Paul's Blog of Wisdom

Here's the reaction to the Danish Islam cartoons of a young female Saudi blogger that I referenced before:

"But the difference between I and the text-msg happy and the death-threat euphoric is I don't believe it is my right to bully a whole nation, and its government and its people, and them good old cows because of what one sleazy individual drew. Furthermore, the newspaper apologized and the Danish envoy in Riyadh made a statement and the apology was addressed to the citizens of Saudi Arabia. There. People who are absolutely unrelated to the sleazy cartoonist jumped in to apologize in a country where individualism is treasured. Now, enough. Why, oh why, must the drama always outlast every event?"

"And one last thing, death-threats do not exactly do Islam's 'image' any real good. My good people of the Muslim world, do we have to keep reminding the rest of the planet that we live in the year 2006 B.C?"

"Please, pretty please, with a cherry on top, quit playing the victim."

Wow! That's some hard-hitting Saudi commentary. This controversy is about a bigger issue. Islamic extremists are attacking our freedom of speech right in the heart of the West. If we give in to them now, we'll be giving in to them forever. We must stand up for our treasured value of the freedom of speech, no matter what you think about the cartoons themselves.

Here's an examination of Usama bin Laden's plight:

"Bin Laden's home base in Afghanistan is lost for good. Elites of his terrorist organization are targeted from the air even in the supposedly safe Pakistani borderlands. Plenty of al Qaeda terrorists have been killed in Iraq. Europe is suddenly galvanizing against Islamic fascism. (France even mentions the unmentionable of targeting terrorist patrons with nuclear weapons.) India has no tolerance for Islamic extremism. The terrorist sponsors of Iran and Syria are finally becoming international pariahs. And thousands of Muslims have demonstrated in Lebanon and Jordan against terrorist bombers."

The truth is that al Qaeda is losing the war on terror and we're winning. All we need to do is keep up the pressure and we will win.

"A gay civil rights measure passed the state Senate on Friday, a major victory for gay rights activists who have watched the measure fail in the Legislature for nearly 30 years."

"The measure adds 'sexual orientation' to a state law that bans discrimination in housing, employment and insurance."

I personally find it offensive that the bill only passed by a vote of 25-23 in the state Senate.

"Sen. Dan Swecker, R-Rochester, said the measure would 'trample unrelentingly' on religious viewpoints that object to gays.

"'We, the state, are telling people to accept, actually to embrace, something that goes against their religious views,' he said."

Wow. First of all, religion doesn't make the laws in the United States. Secondly, I know I'm no Biblical scholar, but I went to church quite a bit when I was younger and I even attended a Lutheran school for a few years and I certainly don't remember any passages in the Bible saying that gay people should have different insurance coverage.

Here's Ann Coulter for you:

"'We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee,' Coulter said."

I unequivocally condemn this remark. She did go on to say that this was a joke, but that doesn't make it okay. On behalf of conservatives everywhere, I beg you, Ms. Coulter, go away! You're not helping us, nor are you helping the ideas that you espouse. You're a loon who makes conservatives and conservative ideas look crazy by association. Do us all a favor and stop talking.

Here's a poll on Americans' view of the threat from Iran:

"A majority of Americans, 51 percent, would now support air strikes to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, while a plurality would support air strikes coupled with a ground invasion."

This is a charge that has been going around for a long time, but has been given new credibility by this:

"The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.

"The Iraqi general, Georges Sada, makes the charges in a new book, 'Saddam's Secrets,' released this week."

I certainly wouldn't yet call this absolute proof, but if absolute proof did come out to support this charge, that would be a world-shaking event.

Much has been made by the pronouncement in September that Iraq had "only" 1 battalion that was at Level 1 battle readiness. This hullabaloo shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be at Level 1 battle readiness. A Level 1 battalion means that it is completely, totally, 100% able to carry out entire operations without any U.S. assistance. This is the absolute highest that any battalion can reach. To give you just an idea of how high a level of readiness that is, there are many NATO battalions that are not at Level 1 readiness. There are, however, dozens of Iraqi battalions that are Level 2 readiness. That means that they are able to lead an operation with some minimal U.S. support. The people who go so crazy over the fact that there is only 1 Iraqi battalion at Level 1 say that this means that Iraq won't be ready to take over its security for years and that if we pull out this year, Iraq won't be ready to defend itself. Yes, that's true, but we're not pulling out this year. There will likely be a slight reduction in troops this year, but we will almost certainly have some troops in Iraq for years. During this period of years that we will be there, we will continue training their military and police to take over their own security. This worrying about the 1 Level 1 battalion seems to be making a mountain out of a mole hill.

A major real-world test of neoconservative ideology is about to happen. Hamas has won a big majority in the Palestinian Parliament. One of the basic principles of neoconservative ideology is that a lack of political freedom is the major factor that brings about terrorism. According to this principle, when people don't have the power to express their political opinions and frustrations peacefully through democracy and their only option to bring about political change is through violence, they are much more likely to commit violence. Conversely, if you give people the power to express their opinions and frustrations through the ballot box, as Palestinians have just done, they are much less likely to try to bring about their political views through violence. If what passes for a Palestinian government can continue with something that passes for a democracy, this idea will be put to the test in a real-world laboratory.

Another principle of neoconservative ideology is that when extremists suddenly have real democratic political power, they become more moderate because of the realities of democratic power. This principle says that Hamas will be less likely to attack Israel from now on because then Israel would counterattack, Hamas would get blamed for this and they would lose seats in the next election. When Hamas wasn't elected, they didn't have to worry so much about things like that. Now they do. Also, as the majority in the Parliament, Hamas will want to gain and then maintain international credibility. They're already facing lots of pressure from the U.S., for instance, to renounce their call to destroy Israel. Time will tell if they will do it or not. I certainly hope that these neoconservative ideologies get proven right because the idea of spreading peace through democracy seems to be about the only realistic option for stopping terrorism in the long-term.

This is great:

"Britain is sending 3300 new troops to Afghanistan, taking its troop-strength to 5700 in the war-ravaged country as part of a Nato expansion plan."

This can only help the stability and reconstruction of Afghanistan, which is good for everyone in the world except the drug dealers and terrorists.

Is recycling really beneficial? Most environmentalists would be stunned even to hear the question asked? I would be willing to be that this question has not even popped into the minds of most environmentalists. "Of course it is," they would retort, probably without any evidence, for recycling makes people feel like they're doing something good and that's why they do it.

"The truth, though, is that recycling is an expense, not a savings, for a city."

I think that most people probably realize this, however. So, it costs a little more to do something that's good for the world. That's just the small price we have to pay for something that helps the world, right? But does it really help the world?

"But what about saving precious resources by recycling? Almost 90 percent of this country's paper comes from renewable forests, and to say we will someday run out of trees is the same as saying we will some day run out of corn. According to Jerry Taylor, we are growing 22 million acres of new forest each year, and we harvest 15 million acres, for a net annual gain of 7 million acres. The United States has almost four times more forested land today than it did 80 years ago."

"Nor will we ever suffer a shortage of plastic, which is made from petroleum byproducts. Today more petroleum reserves are being discovered than are being used up. And plastics can now also be synthesized from farm products."

"Clemson professor Daniel K. Benjamin points out that Los Angeles has 800 trucks working the neighborhoods, instead of 400, due to recycling. Radley Balko at aBetterEarth.Org, a project of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, writes, 'That means extra wear and tear on city streets, double the exhaust emissions into the atmosphere, double the man hours required for someone to drive and man those trucks, and double the costs of maintenance and upkeep of the trucks.'"

So, we're paying more for something that isn't saving precious natural resources and that ends up polluting the world more. Why do we do this?

I just saw Harry Reid on the news yesterday saying that he wants to work with the President to come up with new legislation to address wiretapping in the age of terrorism. This seems to signal a shift. Initially, Democrats were pounding the President hard on this issue, with some even whispering about impeachment. Now, the Senate minority leader is talking about writing new legislation to bring wiretapping laws up to date. It certainly appears to me that Harry Reid is backing down a bit, realizing that public opinion is not on his side. I think the Democrats will continue backing away from a big confrontation over this issue. We'll see.

It's good to hear the President say this:

"President Bush is offering no encouragement to any U.S. automobile companies that might be thinking about turning to the federal government for a financial bailout.

"'I think it's very important for the market to function,' he said in an interview in the Thursday editions of The Wall Street Journal."

We don't want to go down the road that Japan has gone down. For a long time, Japan has been bailing out its failing companies and this is a big reason for its economic malaise of the last 15 years. When you keep inefficient, ineffective companies alive instead of letting more efficient, more effective companies rise up to take their place, the economy as a whole suffers. Creative destruction is a big part of the enduring strength of the U.S. economy. It's survival of the fittest and that's how it should be.

I think a guest worker program could be a net positive for our country if done the right way. With that said, there are a few prerequisites that I would need to see first in order to support a guest worker program. The first thing that I would need to see would be much stronger border enforcement. I want to see thousands more border agents. I want to see a fence along the most heavily travelled illegal immigration travelling routes. I want to see much higher fines for people or businesses who hire illegals. I want to see many more interior enforcement agents to enforce these laws against hiring illegals. These measures together would constitute much stronger border enforcement. My next prerequisite would be that the guest worker program is actually enforced. If we say that 300,000 people can come in per year, I want only 300,000 people coming in. I don't want the government looking the other way and allowing in more than the 300,000 limit. The last thing I would like to see would be some sort of automatic cutoff mechanism. An idea being kicked around is that the guest workers would be able to stay for 3 years, after which they would have to go back to their home country for at least a year before they could apply again. My concern with this would be that 300,000 people would come here every year and that, instead of going home after those 3 years, many or most would simply stay here. This is where we have to turn Mexico's self-interest to our benefit. Mexico's economy is totally dependent on its people coming here, making money and sending it back home. Therefore, Mexico does everything it can to get as many of its people to come here as it possibly can, even going so far as giving people maps showing border crossers where to get water along border crossing routes. So, here is what I propose. We should monitor every time one of these guest workers comes into and leaves the country. Since 300,000 of them should be leaving every year, we should have language in the bill that says that if fewer than, say, 290,000 of them leave every year, we automatically reduce, or even completely cut off, the number of people that we let in the next year. We know that some people will slip through the cracks, so we can't expect every last one of the 300,000 to leave right away, but if we say to Mexico that if fewer than 290,000 of those 300,000 people leave, we'll only allow 150,000 people in the country the next year, or something similar to that. Therefore, it will be in Mexico's economic interest to make sure that its people come back home after their 3 years are up. That 290,000 number is just a number I picked out of the air, of course. We could certainly change that number, but I strongly think that we should have some sort of system like this. If all of these prerequisites are met, then I would support a guest worker program.

With the political fights over the Patriot Act and the NSA wiretapping program, Ben Franklin's supposed quote "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither" has become the new vogue. It's too bad that that's not his quote. Here's what he really said:

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

The quote that's on the Statue of Liberty says:

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Those are quite different, wouldn't you say? If you want to argue against the Patriot Act or the NSA program, that's fine. If you even want to use that first quote as your own, that's fine, too, but if you're going to quote Ben Franklin, at least quote him correctly.

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin

I think that a lot of people will be quite surprised to hear this:

"Incidentally, when there are communications within the United States the president does go to the courts. This administration has gone to the FISA court more than any previous administration, because when they find out the al Qaeda guys are calling a certain number in the U.S., then they go to the court and say we need to tap this phone here in the U.S."

Read the whole thing. It's great.

"Amid tight security and a sea of green and yellow flags, Palestinians turned out in large numbers Wednesday for their first parliamentary election in a decade - a historic vote integrating Islamic militants into politics and determining the future of peacemaking with Israel."

"Long lines formed across the West Bank and Gaza as Palestinians - given a real choice for the first time - eagerly cast their ballots for the 132 parliament seats up for grabs."

The Palestinian election that just happened today could be pretty historic. While having an election does not in and of itself make a country--or territory, in this case--a fully functioning, full-fledged democracy, the most important passage in those quotes is "real choice." Iraqis, Afghanis and Palestinians have among the freest democratic votes of any Muslims. People from that part of the world are going to be looking around and asking that if those 3 dysfunctional places can have at least somewhat functioning democracies, why can't they? This is not something that is going to fix the Middle East overnight, but it hopefully will, over years and decades, lead to democratic change throughout the whole region.

I'm sorry, but that's all there is to it. The South Korean government is just pathetic. Recently, there was a vote that was initiated by some Western European countries that condemned North Korea's human rights record. It didn't take any action against them at all. It was just some words on a piece of paper saying that the international community doesn't approve of North Korea's human rights record. That's it. That's got to be the easiest vote you could think of. After all, don't South Koreans make a big deal about everyone on the Korean peninsula being "one people?" The North Korean government's human rights record is simply atrocious beyond anything we can really even comprehend. The resolution passed overwhelmingly with only countries like Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe voting no. South Korea abstained. What ever happened to caring about your Korean people? Apparently these words on a piece of paper were just too far to go. Now comes this:

"South Korea's president on Wednesday warned Washington against pressuring North Korea to force the totalitarian regime's collapse, while the North kept up its demands that Washington lift financial sanctions.

"The North reiterated its vow to stay away from international nuclear disarmament talks until the U.S. lifts sanctions it recently imposed over allegations of Pyongyang's involvement in counterfeiting of U.S. currency and other illegal activities."

For some strange reason, the United States is upset that the North Korean government is printing counterfeit American money, money laundering and drug trafficking. Sheesh, what nerve we have, huh? How dare we sanction companies that have been involved in this type of thing? Needless to say, South Korea is dead set against this.

"But Roh said coercive steps were not the way to resolve the latest dispute over the North's nuclear ambitions."

Oh no, of course not. We certainly wouldn't want to coerce North Korea into ending these activities. Everyone knows that history has shown that appeasing crazy dicators is the way to go. Every person living in South Korea should be embarrassed and ashamed of their government. Roh Moo-hyun is an absolute puppet of Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Il says "Jump," Roh Moo-Hyun asks "How high?"I would probably laugh at how pathetic they are if this weren't of major national security interest to us.

The Economist recently said that during Britain's and America's industrial revolutions, those countries took about 50 years to double their income per person. According to the magazine, China has been growing at a pace to achieve that in about 10 years. We're all surely aware that there are lots and lots of people out there who think the world is getting worse, that the plight of people around the world is getting worse and that the rich are getting richer while the poor get poorer. I will ask the obvious question. How many people will be brought out of poverty and starvation simply from China's breakneck growth? China probably has about a billion people who are living in poverty right now according to either U.N. or American standards of poverty. If China's economy keeps growing like it has been, there will be literally hundreds of millions of people brought out of poverty within the next few decades just within this one country. While India's economy hasn't been growing at quite the breakneck pace of China's, it has also been growing rapidly in recent years. If that continues, India will also bring hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in the coming decades. That will be an era of poverty reduction the likes of which the world has never seen. That is combined with India's agricultural "miracle" of the last few decades that has, with a lot of help from American farming techniques, increased India's agricultural output at a rate much greater than its population has increased. Yet, I all but guarantee that during the coming decades we'll continually hear how poverty and world hunger are horrible problems that are getting even worse. By all means, we should try to make things better, but it's not a crime to point out when there has been some progress.

Here's an article about blogs in Saudi Arabia that is very interesting and totally worth reading.

If you want to go on a total trip, though, here is a link to one of those Saudi blogs mentioned in the article, interestingly using the same blogging site as I am. The girl who writes it writes like you'd expect a young American girl to write, but writes about Saudi society, which is so different from ours. The writing isn't of exceptional quality, nor does it really provide incredibly deep intellectual insights that will blow your mind. Just the fact that it's a Saudi girl writing a blog that is sometimes critical of Saudi Arabia and that writes about the Religious Police and other things of that nature that are so strange to us makes it worth at least a passing glance.

Many people like to accuse Fox News of being Bush propaganda or mean-spirited. I've heard the charge that they hate immigrants, especially illegal immigrants and that they use their hate-spewed filth to make Americans hate illegal immigrants, too.

"A new nationwide study sheds light on the lives of the country's day laborers -- countering public perception that they're usually transient and disconnected from society. Researchers who interviewed over 2,600 workers in 20 states and the District of Columbia found that over half of day laborers attend church regularly, nearly a quarter of them are involved in local sports leagues and over a quarter participate in community centers... 36 percent are married and nearly two-thirds have children.

"And even though a significant number of day laborers still stand on street corners waiting for work, nearly half of them have steady jobs doing home improvement for private citizens" (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,182555,00.html).

Almost needless to say, the people who make these charges against Fox rarely if ever give any evidence to back up their charges.

So, Canadian Conservatives won the election yesterday. As I don't follow Canadian politics very much, I don't really know the dynamics that were going on there, except for a very slight knowledge of the corruption scandals involving the Liberals. What I'm interested in is how this affects the U.S. Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister elect, had pledged to improve relations with the U.S., including saying that he would reconsider the missile defense shield which we are trying to put into place and which may or may not ever actually work. The current government had said that our missiles couldn't even fly over Canadian airspace. This wanting to improve relations with the U.S. seems to be a common theme around the world, or at least the rich world. Junichiro Koizumi of Japan got reelected after pledging to keep troops in Iraq and to maintain good relations with the U.S. Tony Blair won reelection. John Howard of Australia, which has troops in Iraq and which recently signed a free trade agreement with the U.S., won reelection. In Germany, one of the most steadfast opponents of the war in Iraq, Gerhard Schroeder, lost to Angela Merkel, who had said that she wanted better relations with the U.S. Now, the conservatives have won in Canada. Certainly, I'm not saying that all of these happened simply because of people's positions on relations with the U.S., but it seems pretty clear that, at the very least, wanting good relations with the U.S. is not a severe electoral handicap and, at best, might give people a political boost. Though, that's in rich countries, like I said. Making ridiculous claims about us and saying that all of one's problems are America's fault seem to be sure-fire electoral winners in Latin America.

Many people say that the President's ordering of the NSA wiretapping program was either outright illegal or was at least an arrogance of power by avoiding the FISA court.

"It's amazing when people say to me, 'Well, he's just breaking the law.' If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" Bush said" (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,182467,00.html).

That's a good point. Many people compare what the President has done to what Richard Nixon did. Richard Nixon certainly wasn't briefing top members of Congress from both parties about what he was doing and this sure isn't a case of George Bush bugging his own staff members like Richard Nixon did. This appears to be the President of the United States ordering the wiretapping of phone calls which wouldn't meet FISA's "probably cause" standard in which at least one person was outside of the United States in an effort to prevent terrorist attacks.

Maybe something else will come out during the hearings, but this appears to be something that will increasingly be either a non-issue or a losing issue for Democrats. I have been saying for a while that I thought this issue would be more likely to be used by Republicans than Democrats in the upcoming election. For the first time, I heard someone else say that. I believe that it was Eleanor Clift of Newsweek magazine on The McLaughlin Group who said that the Republicans would likely try to make this a wedge issue in the 2006 elections like they did with the Department of Homeland Security in 2002.

I like to call Abu Musab al-Zarqawi our worst enemy/best friend in the world. He's our worst enemy because he's possibly the most brutal, horrible, awful, evil man in the world and he's our best friend because he has probably done more to discredit al Qaeda in the eyes of Iraqis and other Muslims than anything that we've done. So, what's our worst enemy/best friend in the world doing nowadays? Preparing for his imminent death, of course!

"IRAQ’S most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, goes to sleep every night wearing a suicide belt packed with explosives, according to a leading insurgent who met him two weeks ago" (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2003822,00.html).

It seems that Zarqawi held a little get-together with other insurgent/terrorist leaders and acted very humbly, doing things that only junior servants usually do.

"The development suggested to some Middle East watchers that despite his reputation, Zarqawi may be struggling to consolidate his grip on the resistance. Many Iraqis have tired of violence and politicians were beginning negotiations this weekend to form a coalition government after election results announced on Friday."

Combine this with the recent al Qaeda tape offering a truce and a picture of al Qaeda starting to collapse might be starting to emerge. Clearly, one can't say that with certainty yet, but it could be starting.

You might have heard about the protest group Code Pink that had been protesting outside of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, saying to "Enlist here to die for Halliburton" and things like that. It turns out they forgot to renew their permit and their corner is now occupied by a group called Protest Warrior. Here's a sign held up by one of the Protest Warrior guys that's my pick for the best sign ever. It says "THIS CORNER UNDER NEW NON-COMMIE MANAGEMENT."

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin

"I don't think Democrats understand that the Alito hearings were, for them, not a defeat but an actual disaster" (http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110007835).

This editorial is primarily about how the broadening, if you will, of the media has made it so that attacks like the ones Democrats made against Samuel Alito no longer go unanswered, but this was, to me, the most telling comment. I've said many times that, from a merely political point of view, the Democrats' best strategy for 2006, ignoring years beyond that, would be just to shut up and say nothing because every time they open their mouths they hurt themselves and reduce the likelihood that they'll take back Congress this year. The Alito hearings could be example #174. I find this especially sad because I want a serious opposition party. I want a party to call to account runaway government spending, for instance, but I simply don't think that the Democratic Party is a serious opposition party right now. As The Economist said a little while back, the Democrats are a party that seem like they need one more good drubbing at the polls before they will take a good, hard look at themselves and be serious again.

Karl Rove recently gave a speech outlining the Republicans' political platform for the elections coming this year. Here are some quotes that caught my eye:

"Our opponents are our fellow citizens, not our enemies. Honorable people can have honest political differences" (http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2006/01/15-week/index.php#a001085).

"This is an issue worthy of a public debate." Rove said this several times.

"That doesn't make them unpatriotic, not at all. But it does make them wrong, deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong."

"The GOP's progress during the last four decades is a stunning political achievement. But it is also a cautionary tale of what happens to a dominant party, in this case, the Democrat Party, when its thinking becomes ossified; when its energy begins to drain; when an entitlement mentality takes over; and when political power becomes an end in itself rather than a means to achieve the common good."

The first 3 quotes, and the tone of the entire speech, say to me that Karl Rove is very comfortable and confident just having a calm, casual conversation comparing his party's vision and policies to the Democrats'. There are no insults needed. What that says is that the chief political brain behind the Republican Party thinks that the way to win the elections this year is simply to sit back and calmly say, "This is our party's position. This is the Democrats' position. You decide which you prefer." That sends a powerful message. I think he's right, by the way. Every time the Democrats, except often Hillary Clinton (see earlier post), open their mouths, they remind people why we don't want them in power. The last quote seems to be aimed primarily at actual Republican politicians telling them not to take their power for granted and not to fear big ideas (social security reform comes to mind) because it was being the "idea party" that brought them back to power, or so Rove says. Agree or disagree with what he said, the tone and ideas of his speech were very interesting and very telling.

The Chairman of the Democratic Party recently said that we can't win the war in Iraq. Yet, the head of al Qaeda just came out on tape and offered a truce in Afghanistan and Iraq. Would Usama bin Laden really offer us a truce if he thought that they were winning?

Look at this. A Democrat is sounding sane on the issue of Iran.

"We cannot and should not — must not — permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons...In order to prevent that from occurring, we must have more support vigorously and publicly expressed by China and Russia, and we must move as quickly as feasible for sanctions in the United Nations" (http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2006/01/18/news/14290.shtml).

Not only is she sounding sane, but she's trying to outflank President Bush from the right:

"I believe that we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and to outsource the negotiations."

Wow, a Democrat talking about Bush downplaying threats and wanting to take action more quickly than he does. I certainly welcome this. Hillary Clinton has been doing her best to try to appeal to both the left and the right lately. One day she makes a silly comparison about Congress being run like a "plantation" (way to bring us together on MLK Day, Hillary!) in order to appeal to the crazy lefties (substance not needed, of course), then a few days later she goes out and talks about us needing to take stronger action against Iran to appeal to the right wing. As long as her appeals to the far left are just crazy comments and not crazy proposals, I can handle that, but I certainly welcome her hawkish foreign policy outlook and I hope it continues. Maybe she can bring her party kicking and screaming back into the world of national security sanity.

As for Bush "outsourcing" the negotiations, to some extent I agree with her, and that's certainly a valid argument that can be made, but I also understand the Bush administration's rationale, too, which is:

"They want to avoid, if possible, a situation that appears to be a Bush vs. Iran confrontation. The administration decided last year to work the nuclear problem through the European Union countries negotiating with Iran -- Britain, France and Germany -- in part to avoid making America the issue" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/19/AR2006011902523.html).

"Most cars and trucks don't achieve the gas mileage they advertise, according to Consumer Reports. But hybrids do a far worse job than conventional vehicles in meeting their Environmental Protection Agency fuel economy ratings, especially in city driving" (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/598bgjbv.asp).

"Hybrids, which typically claim to get 32 to 60 miles per gallon, ended up delivering an average of 19 miles per gallon less than their EPA ratings under real-world driving conditions (which reflect more stop-and-go traffic and Americans' penchant for heavy accelerating) according to a Consumer Reports investigation in October 2005."

I personally think this is a shame. As someone who thinks that energy security is a vitally important national security issue, I had been hoping that hybrids would serve as a useful stopgap measure before we can hopefully move past our dependence on oil. They still might, of course. It is, after all, early in the life of hybrid vehicles. Maybe as time goes on, carmakers will get better and better at making hybrids and they'll achieve the real gasoline savings that they advertise. In the meantime, it appears that the path to energy security lies in getting every drop of oil from within our own country that we can, increasing fuel efficiency standards for cars, giving incentives for nuclear power if we have to and spending a lot of money on research for hydrogen or anything else that will eventually eliminate our dependence on countries like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia for our energy needs.

Here's the New York Times from yesterday (1/19/06):

"Last month, BILL O'REILLY interviewed HOWARD STERN on 'The O'Reilly Factor' (or 'The Factor,' as Mr. O'Reilly likes to call it; and from now on we would like to be known as 'Face').

"'Now, you are a wealthy guy now,' Mr. O'Reilly said, according to the transcript, 'and you have a house in the Hamptons and you go to Nobu and all these swell places. What's that about? I don't do that.'

"Mr. Stern countered that Mr. O'Reilly certainly did do those sorts of things, which Mr. O'Reilly again denied."

"Though Mr. O'Reilly said he wasn't saying there was anything wrong with 'going to Nobu with the swells,' it certainly sounded like disapproval to our unfair and unbalanced ears."

"In any event, on Tuesday night, WILLIAM McGOWAN, the veteran news correspondent, was celebrating the birth of Clarity Media Group, a company that coaches TV personalities. The party was in a side room at Per Se, a little joint in the Time Warner Center where you can get a great nine-course meal for just over $200, and it is already too late to get reservations, though you can try to squeeze in your grandchildren.

"Well, look who could be seen towering over the party in the corner, sampling some of the delectable hors d'oeuvres! Mr. O'Reilly was not speaking to the print media, we were told, as he did not think there was any way he could come out ahead.

"So there it was.

"Oh, he left with a goody bag" (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/19/nyregion/19bold.html).

*Sigh* Okay, first O'Reilly's response, then a comment from me:

"What The New York Times did not print but certainly knew, because the reporter was told, is that Bill McGowan has been a friend of mine for nearly 20 years and asked me to attend his party. I'm loyal to my friends, and I did.

"This is obviously a small matter, but it has a larger message, ladies and gentlemen. The New York Times is a partisan newspaper where you will often not find the truth. They knew what they did. It's not only ridiculous but sad, as well. Deterioration of that paper has been amazing" (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,182307,00.html).

First of all, I saw O'Reilly's interview with Howard Stern, allowing me to see O'Reilly's body langauge and to hear the tone of his voice, apparently unlike the Times writer, who mentions the interview transcript. It seemed pretty clear to me that O'Reilly was saying that comment to Stern in a playful, joking way. He was jesting with Howard Stern about living the high-life and it didn't sound like "disapproval" to me, as the Times writer suggests. I don't care about the substance of O'Reilly's going to that restaurant, though going to a party that a long-time friend asked you to go to sounds like a pretty good "excuse" for doing what he did. What is interesting to me here are the actions and the tone of what is supposedly the most trusted media source in the world, the New York Times. This is kind of pathetic. What are they, some supermarket gossip rag now? They might as well put their thumbs on their ears, wiggle their fingers and say to O'Reilly "Nyah nyah. Nah nanny booboo, stick your head in doodoo. We caught you."

It's my personal opinion that the recent release of the bin Laden tape helps President Bush politically. While it reminds people that the Bush administration hasn't been able to find him yet, it also reminds people that we're in a war against brutal killers who are, by bin Laden's own admission, still planning attacks against us. With the Democrats recently filibustering the renewal of the Patriot Act, even a more civil liberties-friendly version, and talking about impeaching President Bush over the NSA wiretapping program, this tape reminds people that national security is still a big issue and it reminds people just how much the American public doesn't trust the Democrats when it comes to national security.

Victoria Toensing, who was in the Justice Department under Ronald Reagan, has written a strong editorial in support of the NSA spying program which rebuts the 2 strongest arguments against it, which are that Bush could go back and get a warrant after the wiretap was placed and that he could have asked Congress to change the law.

"Even if time were not an issue, any emergency FISA application must still establish the required probable cause within 72 hours of placing the tap. So al Qaeda agent A is captured in Afghanistan and has agent B's number in his cell phone, which is monitored by NSA overseas. Agent B makes two or three calls every day to agent C, who flies to New York. That chain of facts, without further evidence, does not establish probable cause for a court to believe that C is an agent of a foreign power with information about terrorism. Yet, post 9/11, do the critics want NSA to cease monitoring agent C just because he landed on U.S. soil" (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Weblogs/TWSFP/TWSFPView.asp)?

"Why did the president not ask Congress in 2001 to amend FISA to address these problems? My experience is instructive. After the TWA incident, I suggested asking the Hill to change the law. A career Justice Department official responded, 'Congress will make it a political issue and we may come away with less ability to monitor.' The political posturing by Democrats who suddenly found problems with the NSA program after four years of supporting it during classified briefings only confirms that concern."

"There are other valid reasons for the president not to ask Congress for a legislative fix. To have public debate informs terrorists how we monitor them, harming our intelligence-gathering to an even greater extent than the New York Times revelation about the NSA program. Asking Congress for legislation would also weaken the legal argument, cited by every administration since 1978, that the president has constitutional authority beyond FISA to conduct warrantless wiretaps to acquire foreign intelligence information."

The "probable cause" part of FISA is what makes me support the President here. By insisting on an American civilian courtroom standard in order to receive a warrant is simply not going to cut it for me in a war against terrorism. That's fine if you're trying to catch someone who stole a car or even someone in the mafia. However, when you're talking about people who would love nothing more than to kill thousands or even millions--if they ever get hold of a nuke from, say, Pakistan, Iran or North Korea--of Americans, I want the NSA to be chasing down every lead, not waiting until after an attack to establish "probable cause."

In 2001, while on duty, a man working for Terrible Herbst here in Las Vegas took a company truck driving when he was drunk and killed a woman. It was even established in court that he took the truck without company permission. Never mind that.

"Nonetheless, on Saturday, a jury ordered Terrible Herbst companies to pay Mrs. Delegado's family an astounding $4.1 million in compensatory damages and preposterously high $10 million in punitive damages" (http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Jan-18-Wed-2006/opinion/5391691.html).

Holy moly. Clearly, the family suffered a terrible loss, but it is my opinion that jury awards like this pretty clearly do more harm than good.

"Insurance premiums rise, and companies have less capital to reinvest, expand or offer as compensation for employees. Employers also become more willing to investigate their workers' private lives, snooping for behavior they might judge risky."

Clearly some legal reforms are appropriate here. It could be a cap on noneconomic damages that can be awarded in courts. It could be an exceptionally inelegant and, many would say, offensive list of compensation to be awarded for each type of damage--$100,000 for a leg, $1,000,000 for a life, etc. Whatever the proposal is, I personally believe that these damage awards have gotten out of hand to the point that they do more harm than good and while these proposals I have put forward here are clearly not perfect, I believe that they meet my standard of being at least 51% good vs. 49% bad.

The Supreme Court is hearing a case today concerning the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

"The issue concerns a Wisconsin anti-abortion group that sought to run ads before the 2004 election that encouraged voters to call the Badger State's two U.S. senators, Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, both Democrats, and urge them to oppose efforts to filibuster President Bush's judicial nominees" (http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Jan-17-Tue-2006/opinion/5389322.html).

"Under McCain-Feingold, the group was prohibited from airing the advertisements."

You see, McCain-Feingold prohibits certain groups from running so-called issue ads 60 days (I think) prior to an election. McCain-Feingold is one of the biggest pieces of anti-free speech, incumbent-protection legislation on the books today. I hope the Supreme Court serves the purpose of free speech by overturning this provision.

"Russia's foreign minister indicated Tuesday that Moscow was not ready to support moves by the U.S. and its European allies to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program, while the West stepped up pressure on Tehran" (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAN_NUCLEAR?SITE=NVLAS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT).

No, of course not. After only several years of this nonsense, why would Russia be ready even to refer Iran to the Security Council, never mind even considering the tiniest punishment for its actions? Sheesh.

"Instead, it urges the 15-nation Security Council to press Tehran 'to extend full and prompt cooperation to the agency' in its more than three-year investigation of suspect nuclear activities."

Ooh, I'll bet Ahmedinejad and the mullahs are quaking in their boots over some words on a piece of paper pressing them to cooperate. For goodness' sake, Iran hasn't cooperated with the IAEA for years, they're the State Department's #1 state sponsor of terrorism, they're likely harboring al Qaeda members, they've called for the destruction of Israel and nuclear experts say that it's possible that they could have nuclear weapons within a matter of months, yet referring them to the Security Council is just too much?! What is wrong with people? This is the biggest threat the world faces today. What does Iran have to do before people will take this seriously? It's looking increasingly likely that the U.S. is going to have to attack Iran's nuclear program since no one else will do anything about it. This is looking familiar. Everyone recognizes a problem. No one does anything about this problem, so we have to take action. We get condemned for this action. Rinse. Repeat.

"The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Oregon's one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.

"Justices, on a 6-3 vote, said the 1997 Oregon law used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people trumped federal authority to regulate doctors" (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181881,00.html).

I don't have a particularly strong opinion on euthanasia, so I don't much care whether Oregon has euthanasia or not. With that said, I see this as a states' rights issue. The voters of Oregon twice voted to allow this and I don't see it as having any overriding federal concern, so I am glad that the Supreme Court struck a small blow for states' rights through this decision.

"A Norweigan Christian magazine has outraged Muslims by publishing the same caricatures of Mohamed that earned the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten international condemnation and death threats, Al-Jazeera says" (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181735,00.html).

This is a potentially very big issue. Islamic extremists are coming into Western societies and trying everything they can, from letter-writing campaigns to outright death threats to destroy the values that we most hold dear. Many Westerners would be tempted to give in to the extremists' demands that we don't publish "offensive" caricatures of Mohamed, in the name of political correctness. Going out of our way not to offend the little guy or the minority is one of the most powerful impulses of modern Western societies. That is why we have to do everything we can not to give in. Look at this quote:

"'Editors should not take free speech as an excuse to insult a certain religion; otherwise they risk an extremist response from the offended, which carries grave consequences,' a spokesman for the Supreme Islamic Council in Cairo warned Islamonline.net."

In other words, do exactly what the extremists say or you'll be attacked. As long as you let the extremists control every action of yours, you'll be fine. If you "offend" the extremists, it's your own fault if you get attacked. I hope everyone supports this Norwegian magazine, as this seemingly small thing is really the front line of a much larger issue that, if not defended, could mean the slow destruction of our most cherished ideals. Don't be fooled. This is an attack of a different sort against the West by extremist Islam right in the heart of the West.

Obviously there has been some corruption in Congress in recent years, but the good thing is that it is coming to light, the perpetrators are being punished and the public's anger over it will likely lead to reforms of the way that money is used in politics. With these scandals in the headlines lately, it's useful to look at a little bit of history to give us some perspective:

"'Looking at the House now, looking at the Congress now, it's so much more above-board,' Beuttler said in a one-on-one interview last week. 'Back in the 19th century, none of this would be considered scandalous...The conditions have changed'" (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181732,00.html).

"Abramoff's latest travails arguably have disrupted Rep. Tom DeLay's political career, and the lobbyist's troubles certainly threaten other lawmakers. Players in Abramoff's money-for-influence scheme are facing prison time, and the dozens of lawmakers who have taken campaign contributions from Abramoff, his associates and clients are hanging on the Justice Department's every move."

"Only toward the middle to late 20th century has the influence of money in politics become a major subject of ethical discussion in Washington, he said, and lobbying wasn't even a target of the law until 1946, when Congress first required lobbyists to register under the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act."

In other words, we're getting better and the fact that these scandals, which likely would have been completely ignored in previous times, are big stories, shows that we're getting better. To anyone who says that it wasn't like this "back in my day" or that "it didn't used to be like this," I say, "Hooey." Of course, we can and should try to get better, but let's keep this in perspective.

Did Samuel Alito okay strip searching a little girl in a long-ago case?

"The incident occurred in a small coal town in Schuylkill County in 1998. Police obtained a warrant to search the home of Michael McGinley, a disbarred lawyer with a history of drug and assault arrests who was believed to be dealing in amphetamines. When four officers arrived at his door, they found his wife and daughter present. Having specifically requested permission to search "all occupants" of the house, they summoned a female officer, who took the mother and daughter to an upstairs bedroom and performed a whole body search, including a pat-down while they were in their underwear. (It was not a 'strip-search,' as usually reported.) Nothing was found on the women, but police did turn up marijuana and traces of methamphetamine in the house. McGinley was convicted for drug possession and served a probationary sentence" (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/578wscib.asp).

"In order to continue their application, the officers attached an affidavit in which they added a request to search 'all occupants' of the house. Fulfilling the Fourth Amendment's requirement that 'no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,' they stated that, in their experience, drug dealers, when faced with 'impending apprehension,' often gave evidence to other persons present in the hope that 'said persons will not be subject to search when police arrive.' The judge signed the warrant and its accompanying affidavit."

This is a far cry from the commonly accepted narrative that this case shows that Samuel Alito is so deferential to government power that he would let an overreaching government (read: the Bush administration) get away with absolutely anything, thus destroying the Constitution, all in the name of executive privilege. Does that mean that the commonly accepted media narrative is misleading? Excuse me while I overcome my shock.

"By 58 percent to 36 percent, Americans think the president should have the power to authorize the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor electronic communications of suspected terrorists without getting warrants, even if one end of the communication is in the United States. Furthermore, six in 10 say they are personally okay with the NSA monitoring their international telephone calls" (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,181462,00.html).

This pretty much speaks for itself. As I always say, just because the majority of the public thinks something doesn't mean that it's necessarily right, and there is certainly an argument to be made against this program, but, expanding on my last post, this appears to be an example of the majority of the public examining both sides of an issue and determining that having the President be able to monitor these calls is a situation that is at least 51% good to 49% bad. Another way of putting it is that, in this time of war, most Americans don't live in the Crazy World that the extreme left lives in in which George Bush is more of a threat to them than al Qaeda is. The Democrats had better be careful about trying to use this issue to gain politically, because if it seems to the public that the Democrats are more worried about appeasing the ACLU than in protecting the country, they'll get trounced yet again at the polls. They'd certainly better hope that there aren't any more terrorist attacks on the country. Besides the horrible toll that another attack would take on the country, which would horrify anyone, looking at it from a merely political point of view, can you imagine how much that would destroy the Democratic Party? After the Democrats have filibustered the Patriot Act extension, with Harry Reid bragging that "we just killed the Patriot Act," and talking about impeaching the President over this NSA program, if we get attacked again before the next election, the Democrats are simply done for the foreseeable future.

The pursuit of perfection is, in general, a good and honorable goal. This pursuit has played an important part in the progress of humanity throughout history. However, like many other things, when taken to extremes, I believe that the pursuit of perfection can be harmful. In the extreme, I believe that the pursuit of perfection becomes a way of thinking of oneself as being better than others. Putting down other people's ideas becomes a way for someone metaphorically to stick their nose in the air and say, "That idea isn't good enough for me, therefore I'm better. I demand better, therefore I'm better than you." I'll use a current hot-button issue to illustrate my point. Let's look at the issue of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The more I learn about this issue, the more I believe that this is a clear case of the positives outweighing the negatives (more on this later, I'm sure). However, this theoretical extreme perfectionist doesn't even examine the positives and negatives. This person simply says that there are negatives, therefore, we shouldn't do it because it's not perfect. However, a person who's grounded more in the real world will look at the positives and negatives and weigh the options. This person realizes that there are no perfect options, that there is no perfect world and that there are only tradeoffs. Therefore, if an option is 51% good and 49% bad, the real-world person will say that we should do it, while the extreme perfectionist would just stick her nose in the air and say, "This option isn't perfect, therefore it's not good enough for me." This extreme pursuit of perfection, to paraphrase the old saying, lets the perfect get in the way of the good, thus stopping good things from happening, all in the pursuit of an unattainable perfection. This person, of course, rarely if ever actually gives her solution to problems because there is no actual perfect option, so she can't possibly give an option that fits her unattainable standards. She just says no to everything. Since there is no perfect option or proposal, ever, every time anything is proposed, this extreme perfectionist will oppose it because it's not perfect. This turns the perfectionist into an opponent of anything and everything, trying to block all progress and change. This type of extreme perfectionist exists on any issue and in all political stripes. You can see this type of person on the liberal side of arguments about environmental issues, the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, etc. and you can see this type of person on the conservative side of arguments trying to go back to some so-called 1950s social ideal which never actually existed. This doesn't mean that there are no legitimate arguments to be made against those things that I just mentioned, but there are people who take their arguments to such an extreme that they shouldn't be listened to at all. At the moment, this type of person seems to be more abundant among the liberal sides of arguments, but that is likely primarily a function of liberals being out of power at the moment. I will likely reference this theoretical extreme perfectionist in the future.

This is my first post to my blog and, as such, is just a test.