OpinionMeister

A Journalist Goes to Jail

2005-07-07T17:29:00.000-07:00

I have very mixed feelings about the jailing of Judith Miller for refusing a grand jury demand for information on a confidential source. On the one hand, this is another case of a special prosecutor gone wild. It was obvious from pretty early on that no crime had been committed, and it was only because such powerful forces as the New York Times demanded the creation of a special prosecutor that the case has proceeded. Special prosecutors keep going as long as they can get a big budget funded. Regular prosecutors would have ended this investigation long ago.

As to the question of protecting confidential sources, I believe Miller is wrong. A very large distinction needs to be made here, but most commentators lump it all together. If an employee of a government agency knows of some abuses of power or even downright illegalities going on at the agency and gives this information to a reporter, that fits the definition of what should be protected. But imagine a man coming up to a reporter and telling him or her that he had committed a murder. The reporter wrote all of the gory details of the murder, but refuses to name the first-person source. That should not be protected.

In this case, if a crime had been committed, it would have been the very act of telling the reporter about Valerie Plame. This is not a case of a person telling a reporter of an offense he or she had witnessed. This is a case of a reporter witnessing a person committing an act that the special prosecutor was created to determine if it was a crime. I do not believe that the leak constituted a crime, but if the special prosecutor can prove otherwise, Miller is protecting a felon.

Some Thoughts on the SC Nomination Fight

2005-07-07T13:50:00.000-07:00

As for who it should be, I only have two thoughts for the President. 1) Do not go with a "moderate." This fight is winnable, so get a truly conservative jurist. By this I do not mean someone who would actively advance politically conservative policies, but one who will interpret the constitution as the founders intended. 2) From a political point of view, any of the three filibustered jurists that got in on "The Deal" would be hard for the Democrats to attack quite as ferociously as they might others. Having found them acceptable only a month ago, their attacks would sound rather hollow, and if a filibuster starts and cloture fails, some of the 7 RINOs who were in on the deal will likely vote to change the Senate rules.

This will not be a repeat of the Bork fight. For one thing, the Republicans now form a majority in the Senate. Yet even more important is what they learned in the Bork fight. That was like the war on terrorism before 9/11. Al Qaida had declared war on the US, but the US did not notice and was not at war with al Qaida. While the Democrats followed the rule that "all's fair," the Republicans thought they were in a gentlemanly dispute. That will not happen this time. Both sides will mobilize, and in a situation like that, the majority Republicans will prevail.

Cause and Effect

2005-06-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

Apropos of the post below, UPI reports on the latest poll conducted by the Democrats. Link.

A poll on the political mood in the United States conducted by the Democratic Party has alarmed the party at its own loss of popularity.
Conducted by the party-affiliated Democracy Corps, the poll indicated 43 percent of voters favored the Republican Party, while 38 percent had positive feelings about Democrats. [...]
Stanley Greenberg, who served as President Clinton's pollster, [...] told the Christian Science Monitor he attributes the slippage to voters' perceptions that Democrats have "no core set of convictions or point of view."

Given the total lack of ideas and a policy of total opposition to anything the president favors, the surprise should have been that the numbers have held up as well as they did, not that they have dropped.

Rushing to Prove Rove Right

2005-06-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

I see a great deal of irony in the statements of Democrats in the last few weeks. First, they were attacking Carl Rove for correctly saying that liberals (he never said Democrats, and he identified specifically some of the liberals he was talking about) were more appeasers than fighters in the war against terrorists.

This continued right up until the day when President Bush addressed the American people on the situation in Iraq. He said nothing new, but he very impressively reiterated his stand on Iraq and its place in the war on terror. He identified Iraq as the main front in that war, which had begun on 9/11/01, and he restated the connections between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations, which had been spelled out in the congressional resolution authorizing the Iraq invasion, which many Democrats had voted for.

Following the speech, leading Democrats ran for the news microphones to tell the world that they had no idea what had been in the resolution they had voted for and that there was no connection between Iraq and any parties that had anything to do with 9/11. They attacked the president for mentioning 9/11, as if it were some distant historical issue that had no relevance to our present situation.

I cannot imaging any stronger verification of Carl Rove's speech. Rove might as well have been the speech writer for the Democrats.

New Israeli Screen for Terrorists

2005-06-24T09:31:00.000-07:00

The World Tribune reports on a new screening technology developed in Israel. Link.

The passenger places his passport on a scanner and the other hand on a sensor. He is then asked to answer written questions indicated by the passport while a special detector measures physiological responses.

Executives said the SDS-VR-1000 system, meant to replace human selectors, was based on the expertise of former officials from the Mossad and Israel Security Agency. [...]
"What this does is collect objective data out of the passenger's ID Â and it analyzes the data compared to the subjective data it collects while the passenger is asked different questions," Shoval said. "The process takes about three minutes, and the passenger either receives a transfer printout authorizing him to advance to the next stage of entry to the country, or an announcement that he is required for further questioning. A monitoring official will then escort the passenger to another area for further questioning."

Executives said that in trials the SDS-VR-1000 achieved a success rate of 95 percent. They said Israeli authorities have approved the system and would undergo testing later in 2005 in Israel at an unidentified U.S. airport.

With very good reason, Israel for years has been in the forefront in developing technology to screen passengers for terrorists. I am reminded of two other articles I read that fit together very well with this one. One quoted an Israeli security expert who commented that at US airports they look for bombs or other weapons. At Israeli airports, they look for terrorists.

The other told of another screening technology that is already in use. It is not automated, but rather assists human screeners by identifying when a person is lying, based on a profile of his voice. I imagine that passengers flagged by the new SDS-VR-1000 will then be questioned by human screeners using this "older" technology (the quotes are because this is only older by a few years).

I would recommend that, not only should TSB buy both technologies for all international airports in the US, but in addition the Custom Service should buy the one that is used by human screeners. Today, Customs agents ask mobs of people a few questions and make a quick call on such factors as whether they see perspiration on the passengers lip.

Another Bad 5-4 Decision

2005-06-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court decided that local communities can seize your home for a private development. Link.

The 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes to generate tax revenue.

Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.

"The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including -- but by no means limited to -- new jobs and increased tax revenue," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use." [...]
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers. [...]She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

The majority had an abominable reading of the takings clause of the constitution. We need more justices like Thomas, Scalia and Rehnquist. Unfortunately, Rehnquist is the most likely near-term retirement of the nine. When he does, my choice for Chief Justice is Thomas.

Rove Hits Nail on the Head

2005-06-23T10:06:00.000-07:00

While Republican elected officials lined up to accept Dick Durban's non-apology, the NY Times reports that Carl Rove differed with them. Link.

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.

Citing calls by progressive groups to respond carefully to the attacks, Mr. Rove said to the applause of several hundred audience members, "I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble." [...]
Mr. Rove also said American armed forces overseas were in more jeopardy as a result of remarks last week by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, who compared American mistreatment of detainees to the acts of "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others."

"Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year?" Mr. Rove asked. "Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."

I hope that the Republicans holding their fire is only temporary. In Congress, they have to work with the Democrats, so there is reason for restraint (even though Democrats in both houses see no such reason for restraint).

Come next year, Republican challengers should echo Rove in their attacks of the incumbents they face. If their opponents attacked the Guantanamo guards, tell the voters that they have put our troops in greater danger, and increased the number of casualties we have suffered. If they had called for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, they should try something like, "My opponent wants to turn Iraq over to the terrorists, where they will have safe camps to train fanatics to come to the US and kill American civilians. I prefer that, if we must have terrorists, they spend their time bombing Iraqis in Iraq, rather than Americans in the US."

For Republican incumbents, they can use the same arguments, just against generic Democrats rather than their specific opponents, until they make similar statements in the campaign, and then attack them specifically.

Latest Hillary Book Seems Avoidable

2005-06-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

I avoided commenting on Ed Klein's latest Hillary book, because the published excerpts seemed so outlandish and unprovable. But John Podhoritz's review hit some nails on the head. Link.

This is one of the most sordid volumes I've ever waded through. Thirty pages into it, I wanted to take a shower. [...]
Despite a distinguished journalistic pedigree including stints as the editor of both Newsweek and The New York Times Magazine, Klein has chosen to emulate the works of the highly dubious bio-defamer Charles Higham, who with the slimmest of evidence wrote books claiming that Errol Flynn was a gay Nazi spy and Howard Hughes was a bisexual.

Klein may offer a few words here or there about Whitewater or Travelgate, but what really floats his boat is the Higham-like notion that Sen. Clinton is secretly a lesbian. [...]
Everything in this book that matters has been written before, and better. Everything else in it shouldn't have been published.

This work sounds so bad that it might discredit well researched anti-Hillary works. Perhaps that is its purpose. I usually blow off conspiracy theories, but Ed Klein's background as editor with Newsweek and the New York Times Magazine definitely precludes his membership in the "vast right-wing conspiracy." But not in the "vast left-wing conspiracy." Could he be trying to improve Hillary's chances by making her a victim in such a clumsy manner?

The Arnold Revolution Continues

2005-06-22T09:53:00.000-07:00

Pete du Pont, former governor of Delaware, has an article in Opinion Journal with an overview of what the Governator is doing in California. Link.

A week ago the governor called a special election for Nov. 8 to vote on three policy changes that the Democrat-controlled legislature has refused to consider: stronger state spending restraints, higher standards for public school teachers, and retired judges rather than legislators drawing legislative district boundaries.

The most economically important is Measure 1131, which would put additional controls on state spending. Mr. Davis drove spending up by one-third in his five years in office; Mr. Schwarzenegger's proposition would limit spending increases to average revenue growth over the previous three years and give the governor the power to reduce spending if revenue decreases and the legislature fails to act to correct the deficit.

A second proposition seeks to improve the quality of California public school teachers' skills by requiring five instead of three years of work before they gain tenure and making two consecutive unsatisfactory evaluations sufficient reason to fire a teacher.

Finally comes the most politically explosive Schwarzenegger proposal--mandating the drawing of legislative district lines by retired judges. [...]
Two other emotional proposals have already qualified for the November vote--parental notification and a two-day wait for unmarried girls 17 and under to receive an abortion, and requiring a public employee's written consent before a union can spend his dues money for political contributions.

This will be a very important off-year election. All of the best laws passed in California are by initiative. The legislature is only interested in selling special privileges to special interests. Only the initiative process allows the people to get any laws that work in their favor. Yes, sometimes left-wing interests get initiatives on the ballot, and sometimes they pass, but the bits of glaring sanity greatly outnumber them.

UN Celebration is a Low Priority

2005-06-16T14:23:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reports that a celebration of the 60th anniversary of the UN will only rate a low level attendee. Link.

Organizers of a celebration here to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations had expressed concern for weeks that the Bush administration would shun the event as a snub to the world body.

On Wednesday, organizers learned that big-name invitees - among them, President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - would not attend.

In their place, said Nancy L. Peterson, president of the United Nations Association of San Francisco, the administration indicated that it would send Ambassador Sichan Siv, the United States representative to the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

If it were not for the Dem's filibuster, we would have a UN ambassador to sent to the event. Barring that, the administration made the right call. Unless John Bolton succeeds in bringing about major reform, the UN is worthless, and the administration should let them know that they are worthless.

Murder vs Rap Music - Durbin Says There's No Difference

2005-06-16T12:15:00.000-07:00

Dick Durbin's latest speech on the Senate floor demonstrates that he has completely gone over the edge. Link.

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat has compared the U.S. military's treatment of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, three of history's most heinous dictators, whose regimes killed millions.

His basis for this statement was an accusation by an FBI agent:

that one al Qaeda suspect was chained to the floor, kept in an extremely cold air-conditioned cell and forced to hear loud rap music.

In all the reports and books I have read concerning the Nazi and Communist death camps, I never learned that they had used air conditioning and rap music as weapons of choice. If Democrats think that this is torture, what name can we give to what really happened in the various death camps, concentration camps and reeducation camps.

For decades, the Democrats had to fight against an image that they were soft on crime and criminals. Dick Durbin just handed on a silver platter the new image that Democrats are soft on terrorism and terrorists. They fall over each other to complain against the treatment of terrorists, but when was the last time you heard any of them have a word to say about the victims of terrorism?

The Bolton Filibuster

2005-06-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times reports on a new attempt for closure. Link.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said yesterday he will force another vote to end a filibuster of President Bush's pick to be ambassador to the United Nations at the end of this week, and called Democrats' recent letter requesting information "absurd."

I have a much better idea for Senator Frist. Get the Republican caucus together and arrange for a disciplined vote as follows: After the cloture vote fails, hold a vote on a Senate rules change to ban filibusters on nominations of UN ambassadors, and force a majority vote up or down.

Imagine the impact if this passes. No issue will have been created for the Democrats to exploit, because lifetime appointments to the bench are not involved, but a huge vat of ice water will have been poured on the heads of Democrats planning filibusters of future judicial nominations. What better demonstration could there be that the Republicans stand ready to change the Senate rules to ban judicial filibusters, if it becomes necessary.

Unions to AFL-CIO "Get Lost"

2005-06-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times reports that five unions, representing about 40% of the AFL-CIO membership, are talking of setting up a new umbrella organization that will spend its money on union organizing, rather than on politics. Link.

The new group would include the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Unite Here, Laborers' International Union of North America, and Teamsters union. [...]
AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said following an executive committee meeting yesterday that the labor federation must pursue a dual strategy.
"Union growth and workers' political power are fundamentally linked and we must strengthen both simultaneously," he said.
Mr. Sweeney gets credit for boosting the AFL-CIO's political efforts, but critics blame him for failing to stop a decline in membership. The number of people in unions has fallen from 35 percent of the work force in 1955 to 12.5 percent, or 13 million workers, today. Only about 8 percent of private-sector workers are in unions.

European unions, which first organized when workmen did not have the vote, have always been very political, since they had been an alternative to electoral governance. In the US, workmen had the vote long before unions began to organize, and it was the non-political unions, whose only concern was "More", that attracted the most members.

As unions lost their appeal in the private sector and government employee unions became a majority of the AFL membership, political action served the interest of those members, but was unwelcome to the private sector members. The interests of government employee unions and private sector unions are very much at variance and maybe it is time to recognize that a single umbrella organization that tries to represent them both is a dinosaur.

Old Europe Beats New - EU to Appease Cuba

2005-06-14T10:08:00.000-07:00

The New York Sun reports that the appeasers, led by Spain, defeated the hard liners, led by the Czech Republic, to extend the "temporary" suspension of sanctions against Cuba. Link.

The European Union decided yesterday not to restore diplomatic sanctions it imposed on the island in 2003, affording Mr. Castro a year of "constructive dialogue" before next reconsidering whether to ban high-level diplomats' visits to Cuba, open embassies in Havana to Cuban dissidents, and take other measures that have greatly irked Cuba's strongman.

The decision was issued at yesterday's External Relations Council meeting, a gathering of the foreign ministers of the 25 E.U. member states, in Luxembourg. It was the most recent development in a diplomatic saga that began in March 2003, when Mr. Castro rounded up and jailed 75 independent academics, journalists, and librarians, among other opponents, in what is known on the island as the "primavera negra," or "black spring."

In the aftermath of the crackdown, in June 2003, the E.U. responded with diplomatic sanctions on the island. Among other measures, the European Union suspended high-level diplomatic contact with Havana, and began inviting dissidents to celebrations of national holidays, where members of the opposition movement were afforded valuable access to representatives of the world's second largest economic power.

The Europeans' retaliation infuriated Mr. Castro, who promptly declared a "freeze" on his relations with the continent, posing difficulties for countries with economic interests on the island. That freeze thawed in January, when Spain - under the governing hand of the Socialist prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and his foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos - pushed the E.U. to lift the sanctions for a six-month trial period.

High-level diplomatic contact was reinstated, and dissidents were uninvited from the national holiday celebrations, with the hope that ending some of the E.U. practices bothersome to Mr. Castro would foment "constructive dialogue" with the regime in order to bring about reform.

Six months later, the E.U. has determined that even though "there was no satisfactory progress on human rights in Cuba," it remains willing "to maintain a constructive dialogue with the Cuban authorities, on a reciprocal and non-discriminatory basis ... with the aim of achieving tangible results with regard to human rights, democratization and the release of political prisoners." The E.U.'s diplomatic sanctions "remain suspended" until June 2006, when the union will next reconsider its common position.

In this respect, Zapatero is no different from the liberal Democrats. Both have never met a communist dictatorship that they didn't like. Can anyone imaging Chris Dodd, John Kerry or Ted Kennedy voting with the Czechs. This EU vote certainly passes Kerry's global test. But for a few electoral votes, this is where the US could have been.

Kerry's Form 180

2005-06-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

In the Daily Standard, Dean Barnett has an article entitled "Trust, But Verify" that stresses our need to not take at face value the assertions of the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times that they received the complete records until they publish the actual Form 180 and the contents of the file. Link.

First, there's the matter of logistics. When one signs a Form 180, he specifies the party or parties to whom the documents will
be released. In Kerry's case, the specified parties were apparently the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times, two newspapers not known for their hostility towards liberal politicians. Other than the parties you specify on your Form 180, no one else gets the records.

Next, there's the issue of completeness. One can sign a Form 180, but doing so doesn't necessarily mean that you intend to have all of your military records released. If you follow the link and look at an actual Form 180, you'll see an entry for "other information and/or documents requested." Below this point, a veteran can limit the information request in any way he sees fit. [...]
What's more, both papers have refused to share Kerry's records with other publications or to post them on their websites. So, in sum, here's where things stand: In order to settle long-standing and serious accusations, Senator Kerry and his campaign dealt exclusively with two partial newspapers. Those papers, in turn, refused to make completely public or transparent either the nature of the transaction or the precise contents of what they received. [...]
But both papers are guilty of failing to comprehend the shifting dynamic in news coverage and consumption. We live in an age where home-schooled journalists have made a habit of correcting once revered institutions like CBS News and the New York Times.

Serious consumers of news prefer to co-exist with the mainstream media using Ronald Reagan's maxim: Trust, but verify. This means readers and viewers want a gander at primary sources whenever practical. It also means that when a media organ says in effect, "Just trust me," the plea will have precisely the opposite effect of what's intended.

The very process Kerry followed screams "Coverup!". Either you open your records or you do not, and he did not. In court, you swear to tell not just the truth, but the whole truth and nothing but the truth. In picking and choosing the records and the recipients of the records, John Kerry may be revealing the truth, but certainly not the whole truth.

Laffer Proved Right Again

2005-06-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal reports on the latest findings from the Congressional Budget Office. Link. (subscription required)

Last week the Congressional Budget Office released its latest report on tax revenue collections. The numbers are an eye-popping vindication of the Laffer Curve and the Bush tax cut's real economic value. Federal tax revenues have surged in the first eight months of this fiscal year by $187 billion. This represents a 15.4% rise in federal tax receipts over 2004. Individual and corporate income tax receipts have exploded like a cap let off a geyser, up 30% in the two years since the tax cut. Once again, tax rate cuts have created a virtuous chain reaction of higher economic growth, more jobs, higher corporate profits, and finally more tax receipts.

This Laffer Curve effect has also created a revenue windfall for states and cities. As the economic expansion has plowed forward, and in some regions of the country accelerated, state tax receipts have climbed 7.5% this year already. Perhaps the most remarkable story from around the nation comes from the perpetually indebted New York City, which suddenly finds itself more than $3 billion IN SURPLUS thanks to an unexpected gush in revenues. Many of President Bush's critics foolishly predicted that states and localities would be victims of the Bush tax cut gamble.

The Laffer Curve is a simple truism. Government revenues will be zero either if the tax rate is set at zero or if it is set at 100%. Despite the strong belief to the contrary by Democrats in Congress, if the tax rate is set at 100%, people will not continue to work as much as they do now and give all of their money to the government. They will stop working and earn zero pre-tax, since they will earn zero after tax no matter what.

Starting from these two extremes, government revenues will increase both with rate increases from zero or with rate reductions from 100%. At some point, the curve will peak at a rate where government revenues will be at their maximum. Any change from there, up or down, will reduce revenues. Rational and intelligent people can disagree as to just where that peak is, but you cannot logically argue that it does not exist.

Where the peak is cannot de deduced by logic. It can only be approximated by experience. When President Reagan cut the top rate from 70% to 28%, government revenues rose rapidly. Unfortunately Congress raised spending even faster. Since the Bush tax cuts, revenues have been rising rapidly, although, again, Congress has been spending more than the additional revenues that are coming in.

Iranian People Among Our Closest Friends

2005-06-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

PR Newswire carries a press release from an outfit named Belga concerning a recent opinion poll conducted in Iran. Link.

A recent public opinion survey of Iranians, conducted by The Tarrance Group,
surprisingly found that a vast majority (74%) of Iranians feel America's
presence in the Middle East will increase the probability of democracy in their
own country. The survey, which was the first of its kind, found two-thirds of
Iranians believe that regime change in Iraq has been a positive for both
neighboring countries: with 66% believing that it served Iran's national
interests, while 65% believed the Iraqi people will, in the long-run, be better
off.

Commissioned by the Iran Institute for Democracy, the survey discovered that a
solid majority (65%) of Iranian adults consider fundamental change in Iran's
system of government, especially its Constitution, a must to bring freedom and
more opportunities to their homeland.

Validating reports of widespread discontent with the clerical regime,
three-fourths of Iranians (73%) support the call for a national referendum
through which Iranians are given a chance to choose the form of government of
their choice. Significantly, almost all Iranians reject their government's
attempts to keep exiled Iranians out of the political and economic equation of
Iran. Fully 84% of all Iranians say Iranians living abroad should have a role
in shaping the political and economic future of their homeland.

There has been little doubt for some time that the Iranian people are among the most pro-America population anywhere. The biggest shame is that, while our administration gives lip service to the anti-Mulah demonstrators, we have not supported them in any material way. The breadth of the opposition to the government there in staggering, far more than had been the case in Georgia and Ukraine.

Regime change in Iran should be our number one priority, and all it would take is moral and political suppoirt for the Iranian people. No troops would be needed.

Dems Need a Sense of Humor

2005-06-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

While DNC Chair Howard Dean continues to demonstrate a total lack of a sense of humor, RNC Chair Ken Mehlman demonstrates a delightful one. Link.

Dean said last week that a lot of Republicans "have never made an honest living in their lives." The comment sparked a roiling controversy. Some prominent Democrats, including Sen. John Edwards, of North Carolina, criticized Dean for the remark. [...]

In another controversial remark, Dean recently characterized Republicans as "pretty much a white, Christian party."

During an earlier event yesterday, Mehlman poked fun at Dean's comment. At a reception for him by the Republican Jewish Coalition, held at the Duquesne Club, Mehlman quipped: "Good afternoon, my fellow white Christians."

If you are addressing the angry far left, pure hate can work, but you cannot go after undecided voters that way. Dean appears to know how to talk to moveon.org types, but he is turning off middle-of-the-road America. Mehlman, on the other hand, makes an excellent impression (in my opinion) in his TV appearances.

Hillary and the Left Coast Left

2005-06-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

Bob Novak found strong opposition among California Democrats to Hillary as the presidential nominee in 2008. Link.

LOS ANGELES -- Back east, well-placed Democrats have agreed that the party's 2008 nomination is all wrapped up better than three years in advance. They say that the prize is Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's for the asking, and that she is sure to ask. But here on the left coast, I found surprising and substantial Democratic opposition to going with the former first lady.

Both the Hollywood glitterati and the more mundane politicians of Los Angeles are looking elsewhere. They have seen plenty of Sen. Clinton over the past dozen years, and they don't particularly like what they've seen. Two far less well-known Democrats -- Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh -- were hits on recent visits to California, mainly because they were not Hillary. [...]
At a dinner party in a private room of a Los Angeles restaurant attended by eight Democratic politicians (including City Council members and a county supervisor), I was asked to assess the political scene. I concluded with a preview of the distant events of 2008. While there had not been so open a race for the Republican nomination since 1940, I said, Clinton was dominant for the Democrats. For someone who is neither an incumbent president nor vice president to have apparently locked the nomination so early is without precedent.

As I made this analysis, the liberal Democratic functionary across the table from me shook his head in disagreement. He left his seat between courses, and then returned with this announcement: "There are eight Democrats in this room. I've taken a little poll, and none of them -- none -- are for Hillary for president. They think she is a loser."

Talking to some of them, I found concern that Hillary carries too much baggage from her turbulent marriage and her husband's presidency to do any better than John Kerry did last year. One female office holder was looking hard for another Southern moderate who could bite into the Confederacy as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton had done.

Another woman office holder was hostile to a Clinton candidacy on a more personal basis. "Don't think that Hillary has the women's vote," she told me. "I will never forgive her for sticking with her husband after he humiliated her. It's something I can't get over."

Sometimes in politics, the three most important things are baggage, baggage and baggage. Hillary has got plenty of it. After running one barely contested race, she has been proclaimed a political genius, but her political abilities have never been tested, and a presidential race is a poor choice for on-the-job training. She has the most name recognition of any potential Democrat in the 2008 race, but that is not the same thing as political smarts. She made it into the senate by hiding from the press and the voters, but you cannot do that in a presidential race. The last candidate to try was President Taft in 1912, and he ended up in third place, quite a distinction for an incumbent president.

Dems and the Black Voter

2005-06-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

Tony Snow has an interesting article about the Democrats' growing problem with black voters. Link.

In subtle and unstated ways, Howard Dean has aired a dirty little secret. Democrats have a growing problem with black voters, and it stems from three sources. First comes the simple fact that government "help" has proved an unmitigated disaster for low-income black Americans. Eighty years ago, black children in such places as New York, Philadelphia and Detroit were more likely to grow up in two-parent homes than whites. Now, 70 percent of the nation's black children are born out of wedlock, black men comprise 70 percent of the nation's prison population, black graduation rates lag far behind white rates — and all these numbers have worsened by several degrees of magnitude since Uncle Sam launched the war on poverty.

Second comes the fact that the war on poverty itself degenerated into a vast insult against black Americans. Poverty programs assumed that blacks lived naturally in a state of poverty, lawlessness, ignorance and cupidity — and that there was nothing blacks themselves could do about it. The culprits, after all, were "root causes" such as slavery.

In other words, black Americans couldn't conquer hardship without white help. It was a small step for left-wing officeholders to treat minority voters as dependents, who owed absolute fealty to their kind benefactors. This explains why conservative blacks receive such vituperation from the likes of Sen. Edward Kennedy. It is as if an ungrateful child had spurned a generous and loving parent, who could only watch in exasperation and declare: "After all I've done for you!"

Third, a values gulf has opened between the Democratic Party and black voters. The key Democratic interest groups focus on two causes — prolonging the sexual revolution and suppressing conventional religious expression. The party's untouchable cause, abortion, has more appeal to white suburban housewives than to more conservative blacks. Ditto for gay marriage, and the growing Democratic hysteria about religion, which dismisses orthodox religious views as "extreme."

Black voters have trickled away from the Democratic fold without flocking to the GOP. Polling indicates that a growing percentage of black voters identify themselves as "independents."

Republicans should have had an easy time appealing to black voters. The Democrats were the party of slavery and later the party of Jim Crow. It was Democrat senators who killed every anti-lynching and civil rights bill until 1964, and even then they tried unsuccessfully. Their senior member in the senate is a former kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan, who personally participated in the filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act passed over Southern Democrat opposition because the Republicans voted in large numbers for them.

The so-called "War on Poverty," which did little or nothing to end poverty, but helped to destroy the cohesion of black families and black neighborhoods, gave its hundreds of billions of dollars not to the poor, but to "poverty professionals." Included in that definition was anyone whom the MSM identified as a "black leader." These people were bought and paid for, and they have spent the decades since telling black voters that the Democrats are their friends and that the Republicans want to reinstitute slavery or at least Jim Crow.

As long as black voters had no alternative to the liberal media monopoly, they never heard the truth about who fought for their rights and who opposed those rights. Now, with the media monopoly broken, more and more black voters are learning that most of their ideas are shared by the Republicans, not the Democrats, and that the Democrats take them for granted.

No Need For an FDA

2005-06-08T09:20:00.000-07:00

Readers of this blog know that I believe that we would be better off without the Food and Drug Administration, or at least with it greatly reduced in authority. I now discover that John Stossel agrees with me. Link.

Without an FDA, how would doctors and patients know which drugs were safe and effective?

The same way we know which computers and restaurants are good — through newspapers, magazines and word of mouth. In a free, open society, competition gets the information out, and that protects consumers better than government command and control.

Why must we give big government so much power? Couldn't FDA scrutiny be voluntary and advisory? Companies that want government blessing would go through the whole process and, after 10 or 15 years, get the FDA's seal of approval. Those of us who are cautious would take only FDA-approved drugs.

But if you had a terminal illness, you could try something that might save your life. You could try it without having to wait 15 years — without having to break your country's laws to import it illegally from Europe — without sneaking into Mexico to experiment in some dubious clinic. If I'm dying, shouldn't my government allow me the right to try whatever I want?

If FDA scrutiny were voluntary, the government agency would soon have competition. Private groups like Consumer Reports and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) might step in to compete with the FDA. The UL symbol is already on thousands of products. No government force was required. Yet even though UL certification is voluntary, its safety standards are so commonly accepted that most stores won't carry products without the UL symbol.

99.9% of the time, private organizations will do a better job than a government agency. Having to make a profit, or even just having to break even for a non-profit agency, introduces a discipline that ususally produces a better outcome than civil service, you-cannot-be-fired-no-matter-how-bad-a-job-you-do agencies.

The only incentive that the FDA has is to never approve a drug that may someday prove to be unsafe, and the only way to insure that is to never approve any drug. They cannot quite get away with that, so instead they require a decade or more of testing beyond when a rational observer would see that a drug is reasonably safe and effective, thus insuring that very few make it through the process.. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Americans die.

Number of Late-Filing Congressmen Goes Up

2005-06-07T10:55:00.000-07:00

More and more congressmen keep "remembering" that they had taken trips paid for by others and had not reported it. The Washington Times reports that the total is now up to 200. Link.

More than 200 lawmakers have rushed to correct travel-disclosure statements in recent months as reporters on Capitol Hill discover more discrepancies in the wake of questions about travel by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. [...]
Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr., a Tennessee Democrat who is running for the Senate, holds first place as Congress' most prolific traveler since 2000. While his travel reports have been trouble-free in recent years, that has not always been the case.
From 1998 to 2003, he took 61 privately funded trips. During that period, he failed to file a single travel-disclosure form with the House clerk, as required by the chamber's ethics rules. [...]
In terms of travel at the expense of others, Mr. DeLay is far from top of the heap, ranking 30th in value of trips taken, according to PoliticalMoneyLine.

In trying to Get DeLay, the Dems have opened up a can of worms that may hurt them significantly in 2006. Tom DeLay had filed the necessary paperwork for each of his trips. It now appears that a majority of congressmen, including lots of Democrats, had not.

Thomas Calls it Right in Raich Case

2005-06-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

The Supreme Court was just plain wrong to say that the Commerce Clause applies to situations where a state has legalized medical marijuana. The court has a long history, going back to the New Deal, of finding the commerce clause applicable where there is no tiny bit of interstate commerce involved.

The best argument was in a separate dissent by Justice Thomas.

Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything -- and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.

While Justice Scalia's complex concurrence tried to count the angels on the head of a pin, Justice Thomas quickly and simply got to the heart of the matter. This is typical of Thomas, and I think he has the best legal mind and best logical thinking on SCOTUS (the Supreme Court of the United States).

Christianity in China

2005-06-02T10:34:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article on the spread of Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, both official, state-controlled churches and underground churches, in China. Link. (subscription required)

SHANGSHUI, China -- From a factory in this small city, Su Xueling's company churned out blocks of instant noodles that are a fast-food staple across this country.

But these noodles had a mission. Stamped with the company's brand, "Gospel Noodles," they announced Ms. Su's faith in a country that frowns upon religion. Ms. Su then used her modest profits, as well as government connections, to start a seminary that trained hundreds of evangelical preachers to spread Christianity across China.

"I wanted to do something to pay back God," says Ms. Su, 46 years old. "So I decided to run my business to spread my religion."

Using private profit to spread religion may seem unremarkable in places like the U.S., where freedom of religious expression is a given. But in China, government regulations limit the circulation of Bibles, proscribe the public display of religious symbols and forbid public proselytizing. Ms. Su's decision was a bold step that set her on a collision course with China's communist government, which is trying both to accommodate the rise of Christianity -- and control it.

A wave of religious revival that washed across the largely poor countryside in the 1990s is pouring into the cities, sweeping up entrepreneurs, professors and business professionals. In a nation of 1.3 billion people, Protestants and Catholics now number more than 45 million, in the conservative estimates of foreign scholars and missionaries, up from six million 25 years ago. Protestant groups account for the largest share of the growth.

With social standing, entrepreneurial flair and money, these new converts are less cowed by government authority and are becoming a force in Christianity's rise in China. The situation is stretching the boundaries of official tolerance and loosening the Communist Party's influence over a growing population.

President Hu Jintao told a closed-door gathering of the party elite in September that religion represents a leading threat to communist rule, along with democracy activists, according to people briefed on the speech. The government's information office says that characterization isn't accurate, but wouldn't elaborate, saying the speech wasn't for public circulation.

In a dictatorship, especially a totalitarian one, there must be no intermediary groups, only the government and the people. The inability of the Soviets to destroy or fully control the Catholic Church in Poland played an important role in its eventual loss of that satellite, and the beginning of a row of dominoes that led to its own demise.

Churches and seminaries being funded totally outside of the government's sphere is a step that is totally incompatible with a totalitarian dictatorship. At the least, the Chinese government, if they cannot stop these developments, will be forced to become a "merely" authoritarian dictatorship, which allows leeway to its people in all aspects of life other than political. When the Communists control the government, but non-governmental churches control the people's souls, the Communists' days will be numbered.

Oh, Those Special Interest Trips!

2005-05-31T11:43:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times reports on the numerous trips, paid for by outsiders, that members of congress are suddenly remembering and reporting. Link.

Scrutiny of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's travel has led to the belated disclosure of at least 198 previously unreported special-interest trips by House members and their aides, including eight years of travel by the second-ranking Democrat, an Associated Press review found.
At least 43 House members and dozens of aides had failed to meet the one-month deadline in ethics rules for disclosing trips financed by organizations outside the U.S. government. [...]
Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, California Democrat, disclosed 21 trips. Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat, reported 20 past trips, and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat, reported 13.

All of the mud being thrown at Tom DeLay concerned trips that he had fully disclosed. That is how his enemies knew about them. Now it develops that, by reporting his trips, Tom DeLay is just about the most honest person in the entire Congress. Will the Democrats now bring ethics charges against the 43 members, mainly Democrats, who failed to report their trips until such trips became front-page news?

Arthur Anderson Conviction Overturned

2005-05-31T11:37:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reports on the Supreme Court's decision overturning the conviction of Arthur Anderson LLP. Link.

The Supreme Court today threw out the June 2002 conviction of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm for destroying Enron Corp.-related documents, ruling unanimously that the jury instructions at the trial for the now-defunct company were improper.

The decision was a major defeat for the Department of Justice, which prosecuted one of the nation's largest accounting firms against the advice of numerous critics, who believed the case too weak for criminal trial. [...]
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, writing for the court, said the judge's instructions to the jury were too loose, failing to require proof that Andersen "knowingly" obstructed justice.

The instructions, he said, "failed to convey the requisite consciousness of wrongdoing" on the part of Andersen and its employees. "Indeed," said Rehnquist, "it is striking how little culpability" the instructions required. [...]
The District Court judge in the trial instructed the jury to convict if it found that Andersen intended to subvert or impede the SEC investigation. But the judge declined to add that the company must also be found to have acted dishonestly, despite the statute's use of the word "knowingly."

"No longer was any type of dishonesty necessary to a finding of guilt," Rehnquist wrote today, "and it was enough" for Andersen "to have simply 'impeded' " the government's investigation.

That, he said, was an improper interpretation of the statute. "Knowledge and knowingly are normally associated with awareness, understanding or consciousness," Rehnquist wrote. "Only persons conscious of their wrongdoing can be said to knowingly" behave corruptly.

I am glad that this conviction was overturned, even if it was for some legal technicality. Prosecutors should never have brought this case to trial. If a crime had been committed, it was not by an intangible entity called Arthur Anderson LLP, but by certain human beings working there. If there were guilty parties, the prosecutors totally let them off the legal hook, by prosecuting the organization. Instead of locating a few perps who committed a crime and putting them in jail, these prosecutors caused thousands of honest employees who had never even worked on the Enron account to be fired, as they put the entire company out of business. Prosecutors were more concerned with the headlines they would receive by prosecuting one of the largest accounting firms in the country, then with bringing guilty parties to justice.

Industrial Espionage Ring Broken

2005-05-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reports on the busting of an industrial espionage ring operating in Israel, that used planted Trojan Horse programs to spy. Link.

Israel's business community has been rocked by a major computer espionage scandal that was uncovered when a husband-and-wife book-writing team complained to police that someone had hacked into their computer system and stolen files.

Investigators traced the alleged theft to the wife's former son-in-law, a computer programmer, and determined that he had also sold copies of "Trojan Horse" software to private detectives who used the software to spy for corporate clients on competing firms.

Last week police arrested 16 people in Israel, including senior executives of some of the country's leading high-tech companies and the private investigators they had allegedly employed. At the same time, British authorities, acting on an Israeli request, arrested the former son-in-law and his wife in London and are holding them pending an extradition hearing later this week. [...]
In a statement released over the weekend, police said they had discovered a "Trojan Horse" virus on Jackont's computer that they were able to trace to an unnamed source. The virus allowed the person to control the computer, make changes to its programs, monitor everything it contained and raid it for information -- all without leaving any hint of the virus's existence. Investigators also discovered that the same person had sold the "Trojan Horse" to three of Israel's largest private investigation companies, which used it to illegally collect data for their corporate clients.

Police said the virus was planted via e-mail or a promotional computer disk supposedly sent to the target company by a well-known and reliable business partner. They said dozens of companies may have been spied upon without ever realizing they were under surveillance.

It is amazing how easy it is to spy on a competitor's computer, and how apparently difficult it is to detect. I would hope that the latest security software could detect these Trojan Horses. Perhaps all of the victims had failed to follow the most basic security precautions.

If the perpetrator had been content to make money selling his illegal software to private detectives, it is unlikely that any of this would have been detected. It was when he used the same software to spy on his ex-in-laws, and spread what he found on their computers over the Internet, that led to their detection.

If there is a moral in this I guess it is that if you are dealing illegally with someone, make sure he doesn't carry around some old hatred strong enough that he will endanger your illegal conspiracy to get his enemies.

Non to EU Constitution

2005-05-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

BBC reports that the French vote was decisive. Link.

French voters have overwhelmingly rejected the European Union's proposed constitution in a key referendum.

With 85% of votes counted the "No" vote stood at almost 56%, according to interior ministry figures.

The vote could deal a fatal blow to the EU constitution, which needs to be ratified by all 25 members states.

What this deals a large blow to are the European elites, not to the EU. The media all seem to equate this constitution with the EU. They are not the same. What the French rejected, and the voters in several other EU countries soon will reject is this specific constitution, not the idea of a constitution in general. Anyone who struggled through this excruciatingly long and complex document would see that it was a constitution for a Socialist Union, not for a democratic EU. The unelected bureaucrats would have become more solidified as total dictators.

This is not a defeat for the EU, but a victory. The people want a simple, democratic constitution. The elites must scrap this one, start from scratch, and write a new constitution that will be acceptable to the people, not only to the elites.

Put a Cork in it. No, Maybe Not.

2005-05-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times reports that research is showing that screw tops and bag-in-a box packaging keeps wine better than either real or artificial corks. But the image problem is keeping makers of fine wine from moving too quickly. Link.

Winemakers are twisting tradition and altering the age-old ritual of opening a bottle of wine.
They are taking risks with innovative packaging to improve their wine and grab the attention of more wine drinkers, turning to screw caps, boxes with spouts and even aluminum cans, as well as creating funky labels and off-the-wall names.
"You won't find a winemaker that says packaging doesn't matter," said Sheldon Parker, general manager of Napa Wine Co., which produces 80 brands for various wineries at its facility in Oakville, Calif. "It's all about image. Winemakers are fighting for shelf space and brand awareness."
The taste, of course, is what gets drinkers refilling their glasses. But getting them to try a wine is no easy task. [...]
There are 12,000 to 15,000 brands sold in the U.S., according to John Gillespie, president of the Wine Market Council, a group that is trying to encourage people to drink more wine.
All of those brands are vying for the customer's attention.
The good news for wineries is that there are more wine drinkers in the U.S. than ever before, and they are drinking more of it.
Last year, U.S. adults drank an average of 2.77 gallons of wine, compared with 2.46 gallons in 2000 and 2.13 gallons in 1995, according to Adams Beverage Group, a market research group and trade publisher. [...]
The screw-cap closure is actually better for the wine than a cork, wine industry officials say.
Corks can ruin between 5 percent and 8 percent of all wine, if not more, reports show. The cork taint is usually caused by a fungus that gets into cork and reacts with the wine, causing it to smell and taste bad.
"Corks are beautiful and organic and have tradition, but are tragically flawed," said John Locke, senior creative director of Bonny Doon Vineyard, which has 99 percent of its wine under screw caps.
Screw caps aren't new in other countries, nor do they have the same negative connotation. Australia and New Zealand have been in the forefront of the movement.
U.S. wineries are behind the curve, but many of them are taking steps to improve their wine, despite the screw-cap perception.
Hogue Cellars, based in Prosser, Wash., undertook a 2Â½ year study on the effects of two types of screw caps, natural cork and synthetic cork, which is a plastic alternative.
The result: Screw caps maintained freshness more effectively than natural or synthetic corks. That was the proof the winery needed to make the switch to screw caps. [...]
Screw caps are helping with the acceptance of another packaging alternative: the bag-in-a-box.
More premium wines are turning to the airtight bag housed in a box to keep the wine fresher longer and allow for more portability.

I live in wine country, but I do not claim to know a great deal about it. I do harbor prejudices against screw tops or bags, but when brands I am familiar with try them, I will try them, knowing that I read than they keep the wine fresher,

Fed Ex Enlists in War on Terror

2005-05-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal reports of the extraordinary degree to which Federal Express has enlisted in the war on terror. Link. (subscription required)

FedEx has opened the international portion of its databases, including credit-card details, to government officials. It has created a police force recognized by the state of Tennessee that works alongside the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The company has rolled out radiation detectors at overseas facilities to detect dirty bombs and donated an airplane to federal researchers looking for a defense against shoulder-fired missiles.

Moreover, the company is encouraging its 250,000 employees to be spotters of would-be terrorists. It is setting up a system designed to send reports of suspicious activities directly to the Department of Homeland Security via a special computer link. [...]
Supporters of an expanded role for business in homeland security note that U.S. industry has often been a government ally in wartime. After the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. manufacturers responded by retooling factories to produce tanks, trucks, planes and munitions.

Cooperation between businesses and federal law-enforcement agencies generally isn't advertised and customers are seldom aware of it. In some cases, people waive their right to privacy when they use a particular company's service. With FedEx, customers consent to having shipments inspected as soon as they hand over their packages and sign the shipping forms. [...]
To orchestrate its deliveries, FedEx has spent billions of dollars over the past 15 years on elaborate computer systems. It compiles troves of data about its customers and the six million packages carried daily across the world, tracking them from point of origin to final destination.

The company also maintains a large global security force, currently 500 strong. Before 9/11, it concentrated on combating employee theft and intercepting illegal shipments of narcotics, explosives or hazardous materials. [...]
Two years ago, after intense lobbying by FedEx of the Tennessee state legislature, the company was permitted to create a 10-man, state-recognized police force. FedEx police wear plain clothes and can investigate all types of crimes, request search warrants and make arrests on FedEx property. The courier cops say their main job is to protect company property and systems from abuse and fraud and help combat terrorists and criminals.

As a recognized police force in Tennessee, it has access to law-enforcement databases. FedEx also has a seat on a regional terrorism task force, overseen by the FBI, which has access to sensitive data regarding terrorist threats. Robert Bryden, the recently retired vice president of FedEx corporate security, says it's "remarkable" for a private company to have a seat on the task force. Across the country, FedEx is the only one, the FBI says.

There is a delicate line that Fed Ex must be careful not to cross. It has a responsibility to protect its customers' privacy within reason, but "within reason" allows it to cooperate with authorities when acts of terrorism are suspected. Al Qaeda does not have its own logistics outfit. It must rely on shipping companies, such as Fed Ex, to move things such as bomb-making materials. If nothing else, Fed Ex is protecting its image from the threat that a bomb will move through its system. If I were an Islamofascist bomb maker, I would certainly choose some company other than Fed Ex to ship my work through.

New Pipeline Should Increase World Oil Supply

2005-05-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

BBC News reports that after ten years of construction, a pipeline connecting the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean is about to start filling. Link.

Starting in Azerbaijan, the 1,600km (1,000 mile) pipeline will pass through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

The project has taken more than 10 years to finish and will unlock one of the world's biggest energy reserves. [...]
Wednesday's inauguration at the Sangachal oil terminal near Baku was attended by presidents from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Turkey.

US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman also was present at a ceremony where the taps were turned on. [...]
The Caspian area produces a high-quality light crude, but has suffered in the past because of the difficulty of getting its oil to consumers in Europe, the US, China and Japan.

Until now, states in the region sent almost all of their oil via Russian pipelines.

There are several positives here. The most obvious is that soon there will be more oil flowing into the international market. Yet there is also a geo-political angle. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has tied to keep the former republics dependent on Russia, giving it leverage to interfere in their affairs. With this pipeline, oil from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan will flow directly to the West, without passing through Russia. That sounds to me like money well spent.

Bolton Up-or-Down Vote More Likely

2005-05-25T09:49:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press reports that Sen. Boxer has dropped her hold on the Bolton nomination, clearing the way for a debate and vote. Link.

On Tuesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., decided to drop her plan to use procedural delays to prevent the debate on Bolton from beginning, according to spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz. Her decision came after conferring with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's top Democrat, Joseph Biden of Delaware, and after the resolution of a sharply partisan battle over Senate filibusters that has seemed to take some of the wind out of the opposition to Bolton.

Democrats said they have not ruled out a procedural tactic to postpone a vote, but several said it is unlikely.

"There is no desire for a filibuster," said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.

I still think that, on balance, the judicial filibuster deal was a net negative, but at least there are some positives coming out of it. I have often read about one senator putting a "hold" on a nomination, but I have yet to see a good description of the exact procedure. Perhaps it is time for a thermo-nuclear option - a senate rule change to abolish the hold. It is bad enough that 40 senators can kill a nomination. It is a whole lot worse that one senator can indefinitely delay a nomination,.

Stem Cells - The Wrong Priority

2005-05-24T16:19:00.000-07:00

A big fight is brewing in Congress over expanding research into embryonic stem cells. Of the various types of stem cells, only embryonic ones are controversial, so, naturally, that is the one Congress wants to ram down people's throats. Research on the other types has been proceeding, and progress is being made. Never-the-less, if any usable products come out of this research, it likely will be in 20 or 30 years.

Where should Congress be looking to get more life-saving bang for the buck? The FDA. There are numerous drugs, existing today, that could, and should be saving thousands of lives every year. The problem, the bureaucrats at the FDA, loving to throw around their power, make the manufacturers of these drugs jump through one hoop after another, while people die. When other federal agencies play bureaucratic games, people are inconvenienced or lose money, but when the FDA bureaucrats play these games, people die. These bureaucrats are murdering tens of thousands of Americans as surely as if they were stuffing them into gas chambers. It is murder through negligence and reckless disregard for people's safety, rather than through active acts, but it is murder none-the-less.

Congress should return the FDA to its original mandate: to pass on the safety of drugs. That is very quick. It is convincing the FDA bureaucrats of the efficacy of the drugs that takes many years and hundreds of millions of dollars. Doctors are quite capable of judging the efficacy of drugs. They do not need the FDA bureaucrats for that. We could have cheaper drugs years earlier with no added risk to our safety.

Adjunct Therapy for Prostate Cancer - A Wife

2005-05-24T10:36:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times reports on a UCLA study that found that prostate cancer patients with wives or in a committed relationship had fewer and less severe side effects from treatment than single patients. Link.

Married patients experience an improved sense of "spiritual well-being," fewer adverse effects from treatment and less anxiety about the disease, according to new research. Married men even have less distressing symptoms. [...]
Prostate cancer is the second-deadliest cancer for men and will strike 232,090 of them this year, according to the American Cancer Society. [...]
For a year and a half, Dr. Litwin surveyed 211 prostate patients who were either married or in a committed relationship, and 80 single patients. Using a series of questionnaires given to the patients every six months, Dr. Litwin assessed their mental health, personal spirituality and the stress brought on by the disease itself.
Dr. John Gore, another urologist and a member of the research team, said the "partnered" men had less anxiety and fear about the disease recurring and were better able to deal with the distressing side effects of treatment, which typically include fatigue, nausea and pain.
"Partnered men did report significantly fewer urinary symptoms. Moreover, partnered men reported significantly fewer general cancer-related symptoms than single men," the study notes.
"Men in a relationship reported better mental health, as well as greater levels of spirituality," the research states, concluding that the "personal relationship independently improved the patient's quality of life and mitigated the psychological and physical impacts of cancer, its treatment and adverse effects."

It has been pretty obvious for some time that mental state plays a major role in our health. People who are alone are more likely to be depressed, and depressed people do not survive illnesses as well at the general population. This does not mean that all single people are alone. Many have extensive networks of friends. However, I suspect that if you broke down the results of the single patients by how alone they were, you might find that to be the most significant differentiating factor, rather than marital status.

Judicial "Compromise"

2005-05-23T18:22:00.000-07:00

I watched on Fox News as 14 "moderate" senators of both parties announced a "compromise" solution to the judicial filibuster issue. The problem was, I could not understand what made it a compromise. A compromise is when both sides give up something in order to gain something they would not have gained otherwise. I have yet to see anything that the Republicans gained.

It seems pretty obvious that the Republicans had the 50 votes needed to change senate rules on judicial filibusters, if the Democrats continued to filibuster the seven nominees they had been filibustering. The "compromise" will allow votes on three of them, and two will be denied a vote. I did not hear what is to become of the other two. In exchange, the Democrats retain the power to filibuster any future judicial nominees they consider "extreme." The problem is, they have considered just about every Bush appointee so far as extreme. Without this "compromise," there would have been an up-or-down vote on all nominees now and in the future.

It reminds me of how our State Department negotiated with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The Soviets would grab something that had not been theirs before. The State Department would go in and negotiate a "compromise" in which the Soviets would give back half, in exchange for us giving up something that had always been ours.. This would be proclaimed as a victory.

We were strong enough that we were able to survive those "compromises." Time will tell whether the Republicans are strong enough to survive many "compromises" like this one.

What The Hell Were They Thinking? - Part 2

2005-05-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports on a Federal Bureau of Prisons money-saving measure, with the headline "Prisoner transfer program plagued by escapes." Link.

When federal prison officials decided to transfer drug dealer Dwayne Fitzen from one prison to another, they bought him a one-way bus ticket from Minnesota to California.

They trusted that the convict known as "Shadow" would check himself into Lompoc Federal Correctional Institution at the end of the two-day trip last fall. What happened next may come as no surprise. Fitzen got off the bus in Las Vegas and vanished. The U.S. Marshals Service considers him "armed and dangerous" and has added him to its growing list of convicts who escaped while traveling alone by bus. [...]
The little-known furlough program, also known as "voluntary surrenders," was started by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to save money and relieve prison crowding. The program is usually reserved for prisoners being transferred to low security facilities, which typically house nonviolent inmates.

Bureau officials would not discuss the program or provide information about the number of prisoners who travel alone by bus or the number who have escaped. The bureau's Web site states that prisoners usually can't take a bus unless they have less than two years remaining on their sentences. But an assistant warden said the limit is 10 years.

I'm sure that it does save money. You no longer have to pay to house and feed these guys. I wonder how many advanced degrees in criminology the guy who thought this one up has. Probably he is an outside consultant who received a high-six-figure fee to tax his brain and come up with the plan. They should just have asked the prisoners how they would like to be transferred. They would have gotten the same answer for no money at all.

What the Hell Were They Thinking?

2005-05-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

The New York Sun reports on (hopefully) unintended consequences of one bit of federal largesse. Link.

Rapists and other offenders convicted of the most serious sex crimes have been able, for the past several years, to get the erection-enhancement wonder drug Viagra for free through Medicaid, the government-financed health-insurance program for the poor.

According to the state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, who announced the finding yesterday, 198 Level 3 sex offenders in the state, who have been convicted of such crimes as child molestation and rape, had Viagra prescriptions subsidized by the state between January 2000 and March 2005.

A federal directive seven years ago that Medicaid pay for Viagra prescriptions for eligible male adults did not carve out an exclusion for convicted sexual offenders.

The comptroller's tally of 198 does not count lower-level sex offenders or the less-noted erectile-dysfunction drugs Levitra and Cialis, which have become popular Viagra alternatives and are also covered by Medicaid.

Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Federal, state and local governments are spending probably billions to fight sexual criminals. Then they go and spend millions to make it easier for convicted sexual criminals to continue their criminal behavior. How difficult can it be to put an exemption into the Medicaid funding for Viagra, Levitra and Cialis to not pay for these drugs if the patient is a convicted sex offender?

AMT May Be Next Tax Eliminated

2005-05-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times reports that a bipartisan group of senators has proposed eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), since inflation has caused it to hit the middle class, rather than just the wealthy, as had been originally intended. Other senators have countered that it should be cut, rather than eliminated. Link.

Four senators -- two Republicans and two Democrats, including leaders of the Senate Finance Committee -- plan to introduce a $611 billion bill this week that would repeal the tax. The committee scheduled a hearing for today to examine the uncontrolled expansion of the tax. [...]
They object to the tax's growing reach and the burden it puts on unsuspecting taxpayers: higher tax rates and fewer tax breaks. Those affected must calculate their taxes twice, under the regular tax system and then the alternative system, and pay the higher amount.
"The time and the bureaucratic water torture that this tax puts people through just seems to me to cry out for reform," Mr. Wyden said.
Congress created the tax in 1969 after discovering that 155 wealthy filers had not paid taxes. At the time, lawmakers estimated the tax would affect one in 500,000 taxpayers.
As a result of inflation, an increasing number of taxpayers are covered by the tax.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) last year predicted that the tax could hit as many as one in five taxpayers in 2010, including virtually all married couples with incomes between $100,000 and $500,000. [...]
Instead of repealing the AMT, lawmakers could free many families from the tax by eliminating some unintended effects. Congress did not intend that families pay the tax just because they had many children or lived in states with high property and income taxes.
The CBO estimated that one-fifth of taxpayers could be freed from the tax in 2010 if children were treated the same under the regular tax system and the AMT. That change would cost about $175 billion over a decade.
If deductions for state and local taxes paid on income and property were similarly changed, about one-third of those projected to pay the tax in 2010 would be dropped from its rolls. That would cost about $360 billion over a decade.
Combining those two options would drop 18 million taxpayers from the tax in 2010 at a 10-year cost of $440 billion.

The AMT was passed as a vengeful measure to "get the wealthy." It is therefore no surprise that it is a bad tax, and that its consequences are far different than its original intent.

The concept of the tax is defensible if the particulars are radically changed. Legislators were horrified to learn that the super-complex tax code they had created led to different people with identical incomes paying very different taxes. The intelligent alternative would have been a simple, flatter tax, with no deductions or credits and low marginal rates. Instead, they created just such a flat tax, but only as a backup for people who got to deduct "too much." The AMT would be a much fairer tax than our current income tax, if it were the primary tax, rather than a backup that hits only some payers.

The MDs Had it Wrong - Episode 497

2005-05-22T15:34:00.000-07:00

The associated Press reports that everything you heard about too much sunshine just might be wrong. Link.

The vitamin is D, nicknamed the "sunshine vitamin" because the skin makes it from ultraviolet rays. Sunscreen blocks its production, but dermatologists and health agencies have long preached that such lotions are needed to prevent skin cancer. Now some scientists are questioning that advice. The reason is that vitamin D increasingly seems important for preventing and even treating many types of cancer.

In the last three months alone, four separate studies found it helped protect against lymphoma and cancers of the prostate, lung and, ironically, the skin. The strongest evidence is for colon cancer.

Many people aren't getting enough vitamin D. It's hard to do from food and fortified milk alone, and supplements are problematic.

So the thinking is this: Even if too much sun leads to skin cancer, which is rarely deadly, too little sun may be worse.

No one is suggesting that people fry on a beach. But many scientists believe that "safe sun" 15 minutes or so a few times a week without sunscreen is not only possible but helpful to health.

I am a minor league sun worshiper. I have light skin and so I burn if I get too much sun right away. Yet I learned decades ago that if I slowly build up a base of tan, I can take more and more sun without burning. I do wear sunscreen, but I keep it within reason - usually using #8, which allows enough sun through to allow my skin to tan without burning. It now sounds like this also allows enough sun through to produce vitamin D.

Knowing the potential problems, I see a dermatologist once per year, and he freezes off the pre-cancerous stuff. I guess at heart, I am an Aristotelian. I believe in the golden mean. I can do things that I like that the "experts" say are dangerous, if I do them in moderation. Now it appears that my following this philosophy with respect to the sun may have been better for me than listening to the "experts" would have been.

Funny Satire on Dems' Senate Tactics

2005-05-21T15:07:00.000-07:00

PoliPundit has a funny satire, looking at what might happen if the tactics being used by the Democrats in the Senate to deny judges a vote were used elsewhere. Link.

Anti-Reid Ads Running in Nevada

2005-05-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times reports that Progress for America is running ads in Nevada that attack Senator Harry Reid. Link.

The ads, which begin running today in Nevada, highlight derogatory comments Mr. Reid has made about major figures such as President Bush, whom he called "a loser," Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, whom he called "a hack," and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, whom he said was an "embarrassment." [...]
The ads use the same message that Republicans used last year in unseating the former Senate Democratic leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota. He lost his bid for re-election amid Republican charges he had abandoned South Dakota values to become the chief obstacle to Mr. Bush's policies.

The ads cost $50,000 and run through Tuesday on major networks in Las Vegas. They come as Mr. Reid is leading the Democrats' effort on the showdown over Mr. Bush's appellate court nominees, which comes to a head with key votes next week.
"Now Reid refuses to even allow judges the courtesy of an up-or-down vote," the ad's announcer says. "Is this the same Harry Reid we've come to know? What ever happened to Harry?"

Obviously, Progress for America is taking a long view. Reid just won reelection, and he won't have to face the voters for a while. However, it may be easier to hit him hard when he does run again if seeds of doubt had been planted in voters' minds over the preceding years. The ads also may remind other Democrats that will run in 2006 about Tom Daschle, and how these groups can come after them in their own states if they remain obstructionist.

At Least One Columnist Will Say It

2005-05-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

It appears what I said about the MSM in the posting below does not apply to all columnists. Jeff Jacoby (not exactly in the MSM inner circle) faces some truths in a recent column. Link.

Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don't lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don't call for holy war and riot in the streets. It would be unthinkable for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain. But when Reuters reported what Mohammad Hanif, the imam of a Muslim seminary in Pakistan, said about the alleged Koran-flushers ''They should be hung. They should be killed in public so that no one can dare to insult Islam and its sacred symbols" was any reader surprised?

The Muslim riots should have been met by outrage and condemnation. From every part of the civilized world should have come denunciations of those who would react to the supposed destruction of a book with brutal threats and the slaughter of 17 innocent people. But the chorus of condemnation was directed not at the killers and the fanatics who incited them, but at Newsweek. [...]
But what ''Muslims in America and throughout the world" most need to hear is not pandering sweet-talk. What they need is a blunt reminder that the real desecration of Islam is not what some interrogator in Guantanamo might have done to the Koran. It is what totalitarian Muslim zealots have been doing to innocent human beings in the name of Islam. It is 9/11 and Beslan and Bali and Daniel Pearl and the USS Cole. It is trains in Madrid and schoolbuses in Israel and an ''insurgency" in Iraq that slaughters Muslims as they pray and vote and line up for work. It is Hamas and Al Qaeda and sermons filled with infidel-hatred and exhortations to ''martyrdom."

But what disgraces Islam above all is the vast majority of the planet's Muslims saying nothing and doing nothing about the jihadist cancer eating away at their religion. It is Free Muslims Against Terrorism, a pro-democracy organization, calling on Muslims and Middle Easterners to ''converge on our nation's capital for a rally against terrorism" and having only 50 people show up.

Except for letting Newsweek off too lightly, I heartily agree. Readers will already know what I think of Newsweek wanting so much to run an anti-military article that they did not check the facts from a single, anonymous source. Otherwise, Jacoby is right on.

We should have been warned in the 1980s by the death decree against Salmon Rushdi, but that was just that crazy ayatollah in Iran. Decades of oppression on non-Muslims, especially in Sudan and Saudi Arabia, were ignored. During the Cold War, it just did not seem like a front-burner issue. However, post-9/11, how can it be so totally ignored by the MSM?

Why Didn't Anybody Else Think of That?

2005-05-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

Ali Al-Ahmed, a Saudi Muslim living in America, presents a novel idea in Opinion Journal: "If Muslims wish other religions to respect their beliefs and their Holy book, they should lead by example." Link.

As a Muslim, I am able to purchase copies of the Quran in any bookstore in any American city, and study its contents in countless American universities. American museums spend millions to exhibit and celebrate Muslim arts and heritage. On the other hand, my Christian and other non-Muslim brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia--where I come from--are not even allowed to own a copy of their holy books. Indeed, the Saudi government desecrates and burns Bibles that its security forces confiscate at immigration points into the kingdom or during raids on Christian expatriates worshiping privately. [...]
Although considered as holy in Islam and mentioned in the Quran dozens of times, the Bible is banned in Saudi Arabia. This would seem curious to most people because of the fact that to most Muslims, the Bible is a holy book. But when it comes to Saudi Arabia we are not talking about most Muslims, but a tiny minority of hard-liners who constitute the Wahhabi Sect.

The Bible in Saudi Arabia may get a person killed, arrested, or deported. In September 1993, Sadeq Mallallah, 23, was beheaded in Qateef on a charge of apostasy for owning a Bible. The State Department's annual human rights reports detail the arrest and deportation of many Christian worshipers every year. Just days before Crown Prince Abdullah met President Bush last month, two Christian gatherings were stormed in Riyadh. Bibles and crosses were confiscated, and will be incinerated. [...]
The desecration of religious texts and symbols and intolerance of varying religious viewpoints and beliefs have been issues of some controversy inside Saudi Arabia. Ruled by a Wahhabi theocracy, the ruling elite of Saudi Arabia have made it difficult for Christians, Jews, Hindus and others, as well as dissenting sects of Islam, to visibly coexist inside the kingdom.

The MSM love to run headlines, unbacked by any facts, like "Hate Crimes against Muslims up in the US." At most, they might site one example in a country of nearly 300 million people. On the other hand, violence, even deadly violence, against non-Muslims or against members of a different Muslim sect, is nearly a daily occurrence in the Muslim world, but rarely appears in the American MSM. Maybe the editors think that it is too boring, since they see it all the time, but the result is a lack of important knowledge among their readers or viewers.

We talk a lot about the bias in the MSM running primarily negative stories about Republicans or conservatives and primarily positive stories about Democrats or liberals. Maybe we should talk more about the bias in the MSM of running primarily positive articles about Muslims, and primarily negative articles about Christians. (The negativity does not seem to extend as much to Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Jainists, Animalists or other non-Christian non-Muslims.)

Syrian Moves Toward Democracy

2005-05-19T18:29:00.000-07:00

NO, the headline is not a typo or a joke. Buried deep in the Washington Post is a report that should have been prominently on the first page. Link.

Beset by U.S. attempts to isolate his country and facing popular expectations of change, Syrian President Bashar Assad will move to begin legalizing political parties, purge the ruling Baath Party, sponsor free municipal elections in 2007 and formally endorse a market economy, according to officials, diplomats and analysts.

Assad's five-year-old government is heralding the reforms as a turning point in a long-promised campaign of liberalizing a state that, while far less dictatorial than Iraq under Saddam Hussein, remains one of the region's most repressive. His officials see the moves, however tentative and drawn out, as the start of a transitional period that will lead to a more liberal, democratic Syria. [...]
Most prominent among the reforms will be a recommendation for a new party law, said the officials, analysts and diplomats. It would envision the formation of parties as long as they are not explicitly based on ethnicity, religion or region. While this is potentially a dramatic step, analysts caution that even if the Baath Party recommends the change, enacting a law could take a year or more. Also, the party is not expected to surrender its constitutionally enshrined position as "the leading party of both the society and the state."

Emergency law allowing indefinite detention of suspects may be suspended, except in cases of national security, and the government will likely ease rules that require approval from the security services for a host of activities -- among them opening a hair salon.

As part of the reforms, the government is expected to enact a law providing for free elections of 15,000 members of municipal councils in 2007. The congress is also expected to endorse the free market as the country's economic orientation -- a break from the party's slogan of "unity, freedom and socialism." The move would formalize economic changes underway for more than a decade.

On the one hand, I'll believe it when I see it. On the other hand, it may really be happening. When Bashar Assad took over from his father, he spoke of reform, but such talk soon ended. It was widely believed that he was too reliant on his fathers old crones to buck their opposition to reform.

Two things have changed that may strengthen his hand if he truly favors reforms. First is the Bush Doctrine. Liberalization is breaking out on all of his boarders, and he cannot keep this fact from his people. Second is the humiliating retreat from Lebanon. If he can link the policies of the hardliners with the events that led up to that humiliation, especially the murder of Hariri, it might strengthen his hand vis-a-vis them.

In brief, I am not about to hold my breath waiting for this to happen, but I also will not totally disregard the possibility that some or all of it may occur.

LA Times - End Filibuster

2005-05-19T14:24:00.000-07:00

An LA Times editorial broke ranks with the Democrats. Link.

We don't share these activists' enthusiasm for the White House judicial nominees triggering the current showdown. But we do believe that nominees are entitled to a vote on the floor of the Senate. The filibuster, an arcane if venerable parliamentary tactic that empowers a minority of 41 senators to block a vote, goes above and beyond those checks on majority power legitimately written into the Constitution.

The filibuster is an inherently reactionary instrument most famously used to block civil rights legislation for a generation.

When a left-wing paper like the LA Times breaks ranks with the Democrats, they should realize that they are on thin ice. If their bogus arguments don't even convince the LAT editors, you can imagine how badly they must be going over with the American people. If the Democrats continue on like lemmings for the judicial filibuster, it could prove to be the Tom Daschle element in the 2006 senate races. The rule change will become mute if they drop below 40 as a result of fighting for it.

Newspaper Guild President Echoes Jordan

2005-05-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

World New Daily reports on a speech by the president of the Newspaper Guild, accusing the US military of targeting journalists Link.

Echoing a claim that led to CNN executive Eason Jordan's resignation, the president of the 35,000-member Newspaper Guild asserted U.S. troops deliberately are killing journalists in Iraq. [...]
According to a tape of her remarks, Foley said: "Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or ah, or ah, politically. They are also being targeted for real, um in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq."

Foley continued, "They target and kill journalists uh, from other countries, particularly Arab countries like Al -, like Arab news services like al-Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios with impunity. ..."
[Mark Hyman, a commentator on Sinclair Broadcasting's "The Point] called on Foley to immediately present evidence to support her claims or resign.

"Unfortunately, the damage may have already been done," he said. "Her remarks could lead to further bloodshed, including against Americans."

Hyman concluded: "The question is whether Newspaper Guild members will hold Foley accountable or will they give her a free pass in endangering American lives with inflammatory remarks without any proof?"

Haven't journalists learned anything from the Newsweek fiasco? Making outlandish accusations without any evidence can cause death and destruction. It is the favorite activity of Democrat officials, and its spread to the press adds further proof to the claim that the MSM are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party.

MD Gov Vetoes Wal-Mart Bill

2005-05-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reports that Maryland Governor Robert Erlich vetoed a bill that applied only to Wal-Mart and would have required it to pay 8% of its payroll in health-care benefits. Link.

Ehrlich chose Somerset County as his venue because it has one of the state's highest unemployment rates, and the fate of a planned Wal-Mart distribution center here has become entangled in the controversy surrounding the bill. [...]
"It singles a company out in a way that is discriminatory," he said of the legislation, which passed on largely party line votes, in the heavily Democratic General Assembly this year.

The bill would have required for-profit companies with more than 10,000 employees to spend 8 percent of their payroll on health-care benefits. As written, Wal-Mart is the only known company operating in Maryland that would be affected.

It is a problem when you base a party on nothing but a grouping of special interests. The Democrats are following the AFL-CIO lead in making Wal-Mart public enemy #1. However, the people that used to make up a majority of their voters are the target audience of Wal-Mart, which saves them a great deal of money as consumers, and are employed in large numbers by the firm. Democrats like to keep pointing out that Wal-Mart employees make less than United Auto Workers members who are lucky enough to still have a job. However, the employees know that the company pays a lot more than other retail merchants in the area.

Wal-Mart did not become the largest retailer in the country by exploiting people or ignoring the wants of its customers. It gives its customers good quality products at good prices, and it keeps its huge employee pool by treating them better than other employers of low-skilled workers. Otherwise, they would go and work somewhere else.

Background to Court Battle

2005-05-19T11:01:00.000-07:00

American Spectator has a column by Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute, giving some background to the current battle over the courts. Link.

In the grand constitutional design, federal courts exist mainly to secure liberty, because that's what the Constitution does, especially since ratification of the Civil War Amendments crafted by the heavily Republican 39th Congress. Courts are supposed to keep Congress within its enumerated ends and to ensure that both federal and state governments respect our rights, whether enumerated in the Constitution or not. They've never done that consistently, of course, but as the independent, non-political branch, courts are charged with enforcing the Constitution's restraints on power.

Over the years, both parties have chafed under those restraints, and lashed out at the courts accordingly. But the first sustained, systematic attack came from New Deal Democrats, outraged that the Supreme Court was ruling their programs unconstitutional, sometimes 9-0. Finally, in 1937, Roosevelt threatened to pack the Court with six new members. The infamous scheme failed on the surface, but the Court got the message. It began essentially "rewriting" the Constitution -- removing limits on Congress's power, to make way for the modern welfare state, and politicizing the Bill of Rights.

That's when, on a grand scale, politics trumped law, the constitutional law of limited government. And it's never been the same since. With the floodgates opened, it soon became a majoritarian (or, just as often, special interest) free-for-all, with winners claiming the democratic "high ground" -- as if that's what the Constitution were about. Liberty and limited government gave way to majoritarian democracy. [...]
After the Democrats lose this battle, as they will, the focus will shift to the more civilized battle within the Republican Party and to the question whether the courts will give us the democratic constitution the New Deal Court invented, or the constitution of liberty the Founders set in motion. That will be one to watch.

It has been obvious for some time that, as the left lost control of the executive and the legislative branches, they turned to the courts to make law as they would want it. The Constitution gives Congress the exclusive power to make laws. When judges make laws, they clearly are violating the Constitution and violating their oath to support and defend the Constitution. I have been amazed that Congress, which also has the exclusive power to impeach judges, has sat back and watched as judge after judge encroaches on its power.

But that is a fight for sometime in the future. The need now is for the Senate to change its rules, to restore the system that stood until 2001 where a majority of Senators approved or rejected a judicial nominee. Then we can get at least some judges who believe in the Founders' constitution of liberty.

What to Run and What to Spike

2005-05-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

Ann Coulter gives an interesting perspective on Newsweek's record of spiking or running scoops by Michael Isikoff. Link.

When ace reporter Michael Isikoff had the scoop of the decade, a thoroughly sourced story about the president of the United States having an affair with an intern and then pressuring her to lie about it under oath, Newsweek decided not to run the story. Matt Drudge scooped Newsweek, followed by The Washington Post.

When Isikoff had a detailed account of Kathleen Willey's nasty sexual encounter with the president in the Oval Office, backed up with eyewitness and documentary evidence, Newsweek decided not to run it. Again, Matt Drudge got the story.

When Isikoff was the first with detailed reporting on Paula Jones' accusations against a sitting president, Isikoff's then-employer The Washington Post which owns Newsweek decided not to run it. The American Spectator got the story, followed by the Los Angeles Times.

So apparently it's possible for Michael Isikoff to have a story that actually is true, but for his editors not to run it. [...]
Newsweek seems to have very different responses to the same reporter's scoops. Who's deciding which of Isikoff's stories to run and which to hold? I note that the ones that Matt Drudge runs have turned out to be more accurate and interesting! than the ones Newsweek runs. Maybe Newsweek should start running everything past Matt Drudge.

Somehow Newsweek missed the story a few weeks ago about Saudi Arabia arresting 40 Christians for "trying to spread their poisonous religious beliefs." But give the American media a story about American interrogators defacing the Quran, and journalists are so appalled there's no time for fact-checking before they dash off to see the latest exhibition of "Piss Christ."

Right wing conspiracy buffs might just see a pattern here. Obviously, Newsweek does not see all news as worth running. Just as obviously, they do not see all of the work of their top investigative reporter as worth running. It isn't the assuredness of the accuracy. They ran with a story based on one anonymous source, and spiked stories with multiple, identifiable sources. There appears to be only one rule. If it hurts the US military or a Republican administration - run it. If it hurts a Democratic administration (or even the US military during a Democratic administration) - spike it.

University Diversity Does Not Include Republicans

2005-05-18T13:40:00.000-07:00

The Leadership Institute looked over data from the Federal Election Commission and looked at the contributions from faculty members at the top universities (as ranked by US News &World Report). Link.

USN&WRs 2004
School Rankings

Kerry/Bush
Dollar Ratio

Kerry/Bush
Dollar %

Number of
Donations

Harvard

25 to 1

97% to 3%

406 to 13

Princeton

302 to 1

99.7% to 0.3

114 to 1

Yale

20 to 1

95% to 5%

150 to 3

Penn

32 to 1

97% to 3%

93 to 5

Duke

9 to 1

90% to 10%

98 to 7

MIT

43 to 1

98% to 2%

121 to 2

Stanford

6 to 1

86% to 14%

257 to 28

CIT

30 to 1

97% to 3%

22 to 2

Columbia

8 to 1

89% to 11%

197 to 14

Dartmouth

Infinity

100% to 0%

39 to 0

Aren't you happy to know that your kids will receive a range of opinion if you pay the big bucks for a top university? Unfortunately, that range is from left to far left. It was somewhat comforting to see that my alma mater, Columbia, was just about the least unbalanced of the top ten.

More on Spain's 3/11 Bombing

2005-05-18T10:18:00.000-07:00

Frank Gaffney has a column in NRO that tells of an investigative piece in a Madrid newspaper that found evidence that Spanish police fabricated evidence to disprove the govenment's claim of Basque involvement, effectively performing an "inside job" to aid a coup that brought the anti-terror-war socialists to power. Link.

On May 16, the Madrid daily El Mundo published an investigative report that is potentially as explosive as the 3/11 attacks themselves: It suggests that, almost immediately after the 12 bombs went off in one of the citys busiest train stations, some in the Spanish police force fabricated, and then publicized, evidence. The object seems to have been to support the oppositions claims that Islamists angry over the governments support for the war in Iraq were responsible.

At worst, the information uncovered by El Mundo could mean that the deadly bombing was actually perpetrated with the complicity of the same Spanish police bomb squad, Tedax, that was subsequently charged with investigating the crime.

Either way, if the leads published in recent days pan out, it would appear that Spains 2004 elections were stolen by terrorists, alright. But the terrorist operation that brought the socialists to power may have been an inside job in effect, a coup perpetrated by some of the same authorities who are responsible for preventing terror. Explosive stuff, if true. But all preliminary and speculative right now.

The article then quotes an English translation of El Mundo directly. There are numerous bits of evidence presented. This is one of them.

Cellphones used for March 11 were unlocked in a phone shop owned by... a Spanish police officer. And not just any police officer: It was Maussili Kalaji, a Syrian born citizen who had been granted Spanish citizenship several years ago and entered the police department when he arrived in Spain [despite] his past as an Al Fatah member and as an agent for the Soviets' intelligence services.

Apparently as soon as [Kalaji] left the [Spanish] police academy, he was assigned to infiltrate extremist groups and so he got acquainted with such nice guys as Abu Dadah, currently under trial for the 9/11 plot and who will be on trial again in the future for his role on March 11. He also was assigned to the security detail of Judge Garzón, now on leave and teaching at a New York university who insisted that, no matter what Aznar was saying on March 11, he knew from minute 1 that the bombings had been by Islamic terrorists, not ETA. I think we know now why.

And that's not all: Kalaji's sister was the translator for the police in charge of translat[ing] the wiretapped conversations between the alleged March 11 culprits before the bombings. And his ex-wife, also a police officer, was the first to arrive at the scene where another key [piece of] evidence pointing to Islamic terrorists and not ETA was found: a white van with detonators and some tapes with Koranic verses. Socialists blame Aznar's government for hiding this but, of course, maybe its guys got there first.

If corroborated, this evidence is explosive. Obviously the current, socialist Spanish government will not investigate, but someone has to. El Mundo will probably continue its investigation, but it does not have subpoena power. Nevertheless, it can supply an avenue to attract any Spaniard with information. If they get enough dots from anti-socialist Spaniards, they may be able to connect them.

True Sources of the Riots

2005-05-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

Opinion Journal has a column by Claudia Rosett about the reasons behind the "Newsweek riots." Link.

We are hearing that Muslims, infuriated by a report of blasphemy, went on violent rampages that resulted in . . . dead Muslims and burned mosques. Meanwhile, not only is Newsweek apologizing and retracting, but the U.S. government is regretting the loss of life.

What's really going on here is two stories. One involves Newsweek and the ups and downs of U.S. journalism. The other involves a swath of the Islamic world in which anger, fueled by years of gross political misrule, is a chronic feature of life--seeking to acquire a target. What produced these particular riots was the intersection of Islamic-world furies and that brand of U.S. self-absorption in which no subject is more fascinating to the American media than any possible misdeeds of the U.S. itself.

For better or worse, the U.S. media occupy an extraordinary position in the world. Richer in resources than most, and freer than almost any, American reporters enjoy an astounding ability to pursue stories of many kinds, in many places. By and large they produce a brand of journalism that despite its flaws is more reliable than most. But it is also focused chiefly on the U.S.

The tragedy in all this is that while the entire world is by now acquainted with tales--true and false--about Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo Bay, the information pretty much ends there. When it comes to the Islamic world's most despotic states, almost no one outside their borders can reel off the names of the prisons they run, let alone tales of what happens within. [...]
But to whatever extent the press is engaged in the business of trying to report the truth, or contribute to the making of a better world, it would be a service not only to U.S. journalism, but to the wider world--including Muslims--to spend less effort dredging Guantanomo Bay, and more time wielding the huge resources at our disposal to report on the prisons of the Islamic world. It is in such places that the recent riots had their true origins.

Newsweek's negligence is inexcusable, but why does nearly everybody accept as normal that a story, even if true, of disrespect of a Koran would lead Muslims to rampage, burn, destroy and kill. I suspect that it is because it is only Muslims of that stripe that we meet in the news media. A lot of the blame rests with the moderate Muslims, who largely remain silent in the face of Islamic extremism. However, even when they do speak up or act, the MSM buries the story, if they run it at all. The only Muslim worthy of news coverage is the homicidal fanatic.

In the Muslim world, the only view of America that the government-controlled media shows its citizens is Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo Bay. These stories are grossly overplayed in the US media, but at least we get other coverage as well. The MSM coverage of the Muslim world is not much broader or representative than the Muslim press coverage on the US. Probably over 90% of the press coverage of Muslims in the US concerns their blowing up innocent civilians. Negligently anti-American coverage of Guantanamo may have sparked these riots, but the coverage of the riots as representative of the Muslim masses ignores the tremendous progress toward democracy that the Bush Doctrine has brought to the Muslim world.

Levin Blames America First

2005-05-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

Agence France-Presse reports on a Democrat Senator's take on the oil-for-food scandal. Link.

The United States did not do enough to curb corruption by American companies involved in the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq, say Democrats on a Senate committee investigating abuses in the program.

A report by the Democrats released late Monday said the State Department and the United States Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control had taken "virtually no steps" to ensure that American companies enforced sanctions against Iraq.

"We have to look in the mirror at ourselves as well as pointing fingers at others," said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

There he goes again. Levin, a blame-America-first Democrat, well, blames America first. The sub-committee he sits on found massive bribes paid to French, Russian and UN officials to look the other way as Saddam Hussein violated the rules of the oil-for-food program to buy weapons and personal palaces, rather than food and medicines for the Iraqi people. Yet no news can put America in a good enough light for a Blame-America-first Democrat to not find a lead lining, an anti-American angle so subtle that nobody could see it before.

Dems' Love Affair With Castro Continues

2005-05-17T11:28:00.000-07:00

The New York Sun reports that Cuban Americans living in New York are dismayed at how many New York Democrats voted against a House resolution expressing American solidarity with Cuba's democratic activists. Link.

Friday marks the beginning of the General Meeting of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba, a convention of 365 groups in Havana to discuss, among other issues, fostering democratic reform on the island, reducing poverty, securing labor rights, and protecting the environment.

One of the meeting's organizers, the dissident Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello, has been jailed by the Castro regime for pro-democracy activism in the past. The last similar attempt to convene a major gathering in Cuba - a planned meeting of a human rights organization, the Concilio Cubano, in February 1996 - failed, resulting in a crackdown by the government that extended over several months. [...]
encourage participants, the assembly has solicited and received expressions of support and solidarity from representatives of international organizations, including members of the European Parliament and members of the American Congress. Last Tuesday, the House of Representatives approved H.R. 193, which, among other provisions, extends "support and solidarity to the organizers and participants of the historic meeting." The resolution, introduced by a Republican of Florida, Mario Diaz-Balart, passed by a vote of 392 to 22. The bill had more than 50 co-sponsors, including a Democrat from New York, Rep. Eliot Engel of the Bronx.

New York was the best-represented state among the resolution's opponents, however, with six New York Democrats among the 22 nay votes.

Second only to wanting to raise taxes, you can count on liberal Democrats to support Fidel Castro. How can you ask them to vote for a resolution supporting pro-democracy opposition figures in a country that they believe is the most democratic in the world? They share a common enemy, the United States, and they are not about to revoke their support toward any enemy of the US.

One Democrat's Alternative on SS

2005-05-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

We finally got a Democrat alternative to President Bush's Social Security plan. Link.

Rep. Robert Wexler, Florida Democrat, broke with his party leadership yesterday and introduced a plan to fix Social Security by raising taxes, saying it's time more Democrats join the dialogue by introducing plans of their own. [...]
Mr. Wexler's plan would increase taxes to take care of Social Security's projected shortfall. The proposal would subject income above the $90,000 cap to a 6 percent tax -- 3 percent paid by the worker, 3 percent paid by the employer. Income less than $90,000 already is taxed at twice that rate. [...]
Mr. Wexler said he also has spoken privately with several of his Democratic colleagues about moving forward with plans and that "there's a lot more support for this kind of action than people might believe."
Rep. Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon Democrat, is considering introducing a plan that would lift the cap on income subject to the payroll tax while exempting the first $4,000.

I am Shocked! Shocked! A Democrat wants to solve a problem by raising taxes. The main objection of the Democrats to Mr. Bush's suggestion to means test the rate of growth of benefits is that is turns Social Security into a welfare program by separating benefits from payments made. The problem with raising Social Security taxes is that it automatically raises benefits, since benefits are linked to taxes paid. Mr. Wexler's solution to this problem: charge the wealthy more taxes, but do not raise their benefits. Democrats have an incredible ability to hold two conflicting ideas at the same time. X is good if a Democrat wants it, but bad if a Republican wants it.

A Real Nail Biter

2005-05-16T10:48:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press reports that it is still too close to call if a vote is held this week to ban judicial filibusters. Link.

Both sides in the debate over Senate filibusters of judicial nominees claim to have enough support to prevail on a vote to ban the practice, even as the parties leaders acknowledge that several Republicans senators they are courting have yet to commit.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., intends this week to call up for a vote the nominations of judges Priscilla Owen of Texas and Janice Rogers Brown of California. President Bush nominated both for the federal bench during his first term, but they and five others were blocked by Democrats. Bush renominated all seven judges this year.

Should Democrats move this week to block Brown and Owen, and Republicans fail to break a filibuster, Frist would call for the Senate to vote on whether to ban use of filibusters against judicial nominees.

Both sides said Sunday they had the votes to prevail, including having support from across the aisle.

Another possibility exists. If five Democrats decide that it is more important to maintain the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, expected later this year, they can vote for closure, and no rule change will be voted on. If the Republicans cannot force an up-or-down vote an all judicial nominees, they do not deserve to be in the majority. Why do we need a Republican majority if the Democrats can call all of the shots.

Flushed Koran Story an "Error"

2005-05-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

Newsweek magazine confessed that its facts were wrong in a story that had deadly consequences. Link.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newsweek magazine said on Sunday it erred in a May 9 report that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to the victims of deadly Muslim protests sparked by the article.

Editor Mark Whitaker said the magazine inaccurately reported that U.S. military investigators had confirmed that personnel at the detention facility in Cuba had flushed the Muslim holy book down the toilet.

The report sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza. [...]
The weekly news magazine said in its May 23 edition that the information had come from a "knowledgeable government source" who told Newsweek that a military report on abuse at Guantanamo Bay said interrogators flushed at least one copy of the Koran down a toilet in a bid to make detainees talk.

But Newsweek said the source later told the magazine he could not be certain he had seen an account of the Koran incident in the military report and that it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts.

Whitaker told Reuters that Newsweek did not know if the reported toilet incident involving the Koran ever occurred. "As to whether anything like this happened, we just don't know," he said in an interview.

Does this sound familiar. A major liberal news outlet gets some unverified information that makes the Bush Administration look bad. Rather than take the time to verify the facts, and take the risk that they will verify that the "facts" are wrong and they will not have another anti-Bush article to run, they speed the story into print. However, the consequences were far worse than when Dan Rather rushed the memo story onto the air without checking whether the memos it was based on were authentic,

Here people died. In the American legal system, there is a name for it when your negligence causes someone's death. The word is "murder." There is no chance that our legal system will prosecute the guilty parties at a major news outlet for murder, but I hope the relatives of the victims sue Newsweek for their entire net worth. That so-called news organization is far more deserving of being put out of business than Arthur Anderson was.

A Victory for Free Interstate Commerce

2005-05-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

The Supreme Court ruled that states that allow in-state wineries to sell directly to its citizens must allow out-of-state wineries to do the same. Link.

The court said the state bans are discriminatory and anticompetitive.

"States have broad power to regulate liquor," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. "This power, however, does not allow states to ban, or severely limit, the direct shipment of out-of-state wine while simultaneously authorizing direct shipment by in-state producers."

"If a state chooses to allow direct shipments of wine, it must do so on evenhanded terms," he wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter,
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

The ruling means that legislatures in the 24 states barring out-of-state shipments will have to review their laws to make sure in-state and out-of-state wineries are treated equally. As a result, states could choose to allow wineries to sell to consumers directly, but could also bar all wineries from doing so.

This was a good call by the Court. The 21st Amendment, which ended Prohibition, gave states the power to regulate alcohol sales in the state. However, the Commerce Clause requires that states do not discriminate against interstate commerce. Taken together, these two portions of the Constitution mean that states can ban alcohol sales outright, ban certain types and allow others, and throw any other restriction they want at the industry, as long as it applies to all sellers, not just ones in the state or ones out of the state.

I have lived in several states and have seen the effects of different regulation. Alcohol was the cheapest in states where you could buy beer, wine and liquor in the supermarket. Beer and wine were reasonable, but liquor was outlandishly expensive in states where liquor could only be sold in state owned stores, or where liquor stores could only buy their supplies from a state wholesale monopoly .I also lived in one area where alcohol could be sold in bottles, but liquor by the drink was banned. These are all acceptable alternatives of the power granted by the 21st Amendment. However, no state could say, "You can buy this brand in the supermarket at whatever price they choose to charge, but this brand you must buy from our monopoly at double the price available in neighboring states." It would be no different if instead of "brand" you substituted "wines from an in-state winery" and "wines from an out-of-state winery."

Economists for Personal Accounts

2005-05-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

A new release from the Cato Institute tells that over 450 economists, including many Nobel laureates, are endorsing an ad that calls for Social Security personal accounts. Link.

More than four hundred-and-fifty of America's top economists, including Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, Robert Lucas, Robert Mundell, Edward Prescott and Vernon Smith, are calling for the nation's troubled Social Security system to be reformed by giving workers the option of shifting all or part of their payroll taxes into privately invested accounts.

In ads sponsored by the Cato Institute in tomorrow's Roll Call newspaper and The Washington Times, the economists argue that America's Social Security system is facing a financial crisis because of its flawed pay-as-you-go structure. They say that any solution "must uphold the time-honored principles of ownership, inheritability and choice." [...]
The ads will appear just hours before the House Ways and Means Committee holds a hearing into Social Security reform. Among those testifying before the panel will be Michael Tanner, the director of the Cato Institute's Project on Social Security Choice -- widely considered the leading intellectual impetus for transforming the soon-to-be-bankrupt system into a savings program that would allow Americans to invest their payroll-tax contributions in individual accounts.

For an economist, this call should be a no-brainer. The Social Security was set up as a lottery. Few workers in 1936 lived to 65, and so they lost everything they had paid in payroll taxes. Those who lived beyond 65, were unlikely to live for very many years. Today, the vast majority of workers live long enough to collect, and many of them collect for more than 30 years. A system based on robbing the many to pay the fortunate few cannot survive these demographic changes. Only a system that puts part of the payroll tax into an invested account can allow today's young workers to collect anything when the retire. Luckily it appears that most young workers know this. Very few of them believe that Social Security will be able to pay them anything when they retire.

More Phony CBS " News Reporting"

2005-05-13T11:14:00.000-07:00

Power Line posts about the latest effort by CBS to help the Democrats in their judicial filibuster fight. Link.

Today's hottest media story relates to a CBS News report on the judicial filibuster by Gloria Borger that aired Monday night. The segment included an interview with Ken Starr, in which Starr, seemingly in reference to the Republicans' effort to end the filibuster, said: "This is a radical, radical departure from our history and from our traditions, and it amounts to an assault on the judicial branch of government." [...]
[In an e-mail, Starr responded,}I sat on Saturday with Gloria Borger for 20 minutes approximately, had a wide ranging, on-camera discussion. In the piece that I have now seen, and which I gather has been lavishly quoted, CBS employed two snippets. The 'radical departure from our history' snippet was specifically addressed to the practice of invoking judicial philosophy as a grounds for voting against a qualified nominee of integrity and experience. I said in sharp language that that practice was wrong. I contrasted the current practice and that employed viciously against your father with what occurred during Ruth Ginsburg's nomination process as numerous Republicans voted, rightly, to confirm a former ACLU staff worker. They disagreed with her positions as a lawyer but they voted -- again rightly -- to confirm her." [...]
It is also being reported that Starr has asked for a copy of the video of his interview and been turned down by CBS.

Didn't CBS learn anything from the Dan Rather incident. They are in last place and slipping, and yet they keep doing what most turns off their potential viewers. People want news, not propaganda, but that is precisely what CBS continues to produce.

No, I take it back. They did learn something from the memogate affair. They got caught then because they made the memos public, and they could be examined. This time they are refusing to release the full tape, so Ken Starr's claims cannot be compared with theirs.

Some Possible 2006 Competition for Hillary

2005-05-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

The Daily Standard reports that Nixon son-in-law Ed Cox may enter the New York senate race. Link.

Cox, who has declined to make a statement on his intentions, has made steps toward running for Clinton's New York Senate seat, including launching an exploratory committee. Associates to Cox believe that he will win the endorsement of New York Governor George Pataki.

By the time Hillary Rodham married future president Bill Clinton in 1975, Ed Cox had been married to the daughter of then current president Richard Nixon for four years and had been making valuable in-roads within the Republican party. He became a loyal intimate to his father-in-law, standing by him through Watergate and regularly traveling abroad with the former president.

While Cox's Rose Garden wedding to Tricia Nixon brought him into the Nixon family, and in some ways the administration, Hillary was trying to bring it down. While on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee, she helped to write articles of impeachment against the president. [...]
He is chairman of the State University Construction Fund, trustee of the State University of New York, chair of the New York State Council of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, and commissioner of the New York State Commission on Judicial Nomination. In addition, Cox has written pieces for the New Republic and the New York Post.

I do not know enough about Cox to have an opinion as to how strong a candidate he will be. It is very much in the Republicans' interest to field a strong candidate in the 2006 senate race. Many consider Hillary the front runner for the 2008 presidential nominees of the Democrats, and the best way to weaken her chances is to bloody her in the 2006 race. In 2000, she coasted to an easy victory against an exceptionally weak Republican candidate. If she gets to coast through to an easy victory again, it will greatly strengthen her in 2008. The only possible silver lining would be that she would never have faced a tough race, and may be unprepared for one in 2008. However, I would easily forgo that silver lining to see her face a really tough race in 2006.

Dems Must Choose on CAFTA: Unions or Hispanics

2005-05-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

Dick Morris has an interesting column on the hard choice CAFTA is forcing on the Democrats. Link.

The Bush administration is planning to submit CAFTA the Central America Free Trade Agreement to the Congress for approval. Democrats and labor unions are indicating their usual opposition, and a fight reminiscent of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) battle over trade with Mexico in the early 90s seems about to begin.

But the battle comes at a critical time for the political parties, since the Hispanic vote has come dramatically into play in the recent presidential election. While Al Gore beat Bush by 65-35 percent among Hispanics, Kerry won by only 55-45. Hispanics cast 10 million votes in 2004, so the gains Bush made over his 2000 vote share amount to a 2 million vote swing in his favor. Since Bush won by only 3.1 million votes in 2004, the importance of the Latino vote is apparent.

CAFTA is an attempt to bring to the poverty-stricken countries of Central America the benefits of free trade with the colossus of the north. These nations are among the worlds poorest, and free trade would be a tremendous boon to their economies. [...]
With 2 million people who were born in Central America now living in the United States, the Democrats oppose CAFTA at their peril. These voters will not take kindly to nativist sentiment in the party that says it offers them opportunity and compassion.

Hispanic voters are much less concerned about immigration issues than about free-trade questions. Once they are here and have become citizens and voters, the opening of borders is a far-away issue at best. But likely each of these voters has family still living in Central America. The more than $10 billion sent home by Mexicans and Central Americans living here attests to their concern for the folks back home. If the Democratic Party wants to have an all-out battle with the Republicans over compassion for Central America, it would be a serious mistake.

Hispanics now outnumber blacks as the largest ethnic minority. Democrats have the privilege of ignoring the black vote, since it is so firmly in their pocket, but they have to fight for the Hispanic vote. Mexican-Americans may not care about CAFTA, but voters from Central American countries will care very much. They will care enough that it may trump most or all other issues when they next decide their vote.

How Goes the Nominee War?

2005-05-12T10:27:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times reports that Republicans, after a late start, are catching up in the PR war over judicial nominees. Link.

Key Republicans said yesterday that although Democrats did a better job in the early fight over President Bush's judicial nominees, the GOP has achieved "parity" in the public relations battle.
"We were a little slower on the draw," said a Republican strategist close to the effort. "But we're there now at parity with them in terms of mobilization and intensity and breadth and depth of coalition effort."
The strategist said Democrats went into battle mode over judges the day after Mr. Bush was re-elected in November. Republicans did not catch up until about two weeks ago. [...]
Seeking to counter a similarly aggressive Democratic campaign to preserve the filibuster, Republicans are writing op-ed columns, booking Bush surrogates on cable news channels and deluging reporters with e-mails. [...]
In recent days, the administration has assumed an increasingly vocal role, with Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales speaking out on behalf of the nominees.
Yesterday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan flatly rejected any talk of a compromise that would confirm only some of the president's seven blocked nominees.
"They should all get an up-or-down vote," he told reporters. "Senate Democrats have gone to an unprecedented level to block nominees from receiving an up-or-down vote."

The Republicans have a much easier story to sell. They are not demanding confirmation of Bush's nominees, but only an up or down vote. The American people recognize fairness when they see it. From the Democrats, they are seeing and hearing only mud being slung at specific nominees, including an African-American woman. They know that, if these nominees were as bad as the Democrats' ads say, they would not receive a majority vote for confirmation. The mud slinging is not a good justification for denying these nominees an up or down vote. The people will not man the barricades when the Senate changes its rules to allow senators to vote yeah or nay on all judicial nominees.

No Drivers License - No Problem

2005-05-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

NRO has a column by a LAPD officer about the latest example of legislative madness in Sacramento. Link.

Allow me to introduce you to Senator Gilbert Cedillo, Democrat of Los Angeles. [...] Recall that it was Cedillo who introduced legislation that would have allowed illegal immigrants to obtain California driver's licenses. In 2003, the bill was passed by both houses of California's famously left-leaning legislature and hastily signed into law by a desperate Governor Gray Davis, who at the time was facing what proved to be a successful recall effort. Public outrage over the issue helped propel Arnold Schwarzenegger into the governor's mansion. Under pressure from Schwarzenegger, California legislators, including Cedillo himself, voted to repeal the bill they had only recently passed. [...]
Let's imagine Officer Dunphy is on patrol one night and happens to observe, as he does from time to time, a driver going too fast or otherwise driving so as to make himself a hazard to navigation. Let's further imagine that Officer Dunphy pulls the offending driver over with the aim of issuing him a citation, the receipt of which will encourage said driver to be more careful in the future, thus enhancing not only his own safety but that of the entire motoring public. Now suppose this driver has not gone to the trouble of obtaining a driver's license, either in California or anyplace else, and that he also has failed to obtain the liability insurance required under California law. Not only would Officer Dunphy issue the man a citation for the moving violation that precipitated the stop, but also for having no driver's license and no insurance. And, to make sure this person does not immediately resume driving and flouting the lawfully enacted statutes, Officer Dunphy summons a tow truck and impounds the man's car for 30 days.

Senator Cedillo's proposed legislation would exempt illegal immigrants, and only illegal immigrants, from having their cars impounded, and would lower the fines levied against them for failing to purchase car insurance. Cedillo's reasoning, as best I can summarize it, is that because illegal immigrants are prohibited by law from obtaining driver's licenses, and therefore cannot purchase insurance, it is unfair to treat them in the same manner as those citizens who, through their own indolence, fail to obtain one or the other or both.

Let me get this straight. If this bill were to pass (very unlikely, given who the governor is today), illegal aliens would be granted a legal status higher than that of citizens, and they would be exempt from laws that restrict citizens and legal residents.

Maybe I should not be surprised. After all, this is merely the logical result of the cult of victimhood.

Underfunded Pension Goes Poof

2005-05-11T10:49:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press reports how a bankrupcy judge has allowed United Airlines to turn its underfunded pensions over te a federal agency, where benefits will be cut. Link.

United Airlines gained a significant financial victory with court approval to dump its four pension plans but faces a tough challenge to win back the support of angry employees.
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While smoothing the path toward a targeted exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy later this year, Tuesday's ruling in U.S. Bankruptcy Court inflamed United's unions, with some hinting at the possibility of strikes or other disruptive actions.

It also prompted a renewed warning from some members of Congress that taxpayers may someday have to bail out the deficit-riddled government pension agency, which now will assume an additional $6.6 billion in pension obligations from United. [...]
Wedoff approved the pension plan over the objections of several unions, noting that the federal pension system preserves the majority of benefits for employees at troubled companies. He called it "the least bad" of the available choices, since it gives unprofitable United the best chance to keep functioning.

These defined benefit pension plans were one of the factors that pushed United into the bankrupcy court. Defined benefit plans, which define a "guaranteed" retirement payment rather than a defined payment into the plan to be invested, have largely disappeared from America, except for government employees (all levels of government) and a few heavily unionized industries, such as airlines and autos. United will not be the last to have to get rid of its defined benefit pension plans. American Airlines may soon follow suit, and General Motors, whose bonds were recently downgraded to junk status, will probably have to eventually. The statement "that the federal pension system preserves the majority of benefits for employees at troubled companies" means that the cut in benefits will be less than 50%.

These dropping benefits are what the MSM continue to call "guaranteed" benefits when they compare the current, totally unfunded Social Security system, with its guarantee of a 27% benefit cut if no changes are made, with partially funded alternatives, which they refer to as "risky." What happened at United is a prelude to what will happen to Social Security if nothing is done, the preferred Democrat plan.

Another Oil-For-Food Recipient

2005-05-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

The Weekly Standard reports on evidence of oil-for-food bribes to Al Jazeera and other Arab news outlets. Link.

On January 6, 2005, the U.S.-funded Arabic satellite network Al Hurra broadcast an explosive exposé detailing the financial links between Saddam Hussein's regime and the Arab press. Al Hurra's documentary--so far overlooked in the West--aired previously unseen video footage, recorded by Saddam Hussein's regime during its murderous heyday, of Saddam's son Uday meeting with several Arab media figures and referring to the bribes they had received.

Recipients of this Baathist largesse appeared to include a former managing director of the influential Qatar-based government-subsidized satellite network Al Jazeera, Mohammed Jassem al-Ali. The videotaped meeting between Uday and al-Ali occurred on March 13, 2000, when al-Ali still worked as Al Jazeera's managing director. Their conversation makes clear that this was not their first meeting, but that they had met on prior occasions--and that Al Jazeera had put into effect the directives that Uday had proffered in those previous meetings.

Referring to how his advice had affected changes in Al Jazeera's personnel, Uday states, "During your last visit here along with your colleagues we talked about a number of issues, and it does appear that you indeed were listening to what I was saying since changes took place and new faces came on board such as that lad, Mansour."

This "lad" is Ahmed Mansour, an Al Jazeera journalist who has been criticized for his pro-insurgency reporting. In particular, Mansour came under fire in early 2004 for his coverage of the U.S. attack on Falluja, which pointedly emphasized civilian casualties.

Uday goes on in his videotaped conversation with al-Ali
to mention that some people have relayed to him al-Ali's comment that Al Jazeera is the station of Iraq's Baathist regime "both literally and figuratively." Thus, Uday says, "It is important that I share with you my observations about the station." [...]
Al Jazeera isn't the only Arab media outlet implicated in the Al Hurra tapes. It was recently discovered that Hamida Naanaa, a Syrian writer based in France who was known for her pro-Saddam slant, had received coupons under the Oil-for-Food program in exchange for her favorable coverage. Al Hurra alleges that Saddam's regime would hand out two types of oil coupons to Arab media figures: silver coupons that entitled their holders to a maximum of 9 million barrels of oil, and gold coupons that were good for even more. Naanaa had received a gold coupon.

It's funny. It was big news when the MSM could tell us over and over that a columnist who supported the administration had received money from a PR firm that had received money from the government. Yet there is a total spike on a public broadcast of captured Iraqi videotapes of the Saddam government bribing Arab news organizations to lie about Iraq. I thank the Weekly Standard for this news. I had not seen it before.

It should not surprise us that journalists, editors and news executives are human beings. Their coverage is slanted by their deeply held beliefs, and they are as susceptible to bribery as anyone else. CNN whitewashed Saddam's Iraq in order to assure access to Iraqi officials by their reporters. Numerous reporters whitewashed Arafat and the PLO because they feared violence or death if they told the truth.

The amount of money available for bribery in the oil-for-food slush fund was unprecedented. It bought the top echelons of the UN. Why would we not think that it could also buy journalists and their bosses.

Wireless Communication Thrives in Afghanistan

2005-05-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

World Press has an interesting article about the rapid growth of a wireless network in Afghanistan. Link.

Before the fall of the Taliban in November 2001, 27 million Afghan citizens had to make do with approximately 20,000 working telephone lines. Domestic connections were spotty, while only a handful of expensive satellite phones could dial internationally. Today, through the extraordinary efforts of the Afghan Wireless Communication Company and its parent company, Telephone Systems International (TSI), more than 300,000 citizens subscribe to the Afghan wireless network, with coverage in twenty cities and an additional twenty cities slated for service by the end of the summer.

The development of the Afghan wireless network has been the mission of Ehsan Bayat, an Afghan-American who fled Afghanistan in 1980. Observing the need for a comprehensive communications network in Afghanistan, Bayat partnered his United States-based company, TSI, with the Afghan Ministry of Communications to launch a wireless network that Bayat hopes will be the digital artery of our nation, allowing communication, commerce, and electronic exchanges to flow easily among all Afghans.

This digital network leaves no part of Afghanistan untouched, according to Bayat, who adds by the end of the summer, we will have three-quarters of the nation covered. The speed with which TSI and Afghan Wireless have been able to build the mobile network has made it the provider of choice for government agencies and businesses, especially in and around Kabul. Afghan Wireless provided the communications support for the Loya Jirga meetings that formed the interim Afghan administration, and opened Kabuls first-ever public Internet cafe in 2002. The police and fire departments in Kabul have received free telephones for emergency service support.

Demand for private service has been much greater than anticipated, but TSI has consistently devoted more resources to accommodate demand, while simultaneously expanding service throughout the country.

Afghanistan has a long history of tribalism, at least for the people who do not live in large cities. Its people were members of their tribe first, and Afghanistanis second. This isn't necessarily because people chose tribalism, but because the tribes were separated and there was limited communication between members of the separate tribes.

Communications is probably the single greatest key to uniting the members of the diverse tribes into one nation. This wireless network will make it as easy to talk with someone elsewhere in the country as with one's neighbor. The rapid growth of the network means that Afghanistanis accept it and want it, and that is a very optimistic sign for the future of the country.

Separate or Joint Banking

2005-05-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

The New York Sun has a column by a therapist (precisely what kind of therapist is not revealed) named Elizabeth Bailey concerning the banking habits of married couples. Link.

Over half the married households in this country now keep multiple checking accounts. [...]
Do separate accounts undermine the institution of marriage or cement it?

Most often it is the man who wants to merge and the woman who wants to keep her money distant. A certified financial planner based in Greenwich, Conn., Lili Vasileff, argues that indeed, women should keep at least some money to themselves. A separate account, among other benefits, establishes a credit history, encourages each partner to develop financial management skills and control, and allows the saver to take pride in achieving specific financial goals. [...]
But today, marriage is a partnership - at least in most of the 50% of the marriages that survive, that is the case. This partnership should strengthen and deepen as milestones are encountered or circumnavigated. Even if a couple enters marriage with individual accountability, as the partners make and reach financial goals - an apartment, a car, the extra expense of a child, or even a move from margarine to butter, Key Food chicken to organic - a merger of money makes sense. It is a matter of trust.

Separate accounts paper over insidious differences in spending and savings styles. [...]
It's not so much that separate accounts allow individuality to run rampant. It's that a partnership requires agreements - at the very least an agreement to disagree. The separation of his from hers encourages those disagreements to calcify until they are too hard to remove.

I cannot speak with any authority as to which is better, but I do have a preference. My wife and I have kept a single account from the day we married. Separate accounts somehow strike me as similar to a pre-nuptial agreement - possibly a sound financial calculation, but one that does not demonstrate a great deal of trust. Yes, a lot of marriages do not make it, but I feel that going into a marriage with the assumption that it will make it, and structuring your life and your finances accordingly, increases the odds that it will make it. You may end up worse off if the marriage breaks up, but planning for a possible break-up has got to shape your attitude toward the marriage in ways that make a break-up easier when things get tough, as they do at times in every marriage.

Palestinians Want Normality Too

2005-05-10T09:40:00.000-07:00

Here is another example of how Arabs prefer Western political methods when they are exposed to them. Daniel Pipes has a column in which he gives numerous examples of statements by Palestinians that compare Israel and the PA on specific issues, and prefer the Israeli way. Link. He concludes the column with:

These comments point to some Palestinians appreciating the benefits of elections, rule of law, minority rights, freedom of speech, and a higher standard of living. In effect, they acknowledge Israel as more civilized than the PA. Amid all the PA's political extremism and terrorism, it is good to know that a Palestinian constituency also exists for normality.

Unfortunately, it remains a furtive constituency with no political import. The time has come for decent Palestinians to make their voices heard and state that Israel's existence is not the problem but the solution.

First we were told that Arabs are an exception to everyone else's desire for democracy. Then, with democracy and demonstrations and demands for democracy breaking out throughout the Arab world, we were told that Palestinians were an exception to Arabs' desire for democracy. There are no exceptions. Everybody would prefer to live in liberty. Many, perhaps most, would prefer a form of democracy that recognizes and incorporates the unique ethnic attributes of their society, but that is not the same as not wanting democracy.

Now Let's Tax Good Behavior

2005-05-10T08:38:00.000-07:00

Opinion Journal has a column by Brendan Miniter that tells of a proposed new tax in Oregon that is over the top. Link.

Oregon is worried that too many Honda Insights and Toyota Priuses hitting the roads will rob it of the cash it expects out of its 24-cent-a-gallon tax. So the Beaver State is studying ways to ensure that "hybrid" car owners pay their "fair share" of taxes for the miles they drive. That means allowing the taxman to catch up to hybrid owners just as often as he catches up to gas guzzling SUV drivers. [...]
[T]he state is looking to influence behavior in addition to raising revenue by implementing a "vehicle mileage tax." Under a VMT a motorist would pay a tax for each mile driven, probably around 1.25 cents. To administer this tax, a global positioning system would be mounted in each car. As a driver fuels up, the device would relay mileage information to the gas pump, which would calculate the VMT. A simple electronic odometer-reading device would do the trick, but Oregon is looking at GPS devices because they would also allow for charging higher VMT rates for miles driven in "congested" areas during rush hour or to exempt miles driven out of state.

This is a pure case of instituting Big Brother government in order to maximize taxes. We are supposed to give up all claims to privacy, allowing the state to track everywhere we drive, in order to tax the gas frugal the same as the gas guzzlers.

States used to justify taxes on cigarettes and alcohol as "sin taxes." If the reasoning used for this Oregon tax were to be applied more broadly, states should apply cigarette taxes and alcohol taxes to nonsmokers and nondrinkers in the name of "tax fairness." If buying a 50-mile-per-gallon car does not save you any gas tax, why should not smoking save you cigarette tax or not drinking save you alcohol tax? After all, the state needs your money.

Big Trial Opens

2005-05-09T11:19:00.000-07:00

An important trial is opening tomorrow. A key finance officer to Senator Clinton's 2000 campaign faces criminal charges of under-reporting campaign expenses. A key witness is a brother-in-law of Senator Kennedy, who wore a wire for the FBI and recorded a conversation with the defendant. You may have to hunt around for coverage, since the MSM do not seem hot on following the story, but here is a preview from the New York Sun. Link.

With the trial of a key finance official on Senator Clinton's 2000 campaign set to open tomorrow, a secretly recorded audiotape at the core of the case could prove embarrassing to politicians, political operatives, and wealthy donors to the Democratic Party.

David Rosen, 40, faces three felony counts of causing the filing of false campaign finance reports in connection with a celebrity-studded fund-raiser and concert held in August 2000 at a radio executive's estate in the Brentwood hills above Los Angeles. [...]
Much of the FBI-recorded steakhouse conversation was devoted to salacious gossip about Clinton loyalists, the Times-Picayune reported. Reached in Los Angeles, Mr. Rosen's lawyer, Paul Sandler, declined to comment on the exchange.

Among the recorded gripes on the tape was Mr. Rosen's complaint that although he worked closely with Vice President Gore, Mr. Gore later mistook him for a valet parking attendant, according to the Times-Picayune.

Reggie, who is Senator Kennedy's brother-in-law, made the tape to win leniency from prosecutors, who were preparing to charge him with bank fraud. Last month, he pleaded guilty to two felony counts.

Bill Clinton may be out of office, but the sleaze continues. It still is too soon to know whether this trial will have an effect on Hillary's 2006 reelection run or her 2008 presidential run, but it may supply ammunition for her opponents. In the meantime, we can sit back and enjoy the trial for its 1990s nostalgia value.

Relief for Home Buyers and Sellers - Maybe

2005-05-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Justice Department is about to bring an anti-trust suit against the National Association of Realtors. Link. (subscription required)

In a widening push to promote price competition in sales of residential real estate, government antitrust enforcers are preparing to sue the National Association of Realtors, alleging that its policies will illegally restrict discounting of sales commissions and put online competitors at a disadvantage.

The move, the latest effort by the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission aimed at protecting buyers and sellers of homes, could help take some of the sting from high real-estate costs. It comes as a hot housing market has caused prices to surge, sharply boosting income for brokers and sales agents, whose commissions typically amount to 5% to 6% of the sale price. [...]
The Justice Department is expected to charge that the NAR, in a proposed 2003 bylaw, illegally adopted practices intended to stifle Internet-based rivals and discounters, according to lawyers close to the case. These competitors often charge commissions below the traditional 6% that is divided between buying and selling agents. [...]
The government is also targeting industry-backed efforts to get state legislatures and real-estate boards, which set licensing standards, to enact regulations that in effect protect full-service real-estate agents and their commissions. Some brokers offer fixed fee-for-service, or menu, pricing that can lower consumers' costs, and others rebate a portion of the commission.

It's about time. The Internet affords us great savings in many areas, most notably travel and stock trading. With real estate, it has given us a little greater ability to look things up, but even that is limited. As for commissions, forget it. Realtors have a monopoly over access to the Multiple Listing Service, and they guard that monopoly jealously.

The Internet has allowed greater visibility for "For Sale by Owner" sales, but this is still miniscule. If the NAR monopoly is not broken, the FSBO market may grow to a significant one, but most people would prefer the convenience of dealing with a broker, and their preference would be a discount broker. Let's hope that this suit will allow such discount brokers to exist in meaningful numbers.

Scandal at German Open Tennis Tournament

2005-05-08T15:06:00.000-07:00

Reuters reports on how the German Open tennis tournament, which had attracted the world's top female tennis players, is buried in bad publicity following a pro-Nazi article in the tournament program. Link.

Berlin's Rot Weiss tennis club has apologised for the slur and suspended director Lars Rehmann, who co-authored the text.

In a section of the programme on the club's rich heritage, Luftwaffe (air force) chief Goering is pictured sitting on the club's honorary tribune, with uniformed Nazi officers behind him.

The text describes how Jewish members of the club fled Hitler and continues: "With its membership reduced by half in this way, the club, previously known as a 'Jewish club', opened itself to new members."

"In sporting terms this change brought no interruption for the club and top German tennis. On the contrary, golden times ensued."

The article does not say, but I am very curious to know, the age of the director who co-authored the text. I suspect he is young. A lot has been written about the total amnesia concerning Nazi brutality in general and their treatment of the Jews in particular in German education. Young Germans learn nothing about the horrors of Nazism, unless they make the effort to learn it themselves. This is the result. A young German will see in Goering only a high government official and can see in a statement that "Jewish members of the club fled Hitler" merely a neutral choice to relocate.

Germany has changed enough that I do not think we have to fear the truth of George Santayana's famous statement "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," but knowledge of the past is still one of the best guarantees that we will not have to repeat it.

Unmanned Warfare

2005-05-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times has a fascinating special report on our growing capabilities in unmanned warfare. Link.

The campaign that started in Afghanistan in October 2001 marked the beginning of the war against al Qaeda. It also ushered in the age of unmanned warfare.
In the next 20 years, machines will do more of the fighting. The Pentagon will spend $25 billion by 2012 to develop more than 20 air, sea and land systems. [...]
The overall aim is to reduce American casualties by allowing machines to spy and fight. But Pentagon officials warn that the public's expectations for unmanned warfare far exceeds what actually is planned. [...]
How far the unmanned movement goes depends on the skill and imagination of engineers, and the willingness of admirals and generals to surrender more of the fight to unmanned vehicles.
Another question is whether the skies over a battlefield will have enough room for each service's appetite for different kinds of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
Gen. John Jumper, Air Force chief of staff, told a symposium at the Heritage Foundation in April that there are now 750 UAVs operating in Iraq.
"We've already had two midair collisions between UAVs and other airplanes. We have got to get our arms around this thing," [...]
In the 3½-year war on terror, the military has introduced a handful of systems that engineers say will only get better with time.
When commanders realized they were encountering a new threat in Iraq -- improvised explosive devices (IEDs) -- the Navy quickly deployed IRobot Corp's PackBot EOD (explosive ordnance disposal). The portable robot -- a claw and camera on a small, tracked vehicle -- is being used by the scores to inspect and disarm IEDs.
The Air Force Predator, a 27-foot-long unmanned aerial vehicle used for soda-straw views of the battlefield, became the first robotic strike airplane after engineers affixed it with Hellfire anti-tank missiles. The Predator also acted as a precision bomber that, for example, was used to take out Baghdad's main television transmitter during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In that war, the Navy called upon an unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) to scour the channel leading to Iraq's main port at Umm Qasr. Before, divers had to use a hit-and-miss system to find and defuse mines. This time, the UUV called REMUS, or Remote Environmental Measuring Units, found and charted suspicious objects. [...]
Robotic systems will play an even larger role in war planning if Congress endorses the Army's next-generation, $100 billion armada of weapons, the Future Combat System (FCS).
The FCS is the Army's invasion force of the next decade, a network of manned and unmanned vehicles tied together in a digital communications net that relies on air and ground robotic systems to provide intelligence and do a limited amount of fighting.
An unmanned helicopter, the Fire Scout, would have sufficient payload to launch strikes during six-hour missions. Also in the works is a backpack drone, which a soldier could deploy to a rooftop. There, it would sit unnoticed, sending back live video.
On the ground, soldiers would carry small robots to throw out into a minefield, where they would methodically search for explosives. Five-ton unmanned vehicles would clear the field. A 12-ton armored vehicle would be used to complement tanks.

Throughout the 20th and now the 21st centuries, the US military has been willing to spend dollars and material instead of men whenever it could. This is the biggest impetus behind unmanned combat systems. They cannot replace men on the ground, but they can make each man on the ground more effective and more deadly. They can do battle-field reconnaissance in areas where it would be too dangerous to use men on the ground or pilots, and this additional reconnaissance can save a lot of lives. It is a no-brainer to predict that the trend toward developing more unmanned systems to handle more situations will continue.

Arab-Americans Doing Very Well

2005-05-06T12:32:00.000-07:00

The Financial Times has an interesting article headlined "Culture is not the culprit in Arab poverty." Link.

People of Arab descent living in the US are better educated and wealthier than the average American of non-Arab descent. That is one surprising conclusion drawn from data collected by the US Census Bureau in 2000. The census also found that Arab Americans are better educated and wealthier than Americans in general.

Whereas 24 per cent of all Americans hold college degrees, 41 per cent of Arab-Americans are college graduates. The median annual income of an Arab-American family living in the US is $52,300 - 4.6 per cent higher than the figure for all other American families. More than half of such families own their home. Forty-two per cent of people of Arab descent in the US work as managers or professionals, while the overall average is 34 per cent.

Bear in mind when reading this that Arab and Muslim are two very different things. Many Arabs are not Muslim and most Muslims are not Arab. The Arabs have a long tradition of trade. The Arab bazaar is known world-wide. I would think that many Americans of Arab descent - whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish - have their own retail or wholesale business. The problems in the Arab world are primarily political. Arabs living under a kleptocracy are kept in poverty. However, remember that when Lebanon was relatively free, the Lebanese were quite prosperous.

Job Training With a Difference

2005-05-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press reports on a one-day job development course given in San Francisco for "sex workers." Link.

The 25 students in jeans and T-shirts could have been in any career that requires hustle. The classes, covering topics such as effective marketing, stress reduction and legal issues, could have been part of any professional development seminar.

But this was "Whore College," and any illusion it was just another corporate how-to for young go-getters abruptly ended at the sex toy display and was stripped away for good during a graphic demonstration that put a whole new twist on the concept of hands-on training.

"We are still illegal," instructor Kimberlee Cline said before her 20-minute demonstration. "If we want to be treated as business professionals, we need to act ethically within the industry." [...]
By light of day, the women and men of the night swapped tips, argued over personal grooming choices and heard from others considered experts in their field. Many of the attendees said they were motivated as much by the networking opportunity and doing what they could to normalize the world's oldest profession as furthering their education. During Cline's workshop, for example, some in the audience skimmed magazines and chatted despite the carnal knowledge unfolding in front of them.

Participants who stuck it out for the whole day received diplomas certifying them as G.S.W's — graduates in sex work. [...]
The more shadowy aspects of the profession were covered in the curriculum. Lawyer Erin Crane explained that accepting money for a specific sex act could land someone in jail, but she repeated several times she couldn't advise anyone on how to break the law.

Students practiced using assertive screaming for self-defense and they were told how to assess dangerous situations, and how to break free from an assailant's grasp.

The parts about safety should have been worth taking the day off without pay. I cannot imagine the profession ever gaining respectability, but I think it should gain non-criminal status.

How can this legal situation be justified: If A gives B money to have sex with him, it is a crime. If A gives B money to have sex with C, while A films it, it is the legal "adult entertainment" industry. Soliciting on the street is a public nuisance, and it should be prosecuted as something like "disturbing the peace." However, the prostitution itself, if practiced away from the public view, is an act between consenting adults and should be legal. If a minor is involved, it should still be criminal. These women are in a very dangerous occupation, and they deserve the police protection that only comes with legal businesses.

Government Protects Citizens from "Cheap" Gas

2005-05-06T09:39:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reports on a gas price war in Maryland, and its effects. Link.

A gasoline price war erupted in St. Mary's County last week after one station slashed its price for regular to $1.999 a gallon and spurred three others to follow suit, giving drivers some hope of relief at the pump.

But the price dip proved fleeting.

Maryland regulators quickly stepped in and told the stations that their prices were too low. They needed to go up by 5 cents.

In as much time as it takes to fill the tank of an SUV, prices at BJ's Wholesale Club, Sheetz and two Wawa outlets bounced to $2.049 a gallon.

Nothing surprising here. Economist have long known that whenever government has the power to regulate prices, they use it to raise minimums, not to lower maximums. Just remember what happened when Ronald Reagan started to deregulate oil, gas, and gasoline. Prices dropped for decades, and they are only getting back now to where they were then in nominal terms. In real terms, prices are still significantly lower than where President Carter had left them.

Other examples are airline fares when the FAA set them, and trucking rates when the ICC set them. You would also be very surprised at how inexpensive medical insurance was before President Johnson rammed Medicare through Congress. Over time, free markets treat consumers better than government mandates 100% of the time.

Congressional Black Caucus Matures

2005-05-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times reports on changes in the Congressional Black Caucus, due largely to the changing economic standing of their constituents. Link.

About 35 years after its founding, Congressional Black Caucus members no longer vote lock step with each other and the Democratic Party, reflecting a significant change in the economic status and demographics of their constituents and their own political aspirations. [...]
But as the American social climate has changed and more blacks have moved out of poverty only a quarter of blacks are at the poverty level today, compared to more than half in 1965 the politics have changed, as well. More blacks are interested in lower taxes and pro-business policies that will lead to job growth.
The changes have played out on a series of votes this year, such as passage of the Republican-led bankruptcy bill, which 10 members of the caucus voted for, and elimination of the estate tax, which drew eight votes from the 41-member caucus. [...]
"I represent the inner city of Baltimore," Mr. Cummings said. "But in my district, I represent people making more than $250,000 a year, black people, and we have some poor whites, some rich whites and poor blacks, but the vast majority, if you can target a majority, are lower-middle-economic blacks." [...]
"Almost all in the minority-business community supported elimination of the estate tax. Access to capital has been a big issue, and small businesses and minority businesses are being hurt by unnecessary bankruptcy," he said. [...]
Rep. Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat and another founding member of the caucus, said the notion the caucus is losing cohesion is ridiculous.
"Why any member would be voting for the bankruptcy bill or estate-tax repeal or for making the tax cuts permanent or any of those things is just stupid, but it doesn't tear us apart because whether it is a speaker or a member, we only have one vote," he said.
"We have to be very, very tolerant of a person that votes stupid, because they may think they have a good reason and they are the ones who come down here, so you may think the vote is stupid but they know what they are doing," Mr. Rangel said.

How's that for liberal elitism. Mr. Rangel's statement sums up the reasons why Democrats do so poorly in elections. They think they own absolute truth, and anybody who disagrees with them is either stupid or evil.

The changes in the Black Caucus is long overdue. Blacks have been making significant progress for decades, and if their Representatives don't start acknowledging that they do not represent poverty exclusively, their constituents will look more closely at Republican alternatives.

French Supply Siders

2005-05-05T11:58:00.000-07:00

Business Week reports on a French request to the EU to allow it to cut its restaurant tax. Link.

European Union nations are to discuss a new proposal to end years of deadlock over a French call for lower sales taxes on restaurant meals, officials said Wednesday.

Tax experts from the 25 EU nations are set next week to discuss the proposal which would allow France to cut taxes on meals from 19.6 percent to 5.5 percent, a long-standing demand by President Jacques Chirac, EU officials said on condition of anonymity. [...]
France, the world's most popular tourist destination, hopes cheaper hotels and restaurants will boost business, creating jobs and helping the sputtering French economy. French chefs have also complained the current system favors fast-food joints which serve takeaway food and pay the lower rate of value added tax, or VAT.

Let me get this straight, The French are arguing that if they cut taxes, they will stimulate business and jobs. Why, that sounds like voodoo economics. Haven't we been told that only idiots like Ronald Reagan believe stuff like that? Surely a sophisticate like Jacques Chirac would read Paul Krugman's column and know that this is nonsense.

Gee, You Mean it Wasn't Just Tom DeLay

2005-05-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

Drudge reports that the number of Congressmen found to have done exactly what Tom DeLay is accused of keeps growing. Link.

The scandal over Congressional travel continues to grow, with at least 14 Members, as well as numerous Capitol Hill staffers, are now under scrutiny because of the sources of funding for domestic and overseas trips they took.

ROLL CALL reports: Although House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is by far the most high-profile lawmaker caught up in the scandal so far, to this point, more Democrats than Republicans have found themselves the subject of news reports outlining potential violations of House ethics rules for taking trips funded by registered lobbyists or lobbying firms.

The number is sure to rise as researchers for both parties, as well as reporters and political activists, continue to dig through tens of thousands of pages of travel documents on file with Congress. [...]
But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that Democrats cannot be considered in the same category as Republicans when it comes to ethics problems.

Of course they can't. This was never about ethics. It doesn't matter if 14 or 400 other members did the exact same thing. It is only an ethics violation if Tom DeLay did it, and, in fact, anything that Tom DeLay does is, by definition, an ethics violation. Just ask Nancy Pelosi or the New York Times.

Transvestites Against Terror

2005-05-05T10:08:00.000-07:00

The BBC reports that the Pakistani agents that nabbed al Libbi were dressed in burqas to get close to him. Link.

Pakistani agents wearing burqas seized al-Qaeda suspect Abu Faraj al-Libbi by ambushing his motorbike in a rural town, police told the BBC.

The man alleged to be a top al-Qaeda organiser was riding pillion and managed to run into a house where agents flushed him out with tear gas. [...]
Agents, some of whom had been wearing the all-encompassing robe worn by women in conservative Islamic families, stopped the motorbike and overpowered the driver, then fired some shots when Libbi ran away.

The suspect later emerged from the house where he had sought shelter unarmed and with his "hands up and head slightly bowed", the policeman said.

He was frisked and only a mobile phone was found. ISI agents bundled him into a vehicle and whisked him away before police could speak to him, he added.

He must have been relieved when he discovered that they really were men dressed in Burqas. As an Islamic extremist, he could never have lived it down if women had captured him. We have found that using women interrogators can disorient these guys so much that we get more information out of them. Seeing a group of what he thought were women must have made him assume zero risk, so he went right in with no defensive thoughts.

As to al Libbi's interrogation, the Pakistanis are not just doing this for us. He was behind two assassination attempts on President Musharraf, so this will be personal for them. I doubt he will be treated with kid gloves, and we should just stay out of it and wait for the results.

Man Bites Dog - Palestinian Style

2005-05-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. has a story about a bulldozer demolishing Palestinian homes. This sounds like dog-bites-man, except for one big difference in this story. Link.

A Palestinian bulldozer on Monday demolished the seaside homes of three senior officers who built illegally on public land in Gaza, the start of what the Palestinian government promises will be a relentless campaign against corruption. Palestinians, fed up with years of corruption by security officials, hailed the move as an important sign that no one is above the law.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was elected, in part, on a pledge to reform the government and security services, where top officials routinely misuse their power for personal gain. [...]
To carry out Abbas's mission, one bulldozer guarded by seven jeeps and 30 Palestinian officers entered the Sudania area on the coast of northern Gaza on Monday morning to crush the three homes, which were being built by a major, a lieutenant-colonel and a colonel on public land they illegally seized. The operation encountered no resistance.

The international left goes ballistic whenever the Israelis demolish the homes of suicide bombers, and Rachel Corrie became a saint to the left when she died in an accident while trying to stop an Israeli bulldozer from demolishing tunnels being used to smuggle arms into the Palestinian territories. Let's see how many demonstrations get organized when Palestinians use bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes.

Photo ID Veto Upheld - Barely

2005-05-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press reports that the Wisconsin legislature voted 61-34, shy of the 2/3 needed, to override Governor Jim Doyle's veto of a bill to require photo ID to vote. Link.

After failing to override Gov. Jim Doyle's veto, Republican lawmakers Tuesday introduced a plan to amend the state constitution to make voters show a government-issued photo identification before casting ballots.

Republicans were thwarted by Doyle's veto for the second time in two years in their attempts to require voters to produce a photo ID at the polls.

The Assembly's 61-34 vote fell short of the two-thirds required to override Doyle, a Democrat who said in his veto message Friday the bill would disenfranchise 100,000 senior citizens who do not have the type of photo ID required in the legislation.

Immediately after the vote, Rep. Jeff Stone, R-Greendale, introduced the amendment, accusing Doyle of standing in the way of a reform that most people would support. [...]
State officials estimate that about 123,000 adults in Wisconsin do not have those forms of ID, most of them elderly residents. The legislation would have given the $9 IDs for free to those who could not afford them.

The Assembly referred the proposed constitutional amendment to a committee that oversees campaigns and elections, whose chairman, Rep. Stephen Freese, R-Dodgeville, said he intends to push it through next week.

In the Senate, Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan, said he would introduce the plan, which would add this sentence to the constitution: "A qualified elector may not vote, or register to vote, at the polls on election day unless the elector presents a photographic identification issued by the state or by the federal government."

The Legislature would have to pass the bill in two consecutive sessions before it would go before voters in a referendum. Freese said April 2007 was the earliest it could be on the statewide ballot.

Wisconsin, which allows registration at a polling place on election day, was the scene of massive vote fraud in the 2004 election. This fraud is being actively investigated both by state and federal officials.

There is only one possible reason for the veto. The vote fraud in Milwaukee, as in other urban centers around the country is overwhelmingly by Democrats. The governor knows that in fraud-free elections, Democrats would lose a lot more elections than they currently do.

An amendment to the state constitution is a logical next step. Assuring that state laws on who may vote are followed is worthy of a state constitution. There are no vetoes of amendments. They go directly from the legislature to the voters, who, according to polls, want the Photo ID by an amazing 80%.

I have no objection to showing a photo ID to board a plane, write a check, or use a credit card. I do not like it that I am not asked for photo ID to vote. I wish California would pass such a law as well.

Just People in Power Abusing it for Kicks

2005-05-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

Lynndie England pleaded guilty in her Abu Ghraib trial, and she had to answer questions from the judge as to just what happened. Link.

Judge Pohl asked Ms. England directly whether she had been softening up detainees for questioning, as proponents of the so-called "torture narrative" have claimed. Ms. England denied it, and she also denied that her behavior was related to orders of any kind. "I had a choice, but I chose to do what my friends wanted me to do," she said. As for the others who participated, "They did it for their own amusement."

A military source who has seen all the photos -- not just those leaked to the press -- adds that they are date-stamped. The time sequence begins with naked photos of Ms. England and her boyfriend, convicted abuse ringleader Charles Graner. It progresses to photos of the two engaged in lewd acts, and then to photos involving other soldiers in lewd acts. Finally, the detainees enter the pictures. In other words, the Abu Ghraib crew degraded themselves before they degraded any Iraqis. This all merits punishment, but it doesn't fit any torture narrative.

So it was just what it looked like. The MSM coverage that hammered the torture theme every day for months had nothing to do with news coverage and everything to do with an attempt to defeat the reelection of President Bush. This was just another example of Lord Action's dictum "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Prison guards have extensive power over the prisoners, and strict supervision is necessary. That supervision was missing at Abu Ghraib, and the reservist MPs on the line abused their power for their own amusement. It is also interesting that the ring-leader was a prison guard in civilian life.

With the election over, the MSM have largely dropped the issue, and now only Senator Kennedy is still trying to ride it for all he thinks it is worth. He ignored the anniversary of the start of the war. He skipped the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. Yet he was all over the airwaves on the anniversary of the breaking of the Abu Ghraib story. He still contends that it was torture ordered from the very top. However, as I have seen others in the blogosphere comment, no interrogator and no prison guard has drowned more people than Senator Kennedy.

Groups to Advertise Pro and Con on Judges

2005-05-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press reports that groups are starting to run ads in six states with wavering Senators to try to affect whether a Senate vote is allowed. Link.

A costly advertising war erupted Monday over President Bush’s controversial court nominees, with opposing groups vowing to spend at least $1 million each over the next two weeks. [...]
Over the next two weeks, Progress For America intends to spend $350,000 on “radio ads on Christian stations” and $1.5 million on television ads in six targeted states as well as nationally, according to one internal estimate.

“Senate Democrats have abused the rules and refused to even allow a vote,” says the television ad. “So courtrooms sit empty, while thousands of Americans have their cases delayed.”

The ad says it’s the job of a senator to vote, adding: “Urge your senators to vote, up or down.”

Neas, whose group has strong Democratic ties, said it would air its commercial in the same media markets. He said the group would spend more than $1 million over two weeks on television, radio and newspaper advertisements.

The ad criticizes the two nominees whom Progress for America defended in its own commercial, Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown. [...]
The states are Alaska, Arkansas, Maine, Nebraska, North Dakota and Rhode Island—home to many of the Republicans least enamored of their party’s position on judicial confirmation.

Compare what the ads will say and guess which will be more effective. One side will inform people that a minority of Senators are blocking the Senate from performing their constitutional duty to vote up or down on judicial nominations. Most people will not know this because the MSM has refused to tell them. Instead, they have been told that the Bush Administration want its nominees confirmed event though a majority of Senators oppose them. These ads will ask them to tell their Senators to allow a vote.

The other side will merely attack two of the nominees. This may be an argument for Senators to vote against them, but it is not an argument to block the Senate from voting. All the Republicans are asking for is a vote, no matter which way the vote goes. When people know this, they overwhelmingly support the Republicans. The problem is that they must learn about it, and ads are necessary for this. The MSM will not tell them the truth on this issue.

Newspaper Circulation Down Again

2005-05-03T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reports on the latest industry circulation figures. Link.

Circulation at 814 of the nation's largest daily newspapers declined 1.9 percent over the six months ended March 31 compared with the same period last year, an industry trade group reported yesterday.

The decline continued a 20-year trend in the newspaper industry as people increasingly turn to other media such as the Internet and 24-hour cable news networks for information.

Newspaper industry officials also blamed the National Do Not Call Registry, which has forced newspapers to rely less on telemarketing to secure subscribers, and a shift in strategy among major newspapers away from using short-term promotions to acquire new readers.

"Of all the things that have happened, [the change in telemarketing rules] had the single largest impact," said John Kimball, chief marketing officer for the Newspaper Association of America, an industry trade group.

Talk about having your head buried in the sand. First we heard that liberals have the ideas all Americans favor, but they keep losing elections because they do not communicate better. Now we are told that people are giving up their newspaper subscriptions because the marketing people cannot interrupt their dinners to pitch them.

How about this. Try giving people unbiased and accurate news. I know that this has never been tested, but I just feel in my bones that if the publishers would gave it a try, people may want to read their newspapers again.

Barone Credits New Media

2005-05-03T09:04:00.000-07:00

Michael Barone's latest column credits new media for the gains of conservatives in elections and in getting things through Congress. Link.

[I]n the 2004 cycle, Old Media influence declined, while New Media influence increased. Old Media /The New York Times/, CBS, ABC, NBC is staffed mostly by liberals, and their work product inevitably reflects this. New Media talk radio, Fox News Channel, the Internet Web logs, which together are called the blogosphere are in many cases staffed by conservatives, and their work product reflects this.

In the old days, when Old Media had an effective monopoly on what most voters learned about politics and government, you would not have heard much about the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth charges against John Kerry and you would not have seen any questioning of the forged documents Dan Rather relied on in his "60 Minutes II" broadcast aimed at undermining George W. Bush. But in 2004, thanks to New Media, the Swiftvets got a hearing and Dan Rather's documents were proved dubious by the blogosphere in less than 24 hours.

For the last several weeks, George W. Bush and the Republicans have been taking a beating in Old Media. Yet when you look at the state of play, you find that they're not doing as badly as that coverage suggests.

The Republican Congress has passed bankruptcy and class action legislation with plenty of Democratic support. Last week, it passed a budget resolution with room for tax cuts and that seems to ensure oil drilling in the tundra of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The House Republicans backed down and rescinded their ethics rules changes, but they did so in the confidence that Old Media's target, Majority Leader Tom DeLay, has done nothing that violates House rules. The Senate Republicans seem to be moving ahead toward a rules change that would allow a majority of senators, not 41 Democrats, to determine who will or will not be a federal appeals court judge or the real stakes a Supreme Court justice. [...]
At the moment, Democrats seem determined to reject this progressive approach [to Social Security]. But even Old Media's polls, often slanted on this as on other issues, show that voters recognize there is a problem. So far as I can tell, no Republican was defeated in 2002 or 2004 by a Democrat who pledged "no change in Social Security." Republicans who had a plan beat Democrats whose plan was a blank piece of paper.

There is nothing in this column that you would not know if you have been reading blogs, but it is nice to see it in a major column that reaches millions of people who do not read blogs. The hysteria on the left has more to do with their lose of the media monopoly than on anything else. They hold views that are rejected by a majority of the American people, but as long as they had a monopoly on what news the people saw and read, they could still triumph. Now that people can get the truth and the whole truth (but not nothing but the truth) from the totality of the available media, the left is doomed to minority status unless they start to listen to the people they want to rule.

Saudis Arrest Christians

2005-05-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

The New York Sun reports that, on the eve of Crown Prince Abdullah's visit to President Bush, Saudi police raided a Christian service and arrested the worshipers. Link.

Just days before Crown Prince Abdullah showed up at President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, to declare that "tolerance must extend to those of all faiths and practices," Saudi police stormed a clandestine church in a suburb of Riyadh and arrested 40 Christians for proselytizing.

Saudi state-controlled newspapers reported on April 23 that two days earlier, security forces rounded up 40 men, women, and children of Pakistani citizenship who were worshipping at an abandoned villa in western Riyadh, according to translations provided by American-based Saudi monitors.

Al-Riyadh newspaper quoted a security official as saying that the Christians were arrested for "trying to spread their poisonous religious beliefs to others through the distribution of books and pamphlets," the Saudi Institute in Washington, D.C., said in a report.

That the arrests occurred just hours before Mr. Abdullah flew to Texas for a friendly meeting with Mr. Bush underscored the gap between Saudi pledges to the White House and its actions at home.

Talk is cheap, but that is usually all that westerners look at in judging the Arab world. The MSM used to give front page play to what Arafat said in English, without a word on what he said to his own people in Arabic. Saudi intolerance toward all other religions, and even toward other branches of Islam, is the elephant in the living room that nobody wants to talk about. The Saudis have done more to fund world-wide Islamic terror than any other nation. This administration has been more critical of Saudi policies than any other administration of the last sixty years or more, but it is still timid in its criticism. How about proposing a UN resolution condemning Saudi Arabia for its religious persecution?

Origin of a Motto

2005-05-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times reports on the origin of the military motto "Kilroy was here." Link.

James L. Kilroy, that is. The ship inspector credited with creating one of America's most potent military mottos remains dear to the nation's heart.
On the job around 1942, he wrote just three words in presumed anonymity on the hull of a Liberty ship: "Kilroy was here."
Over time, the phrase came to mean there was no place so remote that the U.S. military could not reach it. [...]
"The phrase has popped up in the caves of Afghanistan, and in Iraq. It's still a symbol of just how great the American spirit can be. It still means something to people," Mr. Condon said.
Mr. Kilroy was hired to inspect rivet holes in the bellies of troop ships before their launch. Other inspectors used simple chalk marks, but Mr. Kilroy hastily scrawled "Kilroy was here" in yellow crayon.
The idea that some mysterious wag "had been there first" resonated with troops who sailed aboard the ships. They soon began writing the same thing wherever they landed, commonly embellished with a bug-eyed cartoon.
Once Americans occupied German territory toward the war's end, the ubiquitous phrase was said to have convinced Adolf Hitler himself that Kilroy was an American "super soldier," and the German dictator ordered undercover agents to capture him.

American soldiers have added a lot of colorful terms to American English. G.I. (government issue), Jeep (G.P. - general purpose vehicle) and snafu (situation normal, all f***ed up) are a few that come to mind. Keeping one's sense of humor is probably a necessity for keeping one's sanity in the midst of a war. "Kilroy was here" expressed not only the sense of humor but also the optimism of the American troops in WWII. They had absolutely no doubt as to which side would win in the end. Those are the elements that American troops lost in Vietnam, but have regained today world wide. Half of the American people on the home front have regained them too, but the other half are still mired in the pessimism of Vietnam.

Private Sector Does a Better Job at Airports

2005-04-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press reports that five airports that were allowed to keep private screeners show a statistically significant better job at screening passengers. Link.

A congressional investigation found airport screeners employed by private companies do a better job detecting dangerous objects than government screeners, according to a House member who has seen the classified report.

The Government Accountability Office found statistically significant evidence that passenger screeners, who work under a pilot program at five airports, including San Francisco International Airport, perform better than their federal counterparts at some 450 airports, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla. and chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, said Tuesday.

"You get a statistically significant improvement if you go to federal supervision with private screening companies," Mica said.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Congress ordered every commercial airport but five to switch from privately employed screeners to a government work force.

This is no surprise. Why should civil servants, who cannot be fired no matter how bad a job they do, do a better job than those employed by private firms. The private screeners used on September 11 did not fail in their jobs. No object that were then banned on airplanes got past them. That is why the hijackers used box cutters, which were than allowed on planes.

The major failure was with the applicable laws and rules. Previous hijackings had always been to demand something. The laws reflected this by making it illegal for flight personnel to resist hijackers. It was thought that this would endanger the passengers more than allowing the hijacking to go forward. The law was based on getting the plane on the ground, where the professionals could take over and negociate with the hijackers.

The only changes that were necessary were those that reinforced the cockpit doors, redefined what could be used as a weapon, and allowed attempts to overcome the hijackers. The nationalizing of the screening personnel was not only totally unnecessary, it was counterproductive. If Israel, which has more experience in dealing with terrorists than any other nation on Earth, uses private firms to perform most security duties at its airport, why would we want to change from that to something different.

Pretty Good Budget Passes

2005-04-29T10:47:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post reports on passage of the new budget. Link.

Congress passed a five-year, $14 trillion budget last night that will pave the way for oil drilling in parts of an Alaskan wildlife refuge, a new round of tax cuts and the first curbs on entitlements for the poor in nearly a decade.

The House approved the plan by a vote of 214 to 211, and the Senate voted 52 to 47. [...]
The budget resolution was seen as a must-win for President Bush, who has proposed a range of budgetary changes to trim the federal deficit and make room for his tax cuts. Some of those changes -- Medicaid restructuring, agriculture subsidy cuts and student loan savings -- were scaled back in the agreement. But many of the president's top priorities were secured. Budget director Joshua B. Bolten, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, and White House lobbyists worked furiously for a deal, cajoling and pressuring Republicans to get in line.

The budget deal alone does not ensure changes, but it will allow Congress to pass Medicaid curbs, oil drilling, tax cuts and other controversial measures with a simple majority in the Senate rather than the 60-vote majority needed to overcome a filibuster.

Unfortunately, the budget is only a first step. When the actual appropriation bills are worked on, the budget limits are sometimes ignored. To make this budget a reality will require a willingness on the part of the President to veto appropriations that exceed it.

International Help Needed for Invaded Island

2005-04-29T10:17:00.000-07:00

Deutche Welle has a report headlined "Weasel Squad on Standby for Greek Mission." Link.

A Greek island suffering under the heel of a brutal invasion could be the first mission for a yet untried regiment of German Special Forces.

The inhabitants of the island of Lemnos, which has been under siege for some time, are considering sending out a distress call for the crack German troops in a bid to end the occupation which is threatening their livelihoods.

It appears that the invaders are wild rabbits that are wreaking havoc with the local farmers. The farmers want to hunt the rabbits, but Greek law forbids it. So they want to bring in specially trained German weasels to eliminate the rabbits.

Enter the Weasel Squador at least this is where they would enter if they weren't just so expensive to hire. "I've heard that each one costs about 4,400 euros ($5706)," Baveas sighed. "We would need at least 10 weasels," he dejectedly added.

Unconfirmed rumors of shady deals involving less well-trained but equally ruthless Austrian mercenary weasels were allegedly circulating in some desperate corners of Lemnos.

We all knew that Germany was a member of the Axis of Weasels, but I never realized that they took it so literally.

Ending of a Monopoly

2005-04-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

Daniel Henninger has a column in Opinion Journal the reviews the history of the breakdown of the monopoly of liberal media following the elimination of the so-called Fairness Doctrine. Link.

In 1987, Rush Limbaugh sat down at a microphone at radio station KFBK-AM in Sacramento and began broadcasting something called "The Rush Limbaugh Show."

The rest is history.

The "rest"--the inexorable 15-year rise of conservative ideas and clout across what Howard Stern calls "all media"--is described in a provocative new book by Brian C. Anderson, "South Park Conservatives." What was once a mostly exclusive liberal country club--television, the press, book publishing, even the campuses--has become heavily integrated with aggressive, even crude, conservatives.

As described by Mr. Anderson, a writer with the Manhattan Institute, conservatives established their first beachhead in the early 1990s with talk radio. Then Fox conquered cable news and finally a virtual Mongol horde of conservative-to-libertarian bloggers swept across the Internet. [...]
Ronald Reagan may not make it to Mount Rushmore for winning the Cold War. But he secured his place in the conservative pantheon for tearing down another wall: the Fairness Doctrine.

The Fairness Doctrine was a federal regulation, dating to 1949, which mandated "contrasting viewpoints" from broadcasters. In reality, the Fairness Doctrine ensured that incumbents got "free" TV coverage across their terms while challengers got crumbs. The Fairness Doctrine was also an early nuclear option: If a local broadcaster's news operation made the local congressman or his party look bad, Washington could threaten to blow up his broadcast license.

No monopoly can exist for long if it does not have a government enforcing it. Contrary to what Marx and the Marxists thought, a free market will overpower any monopoly. Once government enforcement of the liberal media monopoly (technically an oligopoly) ended, the floodgates opened, and conservative voices came to be heard wherever there was easy access (i.e., not on network television or in the major newspapers). That is why it was in the new or formerly dying media technologies - radio, cable and satellite TV, and the Internet - that the formerly excluded conservative commentators thrived.

Left-wing conspiracy theorists see something sinister in talk radio, and they keep trying to enter it. But why should liberal listeners tune in, when they get all of the left-wing news and commentary they want on the major network TV news shows or in their local newspaper, which allows the New York Times to determine for it what is or isn't news. Conservatives did not go on talk radio and cable television because those were their media of choice, but because they were the scraps left over to them. It was their entry that caused these media to flourish. The Internet, starting from zero, was open to all shades of opinion, and all are doing well there, but conservatives and libertarians appear to be doing somewhat better than liberals, because, again, they are not competing for audience with the largest media in the country.

State Tax Revenues

2005-04-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

The Census Bureau released its report on 2004 state tax revenues, and TaxProf Blog has a summary. Link.

* State tax revenues increased 8.1% to $593 billion (up $44 billion from 2003)
* All 50 states increased their tax take
* The two biggest sources of state tax revenues:
o Sales taxes up 7.5% to $198 billion
o Individual income taxes up 8.5% to $197 billion
* The biggest tax increases:
o Documentary and stock transfer taxes up 26%
o Severance taxes up 18%
o Occupational and business license taxes up 16%
* Per capita taxes collected by states averaged $2,024
o Highest per capita taxes:
+ Hawaii: $3,048
+ Wyoming: $2,968
+ Connecticut: $2,937
+ Minnesota: $2,889
+ Delaware: $2,862
o Lowest per capita taxes:
+ Texas: $1,367
+ South Dakota: $1,378
+ Colorado: $1,533
+ New Hampshire: $1,543
+ Alabama: $1,549

Probably the single most interesting point is that all 50 states increased their tax revenues last year. A rising economy raises all states' tax takes. Another interesting point is that if you compare the color (red or blue) of the highest and lowest taxed states, the pattern clearly is that those who pay the highest state taxes vote to get the highest federal taxes as well.

Internet Advertising in the Big Leagues

2005-04-28T11:14:00.000-07:00

Jeff Jarvis posts some very interesting figures from Ad Age. Link.

In terms of revenue, Google's estimated $3 billion and Yahoo's $2.9 billion compare with $6.2 billion for the big nets' prime time. And their market cap is up with the big boys: Google is No. 2 behind Time Warner; Yahoo is No. five behind Disney and News Corp. as well.

This is another milestone in the slow death of the old media. The only surprise is how quickly advertising has moved to the Internet, especially to its two largest companies. Ads placed on a TV network buy mass eyeballs, many of which are barely focused on the TV set. Ads placed with Google and Yahoo are shown to those who express an interest in subject matters that relates to the ads. It is like mailing ads to a carefully chosen list, rather than putting them out in front of everybody, no matter how unlikely it is that there would be any interest.

Small Cuts Are Better Than None

2005-04-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

The Washington Times reports that Congress is about to approve a small cut in Medicaid. Link.

Congressional budget makers agreed to follow a recommendation by the nation's governors and cut at least $8.6 billion in Medicaid spending next year, a rare move because Congress usually is leery of touching entitlement spending programs.
Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican, and Rep. Jim Nussle, Iowa Republican, head of their respective bodies' budget committees, said in a brief bicameral conference meeting yesterday that before a final budget bill is crafted, the proposed $2.6 trillion fiscal year 2006 budget must reflect a commitment to entitlement cuts. [...]
President Bush asked Congress to find $20 billion total in all entitlement programs savings this year. But Sen. Gordon H. Smith, Oregon Republican, got legislation passed that creates a bipartisan panel to study reforms and the effects that any cuts would have on the states' ability to provide health services. [...]
Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, as chairman of the National Governors Association, crafted a bipartisan reform plan that streamlines administrative costs, including revising payment options and accounting policies. The plan is expected to save about $8.6 billion, according to House budget staff members.

$8.6 billion here, $8.6 billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money. Medicaid, like Medicare, is top-heavy with expenses of the elderly in the last year of their lives. It will not happen this year, but eventually the government will have to set priorities and decide if it is a better use of money to prolong the life of one elderly person by six months, or to put the money into programs for children and add thousands of person-years of life. Terminal illnesses are very expensive and leave little or no probability of a major extension of life. Some day, we will have to face these choices. They will be very unpleasant, but they will be necessary.

New House Oil-For-Food Investigation Starting

2005-04-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

In The New York Sun, Claudia Rosett reports on the latest investigation of the oil-for-food scandal. Link.

Next up in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal is a trip down the money trail, by way of the French bank tapped by the United Nations - in cahoots with Saddam Hussein - to handle the main escrow account of the graft-laden U.N. program. Tomorrow, the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing delving into some of the oil-for-food banking details. [...]
Federal prosecutors are investigating allegations that Saddam sent millions in bribes to two as-yet-unnamed high-ranking U.N. officials to help shape the program in his favor. But all the investigating so far has barely begun to expose the full extent of the corruption and mismanagement involved in oil for food, under which Saddam grafted billions out of more than $110 billion in U.N.-approved oil sales and relief purchases meant to help the people of Iraq. "Follow the money," says Mr. Rohrabacher, who adds, "Sometimes it's easy to miss the fact that the bank is right in the middle of it."

That bank is the New York branch of the French bank, BNP Paribas (formerly the Banque Nationale de Paris). [...]
Among questions the subcommittee is likely to pursue is why BNP, straying outside its contract with the United Nations, reassigned letters of credit - meaning that payments from the Iraq escrow account guaranteed to one contractor approved by the United Nations for a given deal were instead sent to an unapproved third party. Under a U.N. sanctions regime, in which the basic aim of oil for food was to monitor Saddam's deals, such rogue payments, running right through the bank entrusted with the account, should have raised red flags. But the United Nations made no complaint. According to the U.N.-authorized inquiry led by Paul Volcker, the world body did not even bother to review BNP's handling of the letters of credit. [...]
It is also to be hoped that BNP will provide some insight regarding Saddam's oil sales and the associated letters of credit, with which oil buyers sent payments into the oil-for-food account. In a substantial sampling of such letters of credit, seen by The New York Sun, BNP handled both sides of the transaction - meaning the buyer used BNP-related accounts in various countries to open the letters of credit guaranteeing payment to the BNP account in New York. That would mean BNP was responsible for due diligence regarding many of the oil buyers under the program, a group that turns out to have been rife with front companies, many of them dealing openly in kickbacks to Saddam from about 2000 on. Many of these transactions were handled in Switzerland, famous for a degree of banking secrecy that should have raised yet more flags about the need for due diligence.

"Follow the money" is almost always a good rule in an investigation. A foreign bank with branches in the US is subject to US justice for crimes committed here. Just like the banks that aided the major corporate scandals here, the individuals involved should face criminal prosecution and the institution should be subject to civil liabilities to the parties harmed by their actions. In this case, that would be the people of Iraq, as represented by their now representative government.

Iraqi Cabinet Finalized

2005-04-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

BBC reports that the cabinet list has been finalized and submitted for a vote. Link.

Iraq's new prime minister has submitted his new government for approval, ending months of political deadlock.

Ibrahim Jaafari's proposal, to include representatives all of Iraq's main ethnic and religious groups, needs to be approved a majority of MPs. [...]
There are indications that Sunni Arabs, who boycotted January's elections, are poised to receive several key portfolios.

At least seven women are also thought to be among the 32 or 33 names on Mr Jaafari's list. [...]

Mr Jaafari submitted his list to Iraq's three-man presidential council, who will in turn submit it to MPs in the country's National Assembly.

A vote is expected to be held on Thursday, with a simple majority needed among the 275 members for the government to win approval.

If all goes well the new government could be functioning within a few days, our correspondent says.

There has been a lot of frustration with how long this process has taken, but sometimes miracles take time. These are not people who are used to working together in a democratic fashion. The various ethnic groups there were held together under Saddam by total terror, just like the rival ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia were held together by firm Communist control. Look what happened there when the central authority collapsed and you can get an idea of how miraculous the developments in Iraq have been.

Forget timetables. We are seeing consistent progress in the country, and if it takes a little longer than total optimists had hoped, big deal.

Bad News From Russia

2005-04-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal reports that things have not changed much for Russians wishing to start a small business. Link. (subscription required)

Marina Ivashina got sick of local bureaucrats meddling in her baby-food business here, so she complained to the Kremlin. Two days later, her bank account was frozen. Five months after that, her business folded.

Ms. Ivashina is one of countless grass-roots entrepreneurs laid low by the resurgent forces of Russian officialdom. In her case, it's the authorities of Oryol, a sleepy town, 240 miles southwest of Moscow, which for 16 years has been ruled by the same man, Governor Yegor Stroyev. Critics say he's crushed all opposition and given relatives and cronies a free hand to run the economy. Locals nickname him the "boa constrictor." [...]
Ms. Ivashina's case shows that the crackdown on Yukos is no isolated incident. Across Russia, entrepreneurs who run afoul of local government can be targeted with tax audits, punitive fines and intrusive inspections. Some, like Ms. Ivashina, are forced to close. [...]
In a recent poll by Russia's national small-business association, Opora, entrepreneurs said they were more likely to fall victim to illegal actions by officials and policemen than by criminals. Less than 1% of them said they were sure that they could protect their lawful interests against the regional authorities in court, while nearly 70% said they had only a slim chance or none at all.

In many ways, Oryol is typical. Local government across the country is still dominated by former Communist Party bigwigs like Mr. Stroyev who quickly swapped class struggle for the free market. But their control of the bureaucracy meant they could maintain much the same leverage over the local economy as they had during Soviet times. Firms close to -- and often indirectly owned by -- the governor enjoy sweeping perks and preferences while independent private business struggles to survive.

The roots of stifling bureaucracy go deep in Russia. It wasn't just started by the Communists, although they combined it with terror, in the form of the Gulag. Read Dostoevsky for a view of pre-Communist Russian bureaucracy.

Under Yeltsin, moves were made to disband many of the organs of totalitarianism, but hardly any laws were changed. A legal framework for private property and privately owned businesses was never established. So when an unreconstructed Communist like Putin came to power, he was able to move the country back toward where it had been when he was a KGB official. Instead of state ownership, we have kleptocracy by former top Communist officials and their relatives. This was a world-class case of lost opportunity. Russia could have been a thriving, rapidly growing society today, instead of a continuation of Soviet stagnation.

Taxpayer Dollars to Soros Foundation

2005-04-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

Cybercast News Service reports that "the Open Society Institute, a private foundation controlled by liberal billionaire and political activist George Soros, received more than $30 million from U.S. government agencies between 1998 and 2003." Link.

Various State Department documents indicate that OSI has been paid to run what the department describes as "democratization programs" in a number of countries.

"The Open Society Institute receives funding from the United States," a State Department press statement declared, "and has spent close to $22 million in Uzbekistan in order to help build a vibrant civil society."

Another report explained that "The United States also supports organizations, such as ... the Open Society Institute ... working inside and outside the (Burmese) region on a broad range of democracy promotion activities."

A State Department Fact Sheet also described "an HIV/AIDS prevention program carried out jointly with the Open Society Institute and Soros-Kazakhstan Foundation that targets high-risk populations" in Central Asia. The website of the U.S. Agency for International Development also lists numerous projects conducted in cooperation with OSI.

I guess this should not be surprising in budgets that spend millions to study the mating habits of obscure insects, but it still is just plain wrong. You can argue for government money to public charities, but a private foundation funded and controlled by one multi-billionaire is no place to send taxpayer dollars, no matter what good works it does. This is especially true when that multi-billionaire is very politically active. Money is fungible. The dollars given by government agencies to OSI, freed up dollars that Soros did not have to contribute, which he was than free to give to MoveOn.org and Americans Coming Together in his fanatical desire to defeat President Bush.

USN&WRs 2004 School Rankings	Kerry/Bush Dollar Ratio	Kerry/Bush Dollar %	Number of Donations

Harvard	25 to 1	97% to 3%	406 to 13
Princeton	302 to 1	99.7% to 0.3	114 to 1
Yale	20 to 1	95% to 5%	150 to 3
Penn	32 to 1	97% to 3%	93 to 5
Duke	9 to 1	90% to 10%	98 to 7

MIT	43 to 1	98% to 2%	121 to 2
Stanford	6 to 1	86% to 14%	257 to 28
CIT	30 to 1	97% to 3%	22 to 2
Columbia	8 to 1	89% to 11%	197 to 14
Dartmouth	Infinity	100% to 0%	39 to 0