Thursday, November 11, 2004
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Arafat, the old monster, is dead. He scammed untold millions--if not billions--in aid from the west into private accounts. He kept his wife in a life of Heinz-scale luxury in France while denying his countrymen hospitals, schools, and investment in an economy for the Palestinian demi-state. If his people truly saw what he had done, they would denounce him as one of the greatest demagogues the world has ever known. Statement by the President
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Monday, November 08, 2004
This is my favorite quote by Thomas Jefferson, "That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."Thomas Jefferson Quotes - The Quotations Page
Barbra "Babs" Streisand, on the other hand, likes this one she found and published as part of a rant on her...blog. It is part of a letter Jefferson wrote to John Taylor Philadelphia on June 4, 1798. She conveniently ignores the entire thrust of the letter, which advises Philadelphia to stay the course--continue the struggle for independence from England as a united republic composed of the original 13 colonies. Jefferson writes, "But who can say what would be the evils of a scission, and when & where they would end? Better keep together as we are, hawl off from Europe as soon as we can, & from all attachments to any portions of it. And if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist."
Perhaps all those Hollywood and media types who are screeching about secession from the U.S. can read Jefferson's advice and just--stifle themselves.
Barbra "Babs" Streisand, on the other hand, likes this one she found and published as part of a rant on her...blog. It is part of a letter Jefferson wrote to John Taylor Philadelphia on June 4, 1798. She conveniently ignores the entire thrust of the letter, which advises Philadelphia to stay the course--continue the struggle for independence from England as a united republic composed of the original 13 colonies. Jefferson writes, "But who can say what would be the evils of a scission, and when & where they would end? Better keep together as we are, hawl off from Europe as soon as we can, & from all attachments to any portions of it. And if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist."
Perhaps all those Hollywood and media types who are screeching about secession from the U.S. can read Jefferson's advice and just--stifle themselves.
"Solar sails" have been popular concepts in science fiction for years. Finally, a solar sail experiment is in the works that may lead to the use of the technique in future missions to Mars.
Saturday, November 06, 2004
"Love is stronger than hate", says Michael Barone of U. S. News & World Report. That may very well be the story of the 2004 Presidential election. USNews.com: Republican turnout makes for a 51 percent nation (11/15/04)
The Corner on National Review Online
The Corner opines on watering down good whiskey--it's a good thing, if the water is of quality. The Corner on National Review Online
Friday, November 05, 2004
The final electoral vote count: President Bush, 286; Senator Kerry, 252
Little Green Footballs has more, including the complete county by county map shown below.
Little Green Footballs has more, including the complete county by county map shown below.
Instapundit alerts us that the popular vote tally now exceeds 4 million votes in the President's favor, and that Iowa and New Mexico are officially part of Bush Country. The Electoral College totals are 286 for the President, 253 for Kerry. Yahoo! News - Elections
Thursday, November 04, 2004
THE MESOPOTAMIAN
Salaam, a courageous Iraqi blogger, says, "All those who have been following my blog from the start should know how I feel towards El Bush, the Avenger, the Lion-Heart and I cannot hide my happiness for this outcome, purely from a personal feeling of gratitude for what he has done for us, despite all the pain and hardships that we suffered and still do." THE MESOPOTAMIAN
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Bush Country
USATODAY.com: County map of the vote
Churchill said, speaking to the British on VE Day in May 1945: "We may permit ourselves a brief period of jubilation."
Well done, Mr. President, well done.
USATODAY.com: County map of the vote
Churchill said, speaking to the British on VE Day in May 1945: "We may permit ourselves a brief period of jubilation."
Well done, Mr. President, well done.
Monday, November 01, 2004
The first country that came into crisis with the U.S. speaks out just before the election--and speaks ill of the U.S. Made in China? Not in my house.
Sunday, October 31, 2004
The MEMRI TV project translation of UBL's latest tape threatens individual states with terror attacks if they vote for the President. Yigal Carmon on Osama bin Laden & Election 2004 on National Review Online
This, coupled with the N.Y. Post's publication of additional material not shown on Arab TV that contains more threats, attacks on the President, and complaints about the effectiveness of the coalition's efforts against Al Qaeda, remove any question that UBL wants to affect the U. S. election.
This, coupled with the N.Y. Post's publication of additional material not shown on Arab TV that contains more threats, attacks on the President, and complaints about the effectiveness of the coalition's efforts against Al Qaeda, remove any question that UBL wants to affect the U. S. election.
The Kerry campaign doesn't want you to see the "director's cut" of the UBL tape. New York Post Online Edition: Full Tape an Osama A Woe Show
Saturday, October 30, 2004
After finishing my post on the the war on terror and the election below, along comes Cliff May in National Review Online's The Corner to make some very important points of his own that I agree with. The Corner on National Review Online
JustOneMinute has an excellent recap of NYTrogate here.
After listening to the evolution of NYTrogate all week, including Mr. Kerry's willingness to jump aboard and echo the criticisms that the NYT and CBS have leveled in their coverage, while continuing to hear the Kerry campaign's insistence that UBL was allowed to escape in Tora Bora despite General Franks insistent declaration that UBL wasn't even necessarily there at the time, I'm convinced that Kerry and perhaps Democrats in general don't know or have forgotten what the job of Commander in Chief entails. It's as though Kerry is running to be "Major in Chief", or to channel LBJ's failed Napoleonic attempts to run the Vietnam war from his sandbox in the White House.
I believe that the President has won the hearts of our soldiers precisely because he does not second guess tactical decisions in the theater of operations, and supports those who've made them. The administration has undertaken investigations into mistakes in handling prisoners and Halliburton, and those responsible have been held to account. While war is the ultimate political act, it is never a winning strategy to politicize the acts of the soldiers on the ground. It has been said, and rightly so, that all of the second guessing that has taken place about Iraq and Afghanistan would have rendered us powerless had the same press and pundit "coverage" happened during WWII. Terrible "mistakes" were made, at the cost of many more dead and injured than we have suffered in Iraq. Those mistakes could not have been avoided by more oversight by a man whose combat experience was as a Lt. (Jg.) aboard a river boat full of enlisted men and probably at least one petty officer more experienced than the Lieutenant who kept him from his most egregious mistakes--leaving aside the charges made by the Swift Boat Vets.
Mr. Kerry and his followers in and out of the MSM refuse to acknowledge any of the good that is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, even when it is easily found in the pages of, say, the Wall Street Journal, the blogs of Iraqis who are living their country's transformation or here. They somehow believe that they can overcome the lack of trust that most Americans have for Mr. Kerry's pacifist vacillations by alternately talking tough and criticizing decisions that are far below the Presidential or Cabinet levels. Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld have spoken their discovery of the atrophy of operational practice and protocols in the Defense Department upon their arrival in 2001. Secretary Rumsfeld has embarked upon a transformation effort that is designed to recast our forces, moving the active duty head count around so that more troops--more fighting troops, not REMFs--would be available for deployment, and so that their skills would better match the mission requirements at different stages of a conflict. Mr. Kerry does not speak to this with his Lt. (Jg.) credentials. Instead, he promises 40,000 more troops, and a doubling of our Special Forces. The former may or may not be the right thing to do, but it does not address the problem that the Secretary describes and that we see on TV daily: we are in a civil affairs/government infrastructure rebuilding and pacification/reconstruction effort in much of the country while at the same time using traditional forces to defeat the insurgency in a small region around Fallujah. A new group of 40,000 troops would relieve the latter, perhaps, but not the former. As for the doubling of Special Forces, the former SEAL at Froggy Ruminations has written knowledgeably and eloquently about how difficult that can be. These are special people; of all applicants for SEAL slots, typically only 3% succeed in graduating and joining that most elite of Special Forces. The other Special Forces groups are equally challenging in their mental and physical tests, and selective. It might require 600,000 male applicants over the course of a decade to raise the total number of Special Forces war fighters to 40,000 from ~20,000 today--assuming that we can retain most of the forces that we have now.
If the War on Terror and Iraq are the most important issues in this election as the polls say, then voters have but one choice to make. They must re-elect the President. Mr. Kerry has shown nothing in his record and nothing in his pronouncements in his campaign that establishes that he is in fact competent to lead without attempting to micro-manage the military as well as vacillating in his decisions. A Senator can afford to be deliberative and blow with the wind; his is but one voice and one vote among one hundred. A Mayor of a large city or a Governor must make decisions that affect thousands by his hand alone, and must hire, manage and lead a staff across a broad expanse of disciplines and crises. A sitting President has seen a far broader set of challenges than any Governor ever has. I believe that neither political party can afford to nominate candidates with such a breathtaking lack of operational experience and management ability in the future. More than any of Mr. Kerry's failings, I believe that those skills are his greatest weaknesses. The country cannot afford to attempt to train Mr. Kerry; to convert him from a man for all sides of an issue to a man driven to succeed in an approach he communicates in the same way every day. After 9/11, the world is once again a very dangerous place. UBL's appearance on video this week shows that he believes that Mr. Kerry may just be the man to give Al Qaeda the break it wants to regroup and reform. Mr. Bush will continue to press forward, relentlessly, implacably, just as those brave souls who endured hardships in the founding of our nation, throughout its many trials in war and peace. Mr. Bush is a real American, not a polished patrician. He is just what we need our President to be, right now.
After listening to the evolution of NYTrogate all week, including Mr. Kerry's willingness to jump aboard and echo the criticisms that the NYT and CBS have leveled in their coverage, while continuing to hear the Kerry campaign's insistence that UBL was allowed to escape in Tora Bora despite General Franks insistent declaration that UBL wasn't even necessarily there at the time, I'm convinced that Kerry and perhaps Democrats in general don't know or have forgotten what the job of Commander in Chief entails. It's as though Kerry is running to be "Major in Chief", or to channel LBJ's failed Napoleonic attempts to run the Vietnam war from his sandbox in the White House.
I believe that the President has won the hearts of our soldiers precisely because he does not second guess tactical decisions in the theater of operations, and supports those who've made them. The administration has undertaken investigations into mistakes in handling prisoners and Halliburton, and those responsible have been held to account. While war is the ultimate political act, it is never a winning strategy to politicize the acts of the soldiers on the ground. It has been said, and rightly so, that all of the second guessing that has taken place about Iraq and Afghanistan would have rendered us powerless had the same press and pundit "coverage" happened during WWII. Terrible "mistakes" were made, at the cost of many more dead and injured than we have suffered in Iraq. Those mistakes could not have been avoided by more oversight by a man whose combat experience was as a Lt. (Jg.) aboard a river boat full of enlisted men and probably at least one petty officer more experienced than the Lieutenant who kept him from his most egregious mistakes--leaving aside the charges made by the Swift Boat Vets.
Mr. Kerry and his followers in and out of the MSM refuse to acknowledge any of the good that is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, even when it is easily found in the pages of, say, the Wall Street Journal, the blogs of Iraqis who are living their country's transformation or here. They somehow believe that they can overcome the lack of trust that most Americans have for Mr. Kerry's pacifist vacillations by alternately talking tough and criticizing decisions that are far below the Presidential or Cabinet levels. Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld have spoken their discovery of the atrophy of operational practice and protocols in the Defense Department upon their arrival in 2001. Secretary Rumsfeld has embarked upon a transformation effort that is designed to recast our forces, moving the active duty head count around so that more troops--more fighting troops, not REMFs--would be available for deployment, and so that their skills would better match the mission requirements at different stages of a conflict. Mr. Kerry does not speak to this with his Lt. (Jg.) credentials. Instead, he promises 40,000 more troops, and a doubling of our Special Forces. The former may or may not be the right thing to do, but it does not address the problem that the Secretary describes and that we see on TV daily: we are in a civil affairs/government infrastructure rebuilding and pacification/reconstruction effort in much of the country while at the same time using traditional forces to defeat the insurgency in a small region around Fallujah. A new group of 40,000 troops would relieve the latter, perhaps, but not the former. As for the doubling of Special Forces, the former SEAL at Froggy Ruminations has written knowledgeably and eloquently about how difficult that can be. These are special people; of all applicants for SEAL slots, typically only 3% succeed in graduating and joining that most elite of Special Forces. The other Special Forces groups are equally challenging in their mental and physical tests, and selective. It might require 600,000 male applicants over the course of a decade to raise the total number of Special Forces war fighters to 40,000 from ~20,000 today--assuming that we can retain most of the forces that we have now.
If the War on Terror and Iraq are the most important issues in this election as the polls say, then voters have but one choice to make. They must re-elect the President. Mr. Kerry has shown nothing in his record and nothing in his pronouncements in his campaign that establishes that he is in fact competent to lead without attempting to micro-manage the military as well as vacillating in his decisions. A Senator can afford to be deliberative and blow with the wind; his is but one voice and one vote among one hundred. A Mayor of a large city or a Governor must make decisions that affect thousands by his hand alone, and must hire, manage and lead a staff across a broad expanse of disciplines and crises. A sitting President has seen a far broader set of challenges than any Governor ever has. I believe that neither political party can afford to nominate candidates with such a breathtaking lack of operational experience and management ability in the future. More than any of Mr. Kerry's failings, I believe that those skills are his greatest weaknesses. The country cannot afford to attempt to train Mr. Kerry; to convert him from a man for all sides of an issue to a man driven to succeed in an approach he communicates in the same way every day. After 9/11, the world is once again a very dangerous place. UBL's appearance on video this week shows that he believes that Mr. Kerry may just be the man to give Al Qaeda the break it wants to regroup and reform. Mr. Bush will continue to press forward, relentlessly, implacably, just as those brave souls who endured hardships in the founding of our nation, throughout its many trials in war and peace. Mr. Bush is a real American, not a polished patrician. He is just what we need our President to be, right now.
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