No Replacement For Displacement

William Tecumseh Dershowitz

I don't know how I missed this--the Jpost is one of my daily reads. In this article, which I got the link from NRO, Alan Dershowitz talks about waging economic warfare towards the Palestinians if they continue to engage in terrorism. He writes:

Here is my proposal. Israel should announce an immediate unilateral cessation in retaliation against terrorist attacks. This moratorium would be in effect for a short period, say four or five days, to give the Palestinian leadership an opportunity to respond to the new policy. It would also make it clear to the world that Israel is taking an important step in ending what has become a cycle of violence.

Following the end of the moratorium, Israel would institute the following new policy if Palestinian terrorism were to resume. It will announce precisely what it will do in response to the next act of terrorism. For example, it could announce the first act of terrorism following the moratorium will result in the destruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings.

The response will be automatic. The order will have been given in advance of the terrorist attacks and there will be no discretion. The point is to make the automatic destruction of the village the fault of the Palestinian terrorists who had advance warnings of the specific consequences of their action. The soldiers would simply be acting as the means for carrying out a previously announced policy of retaliation against a designated target.

Further acts of terrorism would trigger further destruction of specifically named locations. The "waiting list" targets would be made public and circulated throughout the Palestinian-controlled areas.

If this automatic policy of destroying targets announced in advance is carried out with the full support of the entire government, including those who are committed to a resumption of the peace process, a clear message will be sent to the Palestinian people: Every time terrorists blow themselves up and kill civilians, they are also blowing up one of their own villages.

Over time, the Palestinian residents of these villages will place the blame where it should be placed: directly on the Palestinian terrorists who engaged in terrorism against Israel with full knowledge the consequence would be the destruction of their homes. Those villagers whose homes were coming up on the list would have an incentive to pressure the terrorists to desist.

Since the Atrocity, Alan Dershowitz has become one of the most unlikeliest hawks I've seen. His support for the use of torture, and general hawkishness is a wild departure from his normal persona of a left wing lawyer. In any event, I think he is focusing on the wrong place. If you want to eliminate terrorists, go after the backers. Go after Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi. Make them pay the economic price for supporting the terrorists..

Religion of Peace update

Miss World competition forced to abandon Nigeria for pageant.

Great Conference, Lousy day

Well, I had a good time at the conference, but a lousy day overall. My car was broken into this morning, and they took my cell phone and the faceplate to my car stereo, rendering it inoperable. As a result, I missed Glenn's speech, and a good portion of the first panel. A number of good points were made. One was that blogging is addictive(true), that heavy bloggers don't watch much TV(also true, though I do have Fox News going on as background music usually). I met Glenn, didn't give him the Carteresque tongue bath, thus keeping my promise. I made one good point, about how bloggers typically will link to articles they hate more than articles they like(the organizer, Ernie Miller, said so--that sound you hear is me patting myself on the back). Overall it was a good conference.

I might have been out of my league when compared to the rest of the crowd there, though. Law students, Law professors, Mickey Kaus, Glenn, and a whole bunch of real all-stars both attending and commenting--and me and my 200 hit/day blog. When they said "open to the public", I think I was the public, the rest being students/faculty and some rather heavy duty folks from some major organizations. I think that says a lot about how people might be intimidated to go to something like this. The time of day might have had something to do with it too.

I also felt rather naked without a laptop, as it seemed just about everybody was blogging while the speakers were talking. Lawmeme had actually posted pictures while it was going on. Glenn said he'll be putting up his remarks on the blog. They're not there yet, but Lawmeme has a good summary.

There was a reception after the conference, which I hung around at a little bit. I was a bit overwhelmed(like I said, I was a bit above my pay grade there), but I wanted to stay and just listen. I hung around for a little bit, but I really didn't have the luxury of time to hang around like I wanted to. Anyhow, that was my take on the whole thing.

This Friday

I'll be heading down to the Weblog Conference down at Yale Friday. I'll be posting today, but Friday's posting will be light. It'll be cool to see some of the folks I've been blogging with and linking to. The Great Glenn will be the keynote speaker, and I promise I will not give Glenn the tonguebath that Jimmy Carter gave Kim Il Sung.

You are all doomed to driving a Geo Tracker for eternity!

The White House is considering raising the fuel economy limits on SUVs again. This is yet another case of bad, and counterproductive law. First of all, in the short run, it will make SUVs less safe. Higher gas mileage means lighter weight, smaller engines, and less sheet metal. Less sheet metal means weaker crumple zones, and weaker rollover protection. Smaller engines mean less towing capacity, less reliability(small engines work harder than big ones), and less performance. That is the bad part.

Now here is the counterproductive part. This law may make SUVs bigger. This sounds really counterintuitive, but it isn't, especially if you look at past history. Up until the CAFE act was passed, Americans typically bought large cars, with relatively large engines, though not as big as people have been led to believe.(as I have stated previously).

Initially, the CAFE act did get people into smaller cars. Chrysler came out with the minivan to replace their station wagons. Then something unexpected happened. Customers started looking at trucks like the Ford Bronco, Chevy Blazer, and the Jeep Cherokee, and optioned the heck out of them, turning them into an upsized station wagon. The minivan didn't quite cut it as a station wagon. It was underpowered, lacking the performance of a station wagon. A Bronco, on the other hand, *had* power. You could get a V-8. It had excellent towing capacity, and gobs of cargo space. Not only that, but it had four wheel drive! This wasn't just a replacement for the trusty Country Squire, it was a Country Squire on steroids! The automakers started to notice this trend, and the result was the Ford Explorer.

The Explorer was comfortable inside, just like a station wagon. It had better cargo capacity than a station wagon. It had four wheel drive. It had a big motor, and unlike a minivan, it had good performance. It also weighed as much as a Country Squire wagon. It also got worse mileage than a Country Squire wagon(17 city/24 highway v. 16/20 in the Explorer). But the Explorer wasn't subject to CAFE, and Ford could produce these things by the thousands, without having to worry about trying to pawn off deathtraps like the Festiva in order to compensate for the relatively poor mileage of the Country Squire. Customers didn't have to lose their Country Squire to the ecoweenies. Now they could get something bigger!

Fast forward to today. The federal government is now going to increase the mileage required for light trucks. Here is what is going to happen. Customers are going to see the "new improved" downsized SUVs. They are going to notice that the "new improved" SUVs carry less cargo, have smaller crumple zones, and don't perform as well on the highway. Then they are going to look for a substitute. And that means that the substitute they want will be BIGGER than what they currently drive. It will be bigger, because the subsitute won't be an SUV, and it won't be a light truck at all. It will be an F-350 with dual rear wheels. Then the automakers will build a replacement. It will be larger, it will have a bigger engine. It may even have three axles. The Big 2.5 will gussy them up with leather seats, a nice radio, and give the trucks an air ride(like the crown vic) so passengers aren't jostled around like they would be with an ordinary truck. Soccer moms will drive to work in one of these:

The ecoweenies and the Dems will make speeches about how they are shocked! that these superSUVs are on the roads. NBC and CNN will air stories about the evils of these SuperSUVs, how they only get 10 mpg, how they are harmful to the environment, and how it contributes to global warming, and how a law must be passed to do something about the horrible gas mileage these behomoths inflict on the American people. Noone, and I mean noone, will bother posing the obvious question, which is why are the American people not being allowed by their government to buy the cars they wanted all along.

Update: I received an e-mail from an Australian who agrees:

I've discovered your 'blog from the Euroweenie quiz and it's a bit of surprise how dumb those CAFE laws have been written. We (Australia) don't have such laws, although the fact that half the price of petrol is tax is irksome, which has led us to nice, roomy, powerful, rear wheel drive, larger cars such as the Falcon from Ford and the Commodore from Holden (GM). The 2-door Commodore, which is the Monaro here, will soon be the Camero (?) replacement in the US.

I've read up on the Aussie cars, and actually, it is very sad. The only place in the world you can buy a car that looks, feels, and drives like a real American car is Australia. Ford has engines in Australia that haven't made it to the states. They have a 5.4L engine with 3 valves per cylinder. They have a 4L I-6 that has variable cam technology. Here, we're stuck with ecoweenie crap.

That sound you are hearing

is the derisive laughter coming from Trent Lott's office. It seems that Jumpin' Jim Jeffords is trying to get back into the good graces of the GOP again, provided he gets to keep his committee seat. Needless to say, the offer was declined. There is one thing we have to thank Benedict Jeffords for, though. Thanks to his peerless efforts, Vermont will be the one state of the union that will have absolutely no federal pork-barrel projects. Welcome to the minority, buddy!

Another great moment in mathematics

The University of Hawaii has now managed to reach a new low in PC. They have now introduced the concept of ethnomathematics. You heard that right, ethnomathematics:

Advanced classes would include rainforest restoration, volcano studies and "ethnomathematics," which would look at the math of Hawaiian navigation, symmetries in Hawaiian textiles, and spatial relationships in fish nets and knots, for example.

What is amazing about this is that this occurred aftera professor of the hard sciences once scammed the PC crowd by writing a paper for some multi-culti journal about how multiculturalism has affected science, and how such things as Newton's law were simply a construct of the white man.

What is crazy is that even after the multi-culti crowd was successfully shown to be full of bovine scatology, that the University of Hawaii would actually attempt to do the exact same thing! Here is a clue for all the multi-culti types out there:

This statement

5   n n=1

=

15

is true, whether you are white, black, gay, straight, Jewish, Armenian, Turkish, Chinese, or pink with purple polka dots.

The UN inspectors have arrived

Well, the UN inspectors have arrived in Baghdad today, and as you can see, they are already at work:

I don't know what's worse

That I took the I, Claudius quiz, and got this result:

CALIGVLA You are the quintessential madman. Centuries after your death, crazies will still look up to you as the epitome of your kind. You were the favorite child of the family, but something happened that altered your mind for the worse. As emperor, you killed and you destroyed. You thought yourself Zeus and devoured your unborn child; a child conceived with your sister. Your murder will be celebrated, and your name will forever be linked with depravity. You were portrayed by John Hurt.

Which I, Claudius Character are You? created by Shiny Objects

Or that I took my own Euroweenie quiz, and got this result:

From Emperor Misha

Milestones

I've hit a couple of milestones recently. First, via Bravenet, I've gotten my 20,000th hit:

The other counters actually show more hits, but the Bravenet one is the one everyone sees, so that is the one I'm mentioning.

Second, when you go to google and search on fisking, you get my old site at the top of the results list, which is rather cool, but also a little depressing. It is depressing because I feel like I've become "The Knack" of blogs. One really big post that everyone thought was great, but became more of a flash in the pan than anything else. Also, it bothers me because I think I've written better stuff. I think the post of the speech Jimmy Carter should have made to the Nobel committee is as good, if not better. My post on the evils of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy law I think is as good as well. The Carter post was moderately picked up by the blogosphere, the CAFE one not at all.

I shouldn't really complain that much. I do get more than my fair share of pageviews. It's just that after getting 2000 impressions a day back in late September, it is a bit of a letdown to get only a couple hundred hits a day or so. Anyway, that's my navel-gazing for the month.

Saddam the Flaccid Tyrant

Over the Tigris and Euphrates

Kill Saddam! Kill Saddam! Kill Saddam!

OK. So I'm a few weeks early. Sue me.

Goodbye Phil, Hello Jesse

The Minneapolist Star Tribune is reporting that Jesse Ventura is in talks with PMSNBC about doing a show, possibly as a replacement for the networks favorite Tinfoil Hat Leftist. I'm torn by this. Should I be happy that the Donahue show will be sent off to the happy hunting grounds, or should I be sad that MSNBC actually is actually going to sign someone that made the Donahue show look good? I have to hand it to MSNBC on one point, though. If it weren't for MSNBC, there wouldn't be anyone to make cable access look good.

Dr. Kutchirkokov will see you now

Cato has the inside scoop on the doctor Vlad the Impaler is using to take care of Islamofascist nutjobs.

Basic Training--Army vs. Marines

I've been watching the History Channel's show Basic Training, and I watched Discovery/TLC(I forget which) show Making Marines and after watching both shows, I found that I saw a number of things that occurred in Army Basic training that bothered me. This might be due to the fact that there are differences between the focus of the Army vs. Marines(Sgt. Stryker goes into some of the differences between the various armed services). However, I am afraid that isn't the case. What I think instead has happened is that the Army has gotten so caught up in PC that troop training has taken a massive hit. Even taking into account that the Marines are considered a more elite arm of the military than the Army, the difference is too great to be simply explained away as a matter of increased training tempo for Marines, and the extra 3 to 4 weeks of basic training in the Marines' program.

The first thing I noticed is that the Marines segregate male and female recruits in Basic, and the Army doesn't. This is just wrong on so many levels. First of all, there is the problem that 18 year old's hormones are working in overdrive, and that can't be good for instilling esprit de corps, preventing fraternization, or various and sundry other bad things. The second issue, and this is as bad as the first, is that the difference in physical ability between male recruits and female recruits lowers the training thresholds for both sexes. Male recruits aren't being pushed, and it is patently obvious that female recruits can't keep up in a sexually integrated environment.

This is something that doesn't occur in Marine training. The sexes are segregated immediately, and women DIs train female recruits, and men train male recruits. The difference in the quality of the training is readily apparent. Women DIs are far less likely to cut female soldiers a break than male DIs are. Both women and men are pushed far harder in basic training than they would be if they were integrated. Sadly, this became most readily apparent during bayonet drill. The Marines showed far more motivation during bayonet drill than the Army did. Male recruits were not pushed very hard in comparison, and female recruits were basically not pushed at all. Marine recruits, male and female, were pushed harder, and there was no real or apparent lack of motivation apparent. It did not appear as if anyone was cut a break or allowed to loaf during the drill. Recruits were pushed hard, and the payoff was readily apparent.

Another difference was in rifle training. There were some aspects of Army rifle training which I thought were just plain goofy. First of all, they had recruits place a full canteen on the muzzle of the rifle then sight the rifle(in order to get them used to the weight). Then they had them balance a dime on the edge of the muzzle(using a special plastic dime balancing thing) , then the recruit would take a shot at a simulated target using a laser. The recruit did all this before ever setting foot on a range. Some of it seemed a bit over the top. First of all, I didn't see how having recruits holding a rifle by hanging a canteen on the end of it will do more to improve accuracy than actually firing at a real target will. Secondly, an M-16 is not exactly a big heavy weapon. It is a light caliber weapon, and it has a plastic stock. Compared to the M-1 and the M-14, it is featherweight in comparison. One would think that the physical training that occurs in Army basic would give them good enough conditioning to hold a rifle properly. Also, the balancing act and the laser tag drill seemed like the Army was engaging in some gee whiz technogeeking when it would probably be far more effective just to simply put the recruits on a range with a rifle right away.(Of course after being taught proper range safety).

Overall, from my admittedly civilian perspective, I found a lot I that bothered me about Army basic training, at least as I have seen it portrayed. I found that the training didn't do enough to instill discipline, didn't push soldiers enough physically, and left them unprepared. Watching it, I wondered how much extra time had to be spent in later training to make up for what was not achieved in Basic.

On an related note one thing I found funny was that the Army is still using a variation on the same grenade drill that they used during WWI. What is funny about this is what my father told me about when he did his first grenade drill(in WWII). The DI grabbed him, and said, "I don't care what they told you before. You throw that thing like a goddamn baseball!"

The least surprising story of the day

Iraqi Parliament Chiefs Blast U.N. Resolution

Remember about how I compared the wrangling at the UN and compared it to a poker game? Well, Saddam is right now about to turn over his pair of deuces and say, "Dueces! read 'em and weep!" Too bad he didn't notice that France and Russia folded a week ago.

Don't think that Saddam is going to play a game where he overrules his "parliament" to appear reasonable. That ain't the way totalitarian societies work. Saddam can't even do feigned disagreement, because totalitarian dictators are so self-evidently perfect that to express disagreement is actually a crime. Saddam will claim that the rejection is the result of "democratic process"(of course, without a single no vote), and dare the US to overthrow his "popularly elected" government("no" votes punishable by death, of course) .

Saddam is so predictable, you could use him in place of Daffy in the (warning, large link)Pronoun Trouble cartoon with Bugs.

Update: Well, it looks like I was wrong. Truth be told, I didn't know that his son/coconspirator Uday "argued" just the opposite. It doesn't change a thing, though.

Bennett, Steven L.

Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Air Force. 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron, Pacific Air Forces. Place and date: Quang Tri, Republic of Vietnam, 29 June 1972. Entered service at: Lafayette, La. Born: 22 April 1946, Palestine, Tex. Citation: Capt. Bennett was the pilot of a light aircraft flying an artillery adjustment mission along a heavily defended segment of route structure. A large concentration of enemy troops was massing for an attack on a friendly unit. Capt. Bennett requested tactical air support but was advised that none was available. He also requested artillery support but this too was denied due to the close proximity of friendly troops to the target. Capt. Bennett was determined to aid the endangered unit and elected to strafe the hostile positions. After 4 such passes, the enemy force began to retreat. Capt. Bennett continued the attack, but, as he completed his fifth strafing pass, his aircraft was struck by a surface-to-air missile, which severely damaged the left engine and the left main landing gear. As fire spread in the left engine, Capt. Bennett realized that recovery at a friendly airfield was impossible. He instructed his observer to prepare for an ejection, but was informed by the observer that his parachute had been shredded by the force of the impacting missile. Although Capt. Bennett had a good parachute, he knew that if he ejected, the observer would have no chance of survival. With complete disregard for his own life, Capt. Bennett elected to ditch the aircraft into the Gulf of Tonkin, even though he realized that a pilot of this type aircraft had never survived a ditching. The ensuing impact upon the water caused the aircraft to cartwheel and severely damaged the front cockpit, making escape for Capt. Bennett impossible. The observer successfully made his way out of the aircraft and was rescued. Capt. Bennett's unparalleled concern for his companion, extraordinary heroism and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty, at the cost of his life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Air Force.

Posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Source: Army Center of Military History

For Love or Country

HBO has a good movie on tonight about a Cuban trumpeter who defects to the US. It's pretty rare to see hollywood types to talk about cuba in anything other than fawning tones. It stars Andy Garcia, who is Cuban, which explains a lot. Not that there is anything wrong with that. He probably understands more than Babs what it is really like on that benighted island.

You da man!

OK, let's give a cheer for one Hollywood bubblehead who gets it. Larry Clark who has directed a bunch of movies, opened up a giant can of whupass on Hamish McAlpine for making a bunch of grotesque anti-American comments:

An enraged Clark, 59, punched McAlpine several times in the face - breaking his nose - choked him, then overturned the dinner table on the bloodied big mouth.

I am now going to go out and rent a Larry Clark movie. Even if if I hate it, I'm still going to say it was better than Star Wars, Gone with the Wind, and Patton combined. Way to go Larry!

A delaying game

The reality of the UNSC vote was that the entire concept of us waiting on France and Russia was simply a delaying tactic on our part. My guess is at worst, France and Russia would have abstained in a vote. The idea of delaying the vote was to get more troops on the ground in the Gulf, and to put a vote off until after the elections(for either domestic politics or diplomatic reasons). In any event, I think my prediction of a Thanksgiving attack is still good. The post election attack scenario is dead. I would also say that the Thanksgiving attack is less likely than it was when I first mentioned it in October. An attack is still going to occur before Christmas, though.

So now it is done

The Security Council has voted unanimously on the US resolution. Sometime in the next six weeks, the balloon goes up.

If you noticed

I got rid of the sound. Thus endeth my run of being the noisiest blog on the net.

Third Letter from John to the Idiotarians

"An example of his anti-environmental position is the embarassment that we did not sign the kyoto treaty. He has friends in big business and did not want to offend them."

This is wrong from a number of different levels. First of all, it works under the assumption that human induced global warming is even occurring. There is copious research being done by noted climatologists that there is no evidence to suggest that warming is occurring as a result of human activity. That is the first problem with this issue.

The second problem is more obvious. President Bush did not kill the Kyoto treaty. The only thing he did was acknowledge that it was dead. The treaty was actually killed off when the Senate voted 95-0 against ratifying the treaty in a "Sense of the Senate" resolution in 1998(105th S. Res 98) The resolution was agreed to by such pawns of the oil industry as Carl Levin(D-MI), Patrick Leahy(D-VT), Ted Kennedy(D-MA), Barbara Boxer(D-CA), and Chris Dodd(D-CT).

If Bush is such an evil pawn of the oil companies for acknowledging that the Kyoto treaty could not be ratified, what does that make the 40 someodd Democrat senators who helped to kill it?

The Right Idea

Tim Blair talks about protesting in style:

Hasten the destruction of capitalism by consuming the oil it needs in your fleet of Merlin V12-powered monster SUVs.

Aircraft engines in SUVs. Now that is driving in style.

Terry McAuliffe gives press conference after election

Why the GOP won

This is a repost of something I just posted on a discussion forum in response to the following question:

"The result of course is a complete disaster[GOP victory]. Any thoughts as to why it happened?"

Simple. The American people are for taking out Saddam, and the Democrats aren't. The majority in the House voted against the war, and only half the Dems in the Senate voted for it. Also, the Dems blocked the Homeland Security bill because they wanted to put them under the control of the unions. Finally, there were the shenanigans in Minnesota and New Jersey. The Wellstone Wake/Mondale Rally and the New Jersey switcheroo angered a lot of Republicans and independents nationwide, and angry voters tend to make it a point to vote.
The president also took a big gamble by campaigning heavily on his party's behalf--more than Clinton did, and more than Reagan did. It was a gamble, because if the Democrats had knocked off some senate seats and his brother Jeb, his political power would have been seriously weakened.

Going by the numbers, the Republicans should have been trounced. They had more senators at risk, they had more governors at risk, and instead of losing big, they gained. That flies in the face of American electoral history. The Democratic party chairman baldly stated that he would knock Jeb Bush out of office. Instead, Jeb won by 14 points. The first Republican governor won in Georgia since the Reconstruction.

Also, the Democratic party was heavily weakened yesterday. A lot of the seed corn of future Democratic leadership was eaten. The Democratic party is now going to be even more dominated by the left than it was before. This is bad for the long term prospects. A hawkish Democrat like Joe Lieberman now doesn't have a prayer of winning the presidential nomination, and that means that the Democratic party won't be able to win the presidency in '04, and are probably crippled in '08.

Carl McCall was abandoned by the Dems in the New York governor's race. That is going to be bad news when it comes to rallying the black vote in '04(the fact that Powell or Condi Rice could be veep will also be a *very* bad thing for them).

Clinton style politics are now well and truly dead. The attack politics performed by Terry McAuliffe backfired badly. Republicans ran on ideas, the Democrats on personality, and ideas won.

Finally, the question of where the American people stand on war with Iraq, and terrorism in general has been answered loudly. The American people want a muscular foreign policy, they want the President to offer no quarter to terrorists, and now there is no such thing as being too hawkish on the war.

What Burns me up about the pundits

This article by Dick Morris is a big reason why I have a beef with most of the paid pundits out there. Two days ago he is loudly crowing about how the Dems will win, but today he has completely forgotten his abysmal bit of wisdom yesterday. He was wrong, but of course, instead of admitting that he might be wrong, he instead plunges ahead with new bits of political wisdom, and doesn't even acknowledge the abysmal analysis he had made just 24 hours before he published the NRO article. If I am willing to devote entire posts to criticizing my own writing, without being paid to do so, Dick Morris could at least devote one sentence to saying his pre-election analysis was bare-assed wrong. I'm not paid for my writing, and if I feel the need to make certain what I write is correct, I don't think it is too much to ask someone paid what Dick Morris is paid to do the same thing.

AHHH!

It's the Russert Whiteboard again! AHHH!!!!!!

Terry McAuliffe, RIP?

Or at least, his career, that is. Jeb won handily in FL, Chambliss won in GA, and Mitt Romney won the gubernatorial race in MA of all places. If today is a big republican win, then perhaps the Clinton era politics might be at an end.

Oh no!

Russert's got his whiteboard out! It's 2000 all over again! AHHHH!!!!

Election Update

Curry just conceded, and Baghdad Jim is conceding. Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

Revival meeting in Yemen

Yemen Leader to al-Qaida:'Repent'

SAN'A, Yemen (AP) - Yemen's president urged al-Qaida members Tuesday to "repent" and renounce violence following the weekend attack in which a U.S. Hellfire missile fired from a CIA plane killed the terrorist movement's top operative in the country.

"Repent, or fear the hand of God!(or flying American robots throwing deadly bolts of death, whichever comes first)"

So much for those Shatner Coattails

Tim Hagan is forecast to lose in Ohio. So much for riding to victory on the endorsement of James T. Kirk.

Election update

Fox has predicted Rowland will win the Governorship in Connecticut. What is interesting is they had their results before the Connecticut Secretary of State had posted them. You would think it would be simultaneous, but alas, no.

I've been interviewed!

Outside the polls today as I went to vote, I was interviewed by the local paper. They endorsed Baghdad Jim(of course), and they asked me how I voted. They asked me about Rowland v. Curry(I voted for Rowland). Then they asked me about Jim Maloney, and I called him Baghdad Jim, and I mentioned that I was torn, because while I'm a Republican, I didn't like the fact that Nancy Johnson was against the privatisation of Social Security. I then, stressed that I was torn, but that his war vote settled the issue for me. She asked me for my name, then I chickened out. I gave her the name, then I asked that she not publish it. It isn't that I mind being known as someone who thinks someone who voted against the war has given aid and comfort to Saddam, but I do mind getting a dozen irate calls from octogenarians who think he is better than sliced bread. But, nonetheless, I did chicken out.

Well, that came as a shock!

Sami Al Arian, the guy the left is certain is not a terrorist, took part in a Save Saddam rally outside MacDill AFB.

The Hummer H2--ultimate poseurmobile

I've been seeing all these Hummer H2s on the road recently, and I wonder how many of the people who bought these things realize that they probably bought a poseurmobile with nowhere near the offroad capability of the original Humvee.

Now the one thing that made the Hummvee different than every other offroad vehicle out there was that it had a fully independent suspension. Usually an independent suspension is a bad thing for an offroad vehicle, but the Humvee is not your average offroad vehicle. The interior of the Humvee is surprisingly small, with only room for four passengers, the rest of the space taken up by an enormous tunnel through the middle of the vehicle. This tunnel housed the driveshaft, differential, brakelines, and every other part that you don't want to break out in the middle of the Mohave. All of these parts were tucked up in between two massive framerails, and it is nearly impossible to high-center a humvee in such a manner that it would get wrecked. That is what makes the Humvee such a good offroad vehicle, in spite of being very long.

Now look at this picture of the Hummer H2:

Look at the area I have circled. Notice the differential? It is sitting on a solid rear axle and an independent front suspension, and the entire chassis is derived from the Tahoe and Suburban. These trucks aren't bad offroaders, but they are not the best of the bunch by any stretch. The driveshaft isn't tucked up in the frame like the original humvee, and the l-o-n-g wheelbase of the H2 is going increase the chance of hitting something nice and big and hard that will hurt something important. With 2" of extra ride height, it will make a better off-roader than a standard Tahoe, but I doubt it will compete with true top notch off-road vehicles like the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Jeep Wrangler, and Land Rover Discovery. It's some go, but mostly show, and it bothers me that GM would take the H2 and pawn it off as a Humvee lite. It is more like four wheel drive Cimarron.

Second Letter from John to the Idiotarians

"George Bush stole the election"

This is one of the strangest assertions I have heard, because it works on the assumption that Al Gore was leading at some point in the 2000 vote count in Florida. The only reason I can think that people make this assertion is that Al Gore won the popular vote, but not the electoral vote. While this might be cause to claim a moral victory(alongside the Boston Red Sox and the French), it does not mean that Al Gore is anyway entitled to win the office of the president.

In fact, not only did George Bush not steal the election, but there is copious evidence that it was Al Gore that attempted to steal the election. Think about the following:

1. The Gore campaign only asked for recounts in heavily Democratic precincts.
   
2. The Gore campaign filed lawsuits to disallow military ballots and absentee ballots
   
3. The Gore campaign tried twice to change the election laws of Florida after the election, and were overruled both times by the US Supreme Court.
   
4. The Democratic party attempted to keep the polls in predominantly Democratic St. Louis open late, which was against state law, and was overturned that night on appeal, but not before keeping the polling place open an extra hour or two.
   
5. The Democratic party has had a history of vote fraud, including recent incidents in South Dakota and Arkansas and a Democratic operative who was filmed buying votes in Wisconsin.
   

But even if we forget those facts, there is still no proof that Gore would have won the election. At no time during the recounts did Gore get more votes than Bush. Every count done of the votes, both the official tally and unofficially by news organizations has borne this out. There has been no tally of the votes where Bush did not receive the most votes in Florida. Not one. Yet for all ballot analysis done by all the news organizations(including by such conservative rags as the New York Times[just this once I'm not calling it the Howell Raines Gazette]), none have been able to show a scenario in which Al Gore had more votes cast in Florida than George W. Bush.

So the answer is no, George W. Bush did not steal the election. In fact, it could be said that George W. Bush actually was able to win in spite of vote fraud on the part of the Democratic Party.

Update: Oops. The update that I put here was in the wrong place. My bad.

Why we don't know who is going to win

In this election, noone is certain as to who will win the election. Why? Because in any election against a Democrat, you can't have an accurate poll unless you also poll dead people.

Bill Bennett Brutalizes the Dems

Bill Bennett has an excellent article in NRO today about how the Democratic party has completely lost its ethical moorings. If there is anything that is going to gut the party long term, it is the Dems willingness to bend or twist any law in pursuit of power. When the party refused to oust Clinton in 1998, it set the groundwork for all the sleaze you are seeing now. So long as the Clintons continue to dominate the party, I believe the Dems are doomed to permanent minority status.

That is not something I welcome. So long as the Democrats compete using sleaze and backhanded tactics(as they are doing now) instead of competing in the marketplace of ideas, it is bad for the country. We need an opposition that will engage in a debate over policy, because without that, we don't have a sanity check on the correctness of a policy, and that won't work unless the Dems have a competing vision that is based on policy, and not just winning the election. Reagan understood that. Bush41 didn't, and was ejected from the presidency. Gingrich understood it, but I don't think any Democrat has understood that since McGovern back in '72.

I also learned something else I didn't know in the article, that Bill Bennet was a Democrat until 1986.

The First Letter from John to the Idiotarians

"George Bush is a buffoon and is against everything I stand for."

OK, the first question is, which clause do we debunk? The first one, or the second? The first item is much easier to debunk, the second, only depending on your point of view. If you are Saddam Hussein, you would be mostly correct. If you are a Democrat, you would be somewhat correct. It is a characterization more emotional than logical in nature. A nice campaign slogan, but lousy as a statement of fact.

Is George Bush a buffoon, dunce, dolt, slow, an idiot? If one compares level of academic achievement, the answer would be no. George W. Bush received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1975. Al Gore, on the other hand, did not achieve any higher degree. So the amiable and incurious dunce Bush achieved a higher degree than the intellectual Gore.

Another reason why Bush might be considered a dunce might be because of his malapropisms. However, speaking with less than perfect diction is not symbolic of a lack of intelligence. If it were, then people like Aristotle, Charles Darwin, and Isaac Newton would all be considered dullards for stuttering, and George H. W. Bush(41) should also be considered less than intelligent, as he committed the same malapropism as his son. However, no one considers Bush 41 a dullard at all.

Perhaps those who think George W. Bush a dullard are those who have an ease with the written or spoken word, such as commentators or news anchors. However, if we are to judge the intelligence of someone by their ability in an area outside their own field, shouldn't we judge commentators on their knowledge of high energy physics? Shouldn't we also judge the intelligence of television newsmen by their ability to comprehend chaos theory?

Of course, we don't judge newscasters by their ability to understand chaos theory, or commentators by their knowledge of the strong and weak atomic forces. To measure their ability using such a yardstick would be unfair and unenlightening. Yet that is exactly how George Bush's intelligence is measured.

If we examine George Bush's record as a politician, it is pretty obvious that he is not dumb at all. Ann Richards was widely favored over Bush, but lost. Bush wasn't expected to be reelected, but he was the first Governor in the state of Texas to be reelected in the state's history. In the presidential race Bush defeated a popular war hero in the primary, and a member of an incumbent administration during a time of economic growth.

After winning a very close election, Bush managed to implement most of his domestic agenda right up until September 11. There is also a strong possibility of the Republican party picking up seats in a midterm election, something that typically does not happen to the party of a sitting president. Again, this is not something that a "dunce" could possibly hope to accomplish.

Many people have thought of Bush as dumb. Ann Richards thought he was dumb. So did John McCain, and Al Gore. Tom Daschle thought he was dumb, until Bush managed to get a tax cut in over his opposition. So, no, Bush is not dumb, and those who have underestimated his intelligence have paid a price for thinking that he is a buffoon.

Update: (this was supposed to be here, I put it in the wrong place) I just came across an article by Jonathan Freedland in that other hard core conservative publication, the Guardian. One quote:

Painful as it is for Democrats to admit, they face a president who has many of the qualities the job demands. He inspires loyalty: the Washington press corps complain that this is the least leaky White House anyone can remember. He is resolute, in a way that makes his lack of curiosity an asset: he is not tortured by seeing all sides of an argument. His back-slapping, frat-boy image does not convey it, but he also has some steel: not for nothing was he his father's "enforcer", on one occasion breaking the news to his dad's scandal-plagued chief-of-staff that his time had run out.

Sis vs. the Idiotarians pt 2

As I said last week, my sister was having to deal with her friends from college who had joined the idiotarian party. My sister had been a borderline idiotarian, but I think having kids has managed to purge most of it away.

Anyway, she went to this party, and had to deal with a lot of wholesale idiotarian babble. Over dinner a week ago, she asked yours truly if I could come up with some good counterarguments to what she had heard. I tolder her I would post my arguments here, and invite comments. I am going to call these posts Letters from John to the Idiotarians. Here is her e-mail, sans questions(If I put up the questions, I'll answer them all, then I'll run out of material for the week):

These are the statements that were made by various friends last weekend for which I would like to have a measured, factual rebuttal -- no profanities or right-wingish sounding words, or else they will not even listen. I would like you to write it as if you were not Republican, just a reasonable person. What I would really like to know is if any prominent Democrats could be cited who disagree with some of these things. Some irrefutable atrocities by the Democrats would be nice to know too.

Since she still has some lingering idiotarianism, she doesn't quite understand that the republican responses are the reasonable responses, but hopefully I'll be able to prove(with your help) that the Republican response is the reasonable response.