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RattlerGator
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RattlerGator Blog Archives
May - June 2004; July 2004; August 2004; Sep 2004
Oct 2004; Nov 2004; Dec 2004
Archive
of January 1 – 10, 2005 Presented Below
Back to RattlerGator Blog
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January 10, 2005
RatherGate Report
RatherGate.com; RatherBiased.com; memeorandum.com; Instapundit.com; PowerLineBlog.com;
That’s just for starters; this news will be chewed on for weeks.
****************************************************************************************************************
Nelson Mandela’s son, Makgatho Mandela, 54, dies from AIDS:
On Thursday [January 6th], as he announced
the cause of his son's death, the 86-year-old former president said: "Let us give publicity to HIV/Aids and not hide it, because
[that is] the only way to make it appear like a normal illness."
Makgatho's wife Zondi died of pneumonia last year.
The struggle of life for Nelson Mandela continues. But, for an interesting addition to
this discussion that I haven’t really been able to check out (but the little that I’ve seen looks interesting
as hell), check out this post from Dean Esmay:
Now, an interesting fact is that the mainline AIDS establishment has for years been loathe to acknowledge people who
are HIV+ but refuse medication and never get sick. See, for example, the recent documentary The Other Side Of AIDS, which interviews a number of people who are HIV+ and healthy, some going on 20 years now. See also support groups
such as Alive & Well, and related groups found in New York, Portland, San Diego, and Toronto, with numerous members who are HIV+ but refuse to take the "safe" cocktail medications. Many of these groups have
been around as long as ten years, with members who can document HIV+ status of 10, 15, even 20 years and are still alive and
well--and med-free. See also Kim Bannon.
Wow, talk about an interesting angle on a complex story!
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Jason Van Steenwyk comments on the dumber and dumber calls for Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation:
Wanna
help troops? Bitchslap the cocktail-swilling milquetoasts on the editorial page of the New York Times who are so easily spooked
they want to postpone the elections in Iraq, and the defeatist mopes at The Nation who as recently as October were pushing
for a cut-and-run by the New Year. Publicly excoriate them. Make them out to be the fools that they are. Commit the nation
to winning.
And worry less about what the insurgents are doing to us and worry more about what we're going to do to
the insurgents.
The U.S. military did not do these things because of Rumsfeld's
choices.
It's clear that Kagan [in the latest edition of The Weekly Standard] doesn't quite know
what the military has or has not done. Nor does he offer a productive plan to utilize additional troops he thinks we need.
I tell you, there were no proposals on the table to expand the Army by enough troops to take on the missions he delineates.
All of them defensive missions, by the way. Not one idea about how to reach out and clobber the insurgent.
What a
loser.
Yeah, what he said.
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Wretchard the Cat,
explaining indirectly that we are preparing to take action against Syria
(and that makes me a happy man):
The apparent confidence of the "Senior
State Department Official" that Iraqi elections will be held on time is not necessarily inconsistent with the idea that US strategy is entering a new phase. The refusal
to postpone the elections, the likely voting patterns and the absence of a deal to almost guarantee that the incoming Iraqi
government will be largely Shi'ite and Kurdish. The uncompromising position of the Sunni insurgents will create a post-electoral
Iraq where they have been largely excluded:
a choice they have strategically embraced. With Syrian sanctuary and extensive clandestine networks in Sunni areas surrounding
Baghdad, the insurgents hope to destabilize the new government, believing the America too overstretched to take on Damascus directly.
The more
the American military struggles to stabilize Iraq, the Syrians may reason,
the less likely the Bush administration will be to directly confront the Damascus regime or
try to dictate changes in the Middle East. Tied down fighting in Iraq,
the thousands of U.S. troops deployed across Syria's eastern border are not so unnerving. As it is, patrolling the border area,
vast and desolate and reminiscent of West Texas, is a relentless challenge for the Marines
and a new group of Iraqi border agents.
The US
was clearly content to stay on the defensive while it attained its strategic goal of creating a new Iraqi State. Now that achievement is in sight
the US is faced with the choice of whether
to remain on the defensive over go over to the attack. As long as Damascus can persuade the
new Iraqi government it will not directly threaten it, Syria and the Ba'athist
holdouts can hope to eventually pry the incoming government in Baghdad
away from the Americans. One way the US can neutralize that potential danger
is to pre-emptively transform the new Iraq into a direct threat to Syria. It is possible that US planners are examining offensive
options that do not necessarily involve a conventional invasion of Syria.
What seems certain is that US leaders are rapidly approaching a new decision point.
As so many folks
continue to focus on those fewer but more spectacular attacks in Iraq,
the United States military is steady on
the case.
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Yet another window
into the soul of the Democratic Party in Florida, and it ain’t pretty:
"I sat here for the last 30 minutes and observed why I stopped
coming to these meetings," County Commissioner Addie Greene said toward the end of the quarrelfest.
"The lack of decorum, lack of respect is abhorrent," scolded Ramona Young
of Boynton Beach, who came with thoughts of joining the DEC
and left with serious doubts. "It goes to show you why we couldn't win an election."
Dysfunctional and
in decline – this is Exhibit A.
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The Governor, Jeb
Bush, is releasing his proposed budget this week:
Bush will announce proposed policy changes and enhancements
on reading initiatives for Florida middle schools today
and return to the Capitol on Tuesday to release his recommendations on Medicaid -- likely to be one of the dominant themes
in the legislative session beginning March 8.
Education and social services are the largest components of the state
budget.
Should be an interesting
legislative session in Tallahassee this year – come
to think of it, when isn’t it?
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January 9, 2005
Andrew McCarthy, writing on the recent hearings in the Senate on the nomination of Alberto
Gonzales as Attorney General, praises Arlen Specter:
New Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter
performed his most valuable service of a very long day in about five minutes of questioning — during which he exposed
the emptiness of the high dudgeon by confronting these experts with the so-called "ticking bomb" hypothetical: A bomb is about
to be detonated in a major metropolitan area, likely to kill perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, and the military has
as a captive a known terrorist who, we have reason to believe, has knowledge which would allow us to save those lives if we
could get him to provide it. Are you saying, the senator asked, that torture — even in a non-lethal method, requested
by a responsible high official, and perhaps even supervised by a federal court — would be absolutely impermissible?
That we must stand down while those thousands are massacred?
The answers were fascinating. Cutting through the
dizzying circumlocution, each witness either stubbornly declined to answer the question or grudgingly acknowledged that the
situation made torture (of the non-lethal type described above) at least acceptable if not permissible.
And McCarthy properly castigates these stereotypical representatives
of the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party:
A number of us have tried to grapple with the hard
stuff about the war against terrorists — the intersection between abiding respect for human dignity and the imperative
of pressing for intelligence that might save human life. We don't pretend that this is easy, that it's black-and-white, or
that expressly licensing coercive interrogation — even a minimal form of torture — in the most dire situations
would not potentially open the door to human-rights abuses that should be universally condemned. It would. That's why it needs
to be thought through with sensitivity.
But the critics should do us all a favor: If you're
going to talk the talk of righteous indignation, be ready to walk the walk. Be ready to tell Americans exactly what protections
you want to give to the terrorists. Be ready to tell Americans that you would prohibit coercive interrogation even if it were
the only way of saving a hundred thousand of them.
If you're not ready to do that — because you
full well understand that your position is not one even you can defend when the questions get hard — then don't waste
our time. Get out of the way of serious people like Judge Gonzales. People who don't pretend to be perfect, who don't claim
to have all the answers, and who are not so smug that they think they can afford to take life-and-death options off the table
— even as they pray they will never have to use them.
Life and death. ‘Nuff said.
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Amir Taheri, on a little-noticed revolution bubbling up from
the surface in the Middle East due to American leadership starting with President Bush. Firstly:
I cannot
tell you what the events of 2005 will be. But I can tell you what the undercurrents that shape events are. The first concerns
the concept of political power and its provenance. This is changing in a dramatic, though little noticed, way. Traditionally,
power in the Middle East has been shrouded in mystical fog, its origins traced to divine
will, military conquest, charismatic leadership and revolution. That view is now changing as more and more people in the region
look to elections, that is to say the expression of people's will, as the proper origin of political power — a power
exercised in the interests of the whole community.
Secondly:
The second
undercurrent likely to be with us in 2005 is terrorism in its many guises. The Afghanistan
and Iraq wars served as needles that pierced
old festering blisters. The destruction of the Taliban and the Saddamites forced terrorists of all ilks out of the woodwork
to fight open battles. Having geared themselves for a gangrene strategy, that is to say low-intensity warfare to wear out
Arab and Muslim societies over a long period, these terrorists were dragged into open combat in both military and political
battlefields where their defeat, no matter how long it takes to accomplish, is certain.
Thirdly:
The third undercurrent that merits attention in 2005
is the deepening desire for reform. For the first time ever, reform and changes have become the main themes of Arab politics.
Last year dozens of conferences and seminars were held on the subject, and the 2005 calendar is dotted with many more.
Cynics would dismiss all these as nothing but a talk athon. But in politics, talk does matter. The change of Arab political
discourse, from one obsessed with religious themes, to one concerned with matters such as economic development and educational
excellence, is a leap toward modernity.
Well done, Dubya. As the author notes, none of this is guaranteed.
Nothing in life is. But, no one can doubt that the President has engaged the process of tackling serious issues in that region.
America can’t do it all, it will
not be accomplished quickly, and there will certainly be incessant bitching and moaning. Still, the first step has been successfully
taken. America has said to the terrorists:
You looking for me? Here I be, bitch. Right outside your front door.
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George Will, making a very good point about Social Security:
Surely
the beginning of wisdom is to begin not with such speculations [meaning, the relatively rosy expectations by the Democrats]
but with the question asked, in a Wall Street Journal essay, by Edward C. Prescott, co-winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in economics:
"If we could wipe the slate clean, what kind
of government retirement program would we build from scratch today?" In no 15-year period in the last eight decades
has the growth of stocks ever been negative; in no 20-year period has the average growth been less than 3 percent, which is
better than the rate of return on Social Security assets. So if we were starting with a clean slate, surely we would consider
some use of the market to be prudent rather than risky.
And then makes an equally good point about the nature of politics
right now:
The political
problem is this: Even if the future were knowable and we knew that the Social Security solvency problem actually is smaller
than Bush assumes, he would still favor reform involving personal accounts funded by a portion of payroll taxes. He believes
such reform would be conducive to civic virtue, as conservatives understand that — individualism, self-reliance, limited
government. Unfortunately, it is difficult to get many Democrats to toss their caps over the wall for that.
Quite right.
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January 8, 2005
I found this incredible story in the Gainesville Sun today, documenting the steps taken to try and identify (since August 2003) a dead baby found floating in a local
pond:
The Sheriff's
Office paid $1,250 to DNAPrint Genomics Inc., a forensics lab in Sarasota,
to conduct genetic ancestry tests on a bone sample from the infant's remains.
The results showed that there was a "very
high probability" that the child was of sub-Saharan African ancestry and a "high probability" that the parents and or grandparents
were of Caribbean descent, Troiano said.
The tests are part of the DNAWitness program,
a new patented test offered since 2003. Scientists compared the baby's genetic strains with 176 genetic markers endemic to
different ancestries - such as European or sub-Saharan African genetic strains.
Damn! Has DNA research advanced that far? And
it begs this question – with the African American population so heavily infused with admixtures of European and American
Indian ancestry, exactly how are the probabilities in those 176 genetic markers itemized for categorization? I think I want
to believe that they are in fact capable of accurately doing what they say they have done – but I have to admit my B.S.
alarm is going off and I suspect there is quite a bit of “art” being passed off as “science,” and
I will keep that suspicion until someone convincingly demonstrates otherwise.
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Is the New York Times in all of its arrogant
wisdom and certitude against the idea of happiness? Apparently so:
The New
York Times Book Review has always reviewed the latest wrinkles on Freud, Jung, and (just today) the sexual abuse of children
But no review of Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice, no review of George Vaillant’s Aging Well, no review
of David Myer’s The American Paradox, no review of David Whitman’s The Optimism Gap, no review of Kahneman, Diener,
& Schwartz’s Well-Being (the Nobel Prize is apparently not enough to make it “heavyweight”), no review
of Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and William Damon’s Good Work. Only one of the dozen or so recent serious
books on happiness has been reviewed, Gregg Easterbrook’s The Progress Paradox. It is a balanced and thoroughly researched
study of striking economic and social progress since 1950 juxtaposed to no increase in happiness over the same time period.
Finally taking notice, the New York Times Book Review denounced it as “slapdash nonsense.”
Now, if it can consistently do that in the
field of social science, surely such an attitude must be reinforced and prevalent throughout the paper, right? Don’t
forget, also, that the opinion cited above is from an avid daily reader of The Times for forty-years who also is a Professor
at an Ivy League school. This is how the opinion piece cited above cites the author:
Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D. is the Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, the founder of
the field of Positive Psychology, a Past President of the American Psychological Association (1998), and the author of 21
books including his most recent best seller, Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential
for Lasting Fulfillment. With Chris Peterson, he is co-author of the newly-released Character Strengths and Virtues:
A Classification and Handbook. He is also the co-founder of Authentic Happiness Coaching LLC.
Nattering nabobs of negativism in the citadel
of the Democratic Party have unintentionally created a political party that only knows (really and truly) how to bitch and
moan. Thanks to Roger Simon on this post; and check out his readers comments.
****************************************************************************************************************
Patrick Ruffini throws down the gauntlet on the Social Security debate:
In the last few weeks, the Democratic
strategy to distort the truth about personal accounts has congealed. Here's what they're going to do. They're going to claim
that Social Security's solvency crisis is no more than a "myth", a ruse for the Republicans "hidden agenda" to "dismantle"
the program. They're going to ignore the mathematical certainty that a relatively static number of workers cannot indefinetely
support a mushrooming number of retirees. And as the White House official (on blogs, we attribute correctly) adeptly points
out, this certainty is compounded by the wage indexation of benefits -- meaning that no matter how quickly tax revenues grow,
benefits will grow just as fast, making it impossible for traditional Social Security to ever close this funding gap.
But let's leave aside the question
of solvency. The bottom line of this whole debate remains that modernizing Social Security with personal accounts is the
right thing to do. Even if Social Security were perfectly solvent, it would still be the right thing to do. You
accuse us of having a "hidden agenda." Let's spell out in clear terms of what that "hidden agenda" actually is.
And what, pray tell, is that hidden agenda?
When Democrats carp about a "hidden
agenda" always bring the debate back to this cornerstone. Responsibility vs. doing the thing that's failed over and over again.
Modernization vs. a stuck-in-'35 mindset. Growth vs. stagnation. More vs. less.
These are the terms upon which
the future of Social Security must be debated, liberal red herrings aside.
Because Republicans do have an
evil "hidden agenda."
To make you rich.
Strong, strong statement Patrick. I think you've
set the table and it's time to dine. Let the debate begin.
****************************************************************************************************************
Here’s an ugly peak back at American paternalism and its ability to severely impact even those closest to you:
What really happened? The website Lost Among Us is less polite than the wires:
When the confines of a convent weren't enough to contain restive Rosemary
Kennedy, the patriarch of that Massachusetts dynasty had
his beautiful, soft-spoken but slow eldest daughter lobotomized to gain control.
But the operation, performed in Washington, D.C.,
by a famed neurologist with strong ties to San Bernardino,
went terribly awry. At about the age of 23, her ability to care for herself had been hacked away.
This woman who had been presented at court to the king and queen of England remains today in a cottage
built for her at a school for exceptional children in Wisconsin, an infant of 85 in the care of nuns.
Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., father of President John F. Kennedy, didn't tell his wife, Rose, when he ordered
the operation on their daughter.
The sad tale of Rosemary Kennedy is well documented by author Laurence Leamer in "The Kennedy Men 1901-1963"
and by Jack El-Hai, a Minnesota journalist, and others.
In lobotomy, the surgeon slips an ice pick-shaped instrument behind the patient's eye and with a sweeping
motion severs the frontal lobe, where emotion, personality and will are believed to reside, from the rest of the brain. It
is then repeated behind the other eye.
Once in vogue and widely practiced, including many times at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino,
it has fallen from favor and has been largely discredited.
It was introduced at Patton in 1951 by the theatrical and flamboyant neurologist who developed the procedure,
Dr. Walter J. Freeman Jr., the same man, who with his partner, James Watts, lobotomized Rosemary Kennedy.
So the lobotomy didn't improve the quality of life for JFK's sister; it nearly destroyed it. And the furtive whispers
Joseph Kennedy sought to avoid by the operation grew due to the operation.
R.I.P Rosemary.
Wow. I’d like to believe the man meant
well but that’s some pretty damning information.
****************************************************************************************************************
January 7, 2005
Want a quick overview on the whole Social Security
Crisis issue? Take a look at this Q and O Blog post on the Trust Fund shenanigans. Many will not be surprised that Paul Krugman is central to the disinformation campaign. For instance:
[T]he
real problem in Krugman's criticism begins here . . .
Here's
the truth: by law, Social Security has a budget independent of the rest of the U.S.
government. That budget is currently running a surplus, thanks to an increase in the payroll tax two decades
ago. As a result, Social Security has a large and growing trust fund.
Here's
another truth: the "large and growing trust fund" consists of....future debt. That money's already been spent, baby. When
we do have to dip into the Trust Fund, we'll be that much farther from balancing the budget.
- Backstory: Trust Fund surpluses have been added to the General fund to create a "Unified Budget" since 1970 -- this accounting
gimmick was made law by the Budget Act of 1974.
- Recently: this has worked out to the marked benefit of Washington, which has been able to add "trust fund" assets to the General
Fund, to create the appearance of a budget surplus.
And then Jon Henke made this further point, focusing upon an analysis
of budget numbers and the trust fund numbers during the period from 1998-2003:
YEAR BUDGET SURPLUS
T-FUND SURPLUS [net]
1998
$69b
$99b
1999
$126b
$124b
2000
$236b
$151b
2001
$127
$162b
2002
-$158
$159b
2003
-$375
$155b
See that
number on the right? That's the net increase of the Trust Fund . . . only, we just toss it in with general revenue every year,
and spend the hell out of it.
At some point--2018 [2028, if you include interest]--that free ice cream helping us pay for our current budget is going to....go away.
It will be replaced by obligations. And debt. Lots of debt. Debt as far as the eye can see.
And that debt will be
on top of any other structural and discretionary debt-spending.
Context, context, context. But read the comments
to the post, there are some good points made, I think, on both sides of the debate.
****************************************************************************************************************
Included in one of the comments to the post
cited above is reference to a contextual document that included an informative chart.
With the new federal Fiscal Year 2006 budget
coming out in February, it is undoubtedly useful to any upcoming discussions on that
budget for some reference point data regarding prior budgets.
Scott A. Hodge is President of The Tax Foundation, a Washington think tank, and that outfit produced
this chart presented below on the last fiscal year budget of all Presidents since 1981. The Tax Foundation may be contacted
at (202) 464-5103 or Scott Hodge may be e-mailed at Hodge@taxfoundation.org:
|
Presidential Comparison
|
(all figures in $billions) |
Bush FY '05 Proposal |
Clinton 2nd Term Last Fiscal Year 2001 |
Clinton First Term Last Fiscal Year 1997 |
G.H.W. Bush Last Fiscal Year1993 |
Reagan 2nd Term Last Fiscal Year 1989 |
Reagan 1st Term Last Fiscal Year 1985 |
Carter Last Fiscal Year 1981 |
|
Revenues |
|
Total Revenues
in Current $ |
$ 2,036 |
$ 1,991 |
$ 1,579 |
$ 1,154 |
$ 991 |
$ 734 |
$ 599 |
|
Total Revenues
in Constant $2004 |
$ 2,001 |
$ 2,105 |
$ 1,797 |
$ 1,432 |
$ 1,405 |
$ 1,171 |
$ 1,166 |
|
Total Revenues
as % GDP |
16.9% |
19.8% |
19.3% |
17.5% |
18.3% |
17.7% |
19.6% |
|
Average
Annual Growth in Revenues during term in constant $2004 |
-1.0% |
4.2% |
5.9% |
0.5% |
4.7% |
0.3% |
4.5% |
|
Total
Outlays |
|
Total Outlays
in Current $ |
$2,400 |
$1,864 |
$1,601 |
$1,410 |
$1,144 |
$946 |
$678 |
|
Total Outlays
in Constant $2004 |
$2,359 |
$1,971 |
$1,822 |
$1,748 |
$1,622 |
$1,510 |
$1,319 |
|
Total Outlays
as % GDP |
19.9% |
18.6% |
19.6% |
21.4% |
21.2% |
22.8% |
22.2% |
|
Average
Annual Growth in Outlays during term in constant $2004 |
4.6% |
2.0% |
1.0% |
1.9% |
1.8% |
3.5% |
4.1% |
|
Defense
Spending |
|
Spending
Level in Current $ |
$ 448 |
$ 306 |
$ 272 |
$ 292 |
$ 304 |
$ 253 |
$ 158 |
|
Spending
Level in Constant $2004 |
$ 441 |
$ 324 |
$ 309 |
$ 363 |
$ 431 |
$ 404 |
$ 307 |
|
Spending
Level as % of Total Outlays |
18.7% |
16.4% |
17.0% |
20.7% |
26.6% |
26.7% |
23.3% |
|
Spending
Level as % GDP |
3.7% |
3.0% |
3.3% |
4.4% |
5.6% |
6.1% |
5.2% |
|
Average
Annual Growth During Term in constant $2004 |
8.2% |
1.2% |
-3.9% |
-4.2% |
1.7% |
7.1% |
3.5% |
|
Non-Defense
Discretionary Spending |
|
Spending
Level in Current $ |
$ 466 |
$ 343 |
$ 276 |
$ 247 |
$ 185 |
$ 163 |
$ 150 |
|
Spending
Level in constant $2004 |
$ 458 |
$ 363 |
$ 314 |
$ 306 |
$ 262 |
$ 260 |
$ 292 |
|
Spending
Level as % of Total Outlays |
19.4% |
18.4% |
17.2% |
17.5% |
16.2% |
17.2% |
22.1% |
|
Spending
Level as % GDP |
3.9% |
3.4% |
3.4% |
3.8% |
3.4% |
3.9% |
4.9% |
|
Average
Annual Growth During Term in constant $2004 |
6.0% |
3.7% |
0.6% |
4.0% |
0.3% |
-2.7% |
1.7% |
|
Entitlement
Spending (excluding net interest) |
|
Spending
Level in Current $ |
$ 1,308 |
$ 1,008 |
$ 810 |
$ 671 |
$ 486 |
$ 401 |
$ 302 |
|
Spending
Level in constant $2004 |
$ 1,285 |
$ 1,066 |
$ 922 |
$ 833 |
$ 689 |
$ 640 |
$ 587 |
|
Spending
Level as % of Total Outlays |
57.1% |
56.6% |
53.7% |
50.3% |
46.4% |
45.8% |
48.6% |
|
Spending
Level as % GDP |
11.4% |
10.5% |
10.5% |
10.8% |
9.8% |
10.5% |
10.8% |
|
Average
Annual Growth During Term in constant $2004 |
4.8% |
3.7% |
2.6% |
5.0% |
1.9% |
2.3% |
4.1% |
|
Deficits
and Debt |
|
Deficit
(-) / Surplus in Constant $2004 |
-$357 |
$135 |
-$25 |
-$316 |
-$216 |
-$339 |
-$154 |
|
Deficit
(-) / Surplus as % GDP |
-3.0% |
1.3% |
-0.3% |
-3.9% |
-2.8% |
-5.1% |
-2.6% |
|
Average
Deficits (-) / Surpluses during term as %GDP |
-3.1% |
1.5% |
-1.7% |
-4.3% |
-3.5% |
-5.0% |
-2.4% |
|
Net Interest
on the Debt in constant $2004 |
$ 175 |
$ 218 |
$ 278 |
$ 246 |
$ 240 |
$ 207 |
$ 134 |
|
Net Interest
on the Debt as % Budget |
7.4% |
11.1% |
15.2% |
14.1% |
14.8% |
13.7% |
10.1% |
|
Debt Held
by the Public |
$ 4,792 |
$ 3,320 |
$ 3,772 |
$ 3,248 |
$ 2,191 |
$ 1,507 |
$ 789 |
|
Debt Held
by the Public as % GDP |
39.8% |
33.1% |
46.1% |
49.4% |
40.6% |
36.3% |
25.8% |
|
Very interesting, right? And useful, too.
****************************************************************************************************************
No comment and no links on the Congressional Black Caucus minstrel show yesterday. All sizzle,
no steak, all the time. Could there have been a greater demonstration of irrelevancy? And cluelessness? I was in Jacksonville
yesterday and heard a disc jockey on a black radio station breathlessly talking about how much drama there was going to be
on C-SPAN because Jesse Jackson Jr. et. al were steady on the case, making every vote count, etc., etc., etc.
I’m still waiting and hoping for that bright shiny day when we quit doing the bidding for
disaffected black/white/other socialistas. That’s all that was yesterday.
Notice how many white Democrats joined in?
****************************************************************************************************************
January 6, 2005
You know, one thing constantly missing from
our Iraq coverage in this country –
and this is an area where the mainstream media could provide a real service – is contextual coverage from the Arab world.
Broad, consistent coverage. For instance, this story from the BBC seems instructive to me when it comes to the likely future of Iraq:
Security services detained Nourredine Boudiafi, head of the Armed
Islamic Group (GIA), in the eastern Algiers suburb of Bab
Ezzouar in November.
His deputy, Chaabane Younes, was killed in Chlef, 210km (160 miles) west of Algiers, the ministry added.
Now, this is years and years after Algeria
declared war on the Islamofascists in its midsts. That a contextual history Americans need to hear over and over because it
defines reality in modern Arabic culture.
Another story of interest for Americans from
Algeria is this report from late April 2004.
****************************************************************************************************************
Michael Totten, helping to clarify the distinction between [1] an insurgent and [2] a terrorist.
First, he gives the Reuters caption underneath a photo of a man laying prostrate on a street:
A suspected insurgent asks residents for mercy after they caught him planting explosives under civilian
vehicles, at a busy area in Baghdad, January 3, 2005. Insurgents
killed 17 Iraqi police and National Guards on Monday in another bloody spree of ambushes, bombings and suicide attacks aimed
at wrecking Iraq's January 30 national
election.
Then, he comments on the caption:
If this guy was caught planting explosives under civilian vehicles, he is not an insurgent. He is a terrorist.
Good God, will Reuters never figure this out?
And my further comment is this: if he was CAUGHT
planting explosives then he is not a SUSPECTED party. He is PRECISELY defined by what he was CAUGHT attempting to do.
He’s a damn terrorist.
****************************************************************************************************************
Want to see where the primary fracture in the Democratic Party will occur? Well . . . Look no further:
In the Dec. 2 vote for county Democratic chairman, Wahid Mahmood narrowly defeated
incumbent Carol Ann Loehndorf. State Committeeman Joe Martin, a former union official, was toppled by activist Jay Weitz.
Mahmood's and Weitz's backing came largely from the south county and retiree condos, while the strongest supporters of Loehndorf
and Martin included labor unions and Democrats from the north of the county.
Tick-tock, ya don’t stop . . . and, uh, tick-tock ya don’t stop! It’s only a
matter of time; realignment is not simply coming – it’s here.
****************************************************************************************************************
January 5, 2005
UPDATE: Wretchard the Cat has posted an
incredible first-person account on the Tsunami (the person was in Sri Lanka, I believe) that he (Wretchard) can't vouch for
but it "seems" to have the ring of truth to it. Go check it out if you have the time:
Incredible Account of the Tsunami
****************************************************************************************************************
What kind of stupidity is this? Floridians introduce bills in Congress to force the Navy to keep 12 aircraft carriers? Brilliant, just brilliant.
****************************************************************************************************************
Michelle Malkin,
commenting on the list from Right Wing News on
The 40 Most Obnoxious Quotes from 2004, gives you her personal “favorites.”
My "faves" (a la Bill at INDC Journal): 39, 29, 11, 9, 6, 3, 2, 1
Hmmm. I think I’ll let that speak for
itself.
****************************************************************************************************************
Norm Geras
reviewed the sorry year that was for Britian’s equivalent of the New York Times. I was going to do a point-by-point
but to hell with that.
****************************************************************************************************************
Can it be? Reasoned support for Justice Clarence Thomas even though the writer opposes the Justice on many issues and political orientation? You
mean it’s true, a level of common damn sense is returning to black America?
He isn’t fair game for a “high-tech lynching” anymore?
Why not
attack Thomas as someone who should not be chief justice--in charge of assigning opinions--because his extreme views make
it hard for him even as an associate justice to write opinions that will garner a majority? Heck, why not criticize Thomas'
views directly? Instead, Reid falls prey to this unconscious form of racial stereotyping. It is the black justice who cannot
write opinions, articulate independent thoughts, or perform his job well. You don't believe me? The exact same comments were
made about the late Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Today, I still carry my card, fighting the good fight for the Democratic
Party and trying to persuade my friends to return to the fold. Yet, as comedian Chris Rock might say, "I'm not saying my friends
should be Republicans, but I understand."
Better you than me. The writer, is a law professor in the University of California system. This one sentence
from her column in the Chicago Tribune, “But I wonder if Reid can identify any
opinions by Thomas that he believes to be poorly written or if the senator has actually read an opinion written by Thomas” says it all. It is quite doubtful that Reid or any of his ghostwriters has read Justice Thomas’
majority opinions or dissenting opinions.
****************************************************************************************************************
Political realities
aren’t necessarily about right and wrong. You have to be smart enough to engage the process on its terms:
Statewide, 77 of a possible 142 contested seats were
decided long before Election Day. Those legislators raked in $6.5-million anyway.
The average contribution total for unopposed senators
was $156,000, and the average total for unopposed House members was $69,000.
State law requires lawmakers to refund the surplus
money to contributors or donate it to charity or political parties. They also can keep $10,000 to cover the costs of running
district offices, but the money must be disbursed.
Engage the process or lose. End of story.
****************************************************************************************************************
January 4, 2005
Thomas P.M. Barnett has a very interesting retrospective on how he has become who he is, personally
(he gives us a glimpse into his world) and professionally (it’s all because of his now-famous “brief”) and
the resulting blog:
At the end of winter, March 2004, these words were
written:
I have a book coming out that may well change my life dramatically. My father is suffering a very dangerous health challenge. Vonne and I are in the process of adopting a baby girl from China this year. In short, I am experiencing some classic "sandwich generation" times: big changes in my career,
big changes with my kids, and big challenges with my parents. I don't want to lose track of any of this, because
it all has such meaning for me, and so I hope to get much of it down in this blog—just as I did with Emily's cancer fight.
Thus, a blog was born: Thomas P.M. Barnett Weblog
First I want to describe
the long strange process of building the brief and how it evolved—briefing by briefing—as I spread the message throughout the defense community.
And the rest is history. This is one very interesting
guy and his website is representative of the potential of not only blogs but the internet. The internet is now the library
of the world.
****************************************************************************************************************
Joseph Knippenberg
has a very interesting post where he admits to some pre-judging, takes it back, and then recommends purchasing the books of
Jim Sleeper, a lecturer at Yale who was a student there around roughly the same time as John Kerry and Dubya. Why the change
of view?
Let me focus on a recent essay, "Religion in Its Place,"
posted here.
His diagnosis of our problem is worth quoting at length:
In The Closest of Strangers:
Liberalism and the Politics of Race in New York, I diagnosed an unhealthy decline in public policymaking itself, at least
as it affected the urban civic cultures I had engaged as a journalist and activist in the city. While developing my account,
I came, against my own left-liberal inclinations, to accept charges that a lot of social policymaking had itself become an
accelerant of civic decline. But I had no idea what was missing besides a resilient public spirit whose own wellsprings remained
obscure. I knew only that there was something almost anomic about the American provision of social welfare that, whatever
its intention to redress the very real damage that economic exploitation and racism had done, retarded any reliable balance
between rights and responsibilities that might revive civic responsibility in a liberal republic.
But I also accepted,
and still do, the liberal countercharge that a lot of the civic irresponsibility whose increase conservatives blame on entitlement
and redistribution policies is driven even more strongly by something they tend to support as uncritically as some liberals
do entitlements: the investment and consumer marketing methods of the legal, fictive “persons” we call corporations.
Their methods, which are ever-more protean, intrusive, and absorptive of civic life, encourage a kind of spiritual privatization
and civic disengagement by workers, consumers, and the unemployed. If liberal social-welfare policy, too, has accelerated
civic decline, it has done so, I repeat, as a maladroit and indeed often counterproductive response to this other, more basic
cause of that decline. The classical liberal understandings of freedom and sovereignty which conservatives proclaim, and upon
which the American republic perhaps uniquely relies, cannot be squared with today’s conservative understandings of corporate
freedom and sovereignty.
The thorny paradox we
all face is one that Tocqueville only partly anticipated: These patterns of investment, broken loose from the religious ethos
in which John Locke would have harnessed them, are generating an ever-more reckless, relentless, and intrusive “culture”
of consumer marketing that degrades and atomizes civic and political culture in ways liberal government is not constitutionally
empowered to constrain, much less redirect.
In his view, neither the Left nor the Right offers
an adequate response to the ways in which commercial "culture" is undermining civic virtue. He also recognizes, however, that
the "enemy" is not simply capitalism, but an evil more radical, what religious folk would call human fallenness and what Sleeper
calls a "divided nature." Our solutions can’t simply be found, he argues, in a governmental counterpoise to corporate
power, but rather also by supporting "the folkways, friendships, and rites of passage of republican (small “r”)
training grounds--the after-hours schools, youth programs, summer camps, and other institutions that are established to strengthen
civic attachments, not just to enhance the resumés of college applicants."
He especially calls our attention to inner city churches
and faith-based organizations:
[T]oday’s crucibles
of civic engagement, if not civic virtue, are the stronger neighborhood organizations and churches such as those organized
by IAF, some employing community-organizing methods pioneered by Saul Alinsky. They do this in arms-length relationships with
public as well as private supporters, whom they tend to fend off but sometimes cajole or embarrass into doing things their
way, whether in supporting charter schools or other school reforms or in developing housing and living-wage programs that
are far from the social-welfare models of the Great Society. They challenge both inner-city “welfare” programs
and corporate welfare, both white racism and the reactive, non-white racialism of “liberationist” academics and
activists.
Wow!
Double-wow! He (Sleeper) included in his lecture (the one that grabbed the attention of Knippenberg
and made him do a reassessment) a quote that bears broadcasting again:
For my own part, I doubt whether
man can ever support at the same time complete religious independence and entire political freedom. And I am inclined to think
that, if faith be wanting in him, he must be subject; and if he be free, he must believe.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America
Naturally, as a non-believer, Sleeper tries to dance away from the plain meaning of those words
but . . . come on, what could be clearer? Nevertheless, he establishes his bona fides as someone seriously trying to engage
the issues with this admission, also included in the text of his lecture. It is an acknowledgment of unintended consequences
involved with welfare programs in America:
I knew only that there was something almost anomic about the
American provision of social welfare that, whatever its intention to redress the very real damage that economic exploitation
and racism had done, retarded any reliable
balance between rights and responsibilities that might revive civic responsibility in a liberal republic.
The Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party simply cannot come to terms with that simple fact.
****************************************************************************************************************
Arthur Chrenkoff:
As the new coalition of the willing battles the aftermath of the tsunami (and isn't it funny that there is such an
overlap between the countries most generous and most active in the aid effort and those at the forefront of the fight against
terror?), the international whining class takes the natural disaster as another great opportunity to castigate the evil West.
I am oh so sick of those “bitch and moan” sap suckers.
****************************************************************************************************************
January 3, 2005
Here’s an interesting post from a self-professed shoulder shrugging agnostic, Peter de Havilland, on the curious statements regarding the Tsunami from the titular head of the Church of England, Rowan Williams, in which he allowed for the possibility that natural
disasters prove there is no God. In response to the post, a reader took issue in a manner that intrigued the hell out of me:
Peter, that's not true.
The Church of England is a continuing historical negotiation
between Rome and Zurich.
Peter, come on, give me chapter and verse of where
it has been subordinating scripture to the Grauniad. I bet you don't even have a KJV.
Every age must reinterpret scripture anew, even if
it comes to the same conclusions. Your worry about subordinating scripture reveals some kind of evangelical family background,
a belief in sola scriptura. The C of E, like the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, the Lutherans and other episcopalian churches,
believes in Scripture, Tradition and Reason. Particular emphasis on one of these gives us the Low, High and Broad wings of
the Church. The self-doubt lies in holding these wings under one roof, to mix metaphors.
That is more of a reason it has been losing members.
Read + Michael Ramsey on this. He spoke of the C of E as essentially a church on a journey. You will recall that it was once
illegal to practise Roman Catholicism or Nonconformism. The C of E has done remarkably well, all things considered.
You would be confounded if you actually read official
Anglican statements on masturbation and the other things you disapprove of and personally refrain from.
To be sure, many Anglican priests and bishops (Episcopalians
in the US) spout drivel, but then the Anglican Communion has no Inquisition,
as Rome has. It's now called the Sacred Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, but it has disciplinary authority.
And I guess you have no idea just how many Roman Catholics
in this country sanction abortion and other things forbidden by Rome.
Indeed, Roman Catholic social policy is a bit left-wing.
Read the papal encyclical Centesimus Annus (it's available in English for you) and be shocked. Historically, the C of E has
taken a libertarian position on such matters: read the twenty-fourth of the Thirty-Nine Articles. Basically, keep your hands
off my property, I shall be a moral agent in giving charitably of my own accord. This, I admit, was forgotten when the Faith
in the City report was published.
Even when Christ came, we had Herod's Massacre of
the Innocents. Shit happens. But Perry's right. The problem of evil, as theologians term it, is not a legitimate cause of
doubt for believers in free will.
I like + Rowan Williams. He's sound doctrinally, and
that's all that matters. Anglicans have long been used to ignoring bishops, right from Cranmer's day. They've always gone
into politics too deep. Nothing new.
Sound doctrinally, and that’s all that matters? Now THAT is a window into someone’s
soul, isn’t it? I an indebted, however, to this writer for that the Church of
England is historically a negotiation between Rome and Zurich
stuff. Didn’t know that history at all and also didn’t know the Swiss pre-Calvin component of the Reformation.
****************************************************************************************************************
Following up on the same vibe, here’s Hugh Hewitt this morning:
Rand Simberg just threw the problem of suffering into the Intelligent Design conversation. Actually John Derbyshire inspired him. That's like chumming to the IDers and theologians generally, and Mark D. Roberts and John Mark Reynolds had already written on the subject of the tsunami's devastation from a Christian world view. So had It Takes a Church. So had The Witting Shire. So had Paul Musgrave over at In the Agura. So today have Al Mohler and EvangelicalOutpost. My guess is that many of the 1,404 blogs in the
Blogs4God universe will have or soon will tackle this subject, which has been at the center of serious theology since it began
and at the center of Christian theology since Christ suffered on the cross. Rand's
a very smart guy, but to know the answers to these things requires effort to read outside of the ordinary channels.
This conversation is one of the triumphs of the blogosphere,
though not one widely noted --the immediate surfacing of sound theology on crucial events. I doubt much of the MSM cares about
such posts, but the Church in America
is being revolutionized by this growth.
Also being revolutionized is the level of Christian understanding of average lay Americans such
as yours truly.
I think I am advancing my Christian knowledge -- slowly, ever so slowly. But it is happening.
****************************************************************************************************************
January 2, 2005
Victor Davis Hanson tries to help the American left-wing:
As the old politics lie in ruin from hypocrisy and
incoherence, the Left needs to get a new life. Here are a few more suggestions:
- Remember that multilateral
inaction — whether in the Balkans, Rwanda, or Darfur
— is often calculated, selfish, and far more lethal to millions than risky interventions like removing the Taliban and
Saddam.
- Quit idolizing Europe. It was a far larger arms merchant to Saddam than was the United States; it supplied most of Dr. Khan’s nuclear laboratory; it financed
much of the Oil-for-Food scandal; and it helped to create and tolerate the Balkans genocide. It has never freed any country
or intervened to remove fascism and leave behind democracy — silly American notions that are to be caricatured except
when it is a matter of saving Europeans.
- Stop seeing an all-powerful
United States behind every global problem.
China is on the move and far more likely
to disrupt environmental protocols, cheat on trade accords, and bully neighbors. The newly expanded Europe has a larger population
and aggregate economy, stronger currency, and far less in trade and budget debts than does the United States — and is
already using that economic clout for its own interests, not global freedom from dictators and autocrats.
- Don't believe much of what
the U.N. says anymore. Its secretary general is guilty of either malfeasance or incompetence, its soldiers are often hired
thugs who terrorize those they are supposed to protect, and its resolutions are likely to be anti-democratic and anti-Semitic.
Its members include dozens of nations whose odious representatives we would not let walk inside the doors of the U.S. Congress.
The old idea of a United Nations was inspiring, the current reality chilling.
- Stop seeing socialists and
anti-Americans as Democrats. When a Michael Moore compares beheaders to our own Minutemen and laments that too many Democrats
were in the World Trade
Center, he deserves no platform alongside Wesley Clark or a seat next
to Jimmy Carter or praise for his pseudo-dramas from high Democrats. Firebrands like Al Sharpton and Michael Moore are the
current leftist equivalents of 1950s right-wing extremists like the John Birchers. They should suffer the same fate of ostracism,
not bemused and tacit approval.
- Ignore most grim international
reports that show the United States as stingy, greedy, or uncaring based
on some esoteric formula that makes a Sweden or Denmark out as the world's savior. Such "studies" always ignore aggregate dollars
and look at per capita public giving, and yet somehow ignore things like over $100 billion to Afghanistan
and Iraq or $15 billion pledged to fight AIDS in Africa.
These academic white papers likewise forget private donations, because most of the American billionaires who give to global
causes of various sorts do so as either individuals or through foundations. No mention is made of the hundred of millions
that are handled by American Christian charities. And the idea of a stingy America never mentions about $200 billion of the
Pentagon's budget, which does things like keeping the Persian Gulf open to world commerce; protecting Europe; ensuring that
the Aegean is free of shooting and that the waters between China, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are relatively tranquil; and stopping
nasty folk like the Taliban and Saddam from blowing up more Buddha monuments, desecrating Babylon, or ruining the ecology
of the Tigris-Euphrates wetlands.
Action and results, not rhetoric and intentions, are
what matter. Cease blaming others for declining popularity. There is neither a Karl Rove conspiracy nor an envisioned red-state
theocracy. No, the problem with our Left is what killed the dinosaurs: a desire to plod on to oblivion in a rapidly evolving
world.
The same thing applies to African Americans.
Lets get on with it, already. Few black people in the United States realize
the extent to which all (or most) of their politics (and my old politics) reduces down to idolizing Europe.
****************************************************************************************************************
Europeans
are starting to get a clue:
Many European leaders once swallowed the Michael Moore
version of history: that Bush was an ignorant interloper who stole the White House. His thumping re-election, however, shows
that he represents a large body of conservative American opinion.
In short, Europeans are getting used to the idea that
it is not Bush who is the exception, but the U.S. itself that is exceptional — and that if they want to deal with this
exceptional superpower they need to humor it rather than rile it. Strangely enough, this has been Tony Blair's strategy all
along; it is rapidly becoming the Continent's strategy, too.
Now, this concept [to humor, rather than to rile] defines the best we can expect from Europeans
in terms of their attitudes towards us. Even the business folks (and working for The Economist, Micklethwait and Wooldridge certainly qualify as representatives of European business) maintain
a certain faux paternalism toward their protector and benefactor.
****************************************************************************************************************
Barnett
gives up some thoughts on America continuing
to fight the good fight:
I see 2005 as a year for staying the course but also taking some bold steps to carve out both a new
place in this world for my family (odd as it may seem to some here in Rhode Island, a tiny
white island in a sea of multi-kulti America).
That's what I'm doing in my personal life, that's the upcoming piece in Esquire, that's the book that's just itchin'
to come out (I pretty much dream it every night now).
All the finger-pointing books have come and gone. All the backward-looking books have come and gone.
Eight months later, [The Pentagon’s New Map] remains. And the reason why is that it's not a grand strategy for the summer
of 2004, it's a grand strategy for what lies ahead: for the Long War that spreads the Long Peace--which has long defined the Core--into the still tumultuous Gap.
That future worth creating has been years in the understanding for me, and it will be years in the making for this planet.
But 2005 is as good a year to start as any, and I look forward to it immensely.
Me too.
****************************************************************************************************************
Joe Gandelman
approvingly quotes Sidney Blumenthal (of all people) on (imagine the horror!) Dubya sliding out GHWB’s operatives in
his second term in favor of those more closely aligned with him. Dean Esmay, in the comments, sounds the right note:
I'm less impressed than others. We should bear in mind that Blumenthal has always been a bomb-throwing
Democratic partisan who specializes in putting the most negative possible spin on anything done by Republicans. He's not quite
as nasty as, say, Ann Coulter, but he definitely plays in her league.
Blumenthal also loses points for repeating the "mission accomplished"
and "cakewalk" canards, both of which are nonsense.
All this story amounts to is this:
The President has a very specific set of goals he wishes to accomplish
in the next few years. He is bringing in people who will help him accomplish those specific goals and doesn't paricularly
want a staff that isn't on board with those goals. Broadly, they seem to include Social Security reform, tax code reform,
continued reform at the Pentagon, and a continued push to spread democracy and human rights in the Middle
East.
There's not a thing scary about any of that that I can see. The only question
is whether they'll get them done or not.
There you go, baby!
****************************************************************************************************************
Ed Driscoll
has a fantastic column up presenting the top ten events that rocked the blogosphere in 2004. I will summarize the top ten
below but you really have to read the column in full to get his flavor, rather than mine:
For those
of us Webloggers who track the media the way that sports fans follow the NFL, 2004 will be remembered as the year the mask
not only slipped, it completely came off the mainstream media. Newspapers and television networks were happy -- almost gleeful
-- to toss their previously vaunted claims of objectivity into the dumpster, to help defeat a president that, almost to a
man, they despised.
And here is his list with my comments:
1.
RatherGate
Blogging proves that its serious climb to legitimacy was not only inevitable,
it has now been completed. The only remaining question is the level and form of penetration – meaning, [1] just how
much will it revolutionize things (especially for media and journalism), and [2] precisely how will this revolution be accomplished?
2.
Christmas in Cambodia
Punk Ass Surrender Monkey John Kerry was shown to be something quite
different from a heroic wartime veteran – he was a damn liar, plain and simple.
3.
The New York Times Announces It's Liberal
Duh!
4.
Campaign Violence
My eye opening realization that the left-wing had a very serious problem
that is juvenile in nature – they think they can bully American voters of the Republican persuasion with impunity.
5.
Political Conventions
Blogging begins its serious climb to legitimacy.
6.
The Exit Polls
Early euphoria for the John Kerry camp and then, and then . . . oh,
too bad, so sad, four more years!.
7.
Den Beste's Fall Preview
Steven Den Beste previewed the downfall of John Kerry and proved to
be prescient – Democrats are now behaving just as predicted. That is to say BRAIN DEAD.
8.
Iraq Then And Now
The hawkish Al Gore and Democrats in the 1990s versus the Punk Ass
Surrender Monkeys of 2004 – can you say flip-flop?
9.
Winter Soldier
Punk Ass Surrender Monkey John Kerry was shown to be something quite
different from a moderate-to-hawkish liberal, as he was sold to the folks of Iowa.
10. The Passion Versus Fahrenheit 9/11
The dichotomy of the
reviews (Passion negative, Fahrenheit positive) presaged the Red State/Blue State meme in the media.
****************************************************************************************************************
January 1, 2005
So, the year 2005 is finally here.
Happy New Year!
****************************************************************************************************************
David Warren, on the variability in the actual reliability of modern science:
Malnutrition
can do remarkable things to the human form. There is anyway great diversity in race and type: witness pygmies.
So when
a palaeontologist tells us he has discovered a new hominid species, I am sceptical. There are a lot of palaeontologists and
palaeoanthropologists: more, quite literally, than there are ancient humanid bones for them to gnaw upon. And as one of the
more prominent and sensible of them, Dr. Maciej Henneberg of the University
of Adelaide, has said after examining and graphing more than 200 such
specimens -- from Australopithecines forward -- they all fall within the bell-curve of normal variation within a single species,
over place and time.
In short:
adaptation yes, Darwinism no.
As one
of my scientific advisers explains (a certain Peter O'Donnell of Vancouver,
B.C.), you have to put your faith in science case-by-case. In his view: "Gravitation looks okay, although the constant-G may
have its flaws. Chemistry looks golden. Relativity seems a better framework than Newtonian dynamics, but one suspects a new
overturning ahead. Evolution? Probably a pile of crap. It seems to spring from the same faulty thinking reservoir as Marxism
and other failed ideological constructs of the early 20th century."
Science, in and of itself, is a faith and should
be subjected to (at a minimum) the same skepticism many have in God.
****************************************************************************************************************
TM Lutas on the face of “Liberal Bewilderment,” using the University of Michigan’s Professor Juan
Cole as an example. First, Cole discusses the latest Bin Laden video:
It is a desperate, crackpot
hope. The narrow, sectarian and politically unskilfull character of this speech is the most hopeful sign I have seen in some
time that al-Qaeda is a doomed political force, a mere Baader-Meinhof Gang or Red Army Faction with greater geographical reach.
TMLutas then goes on to note the obvious elephant
in the room that Professor Cole (as so many others have) neglected to acknowledge:
It's not
a bad analysis as far as it goes but it sits there screaming the question what caused this weakness? Prof. Cole's description
of US action clearly shows how we couldn't
be the cause of it so what happened? This is the face of modern liberal bewilderment. You critique US
action time and again, showing how we're constantly on the verge of a new Vietnam,
Tet, Somalia, Beirut,
or other ignominious failure and then... somehow... there is a magic step and the US wins again. It has to be very puzzling, especially for someone like Prof. Cole
who can read the relevant languages in the [Middle East].
Bleeve dat!
****************************************************************************************************************
Jason Van Steenwky destroys Bob Herbert. Read and enjoy.
****************************************************************************************************************
Patterico's Pontifications reviews one major American newspaper’s 2004 Presidential election coverage.
The Joe Wilson (remember him?) coverage is instructive:
THE BLACKOUT ON JOE WILSON'S LIES
In the summer of 2003, when Joe Wilson said he had
"debunked" President Bush's claims that Iraq had tried to buy enriched
uranium from Africa, the L.A. Times ran numerous stories touting Wilson's
claims -- including several on the front page. Commentators incessantly bloviated about the "sixteen words" in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, and
the notion that President Bush had lied to the American people about Iraq
was born.
But in July 2004, when a Senate intelligence committee
report made made several stunning findings undermining Wilson's credibility -- guess what? Ol'
Joe Wilson wasn't news at the L.A. Times anymore.
What did the editors consider more important than
evidence that Joe Wilson was a liar? Well, there was that front-page story about counting fish. An article about the Bush daughters' Vogue magazine photo shoot made it into Section A. There was a front-page story reporting that America
had gone to war based on faulty information that understated the threat faced by Americans -- but it turned out that
the war in question was the war on cholesterol.
Meanwhile, Joe Wilson's imploding credibility was
hidden from L.A. Times readers for days.
When the Times finally ended its news blackout
on Joe Wilson's lies, the editors buried the story on page A6, and didn't even report the most compelling evidence that Wilson had lied. (Page One space that day was reserved for stories that the editors considered more important -- like the one about
Harrah's buying Caesar's.)
According to Howard Kurtz, the final tally was 48
stories in the L.A. Times touting Joe Wilson's allegations that President Bush had lied about Iraq -- and only two stories covering the Senate report that destroyed Wilson's
credibility. It was pseudo-journalism at its finest.
What left-wing media bias, right?
****************************************************************************************************************
Peggy Noonan delivers the goods once again, this time on world reaction to the Tsunami:
Not everyone
distinguished himself. What to say of those who've latched on to the tragedy to promote their political agendas, from the
U.N. official who raced to call the U.S. "stingy," to the global-warming crowd, to administration critics who jumped at the
chance to call the president insensitive because he was vacationing in Texas and didn't voice his sympathy quickly enough?
Such people are slyly asserting their own, higher sensitivity and getting credit for it, which is odd because what they're
actually doing is using dead people to make cheap points.
It seems appropriate now (given the incredible
impact of this tsunami) to insert a quote I recently read from Whittaker Chambers on a most-misused and misunderstood word and concept –
tragedy:
Crime, violence, infamy are not tragedy. Tragedy occurs when a human soul awakes and seeks, in suffering and pain, to free
itself from crime, violence, infamy, even at the cost of life. The struggle is the tragedy-not
defeat or death. That is why the spectacle of tragedy has always filled men, not with despair, but with a sense of
hope and exaltation.
This, of course, brings me back to Peggy Noonan and her great
column:
The
biggest story of 2004 has come, has not yet gone, and will be with us for some time. Two thousand five begins
on Saturday. For the new year, two thoughts. Remember it can all be swept away in a moment, so hold it close and love it while
you've got it. And may we begin 2005 pondering how much we have in common, how down-to-the-bone the same we are, and how the enemy is not the guy across the fence but the tragedy of life.
We should try to make it better. We should cut to the chase.
So true. And thank you, Peggy, for making that
point.
The tragedy of life. I begin the year 2005
accepting the tragedy of life, embracing it, grappling with it, cursing it, despairing of it, but most certainly resolving
to maintain an attitude of dealing with it.
That might as well be my motto for the year:
DEAL
WITH IT!!!
DEAL.
WITH.
IT.
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