Retreat vs Attack

clipped from powerlineblog.com May 10, 2007 What's News? Yesterday, Scott wrote about the Appeal for Courage which was presented to Congress yesterday afternoon. You can read about the Appeal here. The Appeal was signed by more than 2,700 active duty servicemen and women. It says: As an American currently serving my nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to fully support our mission in Iraq and halt any calls for retreat. I also respectfully urge my political leaders to actively oppose media efforts which embolden my enemy while demoralizing American support at home. The War in Iraq is a necessary and just effort to bring freedom to the Middle East and protect America from further attack. CNN did report on this, though: "Retired generals, Iraq veterans launch anti-war ads": Three retired generals challenged a dozen members of Congress in a new ad campaign Wednesday, saying the politicians can't support President Bush's policies in Iraq and still expect to win re-election.

Let's see, soldiers asking for support from their country? NOT news. Attack ads against Republicans? NEWS! Note that this IS NOT "Swiftboating", because it is against Republicans. Do you think those retired generals paid for those ads out of their own pockets? Pretty doubtful, yet nobody is out trying to point out which "known left-wing group with connections to some Democrat" is "responsible". Nope, this is just "good clean politics", as opposed to the dirty kind those Republicans always do!

Perfect Ride

Temp was about 80 with very slight breeze, everything completely green except for all the lilacs that are blooming, crab apples, and every other kind of flowering tree. Jumped on the bikes and put on 15 miles up and back on the trail, it couldn't be any nicer. We tend to ride up to an old railroad bridge that runs across one of the many branches of the Root River and then head back.

Makes it a two workout day. One at noon at the health club, and a nice ride in the evening. Do a bit more of that and maybe I can get my weight going down again. Hope to light a fire in the pit and spend some time out there enjoying the evening before bedtime.

I ride down the old railroad bed trail on blacktop on the Trek 24-speed with the digital speedo reading 14-17 and think about how nice it all is. I do remember the old Schwinn Collegiate 5-speed that I got in Jr High and riding that on the gravel drive. It was pretty cool to get, but it was something like getting my first Honda CB-500-T motorcycle and discovering that wind and vibration were pretty big factors in a motorcycle. Gravel, a heavy frame, a narrow seat, and 5-speeds were just not how a bicycle was "supposed to be".

I remember the night I drove my new Honda CX-500 with the full Vetter fairing back from the dealer down the interstate and said "wow, this is motorcycling". I suspect if I had ever driven a big Gold-Wing or BMW touring bike I would have had even more of an "ah-ha".

Some folks look back that the old days and seem to think them better. I suspect that lots of it is personality, and some of it may be the issue of if life unfolded in anything like the way that you envisioned. In by far the most ways, life has exceeded my expectations. Somehow, enjoying the changes and the advancements just seems like a better idea in any case. We are a ways away from the time machine, and if one constantly finds the old days to be better, it seems unlikely that they will enjoy the future.

Congress Backed in Veto Battle

According to a CNN Poll, most back Congress in the Veto battle.

When a D President (Clinton) vetoed a bill it was the fault of the R Congress that sent up a bad bill, and they were punished in the press(Shutdown of '95). When an R President vetoed a bill sent up by a D congress (Bush 1, '92), then it is was the fault of the R President and he was punished in the press.

The algorithm is pretty easy here ... D wins, R loses. So we know the media position, but gee, doesn't a "poll" mean that it is REALLY just the position of Americans? Well, maybe not. They actually let you LOOK at the poll they used if you are willing to dig.



Hmm, they failed to even ask if anyone favored Congress sending up a clean bill with no timetables or benchmarks and the most favored position was the most favorable for Bush that they asked. Benchmarks only was favored over benchmarks and timetables.




Even stranger, they "somehow" fail to mention at all that right now the public says it is CONGRESS that is most responsible for the problem 44-34%. Even worse, only 41% of the people have gotten the message that the war is lost like Harry Reid thinks. 55% say No, the war is not lost. Somehow those numbers aren't mentioned and the only message the headline readers get is "Most Back Congress Over Bush In War Funding Fight".

This is what is called "creating the news". Anytime a poll is used, it should be suspect because the person using the poll is able to manipulate what kind of results they get in many ways. In this case, they take it a step farther and selectively ask and report exactly what they want to get the slant that they want. The majority of the sheep have no principles and want to be "on the winning side". The MSM knows this well, so keeps hammering away to move public opinion to where they want it.

Here we see where the "seasoned observer" can tell that the war actually IS lost even though most Americans are more hopeful than that. Most Americans don't realize that our enemies are primarily fighting against public opinion, and that is primarily controlled by the MSM. We have slipped as a nation far enough that VERY few understand that ideas have consequences, but unfortunately, far less than a majority even believe that ACTIONS have consequences.

They answer a poll that "the war is not lost", which is true in the "technical sense", that of course if America had the will, Iraq would eventually be stabilized and not end up as "Taliban 2". However; since a majority now say "they don't support the war", even though they don't think of what it actually mean to LOSE, the war is lost.

We will eventually take the consequences of that action, to which even though 80% supported the original action, the response will be "it was the fault of Bush". How many will die in future 9-11 like attacks before people rise up and say "I don't really care who was at fault, we have to do something about these attacks"? I'm guessing 100's of thousands, but I may be an optimist.

Well, at least the headline is true. Congress IS "backed", they are backed by the MSM, and that is what is going to count for the foreeable future.

The W Stock Market Boom

Remember during the Clinton Impeachment proceedings how were told that there was no way we could impeach the perjurer-in-chief because it would cause the market to go down? The "Clinton Economy" was the talk of the town in the late '90s; happy days were here again.

Gee, the market is breaking all-time high after all-time high. Our expansion is into 6 years and pushing to be longer than the Clinton expansion. Why isn't the "Bush Economy" or "Bush Market" on the tip of every tongue?

This really ought not take explanation, but to review. A "D" means that good things are due to you and bad things are due to something that some "R" did--either in the past, or currently if the public was foolish enough to give any political power to any "Rs". If something good happens with an "R" in power, it had nothing to do with them, or it happened in spite of them--however if it happens with a "D" in power, they are DIRECTLY responsible no matter what kind of "negative R stuff" might have been done in the past or concurrently.

Reaganomics was a failure and the USSR folded on its own. Bill Clinton kept us peaceful and secure, did a great job with the economy, and balanced the budget (the Republican Congress had no budget authority during the Clinton administration). While he was at it, he even found time to make oral sex with employees a good thing for the office and extend the definition of "is" by a bunch. The only decent President we have had since Carter.

That is the world of the left wing, and they are determined that is REALITY!

Demographics Is Destiny

Readers of this Blog will recognize Michael Barone as one of my favorite geniuses. He is fun to watch on TV as he quotes demographics from counties and districts across the nation from memory. That kind of genius is somewhat "savantish", but what makes him unique is that he combines that kind of statistical horsepower with concise and insightful writing. A RARE combination that I would love to emulate more. The whole article is here. He points out some detail of how Americans are moving around and immigrants are moving in:

This is something few would have predicted 20 years ago. Americans are now moving out of, not into, coastal California and South Florida, and in very large numbers they're moving out of our largest metro areas. They're fleeing hip Boston and San Francisco, and after eight decades of moving to Washington they're moving out. The domestic outflow from these metro areas is 3.9 million people, 650,000 a year. High housing costs, high taxes, a distaste in some cases for the burgeoning immigrant populations--these are driving many Americans elsewhere. 

The result is that these Coastal Megalopolises are increasingly a two-tiered society, with large affluent populations happily contemplating (at least until recently) their rapidly rising housing values, and a large, mostly immigrant working class working at low wages and struggling to move up the economic ladder. The economic divide in New York and Los Angeles is starting to look like the economic divide in Mexico City and São Paulo.

The bottom line for Republicans is that as long as freedom still exists, people will generally move to where they can have what THEY see as the best life. The wealthy want to live in a class society with low income immigrants doing their menial work, and very few middle class families going to church and trying to provide them with family values. They have already achieved financial security, they want to limit the number of others that can achieve it, and live their lives with no moral rules applied to them. The limousine liberals -- Kerry, Edwards, Kennedy, Pelosi, etc. are examples.

The task will be to try to preserve as much freedom as possible against the coming onslaught. There are always many more well people than sick people, so national health seems like a great idea. It is much better when you don't have to use it! It may even help reduce the retirement problem since once all competition is removed from the medical system, the government will be free to go to lowest common denominator medicine. Early deaths aren't that bad a thing for reducing Social Security payments.

Today it is clear that we live in a land of opportunity, look at the immigration problem that we have. We didn't see that level of problem until we got into the 80's and the economic boom. Not so many folks want to migrate to a country where it is time to put on a sweater, turn off the Christmas lights and hunker down for a cold future of decline with Jimmuh Carter!

The nice thing about being a lefty is that opportunity isn't all that hard to get rid of. Raise the tax rates, add some tariffs, make it harder for workers to be laid off (like in Europe and Japan, that is one of the big reasons their economies are in trouble) and before you know it, opportunity gone, immigration problem gone! Who says Democrats can't solve problems, there are two down without even thinking hard. Dead old folks don't collect payments, and nobody wants to immigrate if there aren't any jobs!

I suspect that Michael is right in the long term, but I'm guessing that we will do a slide to at least "Carter Depth", and unfortunately probably lower before we have a chance to pull out this time. We lucked out after Vietnam and only a few million Cambodians and Vietnamese had to pay with their tortured lives for our lack of national resolve. As we see in Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda and of course the holocaust, Americans can be pretty sanguine about the loss of "other folks" ... we wring our hands well after the fact, but stopping Saddam from killing 100's of thousands just isn't worth single digit thousands of US lives ... even with the supposed big "oil pay-off". I still enjoy the low oil prices that blood for oil as bought us. I gotta hand it to the left that they had it pegged there!

I Was Lied To

The Tenant book coming out, the Democrat surrender plan veto, and now I've been lied to about when to pick up chicken. My wife suggested that we HAD to get going if we were going to pick up KFC for the school awards night pot-luck, and we were TWENTY MINUTES EARLY! What kind of a plan is that? On something that ought to be obvious to everyone! She was even WORSE than Bush; she didn't take any votes in advance, she didn't have a national discussion full of polls that ended up with 80% support for her actions. Nope, I think I even detected a little smirk on her face. She lied, and 20 min of my time died.

It is interesting to understand that George Tenant was a CLINTON appointee to the CIA, and GW Bush, who in reality is very much of a bi-partisan kept him on. Clinton kept on no director level people--not that he should have, it was his right as president to replace them all and presidents normally do. Were an MSM to actually give credit where credit was due, they commonly like to claim "bi-partisanship is a good thing", but we know what that really means; Republicans voting as Democrats, not vice-versa.

Clinton decided to fire all of the US attorneys; heavy handed and more than is usually done, but still his prerogative. Bush kept on many more than is normal and fired 8 during his 2nd term. Again, no story at all if one was going to look at things objectively, but "objectivity" isn't one of those common traits in the MSM.

I find the credulity that the MSM gives the Democrats unilateral surrender plan very amazing. Prior to Reagan, they were always in favor of unilateral surrender to the Soviet Union as well. It just seems very odd to set a "this is when we will give up" timetable though. Cut and run may be a foolish strategy, but it is positively genius next to "announce when you will quit".

One strains with incredulity at the idea that this even has to be explained, but telling your competition that you are going to go out of business on a specific date in the future just insures that you are going to suffer maximum loss between now and then, plus your customers are going to want to get rid of your products because somebody lacking that much sense can't be trusted in any fashion. If you are losing and there is no way to turn it around, then you stop. If there is still some question and it is important; you keep going. Setting a date in the future is simply bark at the moon insanity.

Democrats have been certain that America was lost / losing / not worth saving since at least the 60's, so there is nothing new there. They were worried about Grenada and Panama. If the French talked crossly they would no doubt be in favor of immediate and abject surrender to them, but this idea of "surrender at a future date" is a new twist. The only thing that I can figure is that this time they want to make CERTAIN that no matter what happens to the US there is NO WAY that we will ever be so foolish to attempt to defend ourselves again. They want to be sure that things go as badly as possible between now and their surrender date.

Hillary Threatened By Black Man

clipped from www.theonion.com Hillary Clinton Threatened By Black Man Hillary Clinton Threatened By Black Man

Terrorism by the Numbers

This article from the LA Times last fall puts terrorism into "perspective". A key part of it is this:

"Even if one counts our dead in Iraq and Afghanistan as casualties of the war against terrorism, which brings us to about 6,500, we should remember that roughly the same number of Americans die every two months in automobile accidents."

This comparison of terrorism deaths with automobile accidents is an interesting one which the left seems to find very applicable. The WSJ Best of the Web included a link to the number of lynchings from 1882-1964, which turns out to be 4,742 people, and asks if the left would then come to the conclusion that lynching was not a serious problem?

I think the answer is pretty clear; situational ethics. The left was in fact "OK with lynchings" from 1882-1964, and only when they determined that it was politically possible to turn support for civil rights into a net win did they change their stripes. To the left there are no moral issues, only issues of popularity and the push for complete rule by the masses--bereft of meaning beyond popularity.

The materialist finds no meaning beyond measurement. Lives are calculated like any other number, with no distinction as to person, nor any as to cause of death. While the calculation to consider "lynching bad" turned out to be a good political calculation for the left post '64, it is a mistake to think that it makes any real difference to Bob Byrd or Teddy Kennedy to be a racist or a champion of civil rights. The only difference is what calculation has been made to gain the most power ... in that calculation, they DO display consistency.

I disagree with the WSJ. They mistake the left as actually thinking that lynching would be identified as a problem "universally". I think the evidence shows that to not be the case, and to realize that the left will always seek a solution to gain power. Any claim of "morality" for the left is always situational.

Unfortunately, such is usually the case more most politicians.

Litter Bit Better

Our local community had a program to clean up the town called "A Litter Bit Better". The program was organized by a couple of guys that I spent a few years with on a local board, which made it more interesting. One of them was out walking his dog, noticed a bunch of trash, and realized that our town was becoming much trashier than it used to be. As he was muttering under his breath, the thought occurred to him that DOING SOMETHING was a better idea than just complaining.

I suppose if he was Lee Iaccoca he might have done something more helpful like write a book castigating our leadership, but he decided to work with the city and a number of local organizations, Kwik Trip, the trash haulers, neighborhood associations, churches, schools scouts, and many others to perform a city-wide cleanup in connection with earth day. Something over 20K lbs of garbage was picked up over the week-long effort.

My wife organized our own neighborhood effort, and on Saturday AM out of a neighborhood of a few thousand people, in perfect weather, there were FIVE that showed up to work. In talking with the guy that organized it, he said that was not uncommon at all ... while a TON (10 tons to be more exact) of work was done, the vast bulk was done by a very small percentage of people. The 5 of us picked up 20+ bags of garbage in the 3 hours we worked.

The Pareto Principle, was originally the "80/20 rule" and it means that in many human endeavors, 20% of the group is responsible for 80% of the significance ... good and bad. There is a LOT of evidence that Pareto is moving to 90/10, and beyond. Where 20% used to do 80% of the work, now 10% are doing 90% and it apparently keeps getting narrower. The sad thing is that the negative is true as well ... it is nearly a certainty that 90% of the litter was put there by less than 10% of the population. If you map the giving in your church, the volunteerism in the community, and the production of the nation, the same thing is true, and increasingly, the set of people that provide that "get it done" are conservative in political leaning. Why?

I picked up one clue along the road. A little "ticket" that had apparently been left under the wiper of an SUV by a person of the left "doing something good". The "ticket" said "SUV Owner: Citation for driving a wasteful vehicle". It had a lot of other stuff on it, but one of the organizations was "earth on empty". My guess is that some lefty was able to feel very smug for a good long time by putting the piece of litter under a wiper blade. They most likely felt that they had done a great deed for the day or even the week or month.

Most likely the ticketer felt much more smug than I was able to feel picking up the garbage, since to their mental calculation, pointing a finger at someone and feeling "outraged" is a HUGE good deed, and they bear no other responsibility. Things like "doing and responsibility" are something for OTHERS to do ... "leadership", "the wealthy", "corporate America" ... someone, but certainly not them. When one accepts even a tiny amount of personal responsibility, then "outrage" isn't nearly as fun, because it often means that you are required to do something other than complain.

The sheep have been marketed to, entertained, and manipulated with generally no connection to God or even history for at least the TV age, and even before. It is little wonder that they buy into the idea of "feeling good without cost". Picking up litter is harder than complaining about global warming, but global warming is mostly about "good feelings" rather than anything scientific. A great little George Will column points out that a Big Mac is more "greenhouse costly" than a BMW (manure and cow flatulence creating the greater problem of methane as opposed to the BMWs CO2) and that a Prius is actually environmentally WORSE than a Hummer because of the environmental effects of creation and usage of two sets of batteries over the life of the car.

Feeling smug while driving your Prius, ticketing a SUV, or while riding on a jet to a "green vacation" are easier than picking up sodden garbage from steep road embankments. Telling someone else that they ought to pay more taxes to provide whatever you want is much easier than getting more education, taking more responsibility in your job, or saving and investing. As a technologist, I lament that technology--TV, movies, internet, music, etc is certainly the "mainline" through which the drug of meaningless feeling is pumped into our culture. Technology is neither good or evil in itself, but creates leverage that is unfortunately able to be used in negative ways.

Technology allows the 90% to wallow in more "good feelings", and increasingly link up with only the information that fits what makes them feel best, while the 10% use the leverage to learn and do at an ever increasing rate. Unfortunately, Ayn Rand seems to have been right about the phenomenon of "looting". The 90% have an insatiable appetite for outrage, emotion, and less responsibility. No matter how much "better" in terms of mindless consumption and ease their lives are made, the fact that the 10% increasingly "have more" is a constant irritant.

The phenomenon is as old as "killing the goose that laid the golden egg", and it is very much a part of human nature. My sense is that '06 was a tipping point--the goose chase has begun.

Democrat Intelligence on Iraq

This clip shows what the Democrats on the intelligence committee were saying on Iraq then and now.

Since 80% of people supported going into Iraq and removing Saddam, they apparently want to have a "simple answer" to absolve themselves of responsibility. The combination of the MSM and the Democrats with the "Bush lied" mantra must just be too convenient. Complex problems often require simple answers for the masses, and the idea that Saddam certainly DESIRED to be seen as having WMD in order to increase his stature, and the fact that "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" must just be too complex compared to "Bush lied".

The belief of Saddam having WMD was never a "minority position" ... certainly there were folks that disagreed, but there are flat earthers and holocaust deniers as well. The unusual case is that a failure to find evidence has caused a majority to fall into actual denial of their own past thinking. PROVING a negative is one of the hardest things to do ... as evidenced by UFOs, Bigfoot, and Loch Ness. When scads of leaders, including former President Clinton, candidates Kerry and Gore, and virtually everyone else decide to contradict their own historical on-record quotes, and somehow "blame Bush" (who in many of the cases in the Clinton administration case was YEARS from office), the mind wanders at the ability of the lefty brain to deny simple reality.

Mission Accomplished

Harry Reid has come out in agreement with George Bush on Iraq relative to winning of the military action part of the war; "The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential"

Of course the "other part of the war" is lost according to Harry; "I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week,"The fundamental liberal fallacy is that worthwhile things should be easy, quick and natural.

The opposite is usually true--from success in life, education, finances, thought, freedom, health and certainly war. Consistency, persistence, not giving up, focus on higher values and meanings, adapting but not wavering, understanding that there is no "over"--especially if you believe in eternity, but even if you only believe that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Very few liberals think about "What comes after?". Whatever it is they assume they will simply "blame Bush and make political gains"--maybe worse would be better. Without some sort of vision for the future, it can always get worse. Getting the US "out of Vietnam" saved US lives, but at a cost of millions of others. "Giving up" on the diet, exercise, classes, saving, the job, the person or the race is always an option that seems easier at the moment--but often is the wrong choice when looked back at from the future.

No, unfortunately there is no dogmatic "always right", only tendencies. There are always valid reasons to consider other courses of action, but it is very hard to see how specific dates of pull out play into any hands but those of the terrorists. Such things mean little to guys like Reid. It is obvious that he will say what he thinks will appeal to the most people on a given day.

Consistency, commitment, discipline--very hard to believe in if one is without values that transcend how they feel. The ability of our minds to see beyond the moment, the year, the "next bend", to project a better future--even a future that is hard. All progress forward demands that uniquely human capability that is an important part of our higher selves, but in order to follow that part, we have to often forgo what we want today. We have to bypass the easy for the hard.

Infant Baptism

We traveled to IA this weekend for the baptism our little grand niece. I was raised in the Baptist church which does not believe in infant baptism because they believe that salvation needs to be a "personal decision". Interestingly, such churches also tend to believe that if the personal decision is "correctly done", the person is "once saved, always saved.."

The pastor today touched on the classic story of daddy holding the little child's hand as opposed to the little child holding daddy's hand. The story is somewhat instructive, but I believe the orders of magnitude to be off in the region of "ten to infinity". The God we worship is beyond material, so beyond our measurement. My faith, my "grasping for God's hand" is of little significance. Yes, he does allow me free will, so I can "get away", but otherwise my efforts at "holding on" are of little use.

The fundamentalists often point out that "infant baptism isn't in the bible". Partially true, but less true than for Sunday worship, Christmas and Easter celebration, or nearly anything else about our modern worship. There are a number of places that when a man believes, he and his household are baptized. Children aren't explicitly called out, but they are not excluded either. Is there a case where a woman is explicitly baptized? I don't recall, but I believe not. It would be in keeping with the time the Gospels were written to not bother to report on the baptism of women and children.

After raising two boys through confirmation, having been young once myself, and from everything I have seen in interacting with other families and children, the pragmatism of "suffer the little children unto me" is at least clear. Baptism begins a journey of faith that we pray lasts a lifetime. The "fathers' hand" through confirmation, communion, the word, church fellowship and prayer are always there as long as we don't "push away" in refusal, our hope is secure. We pray for ourselves, those we love, and especially fervently for our kids.

The bible says that the "road is narrow", and it is also quite clear that there are ditches on both sides ... legalism and works righteousness on one hand, loss of truth and meaning on the other. The stakes are very high, and the standard isn't our standard, our parent's standard, or the standard of an opinion poll. The best path seems to be "humble confidence in God". It isn't clear that any denomination has a corner on that, but it seems that finding a congregation is a critical part of walking that road.

Again, it wasn't declared to be easy, but the symbolism of the first step having been taken on our behalf before we were able to understand always wells up in my breast on seeing a new child of God welcomed to the father's hand.

Getting It Right

A friend at work finished the subject historical novel by William F Buckley and I couldn't resist. The three or four other books that I have in various states of reading went on the shelf and I went cover to cover on this one. I found a more detailed review that gives on more specifics than I intend to include here.

The book is historical fiction about the late '50s and early '60s when Buckley and the National Review are working in the realm of ideas on the Republican Party. The fiction is told in the context of a romance between Woodroe Raynor a young John Bircher, and Lenora Goldstein, a follower of the Ayn Rand camp of "Objectivists". By virtue of his National Review magazine, as well as his intellect and developing connections, WFB was very involved in dealing with the conflicting sometimes conflicting forces of the Birchers and the Randians.

It stuck me how both groups fell prey to "reductionism/fundamentalism" and became "doctrinaire" in their own limited point of view. As regular readers of this Blog are aware, I continue to search for "the perfect word" to describe that path. Tonight I'm going with "dogmatic and doctrinaire" to see how they fit. As humans, we always operate far from perfection, the issues are just "how far and which way". The scribe and pharisee types fall in the ditch on the dogmatic path, the general lefty veers into the "whatever I do (today) is right" ditch.

The Birchers found a "communist conspiracy" everywhere all the time ... including Eisenhower and National Review. The Randians pretty much just "worshiped Ayn". The total inability for them to tolerate religion made them "less than compatible" with the conservative movement. I've always had respect for Buckley as an "intellectual pragmatist". He is extremely intelligent and educated, but keeps the "Dirty Harry Dictum" (A man has got to know his limitations") solidly in mind. Movements and people in general have far too much of a tendency to assume that "they have found the answer, leader or secret".

The biggest insight to form in my brain from this book was that when comparing integration in the South with sending in Federal troops to force it, many Conservatives found that to be "too big a cost in freedom for states rights". Interestingly, to the extent that the Kennedy wing of the Democrat party was representative, their position had moved 180 degrees in the 100 years since 1860, and coersion was now the way to go. Too big a question to even attempt to answer in this blog, but the book drew the fact of the dilemma out clearly.

It was simply a fun book to read, and it was great to get this picture of some of the people of this very eventful time ... Ayn Rand and her group, Kennedy, Robert Welch, Goldwater, and others.

Gettysburg, Stephen W Sears

https://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Stephen-W-Sears/dp/039556476X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

I read this book before and during the trip out to Gettysburg and DC. What a marvelous opportunity for education; to be able to read an excellent book, and then take in the sights of the actual battlefield, having the history and geography come to life in that special way. If I had such an opportunity as a youth, I may well have been a historian today ... or who knows what else. We have a desperate need to find ways to leverage our computer and video technology as well as travel to improve the quality of education. How sad that for all the advances since since the Civil War, the most common method of education is STILL to put a bunch of kids in a room with a teacher. Other than the dress and the quality of the building, they may as well be in Civil War Times. Maybe it was better then? Only the children of the North had to deal with "Union Teachers" ;-).

The book is very well written and focuses mostly on the actual events leading up to, during, and immediately after the battle. Lee and his army were very confident after whipping the Yankees at Chancellorsville, but it appears that the loss of Stonewall Jackson may have been more grave than they realized. They came north to beat the Union on their own turf and turn public opinion against the Republicans and the war. Some things really do stay the same.

As a business person, one of the items that jumps out are the managerial, political and logistical problems of a war effort the size of two 80-100K armies maneuvering, being supplied, planning, communicating and acting. Naturally there are vast differences in style between generals, and all of them make mistakes. Even "St Lincoln" seemed to be unable to understand the difficulties involved. I had not remembered that Hooker was replaced with Meade 3 days before the fighting began on July 1, 1863. Jeb Stuart set off to "ride around Hooker's army" and ended up having a new general named while he was riding.

The issue of Jeb Stuart and the missing cavalry is a topic made well known during the book, but never fully made clear what really caused it. It is clear that Stuart picked up a Union wagon train that slowed up down, and just seemed to run into a lot of bad luck, but the fact that he was not there to provide intelligence and screen the movements of the Rebels was a critical factor in Lee's poor showing.

At least in this battle, not dealing with Stuart being missing was one of the many areas in which Lee seemed to lack the flexibility to adapt to the situation that he found himself in. Lee is considered almost a God in the south, and Pickett is often blamed for the failure of the charge, but it is clear in this book that the primary responsibility rests squarely with Lee. Had Longstreet's advice been taken and the Confederates flanked Meade and got on high ground between Gettysburg and Washington, Meade would have been forced to attack, and the Democrats would have most likely had their day.

Gettysburg is the point where rifled gun barrels and precision cannon fire made defense of a position a real advantage. We can see today where air power makes staying stationary pretty much suicidal. Prior to Gettysburg, the inaccuracy and difficulty in reloading of the smooth bore musket gave the advantage to the rapid charge. The movie characters like "Outlaw Josie Wales" give some idea of the technique -- 4, 6, or even more loaded pistols on a brave horseman charging into the line and killing numbers at close range, then galloping behind the lines to cover, reloading, and killing more -- including unarmed supply workers, horses, etc.

Massed infantry with cartridge rifled barrel firearms and coordinated cannon fire turned the infantry and cavalry charge into a slaughter.

Over 50K soldiers died in 3 days of fighting at Gettysburg. With all that people have in this country today, most can't think of anything worth dying for, yet Muslims living in a culture that is the antithesis of what the left calls "good" are willing to die either individually or in large groups. The soldiers from the South died to preserve a way of life--a way of life that included slavery to be sure, but also honor, tradition and the right of states to exert political control greater than the federal government. We ALL paid a high price for the South's loss.

The main factor that aligns Lincoln with modern Republican ideas is "principal over popularity". He was forced to make a decision between conflicting principles--the value of the freedom of the Southerners to govern themselves, vs the huge loss of individual freedom caused by slavery. The Democrats were of course the party of "the easy way", the way of public opinion. As political opportunists they picked up the pieces of the civil war and presided over the "little slavery" of blacks in the south under Jim Crow for 100 years.

It is a book that I will long remember having walked the streets of Gettysburg and toured Little Round Top, The Wheat-field, The Peach Orchard, Cemetery Hill and stared at The High Water Mark. I hope to have more opportunity to mix book and maybe even classroom study with other areas of the world. The Panama Canal and parts of Europe are a couple that leap to mind.

Your God Is Too Small

I finished the subject book by J B Phillips before our trip and failed to blog on it. It is a book I would highly recommend to Christian and Non-Christian alike. As the title would lead you to believe it goes through a number of "models" that humans have to visualize God, and why each is inadequate. Naturally, they all MUST be hugely inadequate. Our finite physical brains hold very little information about even this physical universe, let alone anything close to enough to somehow fully perceive an infinite God that is beyond the material.

A whole series of models including resident policeman, parental hangover, grand old man, meek-and-mild, absolute perfection, pale Galilean, etc are covered. All are well done, but given my fundamentalist youth, I especially liked "Absolute Perfection" with the discussion of Christ saying "Be ye perfect". Ever met any perfect Christians? I liked this section; "The modern high-pressure Christian of certain circles would like to impose perfection of one hundred percent as a set of rules to be immediately enforced, instead of as a shining ideal to be faithfully pursued. His short cut, in effect, makes the unimaginative satisfied before he ought to be and drives the imaginative to despair."

Many fundamentalists make Christianity a game of on-upmanship on rules. "I don't listen to rock music" ... "Well, I don't watch TV" ... "I read my bible an hour every day". Does God appreciate our efforts? Certainly, to the extent that they are efforts of response and we don't believe that we have improved our position because of them, but do them out of simple love. I like to think of our efforts as artwork done by a 3-year old for their parent. Nothing could be loved more, but nothing is farther from actual valuable art. So too the "sins" of the 3-year old -- the only ones that make us jump out of our skin are the ones like dashing away into traffic that could harm them. Naturally, like all nice little human models, mine is as childish as any other, and probably worse.

The bottom line is that those in the most danger are those that are sure they have arrived. Jesus attacked the Pharisees with the most bitter scorn. The "arrived / correct / certain" religious, atheist, or some other stripe, are "the rich man" and in grave danger. "...it is a mistake to think that Pharisaism disappeared after the death of Christ. The danger of such a system, and the reason that Christ attacked it so violently, is that its values are artificial. The proud and correct feel "right with God" just when they are not, and the sensitive humble man feels hopeless and overburdened for the wrong reasons."

I appreciated the end of the book, but it is hard to summarize. I liked this section: "Now if it is true that God is both Truth and Love it will readily be seen that the greatest sins will be unreality, hypocrisy, deceit, lying, or whatever else we choose to call sins against truth, and self-love, which makes fellowship with other people and their proper treatment impossible. Forgiveness must then consist in a restoration to Reality, i.e. Truth and Love."

My "youthful religious scars" were of the "if you aren't good enough, then you can't REALLY be a Christian, so get ready to burn" kind, so those passages spoke to me. The book goes after people in the "once saved always saved" ditch as well ... find someone that grew up Unitarian if you want that review!

The book is a small book, only 140 pages, and very readable. It is certain to "expand your God". I am often struck that a major part of wisdom is the recognition of what we don't know. Ignorance is often far too confident.

Franken Support

The left and MSM decries "big money in politics"-when the money comes from business. They applaud it when it comes from actors, and even lawyers to a significant degree. A leading hallmark of the left is that consistency is not an issue, yet it is always possible to predict the position that a person of the left will hold. Why?

clipped from www.cnn.com Al Franken's Senate campaign gets off to big start POSTED: 5:36 a.m. EDT, April 14, 2007 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scores of actors, writers, producers and others from the entertainment industry have contributed to Al Franken's Senate campaign, helping the Minnesota Democrat get off to a strong fundraising start. Franken, a former "Saturday Night Live" star who hopes to take on GOP Sen. Norm Coleman next year, raised the maximum $4,600 from actors such as Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jason Alexander and Larry David, according to a campaign finance report filed Friday.

A Giving Comparison

To CNN's credit they actually reported this-late on a Friday evening. My prediction is that it will get VERY little coverage, as Al Gore's contributions for 1997 got VERY little coverage of his $359 in contributions for a year. My guess is there were the numbers reversed, there would be a lot more coverage in both cases. There is now a book out that shows what pretty much any thinking person knows; Conservatives give much more to charity in all forms (not just Churches) and volunteer more to boot.

Why? Because people that believe that there is more to life than just the here and now invest in education, savings, time with their children and a whole host of other worthwhile causes including charities. People that believe that the system is corrupt, there is no such thing as real truth, life is unfair and others have too much and ought to do more tend to live for today and not invest in anything beyond the immediate. These "investment decisions" tend to hold over virtually all parts of their lives and shapes their character until it becomes pretty obvious who is in which camp.

My guess would be that Al Gore was not embarrassed by the small amount he gave, and George Bush is not particularly proud of the amount he gave. The MSM finds the amounts to be "out of character", but actually they are directly IN character. If Gore has any beliefs at all, he certainly must believe that the important "giving" is in all his public work. He sees control of individuals by the state and the increased removal of money from them by force as "good". Bush sees individual responsibility and decisions about both the making and the dispersal of financial assets as being important for both the individual and the nation. The results show up in a stark dollar contrast here, but the real differences in character are always much more evident to those not blinded by the MSM mind control.

Does this mean that conservatives are "better"? Unfortunately not in any meaningful way--they are human too. Recognizing that you have cancer doesn't cure the cancer. I saw some ministry folder the other day that said "Jesus loves porn stars". After a couple second brain flip, I realized, yes, of course he does, and all other humans living in every sort of brokenness there is besides, even me. The most spiritual, loving, humble and thoughtful conservative Christian has no concept of the degree of distance between themselves and God--the gulf that God spanned on Easter.

However, as I get ready to head to the health club, recognition IS a fairly useful thing. The realization that life is more than feeling good, and what seems important often isn't gives a fairly huge potential for doing better on average. Just like keeping fit though, it is never going to be easy or guaranteed in any way. You are just far more likely to make the right kinds of investments if you are aware of your state and the state of the rest of mankind.

Link to Clipmark

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush and the first lady paid $186,378 in federal taxes on their income of $765,801 for last year. Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife made twice as much and paid the tax man about $50,000 more than they owed.

---

The president and Mrs. Bush contributed $78,100 to churches and charitable organizations, including the volunteer fire department in Crawford, Texas, where they own a ranch, according to their tax return, released Friday by the White House.

clipped from www.cnn.com Gores' Charitable Giving Raises Some Eyebrows WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 15) -- In a 34-page 1997 federal tax return, Vice President Al Gore and wife Tipper reported giving $353 to charity, an amount much lower than donations the family has made in previous tax cycles. That figure is less than one-tenth the typical contribution amount for someone with the Gores' adjusted gross income of $197,729. That fact has caused some bewilderment in philanthropic circles because of the vice president's "good guy" image as an advocate for public service and social causes, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

First They Came for the Political Shock Jocks

The title is paraphrase the old poem that originally referred to the Nazis; "First they came for the Communists". Of course, like a lot of "left legend", the Nazis coming for the communists doesn't really somehow mean that the Nazi's were "right wing" or "conservative", it means that they were an authoritarian socialist (National Socialist ...) group that was going to war with the communists on their eastern front. They also came for religious leaders other than the Jews that opposed them, and the left certainly doesn't ascribe any moral authority to religion because the Nazis came for them too.

Like all other humans, it is pretty easy to not give your enemies enough credit. Just one of the places that the left will need to use the chisel when they finally remove God from the public square is around the top of the Jefferson Memorial: "I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.". I need to read a Jefferson biography, I suspect that back in those days, even though there were a lot of fights between Federalists(modern Republicans) and the Republicans(modern Democrats) the fall to the left was so early that those Republicans would find todays Republicans to be positively leftist, and be unsure what a modern Democrat even was. Come to think of it, in that they would most likely have a lot in common with a modern Democrat, but I digress.

Do I like, approve of, respect, etc Don Imus? No, absolutely not. He should have never been on the radio / TV in the first place. As part of the destruction of meaning, the left uses the clever ruse that "pornography = sexually explicit material". Actually the constant removal of symbolic meaning; destroying all forms of "covering or distance" (as in keeping private life private, formal communication, honor, standards), respect for position or proffession and a host of other areas too numerous to mention is really far more damaging than mere sex. The Imus stock and trade has been belittling public figures of all stripes and both political parties. Yes, he has generally been much more generally a friend of the left than the right, but he made his living saying very outrageus things about people. BTW, he was a HUGE and obvious supporter of Harold Ford Junior, there is NO ISSUE that the guy is a racist in any way shape or form.

So what does this have to do with not giving my enemies enough credit? In allowing Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson the power to remove Imus, we set a precedent. The precedent is WAY different from the Dixie Chicks. Their public decided that they didn't want to listen to them for awhile after they spouted off about Bush. There was a lot of discourse about how the Dixie Chicks was a "Free Speech Issue", but in fact, the Dixie Chicks were just a marketing issue. There was no equivalent of Sharton/Jackson out working to take them down ... you can't name a single person "leading a charge", because there wasn't one.

If Imus had lost his program because ratings dropped and the station said they were taking him off the air, then I'd say "great"--over this comment or thousands of others over the years. It is a horrible statement of our "culture" (really lack thereof) that he or Howard Stern are even ON the air at all. BUT, in taking Imus out, the target was chosen wisely. Imus has effectively "no friends"--he has been enough of an equal opportunity abuser that nobody on either side is standing up for him. The left finds it "chilling" when people don't want to have their TAX DOLLARS go to support a crucifix in urine or the Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung. Rush Limbaugh and Fox News being on the air are also chilling to the left as are the Ten Commandments in a public place, or the Easter Bunny at the city building up in the cities.

We hear a lot about the "Facist Theocracy" that we are either living in, or on the verge of depending on which lefty one talks to. What does one call it when Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson decide who gets to be on the air?

Late Leopard

My iMac 24" will have to wait until at least October --at which time I'll have to be checking to see if they are due for a hardware technology boost. Oh well, much better to have it right.

clipped from www.appleinsider.com Apple delays Leopard release until October Apple Inc. on Thursday conceded that it will be unable to release its next generation operating system in June as previously planned and now says it anticipates launching the software in October.

DC to Home

We finished our MN -> Gettysburg -> DC -> Air and Space at Dulles -> Raleigh NC -> Air Force Museum at Dayton OH -> Rockford -> MN jaunt. Little over 3K Miles, watched the 2000 Chev Suburban roll over 100K at Gettysburg. I like to see the country by road, it gives a lot better flavor.

Much like government anywhere, DC looks to be in great shape. Lots of big stone buildings with inefficient thermal and space designs. Big pillars, lots of windows. Governments way of tell the rest of us "we don't have any competition and we don't have to make a profit ... if you cut our funds, we will just do things like let give soldiers sub-standard pay, but we will stay in our lifetime union jobs with full benefits when you retire ... and complain that the rest of you don't pay enough taxes".

It was a lot of fun to take in all the "free" airplane museums to see Apollo 11, Space Shuttle Enterprise, the X-1 that broke the speed of sound, the Spirit of St Louis, the original Wright Flyer, the Concorde, a B-36, the 707 that was Air Force One from '60 - like '90, the only remaining XB-70, 2 different X-15s, a B-52, a B-1 ... and too many other cool planes to mention. Yes, it costs a lot of money to keep all that running, but hardly enough to be a footnote in a 2.7 Trillion budget of which 1.7 Trillion are entitlement spending.

Oh well, it is tax weekend, we certainly do way more than our part in paying for all of it, so we might as well get a little enjoyment out of it once in awhile. The Raleigh NC area seems to be going gangbusters ... lots of businesses going up, new roads, houses. It reminded me of Austin Texas when I used to go down there. Surprise surprise, both TX and NC are low tax business friendly places. MN just elected a bunch of Democrats and thinks that a lot more taxes are the way to improve the state. In three short months they have turned a billion dollar surplus into a 1.5 billion "deficit" that simply MUST be "taken care of" by the "wealthy". My youngest has 3 more years of HS; we may be tax slaves, but last I checked we aren't INDENTURED ... we may just have to move out and let the fine people of MN do some more study on how economics works in our absence.

We returned to cold and now snowy MN that is on it's way to the coldest April on record. The name change from "Global Warming " to "Climate Change" seems to have been a required marketing change. Now this cold weather can be blamed on the awful carbon producers as well!

Delusional Connections

If only corporate corruption was as localized and disconnected as global terror, we could avoid the cost of Sarbannes - Oxley when an Enron is discovered. We need to run studies on how global terrorists can all seek "death to America" but yet maintain solid firewalls proving a negative beyond a shadow of a doubt. The only other negative so proven is "there are no intelligent Republicans".

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Cheney Sticks to His Delusions By Dan Froomkin Special to washingtonpost.com Friday, April 6, 2007; 1:20 PM Faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, even President Bush has backed off his earlier inflammatory assertions about links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. But Vice President Cheney yesterday, in an interview with right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, continued to stick to his delusional guns.

Free Press Democrat Style

"Free Speech" means "whatever Democrats approve of". I generally don't think very much of Don Imus, but I think less of Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson deciding who gets to say what, and who gets to be offended when. If they were REALLY offended by "Ho", then all the Hip-Hop stations are going to be closed tomorrow.

clipped from www.cnn.com Imus to appear on Sharpton's radio show POSTED: 4:30 a.m. EDT, April 9, 2007 NEW YORK (AP) -- Don Imus will appear on the Rev. Al Sharpton's radio show on Monday, five days after Imus made racially charged comments on his own show about the Rutgers women's basketball team, Sharpton and MSNBC announced Sunday. "That's some nappy-headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that," Imus said. "If he has a right to use that platform to insult and degrade, then we have a moral obligation to picket NBC and to protest," Jackson said. "If he can violate us in that platform in the name of free speech, we'll be picketing NBC in the name of free speech."

DC to Raleigh

We have completed the Gettysburg and Washington DC portion of the trip and made it down to Raleigh North Carolina to visit the old friend that introduced my wife and I. We are checked in at a Residence Inn; very nice digs for a couple nights before we sprint for home.

The weather the last few days in DC was in the 70's, sunny, really summer for us folks from MN. Looking at the temperatures back home with below freezing highs makes me realize that it could be a bit of a chill when we get back. We saw "all the sites", for those interested see if you can access some pictures here.

Some Notes:

• I could spend a couple more days at Gettysburg. I'd like to read a couple more battle books as well as review the Burns series. There are an amazing number of monuments and battle scenes. I need to do some full Blogs on the subject, but the Civil War, and thus "The High Water Mark" at Gettysburg bring some fundamental issues to bear. What does "freedom" mean? Was the South free? We have only two political parties that we need to map the sum total of our ideas to at any time. Should we have 3? (potential for House/Senate/Executive to be split). More? What were the main idea mappings prior to the Civil War? After? How many switches between then and today? What are the key ideas today? At the time of the Civil War, MANY people felt those ideas were worth dying for ... to the tune of over 50K men in three days alone, and 600K over the course of the war.
  
• It is very hard to do DC without a TON of walking. Huge space, the Washington Monument is one of those things like the Saturn V that was bigger than I expected.
  
• There is a certain depression about the city. Thousands and thousands of faceless union bureaucrats in 100s of generally fortress like buildings going about their union protected tasks day in and day out with next to no chance for anything creative to happen. There are elements of this in any large organization, certainly including corporations, but the market creates a lot more real diversity in those environments than exists in DC.
• The changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown was way more moving that I expected. It drives home the thought that the universe is designed. The forces of the left and chaos would LOVE to corrupt the transcendent honor present in the military. HOWEVER, no matter how much the left may wish to escape the idea of transcendence and "powers beyond reason", they know that their pursuit of "if it feels good, do it" relies on protection from others that might find their soft outlook to be an invitation to end the chaotic party desired by the left. The soldier will not give his life for meaninglessness, so the military holds to order, command, honor, tradition, duty ... all the thoughts that the left hates. They hate the military, yet they dare not destroy it. Checkmate.
  
• But at the Vietnam Memorial, we see the "High Water Mark" of the left in the World to date (and say a little prayer that we don't return). Just names and dates ... no battles, no locations, no meaning. The personal names, but no divsions, branches of service, etc. War as just a meaningless individual loss, and loss only. Contrast this to WWII, with the theatres of combat, the states and the battles, but NO individual names. The CAUSE was greater than the individual ... the lives were given for something greater than one person. The stars represent the sacrifice and show the magnitude, but they were ALL Americans. That was more important than their name.
  
• I was struck by the paintings, statuary, and inscriptions in the Capitol and the Memorials or how much work needs to be done with chisel or covering to remove "God" from Jefferson, Lincoln and the host of quotations around the city. Worse for the forces of the left, the profiles listed around the chamber in the house would seem to give many of those members pause were they to look at many of their works: Justinian, Moses, Pope Innocent III, Lycurgus, Napoleon, etc. It seems that at least at the time of the construction of the Capitol there was the distinct idea that positioning the nation in the stream of western civilization, including of course Christianity, was a VERY good idea. The American mind had not yet closed, and it was well understood that ideas do indeed have consequences.
  
• I could spend a lot more time at both the Smithsonian Air and Space Museums. I sure enjoyed the time I did get to spend.
  

Enough for now. In general, DC isn't what I would call a "great city" in the NYC, San Francisco, London, or even Chicago sense. It seems to be too "sterile and segregated". Maybe I'm not giving it a fair shake due to only a couple of days there, but I've not even spent that amount of time in London. Scarcely more in Chicago, and only a few days more in NYC and San Fran.

God and Science

An uplifting little gift for the Easter season. I'm always willing to look at both sides, but I'm looking forward to reading his book a lot more than "The God Delusion" and "The End of Faith". I HOPE that he bears a lot less hatred and false certainty than the other two authors. From just the synopsis, it looks like it may be a very worthy work. I never really mind reading "the other side", and often there are some interesting points, but it is often a bit sad to be exposed to the level of hopelessness there.

clipped from www.cnn.com Collins: Why this scientist believes in God POSTED: 6:15 p.m. EDT, April 4, 2007 Editor's note: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. His most recent book is "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief." ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views. As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."

To Gettysburg

We left on the Spring Break journey yesterday and made it to Toledo Ohio by 9 or so without a lot of difficulty. Chicago was slow as we expected it to be, but only actually fully stopped for 10min or so.

Today we started out at 8ish and realized that we were going through Cleavland, and with our 15 year old classic rock fan along, I decided that we would take a look at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. LOTs of guitars, the ZZ Top Eliminator car, a TON of "rock outfits", lots of historical Buddy Holly and Beatles stuff. It would have been a "miss" in my book, but the young rock fan is really into the groups, the history, you name it, so it was a "win" for him and that counts for something. I'm sure he may think we have spent just a tiny bit too much time at the few of the rest of the sites we see on the trip.

We drove the tollway over to US 30, and came through some beautiful mountains via Chambersburg. I've been reading "Gettysburg" by Steven W Sears in my times not driving and in the evenings. An excellent book that is a very readable tale that shows you what is happening on both sides. In many ways of course, the times are quite different, but in others, not so much. One of the big reasons that Lee was on the attack was to help the Democrats gain power by turning public opinion against the war. If he could have been successful at Gettysburg, there is every reason to believe that public opinion would have moved even more against the war, and the Democrats would have been able to make "a political deal" with the South on the issue of slavery. Nothing familiar with today on that front I guess.