:: Netmarcos' Notes ::

:: Sunday, February 29, 2004 ::

This report is disturbing...and everyone who cares about the future of the nation should read it.

This man is living in a time warp. No wonder Kerry sees any conflict — Gulf War I, Afghanistan, Gulf War II — as a potential Vietnam. In Kerry's world, Vietnam is running on a continuous loop on that big screen TV — with Jimi, Kris, and Peter, Paul, and Mary singing in the background.

Some people become stuck in the time period in which they had their most intense experiences. Others, perhaps with more mental or emotional flexibility, move on. Kerry seems to be one of the former.

:: Mark 10:30 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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A short refresher course in economics.

Those who complain loudly about how many jobs have been "exported" to other countries because of international free trade totally ignore the jobs that have been imported to the American economy because of that same free trade.

please go read it all and then explain it to your friends and children.

:: Mark 10:25 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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And what of this?

"I am thoroughly convinced that there was a dead-bang Middle Eastern connection in the Oklahoma City bombing," he said.

:: Mark 12:16 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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WorldNetDaily: Mexican troops cross U.S. border

Mexican military forces make so many regular incursions into U.S. territory, Border Patrol officers hand out printed instructions to agents on how to handle the situations...

Maybe this is related to this.

:: Mark 12:08 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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More on Kerry from The Village Voice.

...he was not so courageous more than two decades later, when he covered up voluminous evidence that a significant number of live American prisoners—perhaps hundreds—were never acknowledged or returned after the war-ending treaty was signed in January 1973.

The Massachusetts senator, now seeking the presidency, carried out this subterfuge a little over a decade ago— shredding documents, suppressing testimony, and sanitizing the committee's final report—when he was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on P.O.W./ M.I.A. Affairs.

:: Mark 11:59 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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A green beret's response to John Kerry

Medals do not make a man. Morals do.

You should read the whole thing, sign the Guest Book...VOTE.

:: Mark 11:56 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Let's follow this one very closely. Herald.com: Miami & Ft. Lauderdale News, Weather, Dolphins & More

MIAMI - U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown verbally attacked a top Bush administration official during a briefing on the Haiti crisis Wednesday, calling the President's policy on the beleaguered nation "racist" and his representatives "a bunch of white men."

Her outburst was directed at Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega during a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill. Noriega, a Mexican-American, is the State Department's top official for Latin America.

The participants in the discussion were shocked and Roger Noriega responded in fine style

"As a Mexican-American, I deeply resent being called a racist and branded a white man," according to three participants.

Brown then told him "you all look alike to me," the participants said.

Not much from the mainstream outlets yet, but the blogosphere is running hard with it here, here, and elswhere.

:: Mark 11:34 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Via InstapunditALBRIGHT LIED -- PEOPLE DIED

:: Mark 11:25 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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A cool suggestion for reforming the Electoral College from the The National Barking Spider Resurgence Party candidate for POTUS.

The idea: each state will continue to select their electors, based on the same criteria as heretofore. The difference will come during the general election: as each congressional district within a state votes in the popular vote, that is how the elector for that district will be required to vote in the electoral balloting on the Monday following the second Wednesday of December. US Senatorial electors will vote based on the state-wide popular vote.

Go read the whole thing.

:: Mark 9:25 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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A Public Shakedown that has been going on for twenty-five years on many of our nations universities...courtesy of one Ralph Nader.

Each time your kid registers for classes, the local PIRG chapter has arranged with the school to tack a fee on to his/her tuition. On most every campus, the PIRG chapter has made attempts to make this "contribution" as secretive and misleading as possible. Just how secretive and manipulative the method depends on how much resistance each chapter has met in trying to get the scheme implemented. At most schools, they first attempt to make the fee both mandatory and nonrefundable. If that doesn't work, they lobby for as underhanded and sneaky a scheme as the school will allow.

:: Mark 10:08 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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One more chillng reminder that this world has seen great evil that we must never forget, lest it be allowed to return.

NORILSK, Russia — The bones appear each June, when the hard Arctic winter breaks at last and the melting snows wash them from the site of what some people here — but certainly not many — call this city's Golgotha.

The bones are the remains of thousands of prisoners sent to the camps in this frozen island of the Gulag Archipelago. To this day, no one knows exactly how many labored here in penal servitude. To this day, no one knows exactly how many died.

The bones are an uncomfortable reminder of a dark past that most would rather forget.

Evil did not die with Adolf and Eva in a German bunker. It just moved on. It is not dead yet.

:: Mark 9:45 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Chester E. Finn Jr. wants you to decide whether or not Alan Greenspan is the smartest man in America.

I'm not as smart as Greenspan but I had spotted this oddity before he spoke: Many of the people and groups that are shrillest in protesting the loss of American jobs are also the most vocal in resisting the education changes called for by NCLB. Labor unions. Senator John Edwards. And more than a few state legislators.

Maybe they just don't get it: When they balk at fixing their schools and raising education standards, they are saying to employers, "Keep sending your jobs overseas, because we have no intention of supplying you with a competent domestic workforce."

:: Mark 9:39 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Read this:SAF: The Academic Bill of Rights

Lend your support here.

:: Mark 9:28 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Just one gem among many in the Best of the Web Today

"The top bomb-maker for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed in Fallujah," Fox News reports. "The bomb-making lieutenant, whose name wasn't released, died in a gun battle at a terrorist safe house late last week, military sources told Fox." Zarqawi, of course, is the al Qaeda man Colin Powell last year said had been operating inside Saddam's Iraq--but the "antiwar" crowd will still insist there's no connection between Saddam and al Qaeda.

If you don't got read it all, you will be doing yourself a great disservice.

:: Mark 9:16 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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On Ralph and the 2004 presidential elections, the OpinionJournal - Featured Article

It isn't clear that Mr. Nader will hurt the Democratic nominee this year either. By holding down the left flank of the national debate on any subject, Mr. Nader could make Senators Kerry or Edwards look more centrist than they are. In any event, we don't recall this level of media angst about "spoilers" when Ross Perot was damaging GOP candidates in 1992 and 1996.

:: Mark 9:02 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Bush says that there is a new Waffle in town.

"The other party's nomination battle is still playing out. The candidates are an interesting group with diverse opinions," Bush said. "They're for tax cuts and against them. They're for NAFTA and against NAFTA. They're for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. They're in favor of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. And that's just one senator from Massachusetts."

More here.

:: Mark 5:39 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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The International Press Corps should be brought up on charges of Dereliction of Duty.

Keep in mind that the reporters knew full well that all but a handful of polling sites in Tehran — the only place they were able to observe, thanks to the usual clampdown on information — were virtually dead. They knew, or should have known, that the regime had trotted out more than 10,000 "mobile voting booths," that is to say, trucks driving around inviting people to vote. They surely heard the stories — widely repeated on Iranian web sites — of thousands of phony ballots, and of citizens being forced to turn over their identity cards, thus making it possible for others to pose as legitimate voters. They must also have heard that high-school students were warned that if they did not vote they would never get into the universities.

But they did not report any of this.

:: Mark 4:20 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Why is Mary Frances Berry so upset?

An interesting dust-up at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was reported earlier this month on the Chronicle of Higher Education's website. A special assistant to frequent NRO contributor Peter Kirsanow, one of the sane commissioners, sent out a voluntary survey to various universities, asking them whether and how they used racial and ethnic preferences in admissions (a.k.a. affirmative action). As the Chronicle reports, this has infuriated ultraliberal commission chairman Mary Frances Berry.

:: Mark 4:17 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Timely analysis from "The Great One", Mark R. Levin on Election 2004.

Call it preemption. Call it self-defense. Call it liberation. In truth, President Bush is advancing the Reagan Doctrine, or what should now be called the Reagan-Bush Doctrine. Ronald Reagan rejected the Iron Curtain, he rejected Communism, and he rejected the status quo. He came to office when the Soviet Union was extending its tentacles over several continents, including South America. He believed that, for humanitarian and national-security reasons, the Soviets had to be defeated, not tolerated. And against all conventional wisdom, and severe criticism from many of the same Democrats who now disparage George Bush, Reagan did just that. Hundreds of millions were freed, and the Russians are no longer the threat they once were. Who would have thought it? Certainly not the Democrats.

:: Mark 4:03 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Mark Steyn on Canada on National Review Online

When one reads, in a discussion of traffic-booth design, that the United States is descending into fascism and Canada is North America's only civil society, one's heart is naturally inclined to rise above, to regard this as one of the many insignificant tears that fall in the enduring game between two longstanding friends. But, when such teardrops fall every single day, you start to wonder whether it's not something toxic in the air.

:: Mark 4:01 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Some people just can't be helped.

An Islamic state in Nigeria that is at the heart of a spreading Africa polio outbreak declared Sunday it would not relent on its boycott of a mass vaccination program which it called a U.S. plot to spread AIDS and infertility among Muslims.

:: Mark 11:00 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Jimmy Carter's view of his countrymen is not very flattering, still.'Americans oblivious to suffering'

"The problem lies among the people of the U.S.," he said. "It's a different world from ours. And we don't really care about what happens to them."

:: Mark 10:47 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Just how closely associated were John F. Kerry and Jane Fonda in the anti-war movement?
A lot closer than J.F***.K. would like you to think.

"A 34-year-old flier lists speakers for an anti-Vietnam War rally at Valley Forge State Park, Pa., Sept. 7, 1970. Included were two of that era's most notorious leftist agitators, the Rev. James Bevel and Mark Lane, plus actress Jane Fonda, a symbol of extreme opposition to the war. Leading off the list was a less familiar name: John Kerry."

After Valley Forge, Fonda adopted Kerry's group, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, as her "leading cause," according to Kerry biographer Douglas Brinkley.

Minutes for a Sept. 11, 1970, meeting of the VVAW reveal a plan to "coordinate with Jane Fonda's speaking tour," says Novak. She and actor Donald Sutherland, who was also on hand for Valley Forge, had dubbed their road show the "F*** the Army" tour, according to several books chronicling the anti-war movement.

:: Mark 9:38 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Cassandra has a few friends chime in on John F*** Kerry.
Some Veterans' Views on Kerry

Here we have a JFK wannabe (the guy Halsey wanted to court martial for carelessly losing his boat and getting a couple people killed by running across the bow of a Japanese destroyer) who is hardly in Vietnam long enough to get good tan, collects medals faster than Audie Murphy in a job where lots of medals weren't common, gets sent home eight months early and requests separation from active duty a few months after that so he can run for Congress. In that election, he finds out war heroes don't sell well in Massachusetts in 1970, so he reinvents himself as Jane Fonda, throws his ribbons in the dirt with the cameras running to jump start his political career, gets Stillborn Pell to invite him to address Congress and has Bobby Kennedy's speechwriter to do the heavy lifting. A few years later he winds up in the Senate himself, where he votes against every major defense bill and says the CIA is irrelevant after the Berlin Wall came down. He votes against the Gulf War (a big political mistake since that turned out well), then decides not to make the same mistake twice so votes for invading Iraq -- but that didn't fare as well with the Democrats, so he now says he really didn't mean for Bush to go to war when he voted to allow him to go to war.
I'm real glad you or I never had this guy covering out flanks in Vietnam. I sure don't want him as Commander-in-Chief. I hope that somebody from CTF-115 shows up with some facts challenging Kerry's Vietnam record. I know in my gut it's wildly inflated.

:: Mark 9:28 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Run, Ralphie! Run!

"I'd go after Bush even more vigorously as we are in the next few months in ways that the Democrats can't possibly do because they're too cautious and too unimaginative, but they can pick up the vulnerabilities and the failures of the Bush administration that we point out," Nader said Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America."


Nader rejects the spoiler label as a "contemptuous" term used by those who want to deny voters a choice. Declaring Washington a "corporate-occupied territory," he accuses both Democrats and Republicans of being dominated by corporate lobbyists who care little about the needs of ordinary Americans.

:: Mark 8:57 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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2 excellent slide shows that highlight the questions surrounding NASA's plan to abandon the Hubble.

The glory of dying stars

Top 10 space images of 2003

Watch and wonder at the beauty of the Universe.

:: Mark 11:27 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Yup. I agree with Victor Davis Hanson on this issue. I, for one, am tired already.

Thus it was prudent to let all this alone, and not take the bait of thinking a decorated veteran who opposed the war could score points against a supporter of it who did not serve. But the Democrats were not content.

Instead, they floated old accusations that a twenty-something George Bush, who strapped himself into something as dangerous as an obsolete, fire-belching, and occasionally explosive F-102, was somehow near treasonous. Young Bush may have been impetuous and he apparently missed some roll calls, but anyone who rides the stratosphere a few inches above a jet engine is neither a coward nor a man who shirks either danger or responsibility.

Now the Democrats who thought up this low hit on the president will reap what they have sown — as Kerry's entire (and ever-expanding) record of ancient slips and slurs will unnecessarily go under full scrutiny, the sometimes shameful words of a rash and mixed-up youth unfairly gaining as much attention as once brave deeds. By August the American people will be sick to death of Kerry's pandering to veterans — or perhaps as indifferent to his medals as they were to the equally stellar record of sometimes-failed candidates like Bob Dole, Bob Kerry, John McCain, or Gray Davis.


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Since the Democrats viciously and clumsily have attacked one of the most courageous (and humane) policies of any administration in the last 30 years, the American people will soon come to ask what they in fact will propose instead ("put up or shut up"). Most of us are cognizant that bombing from 40,000 feet gives an "exit strategy," but, without soldiers on the ground, postpones the problem of tyrannical resurgence — and thus will inevitably leave either another war for another generation or something far worse still on the horizon like September 11.

There were a number of legitimate areas of debate for the fall campaign — deficits, unfunded security measures at home, moral scrutiny over postwar contracts, more help for Afghanistan, greater control of domestic entitlements, unworkable immigration proposals, and the like. But instead of statesmanship from the opposition, we got slander about Mr. Bush's National Guard service, misrepresentations about intelligence failures that had hampered both previous administrations and the present congress, preference for an unsupportable European position over our own, and stupidity about what to do in Iraq.

Ooooh. He is good. And he's right.

:: Mark 9:52 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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On marriage and the current social debate societal crisis

Michelangelo Signorile, homosexual activist and writer, says the goal of homosexuals is to “fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution of marriage completely, to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society’s moral codes but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution…. The most subversive action lesbians and gay men can undertake…is to transform the notion of ‘family’ entirely.”

:: Mark 4:01 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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"Thanks to Dave Barry for pointing out this unfortunate "headline".

:: Mark 1:35 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Ah, yes..."chemistry."

:: Mark 1:26 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Here we go again.FOXNews.com - Top Stories - High-Tech Nuke Equipment Found in Iran

VIENNA, Austria — U.N. inspectors have discovered high-tech enrichment equipment on an Iranian (search) air force base, diplomats said Thursday. The find appeared to be the first known link of Tehran's (search) suspect nuclear program to its military.

The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the gas centrifuge system was found at an air base outside of the capital. Such equipment is used to process uranium which can then be used for nuclear fuel or warheads, depending on the level of enrichment.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (search), whose inspectors are examining Iran's nuclear activities for signs it was trying to create weapons, declined comment.

I think that we had better follow this one closely.

:: Mark 11:40 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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An excellent reminder from a not so distant past that sometimes you have to act alone in your own defense.

:: Mark 10:29 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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What will be George W. Bush's greatest personal asset in the upcoming election? Peggy Noonan thinks she knows.

What may turn out to be the Republicans' secret weapon, or the secret ingredient of their success? I think that, as always, it comes down to issues. People want higher taxes or lower, seek more personal authority over their social security accounts or not, support the effort in Iraq or do not. But there will also be their sense of who the candidates are as men, in terms of character, personality, gifts and predilections. And that will factor in too. I was asked this week why the president seems so attractive to the heartland, to what used to be called Middle America. A big question. I found my mind going to this word: normal.

:: Mark 9:28 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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This may come as a surprise to some, but in an article titled "I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook" in The Atlantic, Dear Leader comes off sounding a bit eccentric.

(via Instapundit)

:: Mark 9:18 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Some essential differences that need to be considered when evaluating the situation in Iraq.

While the situation has changed in recent years, in many Muslim settings there has been, in theory, no legislative body. The state does not create law: Law creates the state. It would have been almost unimaginable that a group of people, even representative ones, could, by a mere vote, think that they had created some new rule that should govern Muslims' lives and established some new punishment for its infraction. Only God, not men, could make laws and set punishments, and God has already laid down such laws in the sharia.

:: Mark 9:00 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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"Faster, please. "
Michael Ledeen asks of the CIA.

Oddly, just as the foreign minister was announcing Iran's intention to sell enriched uranium to interested parties — thereby spitting in the eye of the French, German, and English diplomats who sang love songs to themselves just a few short months ago, proclaiming they had negotiated an end to the Iranian nuclear program — two smugglers were arrested in Iraq, near Mosul, with what an Iraqi general described as a barrel of uranium. Here is what General Hikmat Mahmoud Mohammed had to say about the event: "This material is in the category of weapons of mass destruction, which is why the investigation is secret. The two suspects were transferred to American forces, who are in charge of the inquiry."

Compulsive readers of these little essays may remember that, late last summer, I told CIA that I had been informed of a supply of enriched uranium in Iraq, some of which had been carried to Iran a few years ago. I had offered to put CIA in touch with the original couriers, who said they would take American inspectors to the site, but CIA could not be bothered to go look.

I am told that the uranium in the barrel near Mosul came from the same secret laboratory. Perhaps now the CIA will think better of my sources, and work harder to find these materials.

Faster, please.

Please read it all.

:: Mark 8:51 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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VodkaPundit asks, "What's wrong with this picture?"

:: Mark 3:43 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Howard Fineman as heard on 'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for Feb. 18

FINEMAN: I don‘t belong to an organized party; I‘m a Democrat.

Now THAT is funny.

:: Mark 3:34 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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The moral case for capitalism is a must read.

The first liberty is liberty from tyranny and torture, provided by a democratic republic. The second is liberty of economic initiative, invention, and enterprise, provided by a free and dynamic economy. The third is liberty of conscience and information and ideas, provided by an open and free civic society. These are the three great liberties — political, economic, and moral. Correspondingly, three steps are required to move from the third world into the first world. A nation must create these three systems one by one. Each nation may do this in its own particular way. No two free nations are exactly alike.

:: Mark 2:34 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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On John Kerry and outsourcing

Thus, to date, the John Kerry presidential candidacy to keep jobs in America has exported its campaign calls to Ontario, its sex scandal to Kenya, and the spousal ketchup to Middlesex. What's wrong with this picture? Nothing. Except Kerry's hostility to the global economy. Part of this is just the necessary image re-positioning of a politician who suffers from the disadvantage that hardly anything about him appears to be American-made. His education, for example, was outsourced to a Swiss finishing school. But the rest of it betrays an ignorance about how the world works.

Instaquote: "Heh"

:: Mark 12:02 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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It is not about the cash...

Rosanne Cash says she and her siblings were livid when she heard her father's hit Ring of Fire might be used for a Preparation H commercial.

''There is no way we will ever let that happen,'' Rosanne said during a phone call Friday. ''We would never allow the song to be demeaned like that.''

:: Mark 11:52 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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This should help negotiations for Palestinian autonomy.

In an interview broadcast on Palestinian Authority television, Ahmad Nasser, secretary of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said the Jewish state has no right to exist because it is "Satan's offspring."

:: Mark 11:50 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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A different perspective on Bush's Guard service.

"He was one of my favorite people to ride formation with, because he was smooth. He was a very competent pilot," Roome said. "You sort of bet your life on each other in some of those formation missions, and to me it was always a pleasure to fly with George. He was good."

More of the same.

[M]ost reporters haven't been interested in Turnipseed's best recollection. "They don't understand the Guard, they don't want to understand the Guard, and they hate Bush," he says. "So when I say, ‘There's a good possibility that Bush showed up,' why would they put that in their articles?"

:: Mark 11:46 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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In response to a discussion that has been going on here and here. I offer the following:
There is an argument that seems to be common in the motivation of those opposed to "nation building"; that being that our failure to act appropriately at some point in the past precludes the option of doing so now. I find this to be absurd in the extreme. While it true that our record of involvement in Central and South American affairs is less than stellar. This stems as much from our dismissal of the importance of many of these nations as it does from a natural reticence at getting too overly involved in the internal affairs of nations with little to no impact on our domestic well-being. The same can be said for Rwanda and many other African, Asian, and European nations and their difficulties that we stayed out of. Could there be a moral case made for intervening in some internecine conflict in some corner of the world on any given day? Sure. Does that mean that we should do so? Not always. However, if a case can be made that the affairs of a nation openly hostile to our own national interests has the potential to cause us harm, then it is our right, and the government’s constitutional duty to address that situation.

As for the subjugation and cultural discrimination aspect, America has only imposed culture where it felt the need to do so as a means of accomplishing the goals stated previously. If a nation or people have their own form of governance, society, and morality, clearly distinct from our own, yet pose no threat to our survival or access to goods and services, we ignore them. It is only when the differences infringe on our interests that we begin to care. Are we always on the “right” side of these disputes when they do arise? No. Does our fallibility rise to the level of justification for inaction in all such circumstances? No again.

Americans, in general, have a bit of the evangelist in our character. We see our own success as a pattern for the success of others. When one system seems to be failing, we have a tendency to encourage the adoption of the system under which we have experienced success. And so we try to attract converts to the American Way; not always successfully. We are saddened by these failures, but accept them if our own lives are not too harshly affected by them. But when the failure of another threatens our own stability, we step in again, and more forcefully.

There are times when we have, as a nation, decided that waiting for the failure is not a prudent course of action. In those cases we stepped in before the fact to prevent the erosion or loss of our liberties, security, allies, or markets; sometimes all of the above. We were never attacked before our entry into WW I, but we saw the events unfolding in Europe as a potential threat to our security. France did not attack us from Mexico following the Civil war, but we sure took an active role in encouraging their expulsion from that nation. The latest events in Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan, follow that same model. Had Saddam directly attacked the United States of America? I don’t recall such and event. Was he actively working to undermine our influence in a region deemed vital to our stability and directly supporting attacks on one or more of our allies in that region? Clearly, yes. So we took the actions that were necessary to remove his ability to cause us and our friends harm. Were the Taliban a direct threat to US interests? No, but they were lending support and protection to someone that was, and so they were removed.

Someone once posted a clear picture of the American psyche in the international scene. The US motivation can be reduced to 3 simple questions: We have some cool stuff; would you like to buy it? I see that you have some cool stuff; can we buy it? HEY! Did you just mess with us or those with whom we trade cool stuff? Answer those three questions correctly and you can do pretty much anything else you want and we will leave you alone.

:: Mark 11:25 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Cool stuff. POE News: Rumsfield Fighting Technique

:: Mark 11:22 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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A brilliant observation from The Protocols of the Yuppies of Zion

If telling other people in other cultures that they should have the right to pick their own government, should have the right to free speech and a free press, and should have the right to sexual/racial/religious equality is "subjugation" thinly masked as altruism, then I think we need more of it, by whatever name you want to assign to it.

:: Mark 10:30 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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On the AP and the whole W in the 'Guard story

:: Mark 10:17 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Some sage advice on controling the expansion of government.

[B]eing slightly less reckless with the taxpayer's money isn't a responsible strategy for the GOP. The president must resolve the Bush Paradox by beginning the fight against growing government and making a passionate case for an ownership society.

You should read it all, and then call your congressmen.

:: Mark 9:10 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Campaign Finance Follies

...some amusing, and embarrassing, reversals of principle. Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi, who for years have denounced the "corruption" of large political contributions, have suddenly discovered an intimate connection between financial donations and free speech. Liberal pundits who have devoted careers to taking dictation from Common Cause by denouncing fat cat donors are suddenly mum about 527s.

:: Mark 9:06 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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the NY Times reports that the Texas rates for imposing capital sentences is below the national average.

Using the same analysis, the study concluded that blacks are actually underrepresented on the nation's death row. Blacks commit 51.5 percent of all murders nationally but constitute about 42 percent of death row inmates, the study found.

Hmmmm... I wonder how many other cherished notions about the inequities of the US justice sytem are based on erroneous interpretations of the data.

:: Mark 11:30 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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If you haven't read this, do. The Right War for the Right Reasons
If you have, do it again.

:: Mark 11:24 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Rummy still rocks.

At the recent conference in Munich, Rumsfeld was asked why the United States doesn't make a fuss about Israeli nuclear weapons. We're supposed to be against nukes, right? Why don't we go after Israel?

Replied the secretary of defense: "You know the answer by yourself, and the whole world knows the answer. Israel is a small country with a small population. It is a democracy, but exists among neighbors who want to see her in the sea. Israel has made it clear that she does not want to be in the sea, and as a result, over several decades, has organized in such a manner as not to be thrown into the sea."

Savor it now, ladies and gents, for we will probably never — ever — see the likes of this fellow, in an office this key, again.

:: Mark 11:22 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Another Arab opinion on the war.

"We should feel humiliated that Saddam's fall came at the hands of the U.S. and Britain," said Osama Al-Ghazali Harb, the editor-in-chief of the Egyptian quarterly Al-Siyassa Al-Dawliya magazine and board member and adviser to the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

:: Mark 10:01 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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One Arab-American's opinion.

"He has saved Iraq," said Mr. Hosseini, who left Iran when he was 13. "He's the savior, if not of Iraq, but also of the other countries around Iraq. They want freedom. I am so sure of this because I am from that part of the world."

And he is not alone.

:: Mark 10:00 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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You will have to read it. It is found near the bottom of the column.
The hunk of celestial bling is an estimated 2,500 miles across...

:: Mark 10:14 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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We are training up a nation full of hypersensitive ninnies with no knowlege of the true diversity that has made this the greatest nation in the history of the Earth. This MUST be stopped.Forbidden words and the ridiculous "education" guidelines that forbid them.

"We may not always understand why a certain word hurts. We don't have to. It is enough that someone says, 'That language doesn't respect me.' " That is, if any word or phrase is likely to give anyone offense, no matter how far-fetched, it should be deleted.

Just a few words that have been deemed to be too "offensive" for inclusion in the text books of our nations public schools: landlord, cowboy, brotherhood, yacht, cult, primitive, Negro, colored person, authoress, handyman, hostess, addict, alumna, alumnae, alumni, alumnus, American, cancer patient, city fathers, elderly, Gentleman's agreement, Ghetto, Grandfather clause, illegal alien, illegitimate, illiterate, manhours, manpower, mankind, manmade, masterpiece, mastery, white collar, blue collar, pink collar, teenager, senior citizen, third world, uncivilized, underprivileged, unmarried, widow or widower, and yes man.

Off limits topics include: terrorism, evolution, aliens and flying saucers

Forbidden images: women with big hair or sleeveless blouses and men with dreadlocks or medallions.
Photographs must not portray the soles of shoes or anyone eating with the left hand (both in deference to Muslim culture).
To avoid giving offense to those who cannot afford a home computer, no one may be shown owning a home computer.
To avoid offending those with strong but differing religious views, decorations for religious holidays must never appear in the background.

:: Mark 11:35 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Hockey and international politics.

"Sounds to us as though someone has taken too many pucks to the head. And it's not Don Cherry. "

:: Mark 11:11 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Full English translation of the Text of Zarqawi Letter

:: Mark 3:58 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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In the Land of Free Time, I would have time to Fisk this tripe. In the Land of the Free

:: Mark 12:14 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Mohamed ElBaradei channels Barry McGuire.

"If the world does not change course, we risk self-destruction," ElBaradei said.

:: Mark 11:52 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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A fatal miscalculation. Regime Thought War Unlikely, Iraqis Tell U.S.

Mr. Hussein believed that a "casualty averse" White House would order a bombing campaign that Iraq could withstand, according to the secret report, prepared for the Pentagon's most senior leadership and dated Jan. 26. And the Iraqi Defense Ministry, in a grand miscalculation, believed that any ground offensive would come across the Jordanian border.

:: Mark 11:28 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Is the ICC a threat to peace? In "A Lawless Global Court" , John Rosenthal says that this just might be the case.

The very idea of an international criminal court may well be a dangerously utopian one to begin with. As various critics of the ICC have pointed out, courts derive whatever democratic legitimacy they may enjoy from being embedded in more comprehensive systems of government in which their powers are checked by democratically accountable institutions. In the absence, then, of a “world government,” a “world court” will necessarily be unbound from all the constraints that prevent judicial practice from degenerating into judicial tyranny. (In deference to this fact, the International Court of Justice, in marked contrast to the ICC, may only adjudicate disputes among states and, even then, only with their consent. It has no jurisdiction over persons.) A careful examination of the ICC’s statute, however, reveals that the icc is not merely a matter of good intentions gone awry in the face of stubborn political realities. The ICC, so to say, has been made to be abused. It threatens to replace a classical international law whose purpose was to secure peace with a supposedly “new” international law whose raison d’être is war.

:: Mark 11:26 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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"Eeeew!" ,they said. And I agree.

Making the point that good scientists must "never take anything for granted," Dean observed that water from a flushed toilet actually would be cleaner for drinking than water untreated from the nearby Mississippi River.

"That's disgusting!" one girl shouted. Another student volunteered that his experiment studied dog urine.

"Now that we're on dog pee, we can have an interesting conversation about that," Dean said. "I do not recommend drinking urine . . . but if you drink water straight from the river, you have a greater chance of getting an infection than you do if you drink urine."

Before leaving, Dean pleaded with his pupils not to tell their parents that "Howard Dean came to my classroom and advised us to drink water from toilets."

:: Mark 9:53 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Over at the OpinionJournal Peggy Noonan is asking for your help in defining the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign.

It is February 2004. In nine months, the big election. The White House, even as I type, is in the process of preparing a huge and high-stakes campaign. They have a foe to fight, money with which to fight the foe, and loyal troops who will march.
When the president's men gather to come up with the themes and rhetorical approaches of 2004, there's a big question that more often goes unarticulated, and unnoticed. It is: How to make it new.

Mr. Bush has been president three years. He has presided over a time of dense history. Most of the voters in the country have been paying more attention than usual. We know what's happened.

The Bush people have to roll it all into, say, one speech, which can be distilled to one paragraph, which people will distill to a sentence or two to explain to themselves and others why they support the president for re-election.

Just about now they'd be coming up with the paragraph.

.........

Now for our challenge. What should the Bush paragraph consist of? How to make it new? How to make it memorable, and true? Readers, you are invited to wrap up in one paragraph what the Bush campaign should say as it unveils itself anew. The White House reads this site. They'll see it. Take the floor and tell them how to do it.

Go ahead and give them a hand. This is your big chance at political superstar status.

:: Mark 9:39 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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This endearing photo courtesy of Sean Hannity

:: Mark 4:36 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Read this one.

a fair mind will conclude Bin Laden's boys are vicious fantasists waging global war. Their ultimate aims are imperial, a 'new caliphate' with bin Laden as Caliph. Their 9/11 was no plea for understanding but the first strike in a series aimed at destroying the West and such unholy notions as individual liberty and the separation of religious authority from secular authority.

:: Mark 3:09 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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ABCNEWS.com reports the following:

Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections.

They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are "conservative positions."

They include a belief that government is a mechanism to solve the nation's problems; that more taxes on corporations and the wealthy are good ways to cut the deficit and raise money for social spending and don't have a negative affect on economic growth; and that emotional examples of suffering (provided by unions or consumer groups) are good ways to illustrate economic statistic stories.

More systematically, the press believes that fluid narratives in coverage are better than static storylines; that new things are more interesting than old things; that close races are preferable to loose ones; and that incumbents are destined for dethroning, somehow.

The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush's justifications for the Iraq war -- in any of its WMD, imminent threat, or evil-doer formulations. It does not understand how educated, sensible people could possibly be wary of multilateral institutions or friendly, sophisticated European allies.

It does not accept the proposition that the Bush tax cuts helped the economy by stimulating summer spending.

It remains fixated on the unemployment rate.

It believes President Bush is "walking a fine line" with regards to the gay marriage issue, choosing between "tolerance" and his "right-wing base."

It still has a hard time understanding how, despite the drumbeat of conservative grass-top complaints about overspending and deficits, President Bush's base remains extremely and loyally devoted to him -- and it looks for every opportunity to find cracks in that base.

I am shocked. "SHOCKED," I say.

:: Mark 9:28 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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BRET STEPHENS asks a thought provoking question.

What if suicide bombings aren't an act of despair at all but something approaching the opposite: a supreme demonstration of contempt for everything Westerners hold dear, not least life itself? What if, too, suicide bombers are no poor-man's F-16 but a robust expression of confidence that the Palestinians are infinitely more ruthless than Israelis in what amounts to a zero-sum game?

:: Mark 9:06 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Now here is an argument for you from William F. Buckley

The success of the terrorists in Iraq can be measured in political units. Every day we are told by the pollsters that if the presidential race were run tomorrow, Bush vs. Kerry, its outcome cannot be predicted, so close are the numbers.

:: Mark 12:06 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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“The Bush Doctrine is dead!",

a friend and triumphant fan of the Democratic party pronounced in my office, upon the news that David Kay could find no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He said this with some ambivalence, wishing, at least for Israel's sake, that Bush hadn't bungled, while savoring the chance for his party's victory.
There is, indeed, a sense that since his lightning victory in Iraq, and despite the capture of Saddam Hussein, Bush's foreign-policy balloon has been popped. America went to war to disarm an unarmed dictator. Bush will never, my friend says, be able to play the WMD card again. Ergo, his doctrine is dead.
I don't think so. Partly because, as former CIA chief James Woolsey has pointed out, the 8,500 liters of anthrax that Iraq admitted it had, if reduced to powder, could have fit into a number of suitcases.
"Saddam's 'stockpile' of biological agent wasn't in his spider hole with him," says Woolsey, "But it could have been." We also don't know what he stashed away in Syria.

Actually, I think that it is just beginning to stretch its wings.

:: Mark 11:58 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Another proposal to Gov. Romney for responding to the recent Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling on marriage.

One overlooked possibility is for the commonwealth to temporarily get out of the marriage business altogether. Since the thrust of the court's reasoning hinges on a finding of presumed equality, the state can satisfy that standard by offering civil marriage indiscriminately to all or to none. In this regard, one of the dissenting justices noted that the majority conceded that the legislature could simply abolish civil marriage.

Intersting stuff. Read it all.

:: Mark 11:56 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Instapundit again.

HERE'S HOW CNN IS SPINNINGthe Zarqawi memo mentioned below. Of course, the memo is actually written by a non-Iraqi, about plans to stir up a sectarian war because Iraqis don't want Al Qaeda to drive the U.S. out. Here's an excerpt from the memo:

With some exasperation, the author writes: "We can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like what has happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases.

"By God, this is suffocation!" the writer says.

Read the whole thing.

:: Mark 10:02 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Instapundit pointed this out. It's a must read.

Firing nine rounds from two handguns, a 53-year-old Rancho Cordova woman fended off an intruder Thursday night after he crashed through her sliding glass door.
William Kriske, a 47-year-old parolee, was treated for a gunshot wound to the arm, then taken to jail and arrested on suspicion of burglary and resisting arrest, according to Sacramento County Sheriff's Sgt. Lou Fatur.

:: Mark 9:45 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Anyway: it's deja vut all over again.

You want to talk imminence? WMD? Democratic concern and conviction? Go back to the papers of 1998; it?s all there, right down to the terrorist links: Hezbollah, for example, swears it will strike Israel if the US attacks Iraq. (A poll of Palestinians showed that 94% supported Iraq, and 77% wanted Iraq to kill Jews if the US attacked Iraq.) Bob Dole was quoted as supporing the strikes but urging Clinton to seek Congressional Authorization. A story on Bush 41?s reaction said that the former president would completely support Clinton if he decided to attack, but noted that Bush 41 urged Clinton to get more international support - which was lacking at the time.

And again...

FLASHBACK: The day the vote was made to impeach President Clinton, Gore delivered a speech in front of a massed group of applauding Democrats at the White House, in which he said that Clinton "will be regarded in the history books as one of our greatest presidents". That was on December 19, 1998. Three days earlier, as CNN wrote, Clinton launched "new military strikes against Iraq"

:: Mark 9:39 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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John O'Sullivan comments on perversion and insanity.

Dennis Nielsen, the British civil servant who strangled young men and then propped up their bodies at the dinner table for company, was told by his biographer that he was probably related to the novelist Virginia Woolf. The news made him uneasy: "I don't like the sound of that. She went mad, you know."

:: Mark 4:48 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Some additional data on Bush's Guard duty.

...on Wednesday Gen. Turnipseed reversed course, telling NBC News: 'I don't know if [Bush] showed up, I don't know if he didn't. I don't remember how often I was even at the base.'

:: Mark 4:41 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Power Line has a letter up entitled:" A Vietnam Vet Against Kerry." I suspect that there are many more who share his assessment of the fronrunner in the Democratic primaries.

I relate all of the above to establish my credentials as a critic of John F. Kerry (hereinafter referred to as "that Prick").

:: Mark 3:51 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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In a column that asks, "Has our culture gone iredeemably to pot, or can we jump for our lives?",
Peggy Noonan is looking for suggestions.

But the question is: How? How to turn it around. I wonder if all the sane adult liberals and conservatives couldn't make progress here. But how. Readers?

:: Mark 9:57 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Read carefully and follow the advice of the Govenor of Massachusetts on the defense of marriage.

No matter how you feel about gay marriage, we should be able to agree that the citizens and their elected representatives must not be excluded from a decision as fundamental to society as the definition of marriage. There are lessons from my state's experience that may help other states preserve the rightful participation of their legislatures and citizens, and avoid the confusion now facing Massachusetts.
In a decision handed down in November, a divided Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts detected a previously unrecognized right in our 200-year-old state constitution that permits same-sex couples to wed. I believe that 4-3 decision was wrongly decided and is deeply mistaken.
Contrary to the court's opinion, marriage is not 'an evolving paradigm.' It is deeply rooted in the history, culture and tradition of civil society. It predates our Constitution and our nation by millennia. The institution of marriage was not created by government and it should not be redefined by government.
Marriage is a fundamental and universal social institution. It encompasses many obligations and benefits affecting husband and wife, father and mother, son and daughter. It is the foundation of a harmonious family life. It is the basic building block of society: The development, productivity and happiness of new generations are bound inextricably to the family unit. As a result, marriage bears a real relation to the well-being, health and enduring strength of society.
Because of marriage's pivotal role, nations and states have chosen to provide unique benefits and incentives to those who choose to be married. These benefits are not given to single citizens, groups of friends, or couples of the same sex. That benefits are given to married couples and not to singles or gay couples has nothing to do with discrimination; it has everything to do with building a stable new generation and nation.

:: Mark 9:48 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Things that make you say "hmmm..."OpinionJournal - Extra

Mr. President, I also rise today--and I want to say that I rise reluctantly, but I rise feeling driven by personal reasons of necessity--to express my very deep disappointment over yesterday's turn of events in the Democratic primary in Georgia.
I am saddened by the fact that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign, and that it has been inserted in what I feel to be the worst possible way. By that I mean that yesterday, during this presidential campaign, and even throughout recent times, Vietnam has been discussed and written about without an adequate statement of its full meaning.
What is ignored is the way in which our experience during that period reflected in part a positive affirmation of American values and history, not simply the more obvious negatives of loss and confusion.
What is missing is a recognition that there exists today a generation that has come into its own with powerful lessons learned, with a voice that has been grounded in experiences both of those who went to Vietnam and those who did not.
What is missing and what cries out to be said is that neither one group nor the other from that difficult period of time has cornered the market on virtue or rectitude or love of country.
What saddens me most is that Democrats, above all those who shared the agonies of that generation, should now be refighting the many conflicts of Vietnam in order to win the current political conflict of a presidential primary.

:: Mark 9:45 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Ouch! Kate O'Beirne on John Edwards on National Review Online

Large contingency fees encourage lawyers' aggression and passion. Who knew that they could improve a lawyer's hearing?

:: Mark 9:30 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Some fascinating analysis of W's campaign strategy from the very astute .American Thinker

By reputation, the President was a very avid and skillful poker player when he was an MBA student. One of the secrets of a successful poker player is to encourage your opponent to bet a lot of chips on a losing hand. This is a pattern of behavior one sees repeatedly in George W. Bush’s political career. He is not one to loudly proclaim his strengths at the beginning of a campaign. Instead, he bides his time, does not respond forcefully, a least at first, to critiques from his enemies, no matter how loud and annoying they get. If anything, this apparent passivity only goads them into making their case more emphatically.

:: Mark 12:01 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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Discriminations: Blacklisting At The University Of Michigan Archives: "Blacklisting At The University Of Michigan "

:: Mark 11:53 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Yeah; that George W. is obviously an idiot judging from this article...

Normally most pledge classes are very tight and very supportive of one another, and we were 50 individuals and were not interested in each other and there was no unity in our class. And they said it was really quite deplorable.
To make this point to us, they started calling on people to get up and name their fellow pledge members. And they called the first person, and he named four or five. And then he didn't know anybody else's name, and they told him what a sorry human being he was and how little he cared about his pledges. Then they called on somebody else and he named eight or ten but didn't know anybody else.
Anyway, the third or fourth person they called on was George. He got up and named all 50. There was this hush that fell over the room.

When will all of the whiney Bush haters get a clue? Probably never, but at least George knows what's up, and who he can count on.

:: Mark 10:15 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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At least john Kerry is consistant in his inconsistancy.

:: Mark 9:25 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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You don't say?

American companies and American consumers don't need trade barriers. They need policies that promote growth and enterprise.

:: Mark 9:04 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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On the budget. OpinionJournal - Featured Article

A useful rule in Washington is that the quality of a President's budget should be judged in inverse proportion to the amount of screaming about it. By that measure the $2.4 trillion Fiscal Year 2005 budget that President Bush proposed yesterday is the best of his tenure. Not that this is a very high bar.

:: Mark 8:59 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Here is one man who is skeptical of the current line on WMD in Iraq. Put me on the list as the second.

Last August I called him in Baghdad to tell him that I had a person ? a good person, like himself, a person I trust ? who was prepared to take him to an underground laboratory from which a quantity of enriched uranium had been taken a few years ago, and smuggled to Iran. Wow, he said, let's go look. Have the guy call me, we'll check it out.
The guy could never get David on the phone because the CIA decided not to investigate after all. The CIA never went to look, and I don't know if that stuff was real or fictional. But this case was totally different from the Potemkin WMDs of David's elegant theory. Because my guy was in contact with the people who said they had moved the stuff from Iraq to Iran. They were now sick, and wanted to tell their story before they got much worse. But, as I say, the CIA never went to look. They pretended they wanted to, they finally met with my guy, but they told him they didn't believe his story (although there was really no reason to either believe it or not, it was a matter of either looking or not, and if you didn't look you couldn't know anything one way or the other). He said the people who had done the smuggling had a full description of the material on a CD Rom, which they were willing to provide. CIA wasn't interested. And that's the end of it, so far as I know.

:: Mark 12:00 PM [+] :: (0) comments
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343 Real numbers in Iraq.

:: Mark 11:54 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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Throw your support behind poor Cecile du Bois who had the audacity to admit that she is against affirmative action right out loud and in school!
Support Cecile du Bois | Samizdata.net

Cecile du Bois is getting grief at her school for opposing affirmative action. Her teacher asked her what she thought about it, and Cecile told her the truth. She is against it. And for that, she got all the grief.

You really should follow that whole story. It is an appalling example of the CRUSHING OF DISSENT that Glenn Reynolds is often referring to.

:: Mark 11:06 AM [+] :: (0) comments
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