CONSERVATIVE BELIEFS

Last October, in the wake of the debate over placement of Harriet Miers on the federal Supreme Court, Rush Limbaugh penned an interesting opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal that contained a Reader’s Digest version on, generically, what conservatives believe. Although I’ve played with it stylistically, the text has not been altered:

We believe in:

individual liberty,

limited government,

capitalism,

the rule of law,

faith,

a color-blind society and

national security.

We support:

school choice,

enterprise zones,

tax cuts,

welfare reform,

faith-based initiatives,

political speech,

homeowner rights, and

the war on terrorism.

And at our core we embrace and celebrate the most magnificent governing document ever ratified by any nation – the U.S. Constitution. Along with the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes our God-given natural right to be free, it is the foundation on which our government is built and has enabled us to flourish as a people.

Works for me; I don’t remember reading this last October but that strikes me as a damn good general summation.

 

FLORIDA LEGISLATURE: DAYS 53-55 OF 60

The big news from The Buzz:

The Senate Coalition

Can Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rod Smith lay claim to killing the effort to weaken the class size amendment? Tom Lee gave him lots of credit for keeping together the decisive coalition of 14 Democrats and six moderate Republicans.

Story here.

Roundup of stories from the Palm Beach Post.

 

9-11 AND UNITED FLIGHT 93

Gerard Van der Leun reminisces about his 9-11 experiences in New York, declining to go see the film United 93 with friends but subsequently going to see it alone, and his thoughts on smoke, fire, starlight’s – and the indomitable human spirit that declines the role of passive victim. Here is his close:

“United 93” is a simply told, near-documentary look at how that fire in the field came to be. As I said above, the film has no message, but if you – as I finally did – choose to go, it will pose you a question: What would you do, an ordinary person in an extraordinary moment when life and death, good and evil, were as clear as the skies over America on September 11? Will you, as so many of our fellow citizens yearn to do these days, stay seated? Or will you stand up?

Of course, the enemy has penetrated the gates and convinced many that opposition for the sake of opposition is somehow patriotic. Mark Steyn does a good job shooting down that nonsense this week. His focus? A bogus quote sold as a famous Thomas Jefferson saying. It champions dissent as the highest form of patriotism.

Riiiiiiiiigggghhhhtttttt.

Our bigger problem, as 9-11 fades from the memory of so many, may not be those many folks who yearn to stay seated but those activists who are “smarter” than America and “stand up” to prove, once again, that America is the primary force for evil in this world.

 

STILL STUCK ON STUPID WHEN HURRICANE KATRINA IS DISCUSSED

Dafydd ab Hugh at Big Lizards tries, once again, to speak facts to power about the response to Hurricane Katrina. His post is based on an objective analysis of the Executive Summary produced by the Senate Homeland Security Committee:

Particularly noteworthy is the comparison of the “net evaluation” of each of the three [levels] of government [local first, then state, and last federal]; I define this as the number of accusations of failure combined with the number of accolades for success for a net failure or success score. Here are the figures:

o              City of New Orleans: 12 failures + 1 success = 11 net failures;

o              States of Louisiana and Mississippi: 11 failures + 2 successes = 9 net failures;

o              Federal agencies: 10 failures + 6 successes = 4 net failures;

o              White House: 1 failure + 2 successes = 1 net success.

Compare this record from the actual Executive Summary itself with the claim by AP that --

A Senate inquiry into the government’s Hurricane Katrina failures ripped the Bush administration anew Thursday and urged the scrapping of the nation’s disaster response agency. But with a new hurricane season just weeks away, senators conceded that few if any of their proposals could become reality in time.

The bipartisan investigation into one of the worst natural disasters in the nation’s history singled out President Bush and the White House as appearing indifferent to the devastation until two days after the storm hit.

By “appearing indifferent,” it’s clear that what AP really means is that Bush was directing the federal response from his Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, TX, rather than from the White House itself. To the Associated Press, this is “indifference.”

Need we say more?

This is perhaps the most egregiously biased and slanted Katrina story since the first days after the storm itself, when the antique media blithely repeated ludicrous and lurid rumors of rapes, murders, and cannibalism -- and laid it all at the doorstep of the White House.

Media “madness” is indeed the proper phrase for it.

True dat. Another favorite blogger, Jason at the Countercolumn blog, made these relevant posts at the time:

"Why couldn't we preposition troops?"

"What does it take to move just one truck?"

For the official military doctrine on disaster relief operations, you can click here.

And because I liked it so much, I’m going to post this response in full that Jason copied from Jeff Jarvis’ site (the writer is responding to the typical mantra found all over the place contemporaneously in response to Katrina from the bitch-and-moan crowd):

I can’t BELIEVE you people.

Disgusting. Really disgusting. [RattlerGator: I felt the exact same way at the time, including disgust with TV folks ranging from talk show host Oprah Winfrey to Sheppard Smith on Fox]

You have NO CLUE what rescue efforts entail, what it takes to shift people and material over 100s of miles of randomly destroyed terrain in any sort of organized fashion, you’ve got no idea AT ALL what it takes to feed and house the people DOING the relief work, much less what it takes to actually get the job done.

One of the pissant little socialists here said:

“”"
And yes, BOB, Americans pay taxes so that this kind of situation never happens.
“”"

Really, tax dollars prevent hurricanes?

Oh, you mean you’re willing to spend upwards of a billion dollars a year nationally (in FY2000 FEMA requested 300 billion for disaster relief, this is one agency, and doesn’t include Coast Guard or National Guard budgets etc.) to keep men and material prepared for the kinds of disasters that happen once every decade or two?

Like hell you are. You’d be one of the first to whine about how that money could go to . . . well, let’s not get any nastier.

“”"
I cannot believe this is our country. The government should have been mobilized and ready to go on MONDAY!
“”"

They were. Bush made the “Disaster Area” declaration before the storm hit land.

Do some math would you PLEASE? I realize it’s “linear thinking”, and “hard”, but just stop and figure:

Let n be the number of buses needed to to shift people from one place to the other.
Let x be the number of miles you need to shift these people to get them to “safety”.
Let y be the number of people you can shift per bus.
Let p be the total population you’ve got to move.
Let h be the time you’ve got to move them in.

The simple calculation is:

n=p/y

How many people on a bus? Well, let’s assume a big bus, I think that’s around 70 people, and we’re going to move them 300 miles from the coast (the effected area reaches inland /at least/ 120 miles, my daughter lives in Central MS, and as of 3 this afternoon they were w/out power and she was heading to Atlanta to be with her mom)

How many people have we got to move? 2000:

29=2000/70 (this is integer math, we get whole buses so we round up).

10000 people:
143 buses.

100,000 people:
1429 busses.

Now, 1429 buses is a lot. And that’s also 1429 drivers that have to be gotten somewhere on time etc. Where are you going to get that many? You won’t. You can’t. The buses in the damaged areas cannot be planned on, nor can the drivers (they have families etc.). So you do with fewer buses but make multiple trips, this gets even worse, because now you add time into it, and it becomes about how long it takes to shift people, and how many you can shift per trip or hour.

All this takes planning. And shifting resources around (buses have to be fueled people have to be fed and watered etc.).

And 100,000 is only 1/10th-1/12th of the people in that area. In addition to just shifting these people you’ve got medical problems, rescue problems etc.

And you /cannot/ pre-plan and pre-stage because you don’t know where the damage will happen, so you can’t count on any particular route being open, and you can’t count on any particular *close* spot being safe, and if you’re too far away you’re running low on fuel inside the damage zone and and and and.

70 per bus, 300 miles each way. 60 miles per hour. That’s 70 people per bus in per 10 hours. Or 7 people per hour per bus.

You’ve got 100,000 people to shift, which means (basically) 14286 bus hours, so 10 buses finishes the job in 1428 hours, 100 finishes in 142 hours (actually add 5 to that for 1 one way trip). To get 100,000 people shifted in 48 hours you’re going to need roughly 298 buses. Which is also 298 drivers. This is all, of course, assuming that things go smoothly. You could probably gather up 3oo school buses from the states around the affected areas and get them in, but school buses are smaller (IIRC about 40 adults) than what I was talking about. Which means almost (fudging because of the hour) twice as many buses and drivers.

Right after a hurricane. And we haven’t even begun to talk about how many buses go to where and at what time. Or about how to handle medical problems on the bus, feed the people etc. Hell, even refueling the buses.

And note, we’re just talking about getting 100,000 people out of New Orleans and the surrounding area.

And we didn’t /know/ it was going to be New Orleans until Saturday/Sunday.

And on Tuesday morning (before the levee gave way) it looked like things were going to be, well, not ok, but not worse-case. So the planners started shifting resources and planning to the areas that were obviously going to need it.

Then the damn broke.

There are good reasons why there are NO large scale evacuation plans for any metropolitan [area] in this country. You simply CANNOT plan that sort of thing. Really, really bright people have tried, and they keep realizing it DOES NOT WORK.

Reality is NOT [amenable] to our desires /just/ because we wish it. Maybe someday we’ll be able to predict this stuff 2-3 weeks out with reasonable accuracy, and get people out of the way in time. Now we cannot, so we have to clean up afterwards.

The government is moving just as fast (or faster) on this disaster as they have in all the others, it’s just that now information flows even faster, and we’re all–left, center and right–hurting for these people.

(Aside: why did people stay in the path of a Cat 4/5 hurricane? Because the leftist school system, coupled with the Christian foot stomping over science has left people without a basic understanding of weather, physics and math? Well, partly. Because there is still a perception of Meterologists being completely WRONG? Well, partly. Because of 2 decades of media/newspapers predicting TEOTWAWKI [the end of the world as we know it] and it turns out to be not that big a deal? Partly. Because many were too poor to leave? Sure. Teach people math and physics and they’ll move when they realize how much energy is coming straight at them).

But you’re not interested in that, because that makes Bush (in this case) just someone reacting to events outside ANYONE’s control, and that means you can’t whine more about him.

And quite frankly [that’s] petty, lame, and rather small.

Mind you, that response is from a generic reader – not some government official – and came no later than Saturday, September 3^rd and the Hurricane, of course, hit the prior Monday.

Common.

Damn.

Sense.

Nuff said.

 

LAST WEEKEND AT U.F.

Florida is a unique American state and last weekend I was fortunate to be able to participate (as a spectator) in a unique college sporting event: a spring football game where some basketball players were the rock stars.

Football is a great game that most of us love down here. It allows friends to travel from distances near and far and get together and enjoy athletic competition. My brothers and I, all Gator fans, use the annual Orange and Blue spring football game as an excuse to get away, break bread together, and have a few drinks. This year, the latest Buffalo Soldier in the family (another Gator fan) joined the ranks for the first time. In the picture below, from left to right, is yours truly, SuperDuperParatrooper, Big Brother, and Little Brother:

 

 

Also joining the group this year was a childhood friend from Orange Park (good ole Leonard) with his wifey (remarkably, she’s a genuine sports fan):

 

 

At some point during the outing Leonard told an interesting John McCain story from our youth. McCain, of course, was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam when we were truly young. He was stationed in Jacksonville at the time and he lived in Orange Park. For an interesting look back, take a quick look at this Vanderbilt University abstract of the December 23, 1970 broadcast of the CBS Evening News:

(Studio) North Vietnam prisoners of war list deepens concern for captured Americans
REPORTER: Walter Cronkite

(Hanoi, North Vietnam) [NOV. 1967 FILM SHOWN.] [Lieutenant Commander John McCAIN - describes capture; shot down over North Vietnam while bombing.]

(Orange Park, Florida) Ms. Carol McCain waits for word on husband; sons Doug and Andrew need father. [Ms. McCAIN - says doesn't know how to help boys with sports.] Daughter Cindy doesn't remember father. [Ms. McCAIN - quotes 4th verse of Navy Hymn; says it's family motto.] [Doug McCAIN - says North Vietnam will keep father till war over; hopes it's soon.] [Cindy McCAIN - says wants father back.] [Ms. McCAIN - reads letter from husband; says he sounds depressed.]
REPORTER: John Laurence

(Hanoi, North Vietnam) [McCAIN - says loves wife; hopes to see her soon.]

(Studio) McCain says recovered from wounds, well-treated; released prisoners of war reports McCain held in solitary for long periods.
REPORTER: Walter Cronkite

McCain was released as a POW on March 15, 1973. Leonard remembers that some of McCain’s kids attended school at Orange Park Elementary and one day after his release McCain came to an assembly at the school and talked to the students about his life.

I had forgotten that John McCain had an Orange Park connection. Yet another reason why it’s good to get together with old friends. It also helps that they know how to tailgate and bring along lots of good food:

 

 

Not only were we joined by an old Orange Park friend, but SuperDuperParatrooper brought down SuperDuperFlyGuy – an Air Force friend originally from Michigan and a Wolverine fan who, I must say, was a good guest and seemingly enjoyed himself down here in God’s Country:

 

 

But what about the game, right? Well, Tebow Madness was in full effect (45,000 people turned out, many to see Tebow) but I saw something that (I’m pretty sure) was a first at Florida Field – the basketball team made an appearance and were the rock stars of the day. I didn’t get a good picture of them (my digital cameral isn’t the best in the world) but I think this picture conveys just how much attention they garnered when they first showed up:

 

 

They commanded attention, that’s how big they are in Gainesville now. There were multiple ovations at different times just from acknowledging their movement in the stadium. On a related note, a post on GatorCountry.com wondered if this national championship felt better than the football national championship we won in 1996. Here were my thoughts:

This national basketball championship is the best University of Florida sports story ever -- in my opinion.

I'm still floating, still amazed not so much that we won it but how we won it. And with a group, frozen in time now, that couldn't have been cast any better. A team with personality, ferocious humbleness, and sheer willpower so strong that it took a back seat to no one. They seem to be virtually perfect representatives of our university.

Yeah, for me -- this is our greatest sports story ever.

That was confirmed for me at the Orange and Blue game when their appearance (in the midst of Tebow madness, mind you) captivated the crowd like we were witnessing rock stars. It was something to behold and this Florida Gator (many years from now, I hope) can die a very happy man.

If the 04’s were to flip the script and all announce for the draft today, I wouldn't love them any less and the gift they gave this university would still be as great.

Staying another year would be a sacrifice of sorts, but they would be gambling on themselves. To be so young and so confident and so grounded that they would even seriously consider staying (remember, this was laughed at by many at the end of the tournament) speaks well of so many folks who have been influential in their lives. Ultimately, though, it is a testament to the individual ball player who knows that the money will be there if it is meant to be.

Already in the history books, they have an opportunity to go down with the great teams in the sport. That kind of vision is rare in young people these days. So rare, that watching their journey next year is going to be fascinating and should be worthy of an ESPN episodic series.

Man, these are great days to be a fan of the Florida Gators. At the end of the day, good friends got together and posed for a parting shots – and this is the face of America for me:

 

 

Then it was time to get on the road and head back home. Dead ahead: Tallahassee and the rest of the Florida Panhandle.

 

Later, Gators.

 

DANA PRIEST HAS SOME “SPLAININ” TO DO ABOUT HER CIA STORIES

Instapundit links to Dan Riehl, who looks to have busted reporter Dana Priest and the Washington Post for apparently doing the bidding for Democrat-friendly, agenda-setting, opposition spooks and earning a Pulitzer Prize in the process:

Contrast these two excerpts below published three years apart. The second won a Pulitzer. The first isn't even archived on line.

2002: In other cases, usually involving lower-level captives, the CIA hands them to foreign intelligence services — notably those of Jordan, Egypt and Morocco — with a list of questions the agency wants answered. These "extraordinary renditions" are done without resort to legal process and usually involve countries with security services known for using brutal means.

2005: A second tier -- which these sources believe includes more than 70 detainees -- is a group considered less important, with less direct involvement in terrorism and having limited intelligence value. These prisoners, some of whom were originally taken to black sites, are delivered to intelligence services in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Afghanistan and other countries, a process sometimes known as "rendition." While the first-tier black sites are run by CIA officers, the jails in these countries are operated by the host nations, with CIA financial assistance and, sometimes, direction.

Notice the quotation marks around rendition above in 2005? A new and extraordinary term? Hardly. They left out this bit below from the 2002 story for the 2005 version. I wonder why?

The Clinton administration pioneered the use of extraordinary rendition after the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

And just as a matter of curiosity, why is it that the above article is no longer available at the Washington Post on line? Archiving, most likely. At least I hope so. Fortunately, a web site archived the article, as did others - just not the Washington Post. Is it possible the story didn't get the traction and cause the hearings some might have thought before the 2004 election? [RattlerGator: hmmmmmm.]

I realize it's foolish to speculate, but why simply wait for passions around the GWOT to fade a bit before bringing the story back up, unless there was an agenda of some kind for any anticipated impact of the story? And why no reference to the earlier story at all?

Talk to me, Dana. Talk to the nation. Explain the self-evident dishonesty of the two stories.

It is apparent to me now that the more one reads the Washington Post and the New York Times, the more one realizes that the mainstream media are completely unprepared for the digital media revolution they are witnessing right before their eyes. One also realizes that these reporters, from Bob Woodward on down to the Dana Priest’s of today, aren’t independent in any real sense of the word but are bought proxies – whores, in fact – for the pimps that populate the primary Washington establishment agencies. Namely, the CIA, FBI, and State Department.

That’s why those very same pimps and prostitutes hated Jimmy Carter (campaigned as, and operated as, an outsider) so much when he was in office, and (quite likely) why Jimmy Carter has worked so hard to solidify his liberal bona fides since leaving office. It’s really painful for me to watch Jimmy Carter traipse around the world, pissing on America at event after event – all in a vain attempt to earn the love of the left by drifting more and more to the far left.

George W. Bush, a man who was of that world before creating a world for himself in Texas, has been remarkably skilled in doing battle with those pimps and prostitutes. And they’ve done their damndest to make him pay. But he has persevered, thank God.

Now we wait and hope to soon see this one question answered – has Dubya and his crew set up a nice, delectable rope-a-dope? Is it the perfect media storm? And is Patrick Fitzgerald, a prosecutor that Andy McCarthy of National Review seems to swear by, the front piece for that rope-a-dope? Has he used Karl Rove as perfect, irresistible bait? In the next few days I’m going to post a column on why I think a rope-a-dope strategy is in full bloom.

It may illuminate why Dana Priest is going to have so much explaining to do. I suspect she has been captured via a data mining exercise that very few people know about, and even fewer have operational knowledge. And that data mining instrument provided the foundation for this current sting operation that has smoked out Mary McCarthy and shown Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson to be the punk ass surrender monkeys they appear to be.

 

FLORIDA LEGISLATURE: DAY 52 OF 60

Speculation is growing that Allen Bense, the current Speaker of the Florida House, will challenge Katherine Harris for the right to compete with Bill Nelson for the right to be a United States Senator. Looking back to yesterday (day 51), here are two aggregators to check:

Fort Report

Sayfie Review

And here are the highlight stories from the St. Pete Times:

GOP urging Bense to enter race
Party leaders see the House Speaker as the best bet to challenge Katherine Harris.

State closes door on boot camps
Lawmakers have formalized a deal that shifts funding for boot camps to new programs that emphasize education.

Group pushes new seat belt law
A Durant student's death prompts about 100 family members and friends to take their plea for primary enforcement to Tallahassee.

House wine sales bill not to Senate's taste
The Florida House is all for your being able to buy wine on Internet sites - but only from smaller makers.

Lobbyists' suit against new rules in federal court
Today is Day 52 of the 60-day session of the Florida Legislature.

Defections may undercut Republican agenda
Larger class sizes and private school vouchers are GOP priorities, but the fate of those issues is uncertain.

And the Times also has an interesting political blog called The Buzz.

 

FLORIDA LEGISLATURE: DAY 51 OF 60

The 108^th regular legislative session since statehood in 1845, and the 38^th Regular Session under the current Florida Constitution, has a bit more than one week left. For the House, here’s their Daily Calendar and for the Senate, their Daily Calendar. As you can see, most of the up-front action will be in open session on the floor. Yesterday was the last day for regularly scheduled committee meetings.

Looking back to yesterday, here are two aggregators to check:

Fort Report

Sayfie Review

And here is a sample of stories from the Palm Beach Post reviewing Day 50:

·          Bill stops employers from outlawing concealed weapons in locked vehicles in the parking lot

·          Migrant farmworkers could soon have safer rides to work

·          Joint resolution makes it harder for courts to strike down laws when interpreting the constitution

·          Bill grants Floridians already possessing a permit to carry a gun the right to continue to do so during a declared state of emergency

Those aren’t laws that have been passed, those are bills in various stages of passage that still have hope of becoming laws. Except, that is, for the joint resolution that was cited which expresses the will of this Florida Legislature.