9-11 +5

Like most things these days, I'm late with my 9-11 post. I'm sure there will be more on that later, but work, health, my school board job, and a few other odds and ends keep me slowed down on writing.

Five years have passed since 9-11. I remember the day well, I was in a meeting with a guy from Haifa Israel whose sister worked at the WTC (she got out OK). How many Americans can honestly say that they would have believed on this day 9-11-2001 that we would not have been attacked in the 5 years following? I'd assume very few, and that would include me. We had been attacked with relative frequency somewhere in the world during the '90s; the first WTC attack, Kovar Towers, the USS Cole, and other smaller attacks. It was only reasonable to assume that we would have more, and likely greater attacks. 9-11 taught most of us for a few weeks, and some of us for our lives that there was no limit to what these people were willing to do. The current Iranian president is on tape saying that if they attack Israel with enough nuclear power to kill the Israelis but Israel gets off enough to destroy Iran, it is still a "victory". Israel is gone, and billions of Muslims live on. The US and world press ignores this, as they did all the signs leading to 9-11.

The reason for not being attacked seems obvious. We went on offense. We are fighting Al Quaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan with relatively large military forces. We are fighting them and other groups around the world with CIA and other intelligence services. They are forced to hide for their survival, their funds are cut off, their communications are monitored and when caught, they are incarcerated for long periods of time with the best modern methods of interrogation. Their lot is much worse than it was prior to 9-11. Were the Democrats in power, we can be sure that the MSM would be telling everyone these facts, and calling them "success".

Who would have thought that our economy would be comparable to even better than it was during the late '90s after the dual shocks of the Internet bubble recession that started in 2000 followed by the 2001 shock of 9-11? Virtually nobody I'd suspect, it seemed flat out impossible. Add in a few huge hurricanes and oil price shocks, and it would have seemed ridiculously optimistic. We couldn't possibly be experiencing moderate to high growth in incomes and jobs and low inflation in that kind of world could we? Well, we are, but again almost nobody knows it.

The MSM has a HUGE problem that something like 1/2 of Americans will still indicate the Saddam had WMD. He only used them in the late 80's, and we found 500 rounds. Nope, that is the WRONG ANSWER, the right answer is "no WMD were ever found" ... because those 500 rounds were much less than expected, so they just don't count. However, on the economy something like 65% of Americans think it is "bad" which would mean that we only had a "good economy" in like '98, '84, and '53. Things have just been bad in this country most all the time by that logic. That however doesn't bother them, they are quite happy that the sheep got that one right!

On top of it all we have over 100K troops in Iraq, and have lost 3k military lives in defense of the country since 9-11. Name wars in which it took 5 years for the military losses to equal the civilian losses on day 1. Stumped? One; the Current War on Terror. That isn't really a war though, that is some sort of an action for "political benefit". It is politics of the oddest kind though ... again, something over 60% OPPOSE the war, and the MSM that often wants to claim it was all "for political purposes" expects a Democrat rout this fall because of an "unpopular war". The MSM keeps trying to make it into "Vietnam". Well, I guess Al Quada is telling America to "give up and go home" now and N Vietnamese used to do the same thing. Somehow though, I don't see these guys as the sort that are likely to have Jane Fonda come over and sit on a gun, and I don't think they are going to operate many prisons for US prisoners. One would think that the left would find Muslims that provide zero rights for women, pray 3 times a day, stone gays, and cut peoples heads off to be somewhat unappealing, but it goes to show that any group willing to fight America is popular with the left and the MSM.

Just like most anything else that happens, 9-11 pretty much just made everyone more of what they are. The right has more resolve to stand and fight for America and freedom around the world. The left has found a new ally in the never ending fight of anger and rage to "tear it all down". The battle is always here, it just looks a bit more stark when the issues are brought to the surface by an event like 9-11.

Working for Rove

I spent a couple hours Saturday AM working at the local Republican headquarters on one of the "Karl Rove evil secret mechanisms". The awful secret consists of a phone list, created from who knows where with a canned set of questions as a "survey" that are mark-sense for later reading into a computer.

You call the party, indicate that you are "taking a survey", and then go through a series of questions. Taxes, Gay Marriage, Gun Control, Abortion ... then you ask "party preference". Only if they specify Republican do you ask the next questions about registration and interest in volunteering. In any case, you remain polite and thank them for their time.

Depending on how they answer, even if they are Democrat, Independent, or "don't care", they will get targeted mailings. Democrats and the MSM find this "evil" ... Republicans should NEVER raise the issues of "God, Guns and Gays", since those issues are "unimportant". Of course, if the issues are "unimportant", then one would think that Democrats would just be willing to agree with the Republicans on them and get them off the table? No? Hmm, maybe they aren't THAT unimportant.

Prior to the time when I'm sure I exited 95% of the Democrats lists by making contributions to republicans large enough to show up on public lists, I'd get calls with questions like "Are you in favor of clean water", or "Do you think the rich should pay their fair share of taxes". I'd bet dollars to donuts that they were doing the exact same thing, but no doubt that was "grass-roots political action", and the folks thinking of it and carrying it out were to be admired from the perspective of the MSM. It really is all a matter of perspective.

Certainly not "fun or glamorous work", but I suspect it is the kind of work that if done over and over for years builds up the kinds of mailing lists and information that helps win elections. I suspect that I'll put in a few more hours this fall just out of motivation from the MSM telling me that any hope for Republicans is a lost cause. They may always be right, but it is fine with me to do my best in a lost cause.

Hollywood and Truth

We have no less a symbol of truth than Bill Clinton out telling ABC to "tell the truth" about 9-11.

We also have Harry Reid, Senate Minority leader in a letter to ABC not being too subtle about threatening their license:

Presenting such deeply flawed and factually inaccurate misinformation to the American public and to children would be a gross miscarriage of your corporate and civic responsibility to the law, to your shareholders, and to the nation.

The Communications Act of 1934 provides your network with a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest. Nowhere is this public interest obligation more apparent than in the duty of broadcasters to serve the civic needs of a democracy by promoting an open and accurate discussion of political ideas and events.

We urge you, after full consideration of the facts, to uphold your responsibilities as a respected member of American society and as a beneficiary of the free use of the public airwaves to cancel this factually inaccurate and deeply misguided program.

Hmm, lets see. Does anyone remember Fahrenheit 911? A guy named Michael Moore? A movie that re-defined "inaccurate", was praised in the press as a "Documentary", and Moore sat next to Jimmy Carter during the '04 Democrat Convention.

"Inaccurate"? Republicans didn't even threaten CBS license when they ADMITTED that they put on a NEWS STORY multiple times that was based on FAKE DOCUMENTS! If they had, there is a word that would have been all over the MSM. That word is "chilling". It shows up every time Republicans question the accuracy of any media creation.

I have no idea if the ABC show is accurate. I don't have any real problem with Democrats not liking the show and wanting parts or all of it pulled. A threat on the broadcast license seems like a bridge way too far, but it is FINE that they want to have their say about the program.

BUT, just look at the MSM! When Republicans had something to say of the proposed Reagan mini-series, we say "chilling" and worse all over. We heard of suppression of "free speech", and how "artistic freedom" was being abridged. Where is that talk now? The MSM CHEERED Fahrenheit 9-11 in an election year, and it wasn't a matter of a "couple scenes", the whole movie was complete propaganda.

MPR On Rumsfeld

I got to hear a few minutes of a great example of MPR "journalism" today on their "Mid Day" program. They opened by saying they were going to "discuss" Donald Rumsfeld and the Democrats moves to try to get him removed as Secretary of Defense. They introduced Joseph Galloway, and then "in the interest of full disclosure" announced that he has been trying to get Rumsfeld removed for THREE YEARS. To cover the other point of view, they had NOBODY! They didn't even manage their usual capability of covering both the left and the FAR LEFT. They just had one stooge blathering about how bad Rumsfeld was supposed to be.

As the Zen Masters say, "What is the sound of one hand clapping"? Yes, the general media and certainly Public Radio are in full "kill all the Republicans, take over both houses of congress and impeach Bush" mode. Of course, it may work ... it ALWAYS looks like it will, this was about the same time as the Dan Rather debacle in '04. They are going to try everything they can. Something like 65% of people are sheep enough to think that THIS economy is BAD. If they had seen Jimmuh Carter they would have just a tiny clue what a bad economy is. This economy is the best since the 80's , now better than even the Fornicator in Chiefs Internet bubble.

It is a real privledge to pay taxes for the Public Propoganda Station ... one would think they could put on somebody that even CLAIMED to be somewhat unbiased. Guess not, it is time to get all the sheep riled up and charging for the Democrat cliff. I imagine that the typical MPR sycophant ate it up like truth from on high.

In case you like pure rancid bias, or don't and want to see how the easily led think what they do, take a look at this. The picture pretty much tells the story without even listening.
The Drivel

Ideas Have Consequences, Richard Weaver

http://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Have-Consequences-Richard-Weaver/dp/022609006X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454533869&sr=1-1&keywords=ideas+have+consequences

I finished the subject book by Richard Weaver over the weekend, and have to say that "The Closing of the American Mind" has a solid, and I think better pre-cursor in this book. Published in 1948, the VAST oversimplification of it is:

1). Once Transcendence was abandoned in the 14th century, we started down the road that has left human thought cut off from the greater reality of at least history, and to the best of an intellectual understanding, reality and truth itself.

2). The core reason is that once the higher function of "universal types" and "pure intellect" is given up, all that is left is material and supposedly objective measurement. The senses (that which does the measuring) take over, and there is nothing to stop the descent until it ends at "man is the measure of all things".

"The issue ultimately involved is whether there is a source of truth higher than, and independent of man; and the answer to the question is decisive for one's view of the nature and destiny of humankind. The practical result of nominalist philosophy is to banish the reality which is perceived by the intellect and to posit as reality that which is perceived by the senses".

Two elements in the book that give strong pause to me personally. One is the assertion that the reformation unleashed the forces that led to the decline and eventual at least effective loss of Western civilization. Being a Lutheran and a conservative, it gives one pause to consider that essentially such a combination can't exist in at least one intelligent world view.

The other areas are the related items of capitalism, technology, science, money and comfort. First, it is hard to argue that science and technology has not been a strong ally of the move to materialism and the worship of man. As a computer scientist and technologist however science and technology look much different from the inside. Yes, our modern tools have great leverage, but they fall far short of ultimate ideas and truth. However, is it practical to continue to advance technology and expect the bulk of mankind to be able to grasp true transcendent knowledge and truth? Not an easy question to answer, and Weaver would certainly answer it "no".

With no transcendence, man is left thinking that "comfort is happiness", and finds himself on an endless treadmill of competition to acquire the next convenience to give him comfort, until he ends up on a cruise ship, and bliss is achieved. Just joking ... ends up on a cruise ship with a book, and then ... ok, seriously.

I'm not going to claim that I've got this whole book wired, but it seems to me that there is nothing in science / technology / economics / etc that prevents SOME people from deciding that there ARE external perfect forms (eg God and religion), and "reaching ground" at some point for which the cruise ship or even a decent US middle class home close to a WalMart would be a justifiable point to declare the race to the ultimate comfort is now over, and it is good enough to consider THIS the equivalent of enough food, clothing and shelter to cover "primitive" materialist needs". Then we can light up the fireplace, open a Bass, and declare the search for real meaning in session. (yes, that is flip ... this line actually DOES give me pause, so I'm being flip)

BUT, he doesn't go there, and maybe he doesn't go there because I'm missing some impossibility. He seems to be a bit more hyper-smart than I'm going to grasp on one reading, but that is OK. I need to have some set of books that I hunt to the ends of the earth to get leather bound copies of (or try to talk my Sons into doing that for me some day). Somehow I think that particular consumptive paradox might be one that Weaver would approve of ;-)

I imagine that I'll try multiple blogs on this book, but in the meantime, this is on my philosophical "just buy it" list. Unless you are a raving liberal, and then you might just blow a gasket reading it!

The First to College

Saturday we took our eldest Son off to school a mere hour away. We carried the stuff to the room, put it all together, said our goodbyes, and headed home with hearts turning to lead. As plans are now, he will return in two weeks time for the weekend. He has been gone for nearly two weeks on trips away from home before, and there have been times with back to back Scout and Church camps that we have seen very little of him for longer than that. Intellectually it ought to be easy, but the emotions don't seem to agree.

At the bottom of it all, it is clear that he is no longer "ours". That has of course been less and less true the last few years, but his home was still here. We generally knew what he was up to pretty much all the time, and he was part of our life mostly on a daily basis. If not for the next week or two, then "pretty soon", and he would be back. He may yet be back again for the summer, but there is the knowledge of the transition. Not the same. It ought to be better, and it likely will be, but the arrow of life goes only one way. A point has been crossed and so much is now clearly only a memory not to be repeated.

Were he to still be here and wanting to "spend some more time", we would no doubt support him in that as well, but there would be tension. When the chick is grown too big for the nest, it is time to leave. Life lived the best it can be is at best "bittersweet" at times. The very lucky watch their children grow to go and live wonderful lives of their own on their own. We have been among the most lucky, and are well aware. Sometimes after a wonderful break we joke that "we ought not have so much fun, it makes it hard to come back to the real world". Love less and wish for less blessings?

No solution there. There is no real alternatives, certainly not desired ones, but love isn't one of those things that allows the heart to feel like the head knows it should sometimes. Loss, pride, concern, wishing, hoping, missing, Christmas is over, vacation is over, and the family pet died. Complaint? No, only reality. Our lives and our times together with all in all situations are timed. We live in time. One of the likely meanings of "eternity" is "outside of time". The idea of temporal and "it is over" is just not present. Easy to see Heaven and Hell in that definition.

We know of our blessing and good fortune, and no doubt in a few days or weeks our hearts will catch up to what the head knows is right. There is another Son to care for each day and hopefully not smother with the reaction of overcompensation. No doubt there are moments of bittersweet for the luckiest people in the world. We ought to know.

Rich get richer

That was the top headline in our local paper here. The completion would be of course "the poor get poorer". The media expects their gullible public to be just like Pavlov's dogs ... "What goes up"? ... well, of course "must come down". But what did the article REALLY say?

Well, it said that there are MORE "rich". Households earning $100-150K went from 4,444 to 7,409, and those earning over $200K went from 1,397 to 2,399. But wait, it DOESN'T say that "the rich got richer", it says there are "more rich". How about at the other end? Well, here they do some slight of hand, so we can't really know. They DO say that there are LESS in the under $10K category. 2,580 in '99, dropped to 1,985 in '05. Wouldn't that be GOOD news? One would think so, because it would seem to be that their implied headline is completely false, the poor DIDN'T get poorer, which of course they ONLY implied, not said.

The median income locally went to $57,667, it went to $52,024 in MN, and $46,242 nationally. I guess is it is "bad" that both MN and the local community have higher incomes than the next level of comparison. Would it be better if MN was LOWER than the national, and we were lower still than the state? I suspect not, I guess it is just "bad no matter what".

They did say that "the % of families whose income was below the poverty level" went up from 3.8 to 4.9%, BUT, they fail to mention what that level is, I imagine because that level almost certainly went up. They also don't mention "why", which looking around locally is almost certainly due to immigration which they are strongly in favor of. There are more immigrants, they generally take lower paying jobs, so the % below the increased poverty level goes up. We can't know that from their story.

Bias is a wonderful thing. A story that essentially all good news is characterized as bad news. Other than the obvious political reasons, what purpose does that serve?

Rumsfeld on Iraq

The following is stolen from the NY Post. Don't expect to see much coverage of this in the MSM, the sheep can't be allowed to graze on this kind of information, or they may become confused about the hopelessness of the task in Iraq or the evil of America.

August 30, 2006 -- EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is adapted from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's speech yesterday at the American Legion National Convention.

THE American Legion has achieved a great deal for our country since its founding in the months following World War I.

That year, 1919 turned out to be one of those pivotal junctures in modern history - the beginning of a period where, over time, a very different set of views would come to dominate discourse and thinking in the West. A sentiment took root that contended that, if only the growing threats that had begun to emerge in Europe and Asia could be appeased, then the carnage and destruction of World War I might be avoided.

It was, as Churchill observed, a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.

There was a strange innocence. Someone recently recalled one U.S. senator's reaction in September 1939, upon hearing that Hitler had invaded Poland to start World War II: "Lord, if only I could have talked with Hitler, all this might have been avoided." Think of that.

Once again we face the same kind of challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism.

Today, another enemy - a different kind of enemy - has also made clear its intentions - in places like New York, Bali, London and Madrid. But many have still not learned history's lessons.

We need to face the following questions:

* With the growing lethality and availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased?

* Can we really continue to think that free countries can negotiate a separate peace with terrorists?

* Can we truly afford the luxury of pretending that the threats today are simply "law enforcement" problems, rather than fundamentally different threats, requiring fundamentally different approaches?

* And can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America - not the enemy - is the real source of the world's trouble?

We hear every day of new plans, new efforts, to murder Americans and other free people. Indeed, the plot recently discovered that would have killed hundreds - possibly thousands - of innocents on planes from Britain to the United States should have demonstrated to all that the enemy is serious, lethal and relentless.

But we find ourselves in a strange time:

* When a database search of America's leading newspapers turns up 10 times as many mentions of one soldier at Abu Ghraib who was punished for misconduct than mentions of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, the first recipient of the Medal of Honor in the War on Terror.

* When a Newsweek senior editor disparagingly refers to the brave volunteers in our Armed Forces as a "mercenary army."

* When the former head of CNN accuses the American military of deliberately targeting journalists and the former CNN Baghdad bureau chief admits he concealed reports of Saddam Hussein's crimes when he was in power so CNN could stay in Iraq.

* And when Amnesty International disgracefully refers to the military facility at Guantanamo Bay - which holds terrorists who have vowed to kill Americans, and is arguably the best run and most scrutinized detention facility in the history of warfare - as "the gulag of our times."

Those who know the truth need to speak out against these kinds of myths and lies and distortions being told about our troops and our country. This watchdog role is even more important today in a war that is to a great extent fought in the global media - to not allow the lies and the myths be repeated without question or challenge, so that at least the second and third draft of history will be more accurate than the quick first allegations.

In this "long war," any kind of moral and intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can severely weaken the ability of free societies to persevere.

Our enemy knows this well. They frequently invoke the names of Beirut and Somalia - places they see as examples of American retreat and weakness. And as we have seen most recently in Lebanon, they design attacks and manipulate the media to try to demoralize public opinion. They doctor photographs of casualties, use civilians as human shields and then provoke an outcry when civilians are accidentally killed in their midst.

The good news is that most of the American people, though understandably influenced by what they read and see in the media, have inner gyroscopes and good centers of gravity.

And I am confident that over time they will evaluate what is happening and come to wise conclusions.

One soldier, who recently volunteered for a second tour in Iraq, likely captured the feelings of many of his peers. In an e-mail to friends, he wrote:

"I ask that you never take advantage of the liberties guaranteed by the shedding of free blood, never take for granted the freedoms granted by our Constitution. For those liberties would be merely ink on paper were it not for the sacrifice of generations of Americans who heard the call of duty and responded heart, mind and soul with 'Yes, I will.' "

I believe the question is not whether we can win. It is whether we have the will to persevere. I believe that Americans do have that steel. And that we have learned the lessons of history, the folly of turning a blind eye to danger, and of ignoring our responsibilities.

Being Left Means Never Learning

CNN Exposes the Leaker

After years of political posturing and braying in the press about "Bush trying to attack and destroy people that expose his lies", we see where the lies are. They are with the folks that made up the story and pretended that it was a story all along. Armitage was 2nd at the State Department, was not at all one of the "inner circle of evil" that the press likes to create around Bush / Cheney / Rove / Rumsfeld. By his own admission, it was "inadvertent", and as has been discovered during the investigation, that was a non-issue anyway since Plame was not undercover (even though the MSM refuses to ever come out and say that).

So where does the administration go to get back their reputations and especially Scooter Libby who is under indictment for "perjury" since he apparently remembered some chronology in this non-case wrong? Where are the scathing articles about time wasted by Democrats in a purely political witch-hunt that has been revealed as being about absolutely nothing? Don't hold your breath.

In order to stay on the left, there is an aswful lot of reality that has to be ignored, and this is but a tiny part. Being a lefty means having your set of stories that may be fake, but you like them, so you have decided they are "fake but accurate". The fact that this story has now been completely proven to be about nothing will change nothing. The MSM and the people of the left will still treat it as truth and use it as an example of how "Bush lied, and then attacked people that tried to expose the truth", or how "he claimed he would prosecute leakers, but never did".

Howard Hughes

In a fit of light summer reading, I read "Howard Hughes: The Untold Story" by Peter Brown and Pat Broeske. While the book was too highly detailed for my taste, and focused far too much on his sex life, it is indeed an amazing story. Here is a case of a guy that was clearly a genius, but also very clearly was poorly raised by a disturbed mother and no doubt inherited the genetics of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Today, he could have been relatively easily treated, but the combination of his chemistry, head injuries, and incompletely cured syphilis combined to move his mental problems into psychosis that cost him and those around him dearly.

The idea of having a 320' ocean going yacht with a crew of over 30 that he could sail anywhere in the world in complete luxury, along with his Sikorsky S-43 twin-engine amphibian that could carry a crew of six and enough fuel to cross the Atlantic. He used both to maximum advantage with women and business associates. He would fly coast to coast, land on the East River in NYC, taxi up to a pier and do the night on the town with Kate Hepburn or some other movie starlet.

Yes, he certainly was a playboy, but he was also a self-educated movie mogul, businessman extraordinaire  when he decided to be, test pilot, and self-taught aircraft designer. At the time of his July 1938 flight around the world, he was a household name almost on par with what Lindberg had been earlier. His innovations in the use of the Constellation at TWA, air racers, and even with the "Hercules", better known as "The Spruce Goose" were hugely innovative in moving aviation forward.

He is often held up as one of those cautionary tales of vast wealth, but it is likely better to think of him as a cautionary tale of untreated mental illness. Had is OCD been treated with modern methods, it is unlikely that he would have died as alone and unhappy as he did.

News from Iraq

The following stolen from WSJ "Best of the Web". They have a great wit ... Murtha has said "there is nothing good the toops can to by being in Iraq", and they should be "re-deployed over the horizon, to some place like Okinawa".

We Get a Lot of Smiles and Waves
"Military Stryker vehicles saturating Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods have been credited with what Iraqi authorities say is a 30 percent drop in violence in the city since the deployment of 5,000 additional U.S. troops to the region," ABC News reports from the Iraqi capital:

While U.S. figures show a 22 percent drop in violence, either way, its good news for the troops.

"It's been great. We get a lot of smiles and waves," said Lt. Patrick Paterson of the 114th Cavalry.

One of the most dramatic changes has occurred in the Dora neighborhood. In July up to 20 people were killed in the area every day. As part of this new military effort, U.S. and Iraqi troops have been searching thousands of buildings in an effort to stop car bombs. . . .

And there are signs it's working. During 14 days of patrols in Dora, there has been just one killing.

We look forward to hearing Rep. John Murtha, the Democrats' leading military strategist, explain how this could be better done from Okinawa.

Sometimes the Predictions are Quick

A couple days ago I blogged on how the MSM tells us as much about their bias with what they DON'T say as with what they do and asserted that if it is possible to predict what they will do in the future, then they have to be biased. Link The future isn't predictable (or we would all be making big $$ on Wall Street), so if you can predict the MSM, then they are following something other than the news. Little did I realize that they would prove my case quite so rapidly.


The snap above shows reporting on a tropical depression that MAY become a tropical storm, and an article on the potential for a "mega-storm" that is nothing more than a bedtime story about what COULD happen ... along with asteroids, tidal waves, earthquakes, and volcanoes ... Today, tomorrow, or "in 100 years". NEITHER story mentions that hurricanes are WAY off the predicted pace for this year. Now if Bush had predicted that the deficit would drop at some rate and there was a story about the deficit MAYBE dropping, or how far it "might drop", do you think they MIGHT point out that the rate of the deficit dropping was "off predictions"? Nah, the press is "unbiased"!

Barone, Covert Enemies

Michael Barone is a genius, and he says something here that I've been trying to say for years, but he says it better than I likely ever will. Read it all, it is WELL worth the time. Our Covert Enemies

Key excerpts for posterity:

In our war against Islamo-fascist terrorism, we face enemies both overt and covert. The overt enemies are, of course, the terrorists themselves. Their motives are clear: They hate our society because of its freedoms and liberties, and want to make us all submit to their totalitarian form of Islam. They are busy trying to wreak harm on us in any way they can. Against them we can fight back, as we did when British authorities arrested the men and women who were plotting to blow up a dozen airliners over the Atlantic.

Our covert enemies are harder to identify, for they live in large numbers within our midst. And in terms of intentions, they are not enemies in the sense that they consciously wish to destroy our society. On the contrary, they enjoy our freedoms and often call for their expansion. But they have also been working, over many years, to undermine faith in our society and confidence in its goodness. These covert enemies are those among our elites who have promoted the ideas labeled as multiculturalism, moral relativism and (the term is Professor Samuel Huntington's) transnationalism.

Nevertheless, the default assumption of our covert enemies is that in any conflict between the West and the Rest, the West is wrong. That assumption can be rebutted by overwhelming fact: Few argued for the Taliban after Sept. 11. But in our continuing struggles, our covert enemies portray our work in Iraq through the lens of Abu Ghraib and consider Israel's self-defense against Hezbollah as the oppression of virtuous victims by evil men. In World War II, our elites understood that we were the forces of good and that victory was essential. Today, many of our elites subject our military and intelligence actions to fine-tooth-comb analysis and find that they are morally repugnant.

No need to add anything, genius has spoken.

Mere Christianity

C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity is a book that should be read by all, atheist, Christian, and agnostic. Lewis was all of the above at some time in his life, and he was one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century. It is hard to believe that this book resulted from talks he gave on the BBC from 1942 to 1944 on the Christian faith. Times have changed.

One point of his conversion that I find quite interesting.

"Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God does not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning."

The decision to believe in God is still a decision, this "proves" nothing. Anything that can come of intelligence and order CAN also come of randomness. As I've said before, God isn't going to force you to believe in him, you are welcome to worship chaos and meaninglessness. Down that path, the highest moral certainly is "what feels good". You may dress it up as "what feels good for the most people", but it is still a human determination about "pleasure". However, the Lewis formulation on meaning is still a nice try.

In chapter 4 he makes one of the best statements of not only why Christ had to die, but why nobody is "saved by their own decision".

"Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death is not something God demands of you before he will take you back and while he could let you off of if he chose: it is simply a description of what going back to him is like. If you ask God to take you back without it, you are really asking him to take you back without going back. It cannot happen. Very well then, we must go through it. But the same badness which makes us need it makes us unable to do it."

He then goes through a discussion of how God himself is unable to help us in his God state; ...

"But supposing God became a man - suppose human nature which can suffer and die was amalgamated with God's nature in one person - then that person could help us. He could surrender his will, and suffer and die, because he was man; and he could do it perfectly because he was God.".

The chapter that hits home to me the most was chapter 8, "The Great Sin". ...

"There is no fault which makes man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it in ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. 

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-conceit: and the virtue opposite to it in Christian morals, is Humility. ... According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil is Pride."

He goes on to talk how it is of course pride that makes Satan, and of course one can't be human and be without some of this most grievous of sins. In the modern world, it has become very common to refuse to acknowledge God at all, but even for those that would like to do so, removal of pride is a great gift.

"The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether". There isn't a lot to be added to that.

I'm not going to go on any more. I know it is a book that has changed many lives for the better, and no doubt made some more angry and bitter as well, but that is certainly not the intent of it. It is with certainty a "great book" in that it takes on the questions of most fundamental meaning to a human. Is this all there is? C.S. Lewis makes a marvelous case that it is only the beginning.

Why "Everyone" Believes

Anyone notice anything missing on the news this year? What about Hurricanes? They seem to be strangely absent, yet we were assured last year that due to global warming there would be more and more hurricanes every year.
2006 would be WORSE!" Take a look at Hurricanes Below Normal to see just how far below last year we are.

What does it mean? Who knows? The point is that the media knows that it is very difficult to react to what you DON'T see, so they feed us the stories that they want us to believe, and leave off the stories that don't fit with their model. They like global warming, it fits their model, people that buy into global warming vote the way they like, so we get a lot of information about how true and dangerous global warming is. When something is happening that just doesn't fit the media model, we just don't hear it and most of the population just goes along hook line and sinker.

Be a true radical! Free yourself from only listening to the MSM and read and learn "outside the lines". You too can think for yourself, and once you do, you will never go back to the processed MSM gunk that the rest of the sheep are feeding on exclusively. Unlike the sheep though, once you think outside the box, you don't have to be on any "restricted diet", you will be ready to look at information from all sources critically. You can look at BOTH CNN and Fox News, and understand the viewpoints behind each.

Then you can have YOUR viewpoint, and that is the most refreshing of all.

What if hurricanes DO start up now? That is OK too ... you don't have to live by ideology like the rest of the sheep while being told that you are "unbiased". It is enough to know that if the number of hurricanes were CLOSE to the predictions by now, it would be a MAJOR story. Just watch and discover, if some biggies happen, it will be right back front and center and interpreted to fit their model of global warming. If they don't happen, you will never hear, and they will never let you know. You can predict the future behavior of the press. Since you know the real world isn't predictable like that, you know they have to be biased.

Part of "intelligence" is a mental model that maps to reality, and you can test that by seeing if your mental model makes accurate predictions about reality. It is hard, because we all love to be right, and never wrong, but one never really learns that way. The MSM model is tempting because if lets you live the fantasy of always being right. As long as you agree with them and follow only them, you will see ONLY things that show that their model is right. You won't have to suffer the pain of being wrong, since you can always agree with them, be with "the majority" on a day to day basis and know that any ACTUAL "inconvenient truths" will be dutifully ignored. Even better, some nice distracting story will always grab the front page to help you forget that something that was supposed to be happening isn't , or to tell you that something happening (like the current good economy), "really isn't". Just believe, and you can be happy.

The only problem is then you are a sheep living the life that is being fed to you, and you never get to be you and to have your viewpoint. You don't learn and grow. OK with the Democrats and MSM, but it ought not be OK with YOU!

Brave New World

The education in the small Northern WI town in which I grew up wasn't exactly "prep school", and I didn't manage to really get the idea that "reading/education is fun for it's own sake" until a few years into a corporate career when "making a living", at least in the sense of food/shelter/clothing/Bass Beer became assured enough that I felt I could "waste some time" on recreational reading. I finally got around to reading Aldous Huxley: "Brave New World".

Other than a rather strange obsession with sex, and the kind of almost cute replacement of god with "Ford", I doubt that it will be memorable. The rise of consumerism and the need for perpetual mental occupation with nothing of meaning seems to be a pretty good prediction of where modernism moved. His writing style has been criticized, but while I didn't think it added much, it also didn't get in the way for me.

While Huxley is concerned with the masses being "infantile", the book is founded on that infantile idea that there is "some controller" or "some conspiracy", or "some secret human knowledge" that is someone helping "those in the know" and enslaving the rest of humanity. Oh if it were only so, then such "knowledge" COULD "get out", unfortunately, it doesn't exist and a bunch of fallible humans are all just making it up as we trundle along.

Pictures

Ok, there are some pictures out there now

The URLs don't seem to edit in very well with the .Mac stuff, although the upload from iPhoto is very nice and simple.

Macaulay Hatchery where fish ranching vs fish farming is done. Fish farming is illegal in AK, and it involves big pens and keeping the fish captive. In fish ranching, a hatchery is built, some salmon eggs are obtained, hatched, and the fingerlings are "imprinted" on the chemical composition of the water at the hatchery site, and then releases. Seven years later, they come back and fight to get into the hatchery. We happened to be there as this was happening. 100's of thousands of salmon boiling the water in the bay in front of the hatchery and fighting up the fish ladder.

We saw the Mendenhall Glacier outside Juneau.

The ship went into College Fjord where we saw beautiful mountains and glaciers.

We spent the last two days of the trip in Seward Alaska, surrounded by beautiful snow capped mountains, but breating sea level air.

Lieberman Loses

The angry left defeats the sitting Senator from Connecticut and VP candidate from 2000 in the primary. We live in radical times. The MSM of course refuses to see the angry left as “radical” at all, since they are so close to what the reporters themselves believe. Even to come up with their usual leftward slant, they feel that they are “pulling punches” and forced to be “conservative” by their editors and the owners of the media outlets that they work for. Their hearts are over with the wing of the Democrat party that managed to defeat Lieberman in the primary.

When I hooked up at the Anchorage Airport, Time/CNN was already lamenting the thought that the Republicans would be able to “exploit this”. Their little articl was pretty weepy about “Just when the Democrats should be in the drivers seat with Bush’s low poll numbers, trouble in the mid-east, etc, they will “use this” to try to develop a “wedge” to their advantage. Hardly seems fair … somehow, all the of the reasons for disliking Bush are “real”, but the Democrats themselves voting out a guy that was good enough to be a VP candidate 6 years ago is some sort of a “fake issue”.

While the media spends a ton of time trying to make the Republican party out to be “radical”, “extreme” and “out of the mainstream”, it is pretty clear which party that is actually true of. Lieberman is a moderate Democrat, but WAY less so than Olympia Snow, Lincoln Chafee, or even Arlen Specter are “moderate Republicans”. Lieberman is more the Democrat equivalent of John McCain in the Republican party, or even in many ways George Bush.

The reasons that Bush’s poll numbers are as low as they are is because he is quite moderate, and loses at least he poll favorable ratings from 10-20% of the Republican party … the “no social programs, isolationism, budget balance at all costs, close the border if you have to shoot Mexicans” wing of the party. The media is pretty quiet about that wing right now, since they are just happy to see Bushes numbers low, and certainly don’t want to portray him in any way as a “moderate”.

So does the right wing of the Republican party stay home in November as the MSM and the Democrats hope? Does the leftward tilt of the Democrats bring more folks to the Republican side from the middle ground of the Democrats (a trend that has been going on since Reagan)? These are key factors on which the election will turn, at least we know where the MSM stands.

I'm Back

We arrived back home at 2AM Thursday, and worked the last couple of days, so still in catch up mode. Some significant posting will likely happen over the weekend since some posts were written on the trip, but not uploaded. So, continuity may suffer as it may look like I'm "still on the cruise" since that is where the posts were written.

Seward / Princess vs Carnival

Sitting in a hotel in Seward Alaska after getting off the Coral Princess in Whittier this AM. My connections have been spotty, and so has my writing, so a little background. We left Vancouver on Monday, July 31 at 4 in the afternoon. I will try to post up some pictures at some point, but of course they do very little justice to most elements of a trip like this.
The
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifCoral Princess
is 954+ feet long with 13 decks, and a capacity of a bit less than 2K passengers and 900 crew. Over 90% of the cabins have balconies, and having now cruised with a balcony, it would be hard to go back to a window. Princess is supposed to be a cut above Carnival where our previous two cruises were taken and I’d agree with that statement. It is almost exactly the same kind of comparison as “WalMart vs Target” in the department stores, although I’d argue Carnival is at the “Target level” and Princess is maybe like a Nordstrom’s or Bloomingdales. Cabins are a little bigger, ship is a little newer and nicer finished, service is a bit better, food is a bit better … it is all just a “cut above”, but of course you pay for it.

Is it worth it? Well, I shop at Wal-Mart vs Target, but I’m more inclined to think so in this case. I shop every week but I don’t cruise every week (boo hoo). Vacations don’t come around all that often, so it seems to me that a bit more investment is warranted since you are likely to have those memories for the rest of your life. The weekly milk, cereal, and other sundries will not be long in memory.

That trade-off between “stuff” and “memories” came to my mind a few times on this trip. In my younger years, my thinking tended to point toward the “stuff”, maybe partially because I didn’t have that much of it. As the years have gone by and the stuff as piled up, the value of the memories seems much enhanced. Can we “take those with us” forever? Seems worth hoping at least for at least the good ones, and as long as we have anything in this world (our minds), they are always with us here. As Don Henley says on the stuff; “You don’t see any hearses with luggage racks”.

Glaciers

Woke up just after docking in Ketchikan around 6am local time with the clocks being set back one hour overnight. Low clouds, little sun peeking through now and then, very much like it looks in here quite often it sounds like. Sitting out on the balcony after a nice breakfast on the ship and a little shopping tour of town. In one respect, it seems that all ports are alike, Alaska or Caribbean; lots of T-shirts, jewelry, art galleries, and local foods. Salmon here, rum cakes and other seafood in the Caribbean.

Nice little stream that had a few remaining spawned out salmon milling about that were fun to watch for a bit, Three cruise ships sitting at the dock right now, ours, a Holland America, and a Celebrity. Ours is full to capacity, the other two certainly don’t look empty, so the terrible Bush economy must be one other thing that the unbiased MSM hasn’t been able to get exactly right. Strange how they can be so interested in “truth”, yet somehow miss something that would see to be somewhat easy for valiant reporters to ferret out. Most likely they wouldn’t even need to resort to some secret source in order to figure out that number of things are humming along very well.

While this post started in Ketchikan, it is ending out in Glacier Bay. For some reason I was just able to get my first post of the trip up, so thought I’d try another. The weather has been “ok”. Plenty of rain, fog, some very nicely arranged points of glimpses of sun and relative clear that have allowed us to see some of the great scenery, but not enough to just sit out and bask in it. The high latitude means that the distance up to the tree line is only a few thousand feet, so we commonly sail by peaks that have a good deal of snow on them even though we are of course at sea-level. The combination of the peaks with the steep inclines of the valleys cut by glaciers with the water makes for very pleasing scenery almost everywhere.

News at 11, these glaciers have been receding for 2500 years now; faster in the 1800s than in the 1900s. Yes, this would indicate “global warming”, but major surprise, a quick check for continental glaciers covering North America could clue in not even the very geologically sophisticated that we are likely between ice ages. Given the glacier data from this trip, it would appear that we are still in the warming phase, and likely have thousands of years left until the next cool-down which will move us into the next ice cycle. How much effect did the humans have to cause the glaciers to recede faster in the 1800’s than now? Probably none, although one might conclude as scientists did in the 60’s and early 70’s that we were speeding the turn to global cooling.

My analysis of Princess vs Carnival is that for the extra money one gets a less crowded ship, better fit and finish and higher quality food and food service. Kind of like shopping at WalMart though, Carnival is plenty good enough for me, although it would be hard to cruise without a balcony after cruising with one.

Well, we are getting close to what is supposed to be the prime whale watching area, so I guess I better head out to do that. We have seen humpbacks and killers so far, but only 2 pods of the humpbacks and one of the orcas so far, so it would be nice to see some more

Hooray For Hezbolah

I can now tell that postings from the trip will be “sparse”, the connection from the ship is just very slow, so the way the blog is set up it simply takes too long to get to the posting page. Were I to be in this mode commonly, I realize that I could post using e-mail, but my impression was that speeds even from the sea would be increasing, but at least for this cruise that is not the case. As it is, my connection time there will be limited.

Have been able to catch up with the “highlights” of the news via one source or another over the past few days. Is there a “rule of nature” that one of the US parties has to be anti-Jewish? I realize that hatred of many groups really knows no political boundaries, but historically the Republican party was successfully tagged with the anti-Semitic label until the John Birch Society was purged from the ranks by William Buckley, and now is only slightly represented by Patrick Buchanan.

The level of only mostly contained glee in the MSM as Hezbollah holds out for “longer than was supposed”, and inflicts “more casualties than expected” on Israel continues to amaze. NPR was blathering that “the people of Israel are starting to wonder what this war is about”. Apparently, since all is relative to the left, there is simply nothing in the world that is ever worth fighting for, so even if someone is raining indiscriminate rocket fire on your homeland, you would be “prone to forget” why one might take action to reduce or prevent that.

There is also the apparent liberal principle that “nothing hard is worth doing”. Since it seems that Israel isn’t going to be able to stop the rocket fire in a short period of time, they ought to give up. I’m thinking that the left ought to try to understand the other side and consider that for people that aren’t absolute cultural relativists that believe in nothing but a pessimistic future, to stop trying would be just as difficult as for a lefty to stop complaining and wringing their hands about one thing or another. It just isn’t going to happen. The “radical right” is going to keep working to secure their “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” with just as much fervor as the left is going to continue to “carp, bellyache, and howl in umbrage”, the tools that they see as most helpful to the good life.

Speaking of the good life, it was a very relaxing day at sea. Some rain this AM, mostly clear this PM, but very little ability to see the shore. Just cruising along at 14 knots in calm seas. At one point this AM, while reading out on the deck, dolphins started coming to the ship from all around in the sea, formed up behind and followed in the wake for longer than I cared to watch. I suppose there were 15-30 visible on my side of ship, likely many more if one looked in the wake and the other side. I’m sure it is likely a common phenomenon, but was interesting for me to watch. Saw one other cruise ship and a couple fishing trawlers, but very much open sea with an occasional glimpse of mountains on the eastern horizon.

Not a bad way to spend a day at all. Tomorrow, Ketchican.

McCain's Son Jimmy Enlists

CNN Article

This one will be interesting to watch. The linked article is actually "fair and balanced". Points out some facts on both sides, doesn't really tell us what to think. The media loves McCain when he panders left, they of course hate him when he panders right. Somehow, they can watch Hillary pander as far to the right as anyone, but that never bother them a bit. I suppose they have faith where her heart truly is (deep in the ditch on the left side) ... where with McCain, they just aren't sure, and even though he is willing to "pander for power", which gives them hope, they have a sense of foreboding that all that time as a POW, the Annapolis years, the family history, and the apparent actual religious beliefs probably means that he is a conservative at heart. He appears to even have character, a quality that no liberal can stomach.

I suspect that they will find some way to demonize poor Jimmy. Maybe he was at some wild party, maybe he was too fresh with a girl or drove wild. Maybe he smoked pot. Maybe he didn't do anything but someone will be willing to claim he did. Those things are all of course GREAT if he is a Democrat (he can even molest and kill the girl and claim to just be driving while drunk and be a sitting Senator if he was a Democrat) ... BUT, his name could be easily drug through the mud badly somehow given that he is McCain's son. I hope not, I hate to see the MSM and the left behave like the MSM and the left to young Marines, but they will be developing some hatred on this one, especially if they are disappointed and the Republicans maintain control of the Senate.

Finally Consistency

I often observe that liberals lack consistency, but I'm beginning to understand that is only on the intellectual and character front. The juxtaposition this week of the visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, along with the John Bolton hearings gives us a couple of points to plot.

al-Maliki addressed a joint session of congress this week and gave an excellent speech on what anyone that wants success in Iraq would have to want; the continued support of the US until a stable security situation can be reached. Naturally, the MSM and the Democrats didn't want to hear is message on that front, nor hear any of his claims of progress. They saw it as a better opportunity to bash Bush, so they castigated al-Maliki for not standing up for Israel, and boycotted the speech! None of them are idiot enough to think that the head of a Shiite Arab country that needs to show that they are not a puppet of the US could possibly stand with Israel against Hezbollah. They pandered to the weak minded among the Jewish vote in the US, and of course did what they could to bash Bush while not helping either the US troops or the Iraqi people. A typical performance.

Now on to the Bolton hearings. Alan Dershowitz, a self described liberal Democrat, but ALSO Jewish,writes in an excellent op-ed :

Now, there's John Bolton, who follows in that tradition with distinction. Were he not to be confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at this crucial juncture it would send a powerful message to the international community that Senate Democrats do not stand behind our policy in the Middle East. It would be seen as undercutting American policy toward Israel. Even if that were a misunderstanding, it would have a devastating impact on the world's perception of America's solidarity with Israel.

On one hand, the Democrats give the back of the hand to the leader of a country that American blood and treasure has given a chance at democracy, while they claim "defense of Israel" as the higher good. With the other hand, they seek to stop a nomination for Ambassador to the UN of a man that even left-wingers that actually care about Israel want to protect. It would appear very inconsistent.

I come to realize that liberals actually ARE consistent about what matters to them. Emotions, how they feel. They hate Bush, that is all-consuming, they really don't care who is helped or hurt in their blind rage. Islamic fundamentalist blood thirsty terrorists can be aided and Israel or US Troops can suffer great loss but if in their calculation "it looks bad for Bush", that counts as a "win". They have no principles, no higher meaning beyond "if it feels good", so doing anything that they perceive as damaging Bush is "right" because it feels right, and it is actually consistent in their model of life.

Using a UN Shield

The statement by UN Secretary General that the Israeli bombing of a UN observer station "appeared to be deliberate" was widely reported and not questioned very much in the MSM.

It requires a bit of searching or watching some "right wing biased" news sources to find that Hezbollah was using the post as a "human shield" and firing rockets from right on top of it. Full Article

"The closest artillery has landed within 2 meters (sic) of our position and the closest 1000 lb aerial bomb has landed 100 meters (sic) from our patrol base. This has not been deliberate targeting, but rather due to tactical necessity."

Those words, particularly the last sentence, are not-so-veiled language indicating Israeli strikes were aimed at Hezbollah targets near the post, said Maj.-Gen. MacKenzie.

"What that means is, in plain English, 'We've got Hezbollah fighters running around in our positions, taking our positions here and then using us for shields and then engaging the (Israeli Defence Forces)," he said.

That would mean Hezbollah was purposely setting up near the UN post, he added. It's a tactic Maj.-Gen. MacKenzie, who was the first UN commander in Sarajevo during the Bosnia civil war, said he's seen in past international missions: Aside from UN posts, fighters would set up near hospitals, mosques and orphanages.

We and Israel stand and fight forces that purposely use religious shrines, hospitals, and UN Observer posts to shield their activity. Beyond this, we are expected to work with a UN organization so corrupt that it tacitly approves of the use of it's own observers as shields by condemning the forces that are purposely sending rockets in on random civilian positions. The MSM in the US and the Democrats sit by completely complicit in the whole situation and cheer on Hezbollah. Welcome to the 21st century.

American Dream Initiative

The Democrats have rolled out what they call their "American Dream Initiative" which on NPR they said was "to give everyone a shot at the middle class", to which one of my more witty friends replied, "yes, and guarantee being middle class to the wealthy".

Supposedly this is something like the Republican "Contract With America" that Democrats assailed as the "Contract ON America". It worked for the republican's, they won the house in '94, and it worked for the country, they drug Bill Clinton kicking and screaming to a balanced budget, for which he promptly took the credit and left the Republican Congress with the blame for cutting the rate of growth in Medicare. Of course Clinton, the Democrats, and the media were happy to claim "Republicans Cut Medicare.

For those of you that can't quite get the difference, if I'm getting 7% wage increases every year and my boss decided that 4% would be good enough, that is cutting the rate of growth in my salary. If I turn around and claim "my salary was cut", you would be able to understand that I was lying. Somehow Democrats and the media saying the same thing relative to the rate of growth being cut in government programs never get called liars.

Note, for the lefties in the crowd that have a lot of trouble with the concept of truth, this is an ACTUAL lie, not "a failure to predict the future correctly" like Bush (and everyone else) saying "Iraq has WMD", or me claiming "buy WalMart Stock, it is going to go up". Presumably, everyone with a tiny bit of knowledge understands that cutting the rate of growth is NOT a cut, so when they say it is, they are lying. If I make a statement about WMD or a stock that I believe to be true, but it isn't, that is known as being wrong. There was once a difference between being wrong and lying, but that is just one more distinction that the left has decided to blur to fool the sheep.

I'm thinking that renaming the American DECLINE Initiative might be more accurate. It is always possible to have more income equality by reducing the amount of income. It is sometimes said that "we can't all be at the top", but unfortunately, the inverse isn't true, we CAN all effectlvely be at the bottom (or at least 99% of us, except the ruling hunta).

Most Jobs Since Reagan

ST. PAUL—June was an extremely strong month for job growth in the state with an increase of 14,700 jobs, according to figures released today by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). When added to the upwardly revised job gain of 3,300 in May and the 14,900 new jobs in April, the second quarter 2006 experienced a total job gain of 32,900—10 percent of the nation’s growth and the highest quarterly gain since the first quarter of 1984.

In fairness, this WAS reported "a little" in some of the MN papers. Generally, the economy now is better than it has been since Reagan, but much like the media in the '80s, it is very hard to tell. When a Republican is in the WH, good news is reported very little, and when it is, it always has some caveats like "it isn't as good as it looks", "not everyone is taking part in this goodness", and "it isn't going to be good very long". All of which are just as true with a Democrat in the WH, but for some reason the good news gets a lot more reporting and the caveats are always missing.

Why do Democrats get surprised in elections lately? Because the bulk of the public never hears the good news until the Republicans start doing campaign ads, and at the same time they find out that the Democrats would love to kill that golden goose of econimic progress with higher taxes as soon as they get in office. Of course, when the Republican ads point out that piece of truth, they are "negative". A Democrat will never actually ADMIT that they are going to raise taxes on pretty much everyone, they will couch it as "raise taxes on a couple rich guys".

Kerry On Israel / Lebanon

We really could have had a great president, according to what he had to say in Detroit, as quoted from the Detroit News

U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D- Mass., who was in town Sunday to help Gov. Jennifer Granholm campaign for her re-election bid, took time to take a jab at the Bush administration for its lack of leadership in the Israeli-Lebanon conflict.

"If I was president, this wouldn't have happened," said Kerry during a noon stop at Honest John's bar and grill in Detroit's Cass Corridor.

They claim that Bush is arrogant? Wow, Kerry would have been able to stop the conflict between Israel and her neighbors. Like all good Democrats, he didn't say how.

During the campaign, his VP candidate, Edwards stated that if he and John Kerry were elected, the lame would walk. It was unclear clear if he also expected to raise the dead, since he made his claim in regard to Reeve who was already dead when he made itThe Lame Will Walk

If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk, get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

But wait, Edwards the lawyer channeled dead babies.

She said at 3, 'I'm fine.' She said at 4, 'I'm having a little trouble, but I'm doing OK.' Five, she said, 'I'm having problems.' At 5:30, she said, 'I need out.'

She speaks to you through me and I have to tell you right now -- I didn't plan to talk about this -- right now I feel her. I feel her presence. She's inside me, and she's talking to you.

These guys were the Democrats Presidential canidates two years ago. Peace on earth, communication with the dead, and the lame rising up and walking. Wow, no matter the media hates Bush when we could have had wonderful guys like that.

Collapse

https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-Revised/dp/0143117009

I have finally managed to slog all the way through Jared Diamond's paean to pessimism, "Collapse: How Societies choose to Fail or Succeed". The academic in me would suggest that the slog is worth it, the person that has a life would suggest "not".

First the "big messages". While Jared wants us to see him as an "objective scientist" and "politically neutral", it is pretty clear that he is a pessimistic greenie lefty, and in general, pessimistic greenie lefties love this book. He lists 8 categories of environmental damage that are critical; deforestation, soil problems, water, overhunting, overfishing, negative effects of introduced species, human population growth and increased per-capita impact of people. He then has a framework of which environmental damage is also one element that round out the collapse; climate change, hostile neighbors and friendly trade partners.

He then takes a number of case studies; Montana, Easter Island, PItcarin and Henderson Islands, The Anasazi Indians, Myans, Vikings on Greenland, Rawanda, Dominican Republic and Hati, China and Australia. He goes into these in GREAT detail, discusses his many factors and where and possibly why they either did or are making poor decisions, and all the way through works to tie it to the modern world.

Like a lot of liberal thinking, there is a lot of pessimism, a lot of critical pointing at current problems, but not a real lot of clear statement of what should actually be done that would make things better. Although he says many times he ISN'T a pessimist, but a "cautious optimist", if he has a "plan", it would basically entail, zero population growth, reduction in standard of living in the first world countries, and very little advancement of existing first world standards to the third world. Since it is pretty clear to anyone watching that isn't happening, we are toast (well, maybe "steak", but more on that later).

He definitely doesn't see technology or globalization as "savior's", and in fact believes that they will make it all worse and increase the likelihood of the rapid decline and demise of the whole world. Like a true liberal though, he doesn't practice anything of what he preaches ... He has two children, lives in Southern CA complaining about traffic, flys all over the globe on jets and vacations in Montana every summer. The "politicians" (by which it is pretty clear he means Republicans) are "uninformed and short-sighted", but Jared gets to keep his "first world +" lifestyle ... he has earned it, his heart is in the right place, and he has clearly told folks that there are a whole lot of problems that someone else should take care of while he is driving to teach class in Southern CA, or fly fishing in Montana.

It is the "subtext" of this book that I actually like, it gives a bit of a view into the liberal soul that they work so hard to deny. Jared is a "comb-over guy", and as a person that has learned to enjoy and parry the barbs of being bald since 21, I'm always a bit suspicious of "real message" when dealing with a comb-over guy. My reaction to comb-overs is that they are usually able to "fool themselves and believe everyone else is fooled as well", kind of like a dog or child that hides their eyes, and believes since they can't see anyone they can't be seen either.

It is pretty clear that Diamond doesn't see any difference between Christianity, Paganism. Freedom, Private Property, or any other "value". All "values" are weighed against his "god" of mother earth, found wanting, and the "intelligent" will learn to sacrifice those on the alter of environmentalism in hopes they will be granted survival. No "dominion over the earth" for Jared.

He seems to be fascinated with cannibalism as an "adaptation", and somewhat as the ultimate way to prove your "superiority" to your enemies, or "the rich". This touching passage brings it home (p152 for those that think I make this stuff up):

"The most direct sign of cannibalism at the site is that dried human feces, found in the house's hearth and still well preserved after nearly a thousand years in that dry climate, proved to contain human muscle protein, which is absent from normal human feces, even from the feces of people with injured and bleeding intestines. This makes it probable that whomever attacked that site killed the inhabitants, cracked open their bones, boiled their flesh in pots, scattered the bones, and relieved themselves by depositing feces on that hearth had actually consumed the flesh of their victims".

This is a very popular liberal book. While he isn't willing to be completely direct, the message is there that at some point there will be global class warfare, resulting in the slaughter of "the rich" ... and just maybe in their consumption by the attackers. I suppose since "murder" and "cannibalism" are just other old tired "values" to be cast aside, one could view this as "progress" over the evils of religion, technology, and the corrupt western culture that has raped the superior and real god of "mother earth", the environmentalists deity.

Are there dangers of environmental problems, lack of food, water, etc? Sure. Are they anywhere close to as important and insoluble by technology and easily mapped to historical scenarios as Diamond claims? Only the good "global warming as a religion" sheep are likely to buy into even part of that line of reasoning.

I suppose once one takes responsibility for ultimate justice out of God's hands some ultimate putdown like eating your enemy and crapping on their floor resonates with what is left of your denied spirit. In the physical world though, it brings to mind the old cannibal putdown; "The meat of your mother sticks between my teeth". Ah yes, the worship of man and material nature, the very flower of humanity.

Firefox Extension Heaven

For people who have "slightly more than one computer", keeping your bookmarks up to date on all the boxes can be a major pain. I try to stick with a "minimal number of machines" myself:

1). Main Thinkpad Laptop - 50% of total work here, goes with me most places.
2). Main Home Desktop - Current location, some work, some home, photos, music, critical machine.
3). Mac - Video editing, iTunes, iPhoto ... a must have.
4). Backup Desktop at work, dual boot to Linux - Laptops die on occasion. Can't be sitting still then. At other times, technical currency on Linux.
5,6 and 7 ... One new IBM re-furbished 1.8GHZ that just followed me home for $150. 2 machines that used to be my sons but are now running some grid computing stuff, keeping disks spinning for stored video, and available should any of my relatives need a newer machine. These 3 might be slightly less easy to justify than the "critical 4".

I'm slightly embarrassed to not currently have a Linux box up and running at home. I plan to remedy that shortly with an ubuntu installation that I have high hopes for.

On to the heavenly extension
Google Sync which allows you to keep your bookmarks up to date between as many computers as you want, and even better have the browser re-configure to your latest tabs / pages when you switch machines. SWEEET!! So far working flawlessly and I'm very impressed and appreciative.

Now if I can just find "the same thing" for Thunderbird.

Senate Race Over in MN

The Star Trib MN Poll would seem to show that the Senate race in MN is all but over and Klobuchar is the winner. The poll shows her ahead by 19 points, 50 to 31%. Clearly Republicans should just give up. Not me, it is time to send in a few hundred to the Kennedy campaign. I think his chances are good.

Why? Amy is already advertising on top of the constant media anti-Republican anti-Bush drumbeat. It was a foregone conclusions in '02 and in '04 that "Republicans were going down". Why not? The only kind of information that people hear is negative for Republicans.

As we get to Labor Day, Republicans have to come out and get their opponents negatives up, AND indicate what Republicans are for. They will of course be accused of "negative campaigning", but when the media spends all the time working to get Republican negatives up, they have a lot of work to do in a short time once they start running ads. The Democrats get to use the media, but since the media does the same thing all the time, it loses credibility.

The MN Poll has been wrong a lot in the last 30 years, and strangely enough it is always "wrong to the left". It is doubtful that Republicans are going to believe much of anything that they read in the Red Star, but hopefully this will lull the Democrats in to keeping their money in their pockets and assuming that they have it won. The Red Star is their paper after all, they usually believe what they read there.

High School at CNN

The press liked to do a lot of hand wringing while Clinton was scrutinized for ejaculating on the help at the office as in "why are we wasting our time on this"?

We have war between Israel and Hezbollah, bombs in Lebanon,Iran pulling the strings and attempting to be nuclear power, and a host of other newsworthy items like a successful shuttle mission, heat and fires, N Korea and missiles, and I'm sure a ton of other items if I was to think for a moment. Bush saying "shit" is a picture HEADLINE for HOURS on CNN, and the day after, they are trying to keep the story afloat by adding in some candid shots they managed to catch of him eating.

This is a press that is unbiased? This is a TOP STORY? Only if you are some deranged Bush hater with a sense of perspective stuck in the 9th grade, and the intellectual fascinations of Beavis and Butthead. There is one other potential. You are so fixated on "hurting Bush" and enough of a student of history to realize that the Watergate tapes damaged Nixon really more with the "religious right" because he was "swearing on the tapes", and the religious folks "thought he was nicer than that". To the liberal press, Watergate is Easter and Christmas for rolled into one, so they are quite familiar with all aspects of their holy event.

Will it work? No, because liberals don't understand swearing. Nixon regularly took God's name in vain, that is what offended Christians. From a liberal point of view, "swearing = crude = bad = like chewing with mouth open" ... so let's point that all out, that must be what the Christians don't like. Of course, to a Christian, taking God's name in vain is WAY different from other "crude language", and isn't of any significance. The liberals who don't even fathom the concept of "sin" and really can't think of "wrong" other than being a Republican, just figure those Christian rubes must not like "swearing", so lets make a big deal out of it and maybe it will hurt Bush.

I tend to think that the real reason for this is just another symptom of "Bush derangement syndrome". Their hatred is just so out of touch that they can't help themselves, so they print it, but the "let's hurt him with his base" idea was at least an interesting flicker across the brain cells. There are some that actually believe that the press isn't biased?

Kurzweil

Ray Kurzweil was at St Thomas in St Paul Wednesday night and I was lucky enough to get to listen to his talk. I'd rate it as maybe the fastest 90min lecture that I've sat through. I've Blogged on "The Singularity Is Near" previously. Ray is a strict materialist atheist that is EXTREMELY optimistic about technology. As readers of this Blog know, while I believe in realism, I'd much prefer to listen and read someone that errs on the side of optimism than pessimism. There is great plenty of that.

He discussed "designer drugs". Formerly we took compounds that seemed to do what we want (lower BP, decrease pain, remove fluids, etc) and messed with them vs trial and error. We are now able to look at how systems in the body work and design drugs that affect the systems in the way we want. Two examples are a pill that prevents the body from storing fat, and one that raises the HDL cholesterol enough to actually clean out arteries. These two drugs are supposed to be on the market in less than five years and should radically change health care and how good people look at the beach.

He believes that all his fantastic predictions for medicine, nanotech, high speed computing and AI are in fact "conservative" even though they sound off the wall. Two examples of his predictions, are that he predicted the internet in the mid-90's and a computer beating a human and chess before the millennium. In the early '90s, he was being mocked by people saying they didn't see any internet, and the chess programs were terrible compared to even a master level human. Both predictions came to pass right on schedule.

I don't tend to believe that many of his predictions will come true, BUT, "hopeful" is very nice to see these days since there is so much of "hopeless". I believe Ray is very much close to the truth than those who are sure that nothing good is going to happen.

Fahrenheit 911

I figured that a Netflix rental 2-years after the fuss shouldn't line Michael Moore's coffers too much, so I finally forced myself to sit through it. My biggest impression is "an orgy of innuendo", the movie really comes out and says very little. It strongly insinuates that Bush knew of 911 in advance because of ties with the Saudis in advance maybe even ties with the Bin Ladin family. The "points" are all made with lots of music for the "appropriate" emotional response ... No doubt Moore enjoyed "Triumph of the Will".

Richard Clark, the book writer that "could tell Condi didn't know who Bin Ladin was when he talked to her" shows up on tape. He is a good source, Condi is on tape on a ton of radio programs talking about the threat from Bin Ladin years before Clark was able to expertly "read her face". With great spies like that, it is no wonder the Clinton administration did such a bang up job on terrorists. Somehow no mention of the Clinton history.

Afghanistan might have been mostly about building a big oil pipeline for UniCal ... maybe Bush had ties to the Taliban too. But the general message is sort of made that "any kind of war is bad" ... so maybe Bush shouldn't have responded anywhere at all.

Iraq, apparently under Saddam is portrayed as a relative garden spot, hard to tell that the Iraqi people would have any problems under Saddam. Bush may have attacked them because of his Daddy, likely for Haliburton or maybe because he just wants to keep the whole US in fear. It could be all of the above, but the music, the tone, and the words let you know that Bush is sinister and wrong. Iraq is of course "like Vietnam" ... With desert rather than jungle, Muslims rather than Buddhists, and oil rather than rice ... "Like" in any case.

The end of the movie gives gives the exaggerated idea that the military is a "place for the poor". It is much more a "place for the rural and southern". No matter, he leads on to the "essential liberal assertion about America" ... no class mobility, corrupt a place where "decent people don't have a chance". The corrupt US system is massively rigged against the poor and black, even Al Gore wants to disenfranchise them. Oh yes, and of course we all know that Bush stole the election of 2K ... "a bunch of independent studies" show that Gore won ... only NONE of the studies by even liberal papers, universities, or other groups that were even remotely following any sort of repeatable procedure showed that. Mikes own study did though, so that must be it.

We do live in a great country where a massively overweight multi-millionaire can make a piece of political propaganda in an election year and have it treated like a "documentary" by the MSM. No matter, Bush won again, and we have been pretty much spared listening to Moore since. Thanks be to God!

Waterloo John Deere

My wife and I spent the day today at the John Deere tractor assembly plant in Waterloo IA watching her brothers 8330 4x4 tractor built on the assembly line as part of their "Gold Key Program". Giant facility, over 1K workers, lots of automation, and a lot of huge tractors. I need to get a blog written on the book "1776" that I just finished, but suffice to say that the manufacturing capability that we take so much for granted wasn't available in 1776, and for long after ... Henry Ford in the early 20th century kicked it off. It works very well today.

We had a retired assembly worker assinged to the four of us all day long. We got some heavy duty steel to wear around our shoes, safety glasses and gloves, and were able to mix right in with the assembly workers on the line. We got to put on a decal, attach a fender, put the lug nuts in on a wheel, and the brother-in-law got to start it up and drive it off the assembly line. An excellent piece of customer relations by John Deere, and a very enjoyable day for me.

It again reminded me of how human the supposed "faceless corporation" is. I've traveled to a number of different sites in this country and overseas in my own 28-year corporate career, and there are remarkable similarities. Corporations are all made up of pretty normal people, generally from a lot of fairly humble backgrounds. From the levels of people that I've been able to get to know in some depth over a so-far ("bottom" to upper mid-level), they are generally pretty dedicated, have a decent level of persistence and have a basic understanding of what business means ... providing a quality service or product in a manner that a profit can be made so stockholders are willing to keep investing in the business, and customers are willing to keep buying.

They also tend to generally be "nice people", a great part of that I suspect coming from they see the "system as working" since they are playing a part in it, and are very willing to be friendly with certainly customers, but quite commonly other people in general, and often even competitors. That doesn't mean they don't compete, any more than baseball players shaking hands after the game means that the game is somehow "rigged". It means that they understand that competition and alternatives are key to our (and increasingly the world) economy.

A marked contrast to the "angry left", a few of which even manage to work inside companies. Since they are pretty much convinced that "everything is broken" ... Economy, society, family, gas prices, business in general, stock market, foreign policy ... you name it, they can only have any sort of relationship with you if you are as mad as they are. Seeing any glass at all as "half full", or "improving", let alone "good enough" is in direct conflict with their world view, and enough to label you as someone not worthy of their association.

There still is real manufacturing in the USA with at least a few thousand jobs that I got to see personally, and since the orders for the tractors are backed up 5-6 months, it seems to be going very well, no matter what the media might like to tell you.

Lay Brings Out Some Honesty from Left

I'm always amazed when the folks on the left accidently lift the veil of what makes them tick just a bit and we get to see inside. Enron and Ken Lay (along with Bush and Cheney) are cases where they open that veil. As I heard on the NPR story, while the left has endless sympathies for terrorists and criminals of all stripes except Republican. Once their strange form of "morality", based on their own model of "what feels good is good" kicks in, they realize that revenge "feels good", so why not torture?

I know, some of you are thinking, he has to be making this up, but although the author decides to euphamize it as "chi-chi", he clearly comes to the conclusion that torture is what he would really have liked to see happen to Ken Lay.
Post:Ken Lay's Last Evasion

This quote shows that deep down, your average liberal understands. His own editorial should be more than enough to notice that yes, savagery isn't really below the surface at all when it comes to the folks that the liberals hate. They are ready to attack and torture as soon as they get their shot.

but so many people may well have responded to the news of Lay's untimely death by feeling cheated, by saying that death wasn't good enough for him, by sensing a frustrated craving for revenge burning in their backbrains like a fire in a tire dump.

Is it possible that a micron below the surface of our liberal and enlightened beliefs lurks savagery? Was the French Enlightenment wrong about our essential goodness, and were the medieval churchmen right about our innate depravity?

The liberal brain is focused on feeling. It is how things make them feel that counts as morality, and in general, the feeling impulse will take us back to childhood. They didn't like the idea that their parents, schoolteachers, or pastors had "power". Power to make them feel "less than perfect", or to force them to do things that didn't make them feel good. They also noticed that their parents and other in authority "had more". They built up feeling of resentment for people that they saw as "having more". Almost always they see however those people got more as "wrong". In a situation like Ken Lay, they find their feelings to be validated, so they are allowed to express their outrage.

Although liberals try to elevate feelings to the level of the spritual and sublime, feelings tend to be quite primitive. For the author of this piece to use the analogy of "a primitive tribe" to express his desire to torture Ken Lay is a pretty transparent symbol.

Note that the very same person would very likely abhor Abu Grahb, Guantanemo, the death penalty in the US, or any other treatment of other prisoners that they would find to be less than commendable. How can this be? They see Ken Lay (or Bush/Cheney) as "inhuman", but they don't assign that view to terrorists or other criminals. Why? The liberal is God, there is no higher power, and any inkling of someone that really is a "higher power" ... through political position, money, or something else, and isn't in agreement with the liberal is "evil" ... but a criminal or terrorist that isn't directly seen as attacking the liberal is not a threat. They are seen as "lower status", or even "victims" and thus worthy of good treatment, understanding, and compassion.

Liberalism is the essence of humanity. We are naturally liberals. We have to be somehow "saved" ... in some combination of a religous, intellectual, philisophical, or phycological way. Even then, we remain at core liberals and if left to our own devices will return to primitive feelings and rage, just like some "primitive tribe". Intellectual honesty is not a commoodity that is commonly associated with liberals, but cases like this column where the truth boils to the surface and is expressed directly allow us to understand why liberals behave the way they do.

Coleman

MN Senator Norm Coleman stopped by at work today and spoke to a large conference room with 150-200 people, packed to the rafters. Being a high technology company, the audience seemed to be 90%+ supportive. His 15min talk was pretty much centered on innovation, technology, education, and global competitiveness. He took questions for 15min, they were all courteous, and covered the topics of making the tax cuts permanent, intellectual property / China / India, health care, and American's willingness to continue to take risks as in the space program.

The most memorable part of his talk was as he mentioned that as he meets with Mexican leaders they complain about being undercut by China and India, as he meets with Chinese and Indian leaders they complain about being undercut by Vietnam, Brazil, and Russia. The point is that if one wants to race to the bottom as low cost producer for low skill and increasingly medium skill jobs, there are plenty of folks ahead in the race. We don't want to be in the kind of standard of living that the countries in that race are in, so we want to keep racing for the top of the best innovators with the best technology, it is a tough race, but the prizes are worth it.

As he answered the questions, the first thing that struck me was how non-partisan his comments were ... he talked about "working with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle", or "my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are coming to understand this more and more". Yes, it could be taken as "patronizing", but certainly not as the mean and nasty that Republicans are portrayed at in the media or we regularly hear from Democrats.

The second thing is how good a job he did of sticking to the Republican value of taking responsibility and not blaming others. There was no "blame the media" from him, it was "we haven't done a good job of communicating on tax cuts and Medicare part D'. Never mind that the MSM is hammering away every day with every negative to Republican story they can come up with, Coleman understands that complaining about it isn't going to change it, and realizes that no matter how difficult it might be, guys like him have to do the job. Gratifying, one is happy to stand up and applaud that kind of understanding and acceptance of the way things are.

It was a great opportunity to see a US Senator at close range, and he lived up to every expectation. A different and enjoyable way to spend 30min of the work day.

Short History of Bush the Divider

The following quoted from
Frontpage discussion between David Horowitz and Peter Beinhart relative to "soft and hard liberals". The discussion is a nice short synapsis of how difficult it is to support the typical Democrat / MSM synthesis that "Bush is the divider, and Iraq is the dividing point".

In your view, the problem we are discussing is not really a problem created by liberals and leftists. It is – like many other problems as you see them – a dilemma created by George Bush.

You regard Bush as the divider, and the declaration of war in Iraq as the division point. But how much reality is there in this claim? The use of force in Iraq was authorized by both parties and by UN Resolution 1441, which was a war ultimatum. (This is not a conservative view. It was so described by Hans Blix, who of course is a Swedish socialist, in his book Disarming Iraq). 

The ultimatum deadline for Saddam was set for December 7, 2002. Saddam failed to meet the deadline, in fact did not take it seriously (again, this is the judgment of Blix). This was the 17 UN Security Council Resolution he had basically ignored. The United States and Britain felt that 17 was more than enough and to fail to enforce a war ultimatum would have created a very dangerous situation. But three of the veto powers on the Security Council refused to join America and Britain in enforcing the ultimatum they had signed, leaving it to Bush and Blair to go it alone. These are the facts.

The reason there was no Security Council support for enforcing the ultimatum is that France, Russia and China were actually allies of Saddam who had armed him to the teeth and probably helped him to squirrel his WMDs to Syria just before the war broke out.

Nancy Pelosi began the Democratic attacks on this war on April 13, 2003, six weeks after it started, and just four and a half months after the Democrats in Congress had voted overwhelmingly to authorize the use of force against Saddam. By June, the Democratic Party leadership was in full attack mode over the trivial Niger issue, calling the commander-in-chief a liar who had gone to war on false premises. In fact Jimmy Carter and Al Gore had already launched attacks on Bush’s foreign policy that were unprecedented in their harshness in September 2002, even as Bush was attempting to bring Saddam to heel and going to the UN General Assembly for help. So how can Bush be blamed for being the divider and using the war as a wedge issue, when the Democrats who betrayed their own votes to authorize force were clearly the aggressors?

You have invoked Truman, as an exemplar of Cold War liberalism to distinguish him from the conservatism of George Bush. I have already dealt with this in relation to the nuclear threat. But even on the conventional front it is hard to see any difference between the positions of Truman and Bush. Did North Korea’s attack on South Korea pose an “imminent threat” to the United States? Hardly. Did Truman get UN support? Yes. But how was he able to do that? Because Russia had previously walked out of the UN Security Council and was unable to exercise its veto. If Russia had not denied itself the veto, Truman would have been in the same position as Bush was in regard to Iraq following the Security Council war ultimatum. In other words, he would have been faced with the decision to go to war without UN approval or let the North Korean Communist aggressors conquer the South. Is there any doubt in your mind as to what decision Truman would have made?

If Truman had come to the aid of the South Koreans without UN support how many Democrats do you think would have opposed him? We can only speculate on the answer but the fact is that Vito Marcantonio, a Communist fellow-traveler, was the lone vote in Congress against the Korean war. Whereas more than 100 Democrats voted against the use of force to topple Saddam Hussein, not only in 2002, but in 1990 following his invasion of Kuwait. Only six Democrat senators voted to oppose Saddam’s aggression in 1990. One of those was Al Gore who has now joined the anti-war camp. What a different party the Democrats became after 1972. Surely you cannot lay all this at the feet of George Bush.

So, yes, the question before us, as you put it, is flagging Democratic support for the anti-jihadist struggle. You and I both think that there are too few Democrats committed to this cause. But you attribute this to the divisive incompetence of Bush. I don’t, and my critique of your book is that you fail to examine how the Democratic Party went from a Party in which only one of its members voted against the Korean War, to the party of 1980s which in its majority opposed the anti-Communist struggle in Central America, and the party of 1990 which in its majority opposed the anti-Saddam war, and the party of 2006 which is virtually united in its opposition to the war against al-Qaeda and its allies in Iraq.