evil' approach to Patty Wetterling’s outrageous comments during the ’07 campaign was glaring as well (see my own post on 10/5/07, “Patty Wetterling’s Dishonesty, the Star Tribune’s Complicity”).

Bottom line: the arrogance and blind eye that the STRIB staff had toward its own bias as well as an inability to adapt to new technology sowed the seeds of their own destruction.

Farewells over the Back Fence.

2007-05-11T06:39:00.000-07:00

Today is the last entry for the best columnist the Star Tribune has to offer…James Lileks. He bids goodbye in the same manner he has always written…with style, wit, and good grace. Even if you never met him you knew he was your ‘Minnesota friend.’

James doesn’t ask that you weep or vent, only read and smile. He deserves that and so much more from all of us.

Thanks, James. Godspeed.

CNN: Ah, for the good old days...

2007-05-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

CNN is currently running a story designed not to enlighten, but tug at anti-Iraq heartstrings (I’ll try to find a link later).

The focus is on a women’s prison where the inmates ‘exist, not live’ according to the story. The pathos-laden ploys are obvious but one line caught me in particular; that ‘most noticeable was the quiet…the low murmurs’ in the prison.

Not like the screams of torture, dog mauling, steamroller crushing and wood-chipper feeding in the good-old Saddam days. Keep in mind that CNN sanitized its Iraqi coverage during the pre-liberation era so as to avoid the risk of being thrown out of the country.

It’s so interesting to see our news providers that once kowtowed to Saddam now in an eager rush to be as negative toward U.S. policy as they can be.

The Soldiers Appeal to Congress

2007-05-10T06:55:00.000-07:00

Flip . . . flip . . . flip . . .

Excuse me a second. I’m taking part in a ritual long ago abandoned; looking for a story in the Star Tribune. You see, a petition was presented to House GOP leader John Boehner yesterday signed by almost 3000 active duty service men and women.

Flip . . . flip . . . hmmm . . . another racist editorial cartoon rendering of Condi Rice . . .

Anyway, it’s called an Appeal for Courage, something Congress, particularly Senate Republicans like our own Norm Coleman, sorely lack. It reads as follows:

“As an American currently serving my nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to fully support our mission in Iraq and halt any calls for retreat. I also respectfully urge my political leaders to actively oppose media efforts which embolden my enemy while demoralizing American support at home. The War in Iraq is a necessary and just effort to bring freedom to the Middle East and protect America from further attack.”

Flip . . . flip . . . “Palestinian Group claims it's holding BBC reporter.” Yeah, right; “group.”

I couldn’t help but remember in January when a thousand “military personnel” presented a petition to congress and a story appeared on the front page of the B section the very next day. So I was wondering if an opposing petition signed by almost three times as many soldiers would get covered. After all, I wrote back then:

“Tony Snow had it right when he said that these handful of soldiers would get more press than tens of thousands who come home with pride in their service and belief in the mission. Those soldiers rarely achieve the same level of prominence in the MSM because the MSM is no longer about news, but presenting a predetermined viewpoint.”

In the interest of fairness I thought I’d give the STRIB a chance to prove me wrong. I’ll let you know what I find.

Flip . . . flip . . . Damn! Twins lost . . .

The Cloistered Cocoon

2007-05-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

I’ve been finding modern academia to be less and less a respectable, much less admirable, place. Case in point this evening is the Community College District of Arizona’s Maricopa County. Now were not talking the cream of academe, but its small, local, non-snobby stature makes the offense ever so much more notable.

It seems that a professor has been placed on administrative leave and facing termination for a Thanksgiving e-mailing of (drum roll please) . . . George Washington’s Thanksgiving Day address!

Horrors!

The e-mail was deemed “hostile” and “derogatory” because it contained a link to Patrick Buchanan’s blog from which the professor in question found the address.

So off-worldly and shuttered is the mindset of the left that now infests many halls of college campuses that they resemble less places of learning and more like cloistered cocoons (inbred ones at that). Such division from reality deserves, at the very least, division from funding.

It really IS a religion

2007-05-02T21:46:00.000-07:00

When I talk about the Church of Global Warming – Evangelical (CGW-E) it’s only partly tongue-in-cheek. Check out the latest in ‘hotel fashion:’

April 27 (Bloomberg) -- Visitors to the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa won't find the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. Instead, on the bureau will be a copy of “An Inconvenient Truth,” former Vice President Al Gore's book about global warming.

Consider a few things: First, that the Gideons provide the Bibles free of charge. Not so Al Gore with his apologia. Second, there’s no ‘mutual exclusivity’ between the books; both can be placed in the room. Third, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that the presence of the Gideon Bible has resulted in significant positive changes in the personal lives of those who happen across them, like turning away from suicide or returning to a spouse that had been just been abandoned. I doubt that such turns away from the abyss will accrue from anything Al Gore says or writes. On the contrary, hopelessness tends to follow in his wake.

Just a little view on the mindset of the ‘Green Movement’ that has planted itself firmly in Oz while displacing another book of faith.

Franken Funds: Part 1

2007-04-26T07:02:00.000-07:00

MNPublius is a blog that likes to style itself as worthy of (or at least aspirant to) The Founders who penned the seminal masterwork, The Federalist Papers. What it actually behaves like is a DFL FAX machine. Democrats good, Republicans bad, to the point of silly invention. There’s no problem with that, just so long as everyone is honest with what’s going on. If they’re claiming ‘Publius’ for inspiration, they’re not fooling anyone except, perhaps, themselves.

Let’s take a look at a recent offering under the heading “Coleman Begs, Andy Barr Zings” regarding the Coleman/Franken Senate race in Minnesota. It starts out with a very strange straw-man rimshot:

“So, Senator Norm Coleman is sending out fundraising e-mails begging for money–not a big surprise:”

Well, of course. He’s running for office. Every politician sends “fundraising e-mails begging for money.” Even MNPublius favorites do, like Klobuchar. Ellison, etc. etc. Sooner or later Franken will be sending them out as well (if he hasn’t already). So why make a normal part of politics sound so suspect, unless there’s intent to create a baseless negative?

The post continues with this non-sequitor slight-of-hand:

“The Senator’s latest angle is portraying Franken as a Hollywood insider with an infinite tap of all that pinko LA money. Funny thing is, the people Al Franken got his money from last quarter were pretty much all people; only around $20K came from PACs.”

Funny thing is, neither the Coleman quote or the linked AP story mentions PACs, just people. Except when quoting Andy Barr’s response. So why bring it up? Probably to deflect from the fact that yes indeed, Franken is the recipient of largesse from "Hollywood's liberal elite." That MNPublius (and the Franken campaign) wishes to hide that fact is evident by their overlooking another AP story that gets more to the point:

Scores of actors, writers, producers and others from the entertainment industry have contributed to Al Franken's Senate campaign, helping the Minnesota Democrat get off to a strong fundraising start.

Franken, a former "Saturday Night Live" star who hopes to take on GOP Sen. Norm Coleman next year, raised the maximum $4,600 from actors such as Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jason Alexander and Larry David…

Other notable contributors include actors Kevin Bacon and Kevin Kline; producers James L. Brooks and Norman Lear; directors Rob Reiner and Jonathan Demme; singers Don Henley and Bonnie Raitt; and actress Jane Curtain.

He also picked up donations from cartoonist Garry Trudeau, Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, comedian Bill Maher, Dream Works Studios CEO David Geffen…

Coleman’s e-mail description seems pretty accurate, so the Franken campaign pre-empted the Hollywood observation by saying that Franken “had more donors from Minnesota than any other state.”

Now there’s no way to confirm that assertion for sure, since only certain contributions are detailed in Franken’s donation report (I think the cut-off is $250). So let’s take a quick look at the document.

By my count there are 843 contribution entries from individuals. Duplications from individuals can result as they give more than once, or to different pots (one for primary, one for general elections). But a quick count of “MN” entries yields 216 Minnesota contributions. That’s just over one fourth the total entries (25.6%).

So I tried an alternate method; I looked at the contributor at the top of each page. Since there are three per page, listed alphabetically by last name, I figured this would result in a fairly random distribution by state (although some may object that there’s a plethora of ‘Andersons’ and ‘Johnsons’ in Minnesota and a dearth of same elsewhere).

Given that there are 281 pages in the ‘individual contributions’ section means 281 persons randomly checked. Of these, 69 were from Minnesota for a total of 24.5%. That’s two pretty close percentages from two vary disparate methods of counting. For the record, California had 87, New York 41, and Washington 18. Those three states combined had more than twice the number of reported contributions as those from Minnesota.

Conclusion: Pleading that Franken’s fund raising is a ‘Minnesota-based’ enterprise is a fair stretch.

But stay tuned…we’re not quite done yet…

“These families need us here”

2007-04-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

Speaking truth on Iraq to the Defeatocrats…er, Democrats, tends to be a very futile effort indeed. But there are those who try, anyway.

A recent shining example comes from Corporal Rock via Pat Dollard’s blog. It comes from someone much braver and more Iraq-wise than any Democrat or journalist in D.C. so it bears full replicating. Everyone needs to read it:

Today, from Corporal Tyler Rock in an outpost in downtown Ramadi. His first sentence is in response to an email from me:

“yeah i know how you feel. its going to be very weird leaving this place and going back to america. weve been here for almost an entire year and have lived in the center of it the whole time. its crazy that when we got here it was so hectic and now its calmed down so much. so it was awesome to be able to see that turn out.

yeah news worth reporting…. well ramadi was once dubbed by everyone as the worst city in the world. but we have done such a great job here that all the families in the area have worked with us on driving out the insurgency and that we work directly with the IA and the IP’s. the city has been cleaned up so well that the IP’s do most of the patrols now and we go out with them to hand out candy and toys to the children. you can tell that the people want us here to protect them from the thugs and gangs (insurgents). granted they would rather have peace and quit but they know that if we arent here they will be thrown around by the insurgents. a good example is this one mission we did. long story short we got blown up in multiple buildings and had to run into a families house. i spent my christmas holidays covered in ash from the mortar fire and the IED’s, sleeping under a dirty rug i found in the house. everyone was sleeping way to close for comfort just to stay warm. anyways. a family was there and they obviously didnt want us there. atleast at first. the daughters were very sick so our corpsman treated them. they didnt have electricity so we got them a generator for power, they were cold so we got them gas heaters, we got them food and water and then we gave them $500. by the end of the week long visit with them we were drinking tea with them. when we left we cleaned their house better than it was when we got there. i even have pictures with the family. they told us that they liked marines and they would help us as much as they could and they gave us some information on the insurgents in the area. we ended up catching a HUGE target down the road from there house because of it.

yeah and i got a qoute for that douche harry reid. these families need us here. obviously he has never been in iraq. or atleast the area worth seeing. the parts where insurgency is rampant and the buildings are blown to pieces. we need to stay here and help rebuild. if iraq didnt want us here then why do we have IP’s voluntering everyday to rebuild their cities. and working directly with us too. same with the IA’s. it sucks that iraqi’s have more patriotism for a country that has turned to complete shit more than the people in america who drink starbucks everyday. we could leave this place and say we are sorry to the terrorists. and then we could wait for 3,000 more american civilians to die before we say “hey thats not nice” again. and the sad thing is after we WIN this war. people like him will say he was there for us the whole time.

and for messages back home. i have a wife back home who is going through a tough time. i just cant wait to be back home and see everyone. haha and i cant wait to go back home and get some starbucks. i love it when those people serve me. hahaha”

Semper Fi, Corporal Rock…Semper Fi.

Pelosi to Petraeus: “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you! Nya-nya-nyaaa!”

2007-04-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

I can only surmise that the news in Iraq must be good.

So good that Democrat leaders were, at first, not going to attend a classified briefing given by General Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq. House Minority Leader John Boehner correctly called them on it (“a dereliction of duty”) and they’ve since decided to attend and learn about what it is they’ve been blathering about these many weeks and months. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has no problem going out of her way to meet with terrorist supporters like Syrian President Bashar Assad, will not attend the Wednesday briefing by the commander of our efforts in Iraq. “Scheduling conflict” and all that….

This is a telling decision. Pelosi has presented Iraq as her top concern and constantly rails on and on about it as though she’s some kind of expert. We’ve heard cry after cry from the Democrats for more ‘oversight’ of the Iraq war effort. So why does she still (and all Democrat leaders initially) choose not attend the briefing?

Redstate culls a revealing remark from Roll Call:

“The [Democratic] aides said that sending Petraeus is an effort to blunt Democratic criticism of the war.”

How could a classified briefing from Petraeus “blunt Democratic criticism of the war” unless the information contained in the briefing doesn’t support what the Defeatocrats…er, Democrats, have been saying?

Roll Call also relates a nice zinger from Boehner:

“…If I were delaying funding for his soldiers, I wouldn't want to look the General in the eyes either…”

Applying Occam’s Razor, it can only be that Democrats are not really serious about the issue, except for whatever political gain can be had. Attending a bi-partisan briefing when you’re not assured of fodder for the evening news is a waste of time if your only true goal is fodder for the evening news.

Bottom line; don’t confuse Pelosi and her party with the facts. Iraq and the War on Terror are about victories for Democrats over Republicans, not victory for the U.S. over its enemies. To quote columnist Debra J. Saunders:

On "60 Minutes" recently, Arizona's Republican Sen. John McCain said, "I'd rather lose a campaign than lose a war." Does anyone believe the same of Nancy Pelosi?

“Hey! Let’s control THAT! …whatever it is….”

2007-04-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

Democrats will seek to control anything in their pursuit of political points. Never mind that they have no clue what it is they’re doing; witness the ‘huge success’ that is public school and medical care as they’ve become more and more the playgrounds of state and federal power.

Here is a more pure, laughable instance of such an impulse. The Democrat in question has no clue what her proposal addresses. To learn what this Congress…“person” wants to ban (but not bother to gain knowledge on) go here.

I’ll bet she even has ideas on the situation in Iraq.

Totally funny. And scary…

Beauty amidst the beast of beaurocratic drudgery

2007-04-13T09:34:00.000-07:00

Here's an absolutely brilliant piece of work from the Washington Post. It's made the nightly news so you have already heard about it, but in case you haven't, here's a few opening paragraphs:

HE EMERGED FROM THE METRO AT THE L'ENFANT PLAZA STATION AND POSITIONED HIMSELF AGAINST A WALL BESIDE A TRASH BASKET. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.

It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.

Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?

It's a long story but well written; you can read the whole thing here. Two particular paragraphs stood out to me:

The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother's heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.

There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.

...and a little child shall lead them...

When cartoonists trump journalists.

2007-04-13T08:28:00.000-07:00

It must be embarrassing for the science division of a metropolitan newspaper to be scooped by the funnies page.

When it comes to the declarations of the Church of Global Warming – Evangelical (CGW-E), The Minneapolis Star Tribune will uncritically parrot any doom and gloom assertions that are made, but won’t present any countering science that becomes available. Leave it to the comic strip Mallard Fillmore to clue you in on what the editors don’t want you to be aware of.

Of course, ‘embarrassment’ is contingent upon objective self-analysis, something the STRIB isn’t known for.

Terrorism Awaress Day - April 19th

2007-04-13T06:23:00.000-07:00

The indefatigable David Horowitz has launched a new college campus movement called Terrorism Awareness. The goal is two-fold: First, to overcome censorship, at the University level, of the film ‘Obsession’ that sketches the global threat posed by radical Islam. Secondly, to break through the politically correct ‘information ceiling’ constructed by many college campuses that prevents an open examination of the threat posed by Islamic terrorism.

On April 19^th more than 100 college campuses will have events surrounding the showing of this film, hopefully followed by large cracks in the collegiate gag order that muffles discussion of the topic. I’ll be watching to see what happens next week, but given the true antipathy for free speech by the professorial left and Hamas-backed Islamist groups I don’t expect to be surprised.

In the meantime, if you haven’t seen ‘Obsession,’ go here and view an 11 minute clip from the film. It is more than worth your time.

Out of the CO2 frying pan, into the Ethanol fire.

2007-04-12T20:55:00.000-07:00

A few days ago my ‘significant other’ asked if ethanol was really a less polluting fuel than regular gas. This is a bit of a trick question, since the trump card for ethanol is reduced CO2 emissions, and CO2 is not a pollutant.

A little research shows at best an even trade-off between the two. The Organic Consumers Association states the following:

[Ethanol] gets significantly lower miles per gallon, necessitating more frequent fill-ups. Ethanol's also more expensive than gasoline, and, as a blend, contributes to its high price.

Other downsides: Corn ethanol does reduce atmosphere-warming carbon emissions, but environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club say it actually is worse than gasoline in making smog. Meanwhile, builders of the nearly 200 ethanol manufacturing facilities under construction or planned are being tempted to power their facilities with coal. That's because it's less expensive than their current choice, natural gas. Coal power would wipe out or reduce the greenhouse gains of ethanol.

Ethanol may be a good political pitch to the farm states, but there’s no environmental upside. It might make things worse, in fact. If reducing automobile emissions of CO2 a few percentage points will have no impact on climate (as the science leads me to conclude), ethanol blends could make things worse, not better.

High Frontiers

2007-04-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

Let’s step into the world of aviation for a moment, shall we?

The move in recent years has been to transition to GPS and scrap ground-based systems like VORs and LORAN. GPS is more accurate and cost effective. But recent solar activity has put a temporary halt on total GPS reliance:

Scientists at last month’s Space Weather Enterprise Forum in Washington, D.C. said one of them “produced 20,000 times more radio emissions than the entire rest of the sun, enough to swamp GPS receivers over the entire sunlit side of Earth.” Unusually, even the more robust WAAS signals were affected. Loran advocates have long proposed the system as a necessary backup during GPS outages.

This is interesting for another reason. China has been developing and testing ‘satellite killer’ technology. Imagine the havoc if all flights were grounded due to a number of GPS satellites being destroyed, rendering the system unusable and grounding all commercial flights and crippling the military.

Keeping a ground-based system is an excellent idea. Radical Islam is indeed the enemy of today, but China is setting the chess board so as to someday have us in a checkmate before we even know we’re in a conflict.

The Keith Ellison Book of Quotations

2007-04-03T15:23:00.000-07:00

Keith Ellison, beginning his 9-day middle-east ‘Terrorist Tour,’ is quoted as saying "I've been part of pushing for peace in the Middle East. I'd like to see the president send an envoy to the Middle East to work on peace,"

This rather sounds in the vein of another famous quote I’ve heard:

“Give me peace or give me death”

Hmmm, that’s not it…

“…we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of peace.”

No, no, no…

“Peace in our time.”

Ah! That’s the one.

The Media Alter

2007-04-02T18:29:00.000-07:00

Michelle Malkin has a wonderful post that points out the MSM’s religious hypocrisy. On the one hand, they portrayed ‘sensitivity’ when Muslims were violently outraged to the point of mayhem and murder over the printing of a cartoon of Mohammad (i.e., no more printing of said cartoon). But the Media has little trouble showing what gets Christians boycotting mad (in this case, the Chocolate Jesus statue).

If some Christian threatened bodily harm to the artist, does anyone think USA Today and CNN would be rushing to 'refrain from offense'?

The envelope, please...

2007-04-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

A bit late for last week, but here we are anyway...

Pithy observation of the week: "There was a question whether the Blair government would end up leaving Britain with a navy too small to protect its shores. Now it seems to want a navy that can't even protect its own sailors." Historian Arthur Herman

Cartoon of the week:

‘Privacy’ run amok.

2007-03-28T21:40:00.000-07:00

There was a report on WCCO this evening about a number of children suspended from school for misbehavior on a St. Paul school bus. These children ranged from K through 6^th grade. Their offenses included, but were not limited to, verbal obscenity, physical assault on other children, and general rowdiness. Suspensions ranged from 1 to 10 days, but the kicker is that parents were not allowed to view the video due to “privacy concerns.”

Pardon me, but that seems rather silly. What expectation of privacy exists among school children on a public school bus going to or from a public school? I don’t have any standing to take action in this situation, but if my child were the victim of one of these little ruffians I’d think I'd have a right to know what has been done to take control of the situation, and that means knowing what was done to the thug-in-training who was tormenting my kid.

If school districts want to be trusted, they have to be open about what’s going on and what’s being done.

Wishes and Wonderment

2007-03-22T17:23:00.000-07:00

Mrs. John Edwards, The wife of the Presidential candidate, has announced that her cancer is in resurgence and has manifested in her bones. This is a cause for sadness; it’s a story that strikes close to my own family history and I send her every best wish for her health.

What does strike me as possibly unsavory is her husband’s desire to continue the long, arduous campaign for the Presidency. John Edwards is both an underdog and a very wealthy person; it’s not like he ‘needs the job’ or is anywhere close to becoming his party’s nominee. In such circumstances I would abandon the pursuit of power and concentrate on my terminally ill spouse.

More Deplore Gore

2007-03-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

Three more scientists have looked at the ‘global warming’ gospel put forth by Al Gore and the Church of Global Warming – Evangelical (CGW-E) and found it wanting. A short article is here on the findings of Professors Bjarne Andresen (University of Copenhagen) Christopher Essex (University of Western Ontario) and Ross McKitrick (the University of Guelph, Canada).

A Danish scientist said the idea of a "global temperature" and global warming is more political than scientific

"It is impossible to talk about a single temperature for something as complicated as the climate of Earth," said Andresen, an expert on thermodynamics. "A temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system. Furthermore, the climate is not governed by a single temperature. Rather, differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate".

Look to the Journal of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics for more (…if you can find a copy…).

HT: Truth vs. The Machine

Bus Stop

2007-03-15T21:23:00.000-07:00

Minneapolis has a murder problem right now; the city is on track to achieve 65 such crimes this year. That includes the recent bus murders, something we haven’t seen since 2001.

MNblue is, as the name implies, a Minnesota Democrat blog, and contributor Grace Kelly is quick to find a silver lining from a WCCO report on the most recent bus incident:

Kudos go to WCCO Ten O'Clock news for asking the really important question, something like "Is this an indication of greater crime rise on the bus systems or a unique incident?" The answer was that crime on buses was down 7% last year. And that the metro system just put on 4 more people to make the bus systems safer. So this is probably a unique incident and now the bus systems will be safer than ever. A salute to WCCO news.

Um, pardon me, but isn’t this a bit Pollyannish? Total bus crime was down last year, but we’re seen a resurgence of murders this year, and this is good? Statistical comparisons are fine provided you avoid a narrow focus that prevents you from seeing the whole picture. The recent bus violence may prove to be a unique blip. But given the backdrop of a surging violence in Minneapolis last year and this, I’d be wary of finding solace in such a telescopic analysis.

You can ‘Search’ for and view WCCO’s “Deadly violence on bus” video here.

By the way, the eclectic blog O So Minnesota does a good job keeping up with the Twin Cities crime scene.

A very inconvenient couple of weeks for Al Gore and the CGW-E

2007-03-15T17:57:00.000-07:00

It will take multiple posts, and out of intended order, to bring into focus what has been rolling out recently about man-caused global warming theories championed by Al Gore and the Church of Global Warming – Evangelical (CGW-E). Body blow after body blow has been letting the gas out their arguments, or at least calling into question the veracity of their proponents.

Let’s start with Tuesday’s New York Times. I would have liked to save this for a later time but I’m not sure how long the link will last for those without the proper subscription. But the short of it is that the NYT story is calling for a bit of a ‘time out’ in an item titled “From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype”

Read it. Scientist after scientist is quoted on their skepticism of the Gore/CGW-E doctrine. I’m tempted to reproduce the whole article but perhaps I can whet your appetite with a few snippets:

“Hardly a week goes by,” Dr. Peiser said, “without a new research paper that questions part or even some basics of climate change theory,” including some reports that offer alternatives to human activity for global warming.

…“Nowhere does Mr. Gore tell his audience that all of the phenomena that he describes fall within the natural range of environmental change on our planet,” Robert M. Carter, a marine geologist at James Cook University in Australia, said in a September blog. “Nor does he present any evidence that climate during the 20th century departed discernibly from its historical pattern of constant change.”

…[Dr. Easterbrook]…flashed a slide that showed temperature trends for the past 15,000 years. It highlighted 10 large swings, including the medieval warm period. These shifts, he said, were up to “20 times greater than the warming in the past century.”

To be sure, NYT plays favorites. They do their best from the outset to defend the Gore/CGW-E hypothesis. For example:

Getting personal, [Dr. Easterbrook] mocked Mr. Gore’s assertion that scientists agreed on global warming except those industry had corrupted. “I’ve never been paid a nickel by an oil company,” Dr. Easterbrook told the group. “And I’m not a Republican.”

Excuse, me, but it seems that it’s Gore “getting personal” by claiming that CGW-E opponents are “corrupted.” Defense of honor against slander is not “getting personal,” it’s setting the record straight against a calculated lie.

But even for all its defenses of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the fact that the NYT felt it had to print this story quoting the scientists it does is an inconvenient blow for Gore.

And we’re just getting started.

Read it. Read it now!

A long winded post about hot air

2007-03-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

With Minneapolis thinking about banning circuses, wither shall the ‘three rings’ go? Not to worry! The new DFL-led Minnesota Legislature has pre-empted any venue concerns. A few weeks ago they played host to their own dog-and-pony show on global warming. Eight committees from the two chambers got together and heard from a pre-selected slate of activists in an effort to “reinforce those who worry about global warming and…convince skeptics that it's occurring.”

Senator Jungbauer objected to the one-sided presentation, which has brought derision from the Left side of the state blogosphere. Calling him ‘dimwitted,’ MNpublius took Mr. Jungbauer greatly to task:

…here’s the section where Jungbauer really showcases his alienation from reality:

It’s evident that scientists who are proponents of global warming are well represented; however, no one from the opposing side is on the agenda. When a large group of policy makers are assembled for a conversation on an issue such as climate change where the science, contrary to perception has not been decided and new research is released all the time, it is important that all sides are part of the debate.
What Senator Jungbauer doesn’t seem to understand is that there is no other side! If one goes through the back-log of peer-reviewed, published scientific studies one will not find a single report that refutes the idea of Global Warming. Dissent exists on the degree and the possible solutions, but not the phenomenon. Please, for the sake of humanity, research the topic Senator Jungbauer.

He’s not the only one. “The Voice of Greater Minnesota” also displayed similar juvenile aplomb, but with a heavier hand:

It is a sad day for the state of Minnesota when we have to realize that one of the people elected to represent us and create policy for our state is nothing more than a babbling idiot. State Senator Mike Jungbauer is that idiot! He has sent out an email to his senate co workers complaining that for an upcoming hearing on global warming that [sic] no witnesses are being called that disbeleive [sic] in global warming…

The problem is that there are no legitimate sides to the debate. There has been no credable [sic] research demonstrating that global warming does not exist. The only people don't believe in global warming are those with either a vested interest in destroying the plannet [sic] or people or people [sic] that are too stupid to realize what is going on.

I'm sure this post sounds quite harsh, but I'm ok with that. It is becoming more and more urgent by the day that we act on this issue. So i [sic] think we need to call these people what they are. [sic] A bunch of idiots who are in the same boat as Hallocaust [sic] denyers [sic] and other fringe deviants.

There is much wrong with above responses and it will take some time to sort it all out. But let us start with their non-sequitorial nature. Discussion of scientific topics does not lend itself well to the kind of sand-box tantrums displayed here. Mr. Jungbauer’s objection to the stacked presentation is responded to not with science, but with righteous zealotry. Voice’s idea of action is ad hominem, to “call these people what they are,” not actually examine what they’re saying. When you have to justify your ‘science’ with taunts, do you really have ‘science’ on your side?

Part of the problem is that the two blogsters above are mixing issues in an effort to stifle actual debate. Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute presents an excellent break-down of the ‘global warming’ evangelist’s gospel:

1 – The Earth is warming.
2 – The warming is unprecedented.
3 – Man is largely responsible for the current warming.
4 – The current warming will be catastrophic.

Parts 2, 3 and 4 are individually predicated on the part that immediately precedes it, but believing in part 1, 2, or 3 does not require ‘buy-in’ to any which follow it. The Church of Global Warming – Evangelical (CGW-E) plies its rhetoric on the assumption that if you buy into part 1, the rest generally follow like dominoes, and if you don’t buy into 2, 3, and/or 4, you’re a ‘denier’ of some sort.

But for now, let us be clear: contrary to the implications made by MNpublius and Voice, the Legislative presentation was made solely by those who adhere to parts 2 and 3 above, and most likely 4 if I’ve read Mr. Stieger’s prior reflections on the issue correctly. The sermon was delivered without contradiction, justifying Senator Jungbauer’s original concern. Which means it wasn’t a scientific examination at all, but a pep rally.

Truth be told, and contrary to the views of many, yes, there are other sides to the CGW-E ‘gospel.’ I hope to examine them more closely in the coming days.

The envelope, please...

2007-03-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

Typical media question of the week: “Mr. Libby, are you willing to go to jail to protect Vice President Cheney?” - MSNBC's David Schuster

Pithy observation of the week: Courtesy of Truth vs. The Machine...

It’s difficult to “coexist” when the crescent is in full-on ”Pacman” mode…

"Calling occupants of interplanetary craft..."

2007-03-09T21:59:00.000-08:00

Ok, this is good…

OTTAWA (AFP) - A former Canadian defense minister is demanding governments worldwide disclose and use secret alien technologies obtained in alleged UFO crashes to stem climate change, a local paper said Wednesday.

"I would like to see what (alien) technology there might be that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels within a generation ... that could be a way to save our planet," Paul Hellyer, 83, told the Ottawa Citizen.

Where does one begin? It may be easy to laugh this off as extreme or looney but it really isn’t too far a stones throw from some of the poorly designed, yet widely pedaled, climate models that predict catastrophic global warming caused by human activity. That segment of the discussion has attained a religious zealotry that tends toward unbounded rhetoric; Al Gore calls the need for action a “moral necessity,” not a scientific one. Once someone like Al Gore crosses that line, it won’t be long before doubters are treated as infidels standing in the way of the righteous Jihad.

Someone’s figured out their post-Katrina Lessons

2007-03-09T21:54:00.000-08:00

One thing that should have been learned is that it’s folly to depend on others as your plan for dealing with set-backs. Given the full-force political finger-pointing at FEMA after Katrina one could not be blamed for thinking that FEMA rescue was New Orleans’s plan. Of course they’re own preparedness documentation spelled out the fact that the city would be ‘on its own’ for up to five days.

Now, this is not to absolve FEMA of all incompetence, but to point out that placing reliance on giant, far-away bureaucracies is not a very good idea. In a word, don’t. Sometimes they’ll do well, sometimes they won’t, and it doesn’t matter who is in office.

Which makes this story interesting. Mansfield University is creating a hazard mitigation plan with the idea “…to be prepared for three to five days of being alone and handling it yourself…” in case of a major flood, a real risk in that geographical area.

Bingo. This should be the first lesson learned from Katrina. Making FEMA a faster responder is at best second or third on the list.

Abortion nominee for the GOP?

2007-03-08T15:18:00.000-08:00

There’s a great deal of back-and-forth discussion on what’s become known as the ‘Rudy Deal.’ The idea is that pro-life Republicans will back abortion advocate GOP Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani if he promises to nominate judges like Alito and Roberts.

From the ‘not-a-good-deal’ side comes this cogent essay in the National Catholic Register. You don’t have to agree with the points but it’s well written. Some significant cullings…

But what dooms the deal from the start is the fact that it totally misunderstands what pro-lifers care about in the first place.

…When they ask [pro-lifers] to “be reasonable” and go along with a pro-abortion leader, they assume that there is something unreasonable about the pro-life position to start with.

We’re sorry, but we don’t see what is so unreasonable about the right to life...What looks supremely unreasonable to us is that we should trust a leader who not doesn’t only reject the right to life but even supports partial-birth abortion, which is more infanticide than abortion.

…The power a president exerts over his party’s character is nearly absolute. The party is changed in his image. He picks those who run it and, both directly and indirectly, those who enter it.

…Parents know that, when we make significant exceptions to significant rules, those exceptions themselves become iron-clad rules to our children. It’s the same in a political party. A Republican Party led by Rudy Giuliani would be a party of contempt for the pro-life position, which is to say, contempt for the fundamental right on which all others depend.

This is a lively debate that’s going on inside the GOP right now, and a very substantive one at that, respectfully conducted. One reason I feel any hope for the GOP is that, in general, Republicans still believe that there are such things as ‘right and wrong’ as well as ‘good and evil’ and that government actions and policy can place us on one side or the other, regardless of intentions. The GOP is more likely to stand on principle and pursue an ideal rather than place a finger in the wind or ‘poll-watch’ in an effort to chase political victory.

On the proper use of 'intellegence'

2007-03-07T20:31:00.000-08:00

I’ve spent more time on news in the aftermath of the Libby trial than I have for some time. In plowing through the blizzard I found this gem from former Naval Intelligence officer J. E. Dyer:

The long, strategically unvarying years of the Cold War left an erroneous connection in our collective consciousness, of “intelligence” with the formation of national strategy. But intelligence can only serve, not direct, the elements that go into strategic decisions. Which nations are bad, which actions are bad, which actions constitute threats, what distinguishes a casus belli from a mere irritant — these factors are not determined by intelligence. Political will must identify them first, and decide what response we will take. Then, and only then, can intelligence perform its function. It was not “intelligence,” at the inception of the Cold War, that drove US policy — it was publicly available information and political will.

The current administration’s real tactical error, in my view, was placing too much emphasis on re-proving individual intelligence data points that the CIA decided to disqualify. Proof of Saddam’s long-standing connection with Al Qaeda — not an operational role in 9/11, but a long relationship between his intelligence service and AQ — did not hang on the “meeting in Prague” data point, for example. Nor did the long-term assessment of Saddam’s WMD program, by all the world’s major intelligence agencies, stand or fall on the “Niger” report.

…And the people are left confused and unrequited. It’s interesting to note that if an intel analyst dropping in from Mars judged solely by what we have found in Iraq since the invasion, with no prior information from the 1980s or 1990s, he would assess that Saddam indeed had a WMD program at the time he was regime-changed. Yet the focus on single data points and “intelligence failure” rumbles on. This focus is surreal. The Bush strategy represented a shift of political will in a threat environment on which intelligence had not changed — it was not about “intelligence” at all.

Mr. Dyer is amplifying a point in an article by Gabriel Schoenfeld of Commentary magazine, which I might comment on myself later.

Perspective on Casualties of War

2007-02-28T15:39:00.000-08:00

A while back I mentioned how we just don’t understand what it takes to win a war anymore. The History Guy has some interesting observations on how many soldiers died on D-Day:

The exact number of men on both sides who died that day will probably never truly be known. Different sources cite different numbers of Allied, U.S. and German casualties:

--The D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, England claims a total of 2,500 Allied troops died, while German forces suffered between 4,000 and 9,000 total casualties on D-Day.

--The Heritage Foundation in the U.S. claims 4,900 U.S. dead on D-Day

--The U.S. Army Center of Military History cites a total casualty figure for U.S. forces at 6,036. This number combines dead and wounded in the D-Day battles

--John Keegan, American Historian and Author believes that 2,500 Americans died along with 3,000 British and Canadian troops on D-Day

By the end of the of the entire Normandy Campaign, nearly 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded, or missing.

Compare these one day estimates to the wailing and gnashing of teeth over 3000 dead over four years. Iraq has been a walk in the park compared to what we have faced before. There's little doubt that if today's Democratic leadership and MSM had been at Normandy we might all be speaking German today.

Rep. Peterson gets a wake-up call, then punches the snooze button.

2007-02-26T20:00:00.000-08:00

When the House recently passed legislation to cut down on the (supposedly) ethically questionable use of private jets, Collin Peterson (D-MN) got caught up in the rule of ‘unintended consequences.’ Suddenly the ethics committee has him in a Catch-22, unable to use his own airplane, a single prop Beech Bonanza.

The kicker is this quote: "They didn't know anything about airplanes, the people who were writing this, and they didn't talk to me."

Seems kind of normative for how Congress works, including his own record. After all, he voted for the Iraq ‘anti-surge’ legislation without apparently knowing much about how the enemy works.

Al Sharpton's ancestor was owned by Strom Thurmond's ancestor.

2007-02-26T14:33:00.000-08:00

Yeah? So?

Cartoon of the week

2007-02-25T19:46:00.000-08:00

A wonderful work by Mike Lester. While the Democrats plan a ‘way out’ of Iraq

, our enemies are mapping the same journey. Paving a road back home for the troops 'sans victory' creates a highway to be used by the terrorists. Retreat doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

Senatorial Shame

2007-01-25T21:23:00.000-08:00

It was never about oversight. It was never about listening to the Generals. All that talk about how Congress needed to act as a check to Bush’s Iraq policies and that he ignored the commanders was just political blather.

The Senate Foreign Relations committee voted near-unanimously in approving General Petraeus as head of the Iraq operations. He was very clear in his support for Bush’s plan of sending 20,000 additional troops; that the resolutions under consideration to the contrary would harm troop efforts and emboldened the enemy. In other words, more were likely to die if either the Biden or Warner resolutions were past. Here was the Senate’s true chance at providing Iraq oversight by rejecting the General that was fore-square in Bush’s tactical corner.

The Senators voted in favor of Petraeus.

Then they ignored everything he told them.

They voted 12-9 in favor a resolution stating everything that Petraeus warned against, a sense of the Senate bill that deeply criticized the Bush plan; a bill that would demonstrate that America was not behind the troops, that they did not, in reality, support them; a bill that would encourage the terrorists and insurgents that they just need to wait a little more, kill a little more, and the Great Satan would cower away from Iraq after suffering a little bloody nose.

Democrats against the Constitution

2007-01-23T14:13:00.000-08:00

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D. Nevada) recently made the following comment:

"The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking Congressional authorization"

That will come as quite a surprise to Bill Clinton who launched cruise missiles at Iraq and went into the Bosnian conflict, both without such authorization. Same with Ronald Reagan and his bombing foray into Libya.

In this era of non-education, it’s understandable if the average man-on-the-street thinks that Mr. Reid has a point. But Congressmen are supposed to know better. Either Mr. Reid is glaringly ignorant for a man in his position or he’s simply trying to rally Americans against the President with bogus civics. Either way it’s scary.

It ain't beanbag

2007-01-22T10:48:00.000-08:00

Victor David Hanson is one of the more unusual commentators on the Iraq war simply because he puts events in the context of history, something most commentators and Senators never do (aside from vague references to Vietnam). Since our public schools haven’t been offering basic history education in decades, the American public isn’t in a position to measure anything the MSM dishes out. Let’s say 3000 casualties are enough to make us cut and run from this key terrorist/insurgent engagement. It took 50,000 dead before we left Vietnam. We would lose 3000 in just a few short weeks during WWII, 300 in one battle alone over a single hill in Africa. We have become an irrationally impatient people.

So given the ‘we can only lose’ rhetoric of Senators Kennedy and Hagel and the defeatist caucus they represent, is there any reason the insurgents and terrorists shouldn’t think they only need to wait us out? In the end, their kind of verbiage only serves to get more people killed, and heap ‘moral superiority’ on the practitioners of barbaric tactics whose only ethical commandment is ‘win at any cost.'

It is against this back-drop that VDH makes some pertinent observations:

"…in a war of counter-insurgency the political solution must be contemporaneous with military operations that destroy and humiliate the insurgents…[only then] do the vast majority of indifferent citizens not only see greater prosperity and security by allying with the new government, but also nothing but death and destruction should they join the terrorists and militias."

Throw in his observations from earlier times and further understanding is to be gained…

"…it is often forgotten that from April to July 2003 there was relative postbellum security in Iraq, well before the elections and while the occupation was desperately trying to restore services and utilities.

Why? There was still the fear and respect for the lethality of the U.S. military that had taken out Saddam in three weeks and might do the same to any who tried to restart the war."

Iraq must be won, and that will only happen with the aggressive use of force. More important than increasing the numbers of soldiers is the change in the rules of engagement.

Read his whole thesis here.

The Envelope, Please...

2007-01-21T20:05:00.000-08:00

Quote of the week: “It was nice of President Bush to mention the Iraq Study Group. Hardly anyone else does these days.” Paul Mirengoff, Power Line.

....ok...so that was last week. Let's try again...

Quote of the week (take two): “So what's the likely result of the surge? That’s one important matter that you never hear discussed by the administration’s critics…The typical war critic understands the tactics involved here about as well as my Cairn terrier understands how an internal combustion engine works.” - Dean Barnett

The Failed Revolution

2007-01-21T19:47:00.000-08:00

The change in legislative make-up will certainly alter how the issues are discussed. The following headline appeared on the front page of the Sunday STRIB; “Birth control spending takes spotlight from abortion politics.” The lead paragraph reads as follows:

Every day at the Family Tree Clinic in St. Paul, Peg LaBore sees women making tough choices. A woman lying on a table waiting for a Pap smear that she needs to get birth control will hear a doctor say she should really have a Chlamydia test, too. And how about getting an HPV vaccine to ward off cancer?

On the spot, she'll have to choose between her reproductive health and what she can pay. "And if they can't afford it, they let it go," said LaBore, clinic director.

What this means is expectation of much greater funding for publicly funded women’s clinics. But let’s cut through the euphemisms. ‘Family Planning’ is another word for abortion. Reproductive health, in the article’s context, is ‘sexual activity.’

What it comes down to is taxpayer subsidized orgasms.

That may sound blunt, even vulgar, but that’s what it amounts to. Every concern addressed in the article is rooted in sexual activity; “rising rates of unintended pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted disease...”

So ‘making whoopie’ is going to cost the taxpayers a lot of money. The article states that “about half of all high school seniors are sexually active.” This raises a key question that someone should ask, but probably won’t, at least not in public; how much will be spent on clinics and ‘family planning’ for the other half that are not sexually active? Meditating on the answer could provide enlightenment.

Now let’s take it a step further with a thought based on that old John Lennon song; imagine all sexual activity occurred within the state of marriage. What would be the incidence of unwanted pregnancies and STDs requiring public assistance?

Yes, the root of the problem gets back to the old issue of ‘standards’ and ‘values,’ the kind that long ago became looked at as oppressive, old fashioned, or unrealistic; “Nice girls need it too” and all that. Self-discipline used to mean more than ‘safe sex,’ but that concept was tossed aside with claims of ‘it’s not your business’ and ‘it doesn’t hurt anyone.’ Everyone knew those were hollow arguments, but those who championed the ‘free love’ cause will not likely now choose to recognize the obvious miscalculation, much less voice their error.

And the damage isn’t just to physical health, budgets and income levels. It is starting to be recognized that personal damage can be done through casual sex. Dr. Grossman is a practicing psychologist who has documented the damage done by our sexualized culture, especially to women, in her book ‘Unprotected.’ Her experience and evidence shows that teaching our youth about proper use of sexuality is as important as teaching them about eating the right foods, exercise, and avoiding smoking and drugs.

The ‘enlightened class’ will not only poo-poo the idea, but be quick to point out failed examples of such things as abstinence programs, and that ‘kids are gonna do it’ no matter what you say. Yet with any curriculum, not all are created equal. As my math teacher spouse will tell you, there are some pretty unsuccessful math courses out there. But the existence of failed methods doesn’t mean we stop teaching math.

And if kids ‘doing it’ are an unavoidable certainty, why are only half of Minnesota seniors sexually active? It was far less when I was in high school. So let’s stop pretending that this is some sort of ‘irresistible force’ that can’t be controlled.

The sexual revolution has failed. It has mired us in poverty, broken homes, broken people, and broken health care facilities. With so many invested in the revolution for so long, a turn-about will probably take longer than a generation. But if we’re going to pursue real sexual health, it needs to be done.

But don’t hold your breath for this year’s legislature.

The Chosen Template

2007-01-18T20:27:00.000-08:00

The front page of yesterday’s B section in the Star Tribune had this little item headlined “Soldiers bring petition campaign against war in Iraq to Capitol Hill:”

President Bush's plan to send additional troops to Iraq faces public opposition from a slice of the American population that rarely speaks out: the military rank and file.

A group of service members came to Capitol Hill on Tuesday armed with signatures from more than 1,000 military personnel who oppose the war.

This tends to leave the impression that the only soldiers with something to say are those who are in opposition to the Iraqi conflict. But to be accurate, the only soldiers that the STRIB and the MSM choose to report on are those opposed to the war. I’ve heard and read a number them speak their minds in the pages of magazines, their own blogs, and on radio. This evening I happened to be listening to Hugh Hewitt conversing with a soldier who called named Chris. The exchange was definitely one of pride in service, belief in the mission and confidence in victory:

HH: When you hear people talk about withdrawing and let the chips fall, does that strike you…

Chris: It infuriates me.

HH: Tell me why.

Chris: Because just as in America, Iraq has their bad seeds, their bad eggs, whatever you want to call them. But it’s a minority. It’s a very small percentage, but just like anywhere else, that very small percentage makes the most noise, and therefore, they’re the most noticeable. Most of the Iraqi people that I’ve dealt with would give you the shirt off their back if you ask for it, not even needed it, not wanted it. If you just ask for it, it’s yours. You show interest in something of theirs, it’s yours. They’re very giving, they’re very kind, they’re very smart, and they just, just like us, they want a chance. I’m biased, because I have spent one heck of a lot of time with the Iraqi people. And by and large, they are one heck of a good group of people.

HH: Warrant Officer Chris, we’ve got about a minute left. Can we win there?

Chris: We can, but it’s going to take some resolve, and we know…like I said from the beginning, we know it’s a dangerous job, but we accept it. There’s going to be deaths. We know that. Everyone in the military, just about, knows someone that’s been killed over there. But it’s a volunteer army. We can do it, we can…it won’t be easy, it won’t be quick. But with support from the American people, we can do it.

Read the whole conversation (unless, like the STRIB, you’re not serious about knowing what’s going on over there).

Tony Snow had it right when he said that these handful of soldiers would get more press than tens of thousands who come home with pride in their service and belief in the mission. Those soldiers rarely achieve the same level of prominence in the MSM because the MSM is no longer about news, but presenting a predetermined viewpoint. If the MSM truly thinks that all the speaking out is on one side of the issue, it can only be the result of taking great pains to exercise this particular self delusion.

The Pawlenty Macarena; one step forward…

2007-01-17T21:24:00.000-08:00

It’s been a wash week at best for Governor Tim Pawlenty. He bolstered his electoral credentials by asking for tax cuts in his State of the State address. State policy smart. But this was undercut by his announcement that he’s going to be the national co-chair of John McCain's campaign for President. National electorally tone-deaf.

McCain’s ‘Straight Talk Express’ jumped the tracks (and the shark) long ago. By hopping on board post-derailment, Pawlenty is acting like he’s on the same path.

Go, Slow Joe!

2007-01-12T20:48:00.000-08:00

Senator Joe Biden announced on Meet the Press that the hanging of Saddam Hussein was "Abu Ghraib all over again" because a guard taunted the convicted mass murderer as the noose was being fitted. No doubt there will be hearings in the new Democrat Congress on the torture he experienced just prior to the final drop. This may be followed by legislation prohibiting the even more ‘degrading’ trash talk on the gridiron field.

Senator Biden has also announced his candidacy for the Democrat Presidential nomination. It’s good to have him back.

"I am not a plagurist..."

2007-01-09T19:12:00.000-08:00

...to turn a phrase from Richard Nixon. I don't even play one on TV!

But no sooner had I posted the previous entry than I want trolling KvM, something I haven't done for some time, only to find that they covered the same topic using the same title!

Of course they did a much better job, and their entry is more recent. They also cover and link to a story on some of the other taxes tax increases the DFL is proposing (the gas tax increase target is 10 cents a gallon).

My favorite part is that after listing all the DFL proposed higher taxes and business-killing mandates, the story indicates that Senate Majority Leader Terry Clark of St. Cloud believes that "...the measures would allow Minnesota long-term growth and prosperity."

Haven't the Democrats yet learned that you can't tax your way to prosperity? Sorry...silly question...

Well, THAT didn’t take long…

2007-01-09T18:56:00.000-08:00

The Minnesota Democrats (DFL) very quickly substantiated my earlier fears over the highway constitutional amendment that passed during the recent election. I was pretty convinced that it would provide an excuse for raising general taxes down the road.

Instead of waiting, the DFL wants to raise taxes immediately…on gas…to finance transportation projects!

Wait a minute…I thought we were promised that this new constitutional amendment dedicating all gas taxes to transportation issues would solve the funding problem! Apparently not, and it’s also no surprise that this is just one of the DFL’s proposed tax hikes. Another would raise the state sales tax 3/8 of 1% to fund “outdoors and the arts” (no word if outdoor art would be allowed to double-dip…). It looks like a hike in the vehicle registration tax will be coming up as well.

This is just the start of a far-reaching agenda that includes a constitutional amendment establishing affordable health care as a 'right.'

At the moment 2008 is not looking like a good year, nationally, for the GOP. But here in Minnesota, if the DFL keeps behaving like this, it could be a different story.

Carter vs. Dershowitz.

2006-12-30T19:42:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Carter always struck me as the least competent President of my lifetime, and recent events only serve to confirm my conclusion. Like the recent report of the Iraq Study Group, Carter’s latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, concludes that the problems in the middle east are mostly Israel’s fault and all would be made well if only Israel would give some land (then maybe some more) to the Arabs.

Powerline points out an interesting disagreement between Carter and Alan Dershowitz that resulted in an exchange through the media. Dershowitz, who has written books on the subject, wants to debate Carter on the Israeli/Palistine issue. Carter will have none of it, saying "There is no need to for me to debate somebody who, in my opinion, knows nothing about the situation in Palestine." This despite the fact that Carter intends his book to create debate and dialogue on the issue.

Carter seems to have become a kinder, gentler version of John Kerry, arrogant and condescending. Dershowitz hit at least one nail on the head when he responded “Books shouldn't be like chapel, delivered from on high and believed on faith.” Read his whole response here.

Ennui Rulz

2006-12-26T11:02:00.000-08:00

Yes it has been quite a while. After all, this isn’t Lazy Gopher Pachyderm for nothing. And I can’t for sure say why the lack of posting. Pressing holiday matters? Post-election fatigue? Results disappointment? Lack-of-leadership frustration? The rise of ‘Realists in Wonderland’ (like the Iraq Study Group)? The cluelessness in the GOP leadership on why they got trounced in the election? The lost opportunity of positioning in the lame duck session before the Christmas break?

Any and all of the above will do, I suppose. The political landscape thus far adds up to a forecast of a very unproductive 2008. Things can change rapidly and the GOP just might re-discover what got them the majority in 1994, but I doubt it. There are some beacons of hope like Sen. McConnell as minority leader, and House Speaker to be Nancy Pelosi’s attempt at herding her caucus cats into her barn (with amusing results), but not enough to give the party a winning direction and hope to the GOP base.

I’m tempted to say wake me up when the GOP leadership gets a clue (hint: when the Gerald Ford wing of the party starts getting upset and dismissive like they were toward Gingrich in the early ‘90s or Reagan in the ‘80s, you’ll know we’re back on the road to recovery).

Perhaps we just need to generate a few laughs. The Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq would be a good start if the stakes weren’t so gol-darned high. But Jimmy Carter is back on the scene and he’s always worth a chuckle and groan.

The envelope, please...

2006-12-04T10:27:00.000-08:00

Given the ongoing AP debacles, some very good quotes of the week...

"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." -Thomas Jefferson

“I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. - General William Sherman

"Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse." - Mark Twain

What passes for thinking on the left.

2006-12-02T15:01:00.000-08:00

Dennis Preager (radio talk show host, speaker, author, columnist) has taken a rather brave position. By ‘brave’ I mean that, regardless of how reasoned as its thoughts and basis are presented (and precluding agreement), it will be misread and he tarred and feathered because the premise violates the sensibilities of those who seek to define our standards down.

Representative elect, Keith Ellison, a Muslim, has stated he will replace the traditional Bible with the Koran. Mr. Praeger’s position is as follows: when it comes to using a book upon taking the oath of office, the Bible should be used. Other tomes may be used in addition, but the Bible should not be wholly displaced.

A liberal Blog, Think Progress, has taken Mr. Praeger’s thesis and twisted it completely. Oh, let’s just say it…they made it up…they lied. It’s the sort of the thing I’ve seen, experienced and come to expect when the left address a conservative thought or argument.

Think Progress accuses Mr. Preager of 1) “…[comparing being sworn in with a Koran] to being sworn in with a copy of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf.’” and 2) the egregious error of thinking that religious books are used for the oath of office. Think Progress asserts that they are never used.

The first point simply amounts to libel. While Think Progress links to the Preager article, they apparently didn’t bother to read it:

“…imagine a racist elected to Congress. Would they allow him to choose Hitler's "Mein Kampf," the Nazis' bible, for his oath? And if not, why not? On what grounds will those defending Ellison's right to choose his favorite book deny that same right to a racist who is elected to public office?”

The point cannot be simply dismissed, unless it is to assert that there is no standard that must be adhered to on such a solemn occasion, which Think Progress doesn’t do. Mr. Preager’s supporting arguments should at least be the source of some applied thought on the issue:

“Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible…When all elected officials take their oaths of office with their hands on the very same book, they all affirm that some unifying value system underlies American civilization.”

Yet for Think Progress and its liberal devotees, the response is not thoughtful opposition in-kind, but typically screeching in non-sequitorial condemnation. Destroying the messenger is to more highly favored on the left than dealing with the message.

This is not to say that there are no good countervailing arguments. They do exist, as Eugene Volokh shows at National Review On-line. But the left, mired in hatred of the right and an inability to discuss things in a civilized fashion, seems incapable of making them. Such a mindset cannot be counted on to contribute seriously to any debate on any topic. Should you doubt this, read the comments attached to both Mr. Preager’s and Think Progress’s columns.

As for the second assertion, Think Progress ignores the fact that there is a second ceremony which does make use of the Bible, and chastises Mr. Praeger for thiking that there is. Yet if there is no such ceremony, why is Mr. Ellison demanding a Koran replace the Bible? Mr. Preager asserts that every member of Congress who has availed himself of this second venue has done so using the Bible, and sometimes an additional tome. So far I’ve not read any contradiction to this assertion. As such, it cannot be denied that should Mr. Ellison use a non-Biblical text exclusively, it will be a first.

Is Mr. Preager wrong in his assessment? Quite possibly. Is the response of Think Progress and its leftward posse devoid of decency and thought? Most definitely.

So how bad is Iraq, really? Another brewing media scandal

2006-12-01T19:33:00.000-08:00

Let us first set the table of confirmed recent media debacles:

The forged CBS Bush National Guard memos.

The non-existant Jenin massacre swallowed hook, line and sinker by every major news outlet in world.

Reuters publishing doctored and staged photographs during the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict this past summer.

Blogger Flopping Aces, in a post entitled Getting The News From The Enemy, has uncovered a major developing scandal in the coverage we see coming from Iraq. Read the whole series of examinations and fact-digging. I won’t go into huge detail, but here is a brief executive summary of what I’ve read so far.

The widely reported burning of four mosques never took place.

The same for six Muslim worshippers being dragged from a mosque and burned to death. Looks like it also is a fabrication.

The AP has often quoted a Capt. Jamil Hussein of the “of the al-Yarmouk police station” often as a source of atrocities. Funny thing, though, he only reports on Shiite on Sunni atrocities. CENTCOM has done some investigating; they confirm that he is neither a poli9ce officer nor is he employed by the Ministry of Interior.

It appears that the AP has been simply taking phone calls and filing stories without corroboration, and these stories become front-page news or evening TV leads. Their response:

"The attempt to question the existence of the known police officer who spoke to the AP is frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question…we have conducted a thorough review of the sourcing and reporting involved and plan to move a more detailed report about the entire incident soon, with greater detail provided by multiple eye witnesses…The police captain cited in our story has long been known to the AP reporters…"

Note that the basis for AP’s certainty remains a mystery, aside from him wearing the correct uniform and standing in a police office (which means nothing according to their own reporting of other stories involving fake police). The AP never says they confirmed his employment with any of his superiors. In other words, they give us no reason to believe them in the face of official investigations that reveal there is no such person employed in the capacity AP claims.

This is still developing, and the AP will likely continue to issue defenses, but it’s clear that what your seeing on your TV screen and read in the morning paper about Iraq may be where the real propaganda is.

It’s a huge story. Keep an eye on it.

American Federation of Teachers vs. Education

2006-11-29T07:01:00.000-08:00

A couple of nights ago there was a report on ABC news about American high-school students being tutored over the internet. This is not necessarily a huge, new concept, but the tutors in question are in India. The story centered on a girl who was suddenly getting Ds in math. Her mother couldn’t afford local tutoring ($100+ per hour), so she went on-line for about $20 an hour instead (see the story here).

What’s most noteworthy is that objections are coming from those who are supposed to be among the most interested in academic improvement…teachers. Or at least their labor unions, like the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Their objection, according to the story, is possible lack of familiarity with state standards and local curriculum by the foreign tutors.

It’s tough to know where to start on AFTs response; the group fights any sort of on-going competency standards for teachers as well as performance rewards. They’ll go to the mat to protect the job of any teacher no matter how poorly they educate their students.

AFTs objection is based in the fact that K-12 education is shielded from any real competitive pressure. Teachers unions (a special interest group if there ever was one) have an unhealthy stranglehold on many state legislatures, and the Democrat party in particular. It will be interesting to see if they will seek political action, and what kind. Right now tutoring can be tax deductible, or outright paid for under the No Child Left Behind Act if the child’s school is tagged a “failing school.” Will AFT move to have these tax benefits apply only to local-based tutoring?

Unlike the AFT, the first concern over education is about how well kids are learning. Internet tutoring is a no-lose proposition in the long run; if it doesn’t bring up math abilities, the parents will drop it rather than pay for it. That's the marketplace at work. If scores do get better, everyone wins, even the teacher in the classroom. Only the teachers unions might lose. But then, their primary concern has never been about kids learning.

The ‘Six Imam’ set-up.

2006-11-28T06:38:00.000-08:00

As I think about it I am becoming more convinced that the ‘Six Imam’ incident was indeed a deliberate stunt. Dean Barnett lays some compelling groundwork:

It is inconceivable that the Imams were unaware that their prayer ritual would scare the stuffing out of their fellow-passengers. Since we know that Islamophobia is actually a fear and a not particularly irrational one especially when boarding an airliner, the Imams were at best insensitive.

But when you consider the facts that a few of the Imams requested extra-long seatbelts (that they didn’t need) and engaged in a loud dialogue condemning America’s role in Iraq, it’s obvious that the Imams had mischief on their minds. For whatever reason, they deliberately intended to unnerve the plane’s other passengers. One can only wonder, to what ends?

Add to this one other factor…since 9/11 there have been how many Muslims taking how many flights in the U.S.? Had the behavior of the ‘Six Imams’ been typical of Islamic travelers there surely would have been an incident reported long ago. It further goes to support the passengers testimony that the Six were more vociferous than the Six themselves claim (have you noted that the media plays over and over statements of the ‘Six Imam’ but never seem to give the ruffled passengers equal time?).

The ‘Six Imam’ are reveling in the spotlight, pressing all the right ‘victim’ buttons. Almost as if they got exactly what they were after.

Scottish Right makes a salient point:

The biggest risk the West faces is allowing ourselves to be guilted into foregoing all good sense. It's quite brilliant, really. The United States is almost impervious to conventional invading armies, but a terrorist group wearing the cloak of religious devotion is the perfect virus to penetrate our defenses. The political objectives of the terrorists are inseparable from their religious beliefs. Terror suspects who scream "Islamophobia" or accuse their captors of violating their religious rights know that they will generate a great deal of sympathy with the media establishment....

Islam; the religion of the temper tantrum

2006-11-27T20:37:00.001-08:00

President Bush has been going out of his way since 9/11 in declaring Islam “a peaceful religion.” Yet the followers of the prophet of Mohammed are going out of their way to prove otherwise.

Recently in Turkey we’ve seen continued demonstrations against the Pope for (months ago) referencing an ancient text not kind to Islam; not as an establishment of a position, but as a lead-in to discussion of a serious topic. Islam would have none of it. Taking pleasure in outrage is much more fun than scholarly endeavors.

Then there are the ‘Six Imam’ who were removed from a U. S. Airways flight last week. They are now making various demands on the airline and America in general that we ignore the unique positioning of their own religious structure. Namely, that one segment produces extreme violence against innocents while the larger segment either does nothing about this scorpion in their midst or demands that everyone else ignore it as well.

And, of course, there are the assassinations by Syria, the riots in France, the stoking of Iraqi militia by Iran, etc. etc.

Conjecture is beginning to flow around the blogosphere that the ‘Six Imam’ intentionally used their ‘religious observances’ obtrusively to provoke the situation that erupted. While I would have earlier resisted this presumption, I would no longer be surprised. Islam seems to have decided on two-pronged approach to the non-Islamic world; please tolerate and accept us while you are blown to bits.

One thing I’ve learned in this venture…

2006-11-27T20:37:00.000-08:00

Holidays and travel are hell on blogging.

The Daily Dummkopf

2006-11-21T19:42:00.000-08:00

The Star Tribune has a running ‘reader response’ section to their story on the six Imam mentioned below, begging the question “Were the imams treated unfairly?” One reader, a Steve Philion, produced the following gem of colossal ignorance:

"Uhm, let's see, Right wing Christian extremists did bomb a federal building to smitherens [sic]...I guess I better report anyone with a white collar or carrying a bible and praying in a federal building to the police and demand they be handcuffed just in case they should pull a Timothy McVeigh on us...You never can be too careful."

The reference is, of course, to the demolition of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. First of all, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols hardly rate as a religion, sect or movement. Second, McVeigh had no particular religious leanings, only claiming a non-specific belief in “a God” and keeping the details of whatever faith he had secret. Third, no one ever saw McVeigh with a white collar, carrying a bible, or praying in a federal building. Fourth, his penned views on America were hardly “right-wing,” being very critical of America’s policies regarding Iraq. Fifth, unlike Islam, there is no evidence of any Christian sect harboring a devotion to destruction of civilian targets, let alone acts of suicide that involve the deaths of innocent civilians.

This silly attempt at moral equivalence is typical of what might be charitably called “liberal thinking.”

The clash of cultures

2006-11-21T19:26:00.000-08:00

This kind of problem is going to be with us for a long time. First the ‘alcohol in taxicabs’ business, and now this.

Last night 6 Islamic Imam (ministers, priests, whatever) were not allowed to board a U.S. Airways flight out of Minneapolis. Prior to boarding they started Islamic prayers and made anti-American utterances. This made many passengers nervous.

The Islamic ‘community,’ most notably CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations), is crying foul. Education of Americans is needed to further the ‘understanding’ of how Muslims worship. I would think that CAIR needs an education on the understandable reaction of Americans to such displays after 9/11.

Shahin, president of the group said that "If up to now [Americans] don't know about prayers, this is a real problem."

But a bigger and more real problem is the lack of effort put forth by Islam to bring the large sect of extreme violence to heel. The Imam were leaving a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation. It would be interesting to know how much of this conference involved just that question.

Powerline has some interesting background on the leader of the group.

To any of the Islamic faith looking in, here’s my position; You own the terrorist problem. It comes from a large sect within your faith. Don’t try and shift the burden onto my shoulders through some rhetorical slight of hand. It’s up to you to show responsibility and leadership in ridding the world of this menace rather than crying about being misunderstood; it’s the flip side of the freedom America has to offer. And if you don’t take the lead, we will, and in our own fashion. The choice is and has been yours, and so far, you have not done well by any means.

Pawlenty assumes punt formation

2006-11-20T17:25:00.000-08:00

High on the list of this year’s pols to watch was Tim Pawlenty, it being said that he was a rising star in Republican politics and gaining ground on the Vice Presidential sweepstakes. One reason is his being a winning GOP governor in a ‘purple’ state in a tough year for Republicans. But more importantly he’s a GOP governor in what Michael Barone has labeled "Minnewisowa," a pivotal electoral region encompassing the purple states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.

All that may very well be gone now as Pawlenty has positioned himself not as a pillar of Republican strength surrounded by a DFL eager to spend, but rather as someone who wants to beat the DFL to the entitlement punchbowl.

Witness this performance reported in the Star Tribune:

"We all, I think, can chart a path toward universal coverage…We're going to have to move in stages. ... We should start with covering all kids."

Star Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten points to another part of Pawlenty’s comments on HMOs at a Minneapolis health care conference, and responds:

"'What is the health value of what they do?' he said. 'How have the outcomes improved? Are we less obese? Are we less diabetic? Do we have less heart disease? Do we have less cancer? Are our children more engaged and active? Do we have less mental health challenge?'"

While the answer to some of these questions is no, Americans are in fact living longer than ever. And you've got to have a utopian vision to believe that, without HMOs, we'd be "less obese" or that our children would be "more active and engaged."

Democrats, of course, are thrilled at Pawlenty's change of heart.

This was not a good election for Minnesota Republicans, but it’s the taxpayers, employers (and employed) and medical consumers that will eventually feel the loss in a concrete fashion. Expanded state regulation and ‘ownership’ of the health care market has not improved cost or delivery of services elsewhere. Why does Pawlenty think it will now? Even more, why does he think it’s such a great career move?

If Pawlenty truly follows the ‘Hillary care’ path that his words presage, it will be the end of any higher aspirations he might have had. The Minnesota GOP appears to be in tatters and Pawlenty doesn’t appear to have any desire to be the leader that brings them back.

The Envelope Please...

2006-11-14T21:10:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Week – “America is a super power with attention deficit disorder.” – Mark Steyn while discussing Iraq.

'Big Education' on the move

2006-11-13T20:20:00.000-08:00

The state public education giant (i.e., union), Education Minnesota, just got the election they wanted. Now they want their policies imposed. In the ads they’re now broadcasting they talk about how wonderful and important government schools are. I hear nice talk about feelings and goals, but nothing concerning actual results.

A visit to the advertised web page yields a glimpse of the upcoming agenda. It starts with a push for more pre-K programs, but knowing this organization, it has more to do with funding than results; look for parental choice to be a completely lost concept in the state.

It’s interesting to note, though, that all this effort focuses on the system, not the child. There’s little demonstrated reason to believe that Education Minnesota cares about academic achievement if it comes at the expense of their own influence or income.

I particularly love this part…

More than half of Minnesota children start kindergarten without the skills they need to succeed in school. Our youngest students require comprehensive, high-quality early childhood education, one step to help narrow the achievement gap.

Excuse me, but acquiring the skills to succeed in school is what I went to Kindergarten FOR! If teachers don’t actually want to do the teaching, then perhaps they’d best find a different line of work.

Also, given that I find the public schools NOT providing “comprehensive, high-quality” education, why should I think they’ll accomplish it at an earlier age?

A question for Education Minnesota…What is it you do so well that you should be trusted with more of it? Hands off the pre-5s until you get your act together and can once again teach a K-12 kid the basic 3-Rs and history.

Ok...NOW it's like Vietnam.

2006-11-13T06:34:00.000-08:00

I heard on the radio this morning that British Prime Minister Tony Blair is calling for 'engaging' Iran and Syria in solving the Iraq 'problem.' I also heard that the White House response is something like "We'll consider it if the Baker commission proposes it."

If this comes to pass, it will underscore something I wrote to a friend this past weekend about this very same possibility. If the Baker commission suggests such a 'reaching out' it will prove that one can be 'highly credentialed' and 'blindingly stupid' at the same time.

The gears and the cranks

2006-11-09T20:55:00.000-08:00

Andy Aplikowski is a prolific and passionate blogger who is very much concerned about the state of the Minnesota GOP (as you can see here and here). And with good reason. He has a lot to say, but could someone please clue me in on what he’s talking about? Repair of the party will have to be forced from the base, but they need to be addressed in plain language. I’m betting most of us don’t know what a ‘BPOU’ is.

Really, I might like to help Andy push the party in the right direction, but first he’ll need to calm down, stop talking ‘shop’ and start from square one.

Why Republicans lost

2006-11-09T19:49:00.000-08:00

In his essay The Road Not Taken, Hugh Hewitt's agrees with my basic assertions (am I allowed to say that?) covered in "Recipe for Disaster." But he covers them more completely and directly that I ever could. He quotes his own book published in March with these prescient opening paragraphs:

If you are a conservative Republican, as I am, you have a right to be worried. An overconfident and complacent Republican Party could be facing electoral disaster. Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, and a host of others could be looming in our future and undoing all the good we've tried to do.

It is break the glass and pull the alarm time for the Republican Party. The elections looming in November 2006 are shaping up to be disastrous for the GOP as the elections of 1994 were for the Democrats. Most GOP insiders seem unaware of the party's political peril. Some are resigned to a major defeat as the price we have to pay for a decade of consistent gains, which, they think, couldn't have gone on forever.

Had the GOP heeded this warning eight months ago, they would have salvaged the Senate, and maybe even the House. Now Hugh has given them a roadmap for recovery and it's time for them to get their heads out of the beltway and listen up to the people that put them there.

Read it, read it read it!!

The big winner, Terrorists. The big loser, Iraqi democracy.

2006-11-09T19:13:00.000-08:00

Two events this week signaled a freer hand for Islamic terrorism and reduced support for Iraqi democracy; the election of the Democrats to majority status in both houses of Congress and the selection by President Bush of Robert Gates to replace Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

For their parts, the Democrats have never been serious when it comes to the war on terror. Winning it never seems to cross their minds. As I mentioned in a previous post, the word ‘victory’ just doesn’t seem to be in their lexicon. They can’t even admit that there is a war on. Being hated by others must mean that WE’VE done something wrong. It doesn’t matter if some part of the world has declared war on the U.S., they’ll have none of it.

For his part, Mr. Gates is of the Beltway Crowd that sees all conflict as ‘failures to communicate.’ It’s possible that he might change his stripes this go-around, but he’s coming fresh out of the Baker commission that’s going to tell us how to ‘solve the Iraq problem.’ The folks on that panel have little or no practical wartime victory experience but love the ‘talk’ game. If rumor is to be trusted, their recommendations will include, if not center on, negotiating with Iran and Syria to assist us in Iraq. It takes a certain amount of foolish intellectualism to even seriously consider such a proposal.

As such, I was not surprised to read the following in an AP story today:

After Democrats swept to majorities in both houses of the U.S. Congress and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld resigned, Iraqis appeared unsettled and seemed to sense the potential for an even bloodier conflict because future American policy is uncertain. As a result, positions hardened on both sides of the country's deepening sectarian divide.

Well, duh! Part of the unreported success due the American presence in Iraq is some ability to keep these two nuclear rods apart. It looks like that buffer will soon diminish.

If all the signs are accurate, history will repeat itself. As in the early ‘90s, once again brave Iraqis who believed the United States when it said they would stand by them will be disappointed and thrown to the tender mercies of the crazed sadists who will be left to roam free. Iraqi's who placed their bets on a better life will be slaughtered, along with any reason to trust or respect American "resolve." And rightly so.

So where's the "Victory?"

2006-11-08T11:12:00.000-08:00

Upon winning her race for the U.S. Senate, Ann Klobuchar called for "accountability" and "a new direction" in Iraq.

Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi only demanded a "new direction" and a "solution."

Democrats have yet to express the desire or will to "win" the war on terror. The terrorists will die rather than lose. When such attitudes come into unavoidable conflict the outcome is easy to predict.

Update: Howard Dean adds following: "Democrats are united and ready to get to work with Republicans to find real solutions to the challenges we are facing in Iraq."

What is wrong with this party that just can't utter anything near the effect of "defeat the terrorists?"

Update 2: Nancy Pelosi just uttered this gem to Brit Hume; "[Iraq is] not a war to be won but a situation to be solved." What a warped world view.

This series of updates could become rather long...

The first head to roll...

2006-11-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

Rumsfeld is out.

Update: During the QA, Bush responded to a question by saying something like "Democrats are going to honor our troops just like Republicans do…" Right...they'll have to do something about the Kerry-Murtha-Durbin brigades in order for that to happen.

I have no doubt this will come to pass!

2006-11-08T09:04:00.000-08:00

An e-mail to Jonah Goldberg over at The Corner:

Here is a prediction for next year...

In January or February, the New York Times will run a headline: "Economy Turning Around Under Democratic Leadership." The subtitle will be "Dow Hits New Record High". The story will interview a few citizens on the street who will claim they have more money to spend, and an obscure economist that will point out how the gap between the rich and poor is now closing.

Sigh.