Wednesday, November 15. 2006
 I have supported Mr. Rumsfeld a long time, and never saw a clear summary of the other side of the story. General Zais' story below resonates with me from my Vietnam experience as a minor player under a really incapable SECDEF, Rob't "Yo-Yo" MacNamara. Zais says its the Pentagon civilians who want the expensive techno-toys, but I'd say "No way!" It's the Air Force and Navy brass who have nothing better to do than push civilian appointees around - remember Jack Nicholson's line in "A Few Good Men"? "I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said, "Thank you," and went on your way.
This gets said to every civilian greenie in the Pentagon. I remember when Dave Packard became Assistant SecDef, and a General said he felt reluctant to bully a guy with (at that time) $400 million, as though not bullying was something remarkable. After reading this, I think a lot of things are clearer, even if it is an advocacy piece; at worst, it deserves a cogent rebuttal, but I don't somehow expect I'll see one........... US Strategy in Iraq Mitchell Zais, Ph.D. BGEN, USA (Ret.)
Honors Convocation Newberry College 9 November 2006 Many of our faculty and staff have asked me my views about the current situation in Iraq. A few students have also asked. So I thought I would take this opportunity, two days before Veterans' Day, to provide you with some insights as seen from the perspective of a combat veteran who served as the Commanding General of US and allied forces in Kuwait. I also served as Chief of War Plans in the Pentagon and have spent considerable time studying national security affairs, including a fellowship at the National Defense University. So while it's true that everyone has opinions about Iraq, I would argue that not all of those opinions are equally well-informed. This talk will address our strategy in Iraq. I won't talk about what the next steps should be, what the long-term prospects for peace in Iraq are, or how we can best get out of the quagmire we are in. Those might be other talks. For today I'm going to focus on strategy Let me begin by saying that most of our problems in Iraq stem from a flawed strategy that has been in place since the beginning of the war. It's important that you understand what strategy is. In military terminology there is a distinction between strategy, operations, tactics, and techniques. Strategy pertains to national decision-making at the highest level. For example, our strategy in World War II was to mobilize the nation, then defeat the Nazi regime while conducting a holding action in the Pacific, then shift our forces to destroy the Japanese Empire. Afterwards, our strategy was to rebuild both defeated nations into capitalistic democracies in order to make them future allies. An example of an operational decision from World War II would be the decision to invade North Africa and then Italy and Southern France before moving directly for the heart of Germany by coming ashore in Northern France or Belgium. Tactics characterize a scheme of maneuver that integrates the different capabilities of, for example, infantry, armor, and artillery. A technique might describe a way of employing machine guns with overlapping fields of fire or of setting up a roadblock. Our strategy in Iraq has been: - fight the war on the cheap;
- ask the ground forces to perform missions that are more suitably performed by other branches of the American government;
- inconvenience the American people as little as possible, and
- continue to fund the Air Force and Navy at the same levels that they have been funded at for the last 30 years while shortchanging the Army and Marines who are doing all of the fighting.
No wonder the war is not going well. Let me explain how the war is being fought on the cheap.
Continue reading "A business-as-usual war strategy?"
Is there really much distance between a Nanny State and Big Brother? I never thought there was. Brit govt to monitor nursery rhyme use in families, via a "parenting workforce." That is, parenting police. Unbelievable. (h/t, Wizbang) You don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall explains how to get rich in politics, at Jim Miller
Tuesday, November 14. 2006
A few Steyn quotes from Interview #3 by Hawkins: On statism: ...this idea that it's normal for the state to be as big as it is in advanced social democratic societies is something that would have seemed incredible to anyone a hundred years ago. I mean, I remember being struck by - on September 11th - and I was writing a column a couple of days afterwards and, you know, we're all done with our initial reaction, so you're trying to think a couple of days ahead and find a new angle on it, and I happen to just notice that it was more or less (a hundred years after the) assassination of President McKinley. I was thinking, well, maybe I could tie these two things together, these two big traumatizing events and, you know, bookending the century, whatever - you know, just peck, peck, peck - we journalists always are going to peck.
So I sort of rummaged around the clippings of President McKinley's assassination and realized that while people were upset about it, they essentially regarded it as the removal of a remote figure who played a peripheral part in their lives. To that point for most people in most parts of the U.S. the federal government did not impinge on their life in any way.
On immigration: That's the beginning and end of it - and so, in effect, I would say again, to make a point that I make in the book, immigration has its merits. I live in northern New Hampshire and I would certainly value it if there were a kind of a better of a range of Thai restaurants in this part of the world. So if I know a restaurateur in Thailand and I say, "Hey, there's an empty building on Main Street. You could come run a great Thai restaurant there," I mean, that's fine and dandy - but when you become dependent on immigration as Europe is and Canada is, then that's a sign of structural weakness.
On Islam in Europe: If Islam is incompatible with democracy, that's not a problem for Iraq, it's a problem for Belgium, you know, because Iraq until, you know, a few months back had no democracy to lose. They can easily adjust to the way it's always been.
For Belgium or for Denmark or for the Netherlands, they've got real democracies and they are likely to lose and as you see, I think that is really the issue here, that when these contradictions are pointed out, Europeans essentially refuse to acknowledge them. Yet at the same time they're making capitulations to the most naked form of political bullying --and that's when Islam is officially a minority of, you know, 10% or so. In those cities it's a lot higher already. What happens when it's 30%? I mean, this is a question they never, ever ask themselves and you're right, they do take a dim view. I think at some level there's something else going on there, too, that a lot of these countries, you know, -- we talk about the Middle East, democratize the Middle East - we forget Spain was a dictatorship 30 years ago, Portugal, a little over 30 years ago, Greece, same 30 years ago.
Italy and Germany and France, you've got to go back half a century, but in essence the idea of living under non-democratic regimes is not foreign to these people and I think they think of themselves, their identities less as Europeans are less bound up with ideas of liberty than it is for the U.S. You know, the U.S. is an ideological project in a way that Italy isn't and so I do think that also accounts for part of the way they look at it.
The whole interview is here.
Monday, November 13. 2006
 As one of those employers who supposedly wants illegals for cheap labor, forget it.
I like legal immigration, but I believe that it is up to the people of the country to decide who comes in, and how they enter, and why. A nation without a boundary is not a nation. That does not make me a "racist," although I do tend to believe that folks with northern European backgrounds seem to understand American ways, traditions, social habits and values most readily and adapt most easily. But everyone knows that. But let me ask our readers a simple question: Would you enter a country illegally? And if not, why not? Illegals are simply taking advantage of us (which probably means they are that sort of people), and of our our soft-heartedness. It's as simple as that. But no good deed goes unpunished. Here's what happens when you decide to base your new life on breaking the law (data from PoliPundit): CRIME STATISTICS
95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens. 83% of warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens. 86% of warrants for murder in Albuquerque are for illegal aliens. 75% of those on the most wanted list in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Albuquerque are illegal aliens. 24.9% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally 40.1% of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally 48.2% of all inmates in New Mexico detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally 29% (630,000) convicted illegal alien felons fill our state and federal prisons at a cost of $1.6 billion annually 53% plus of all investigated burglaries reported in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas are perpetrated by illegal aliens. 50% plus of all gang members in Los Angeles are illegal aliens from south of the border. 71% plus of all apprehended cars stolen in 2005 in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California were stolen by Illegal aliens or “transport coyotes". 47% of cited/stopped drivers in California have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 47%, 92% are illegal aliens. 63% of cited/stopped drivers in Arizona have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 63%, 97% are illegal aliens 66% of cited/stopped drivers in New Mexico have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 66% 98% are illegal aliens. BIRTH STATISTICS
380,000 plus “anchor babies” were born in the U.S. in 2005 to illegal alien parents, making 380,000 babies automatically U.S.citizens. 97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the American taxpayers. 66% plus of all births in California are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
Saturday, November 11. 2006
 Re this little Pledge of Allegiance story in California, I think it's a tempest in a teapot.
Why? Because these are kids. Like many (non-Asian) kids, they try to find their own way to stand out and be noticed, and being a young rebel is one way. (Of course, being good at something, achieving something, and getting decent grades in challenging courses, might be a bit more mature.) On the other hand, getting your name in the paper about the Pledge could be the best way for an otherwise-undistinguished white boy with average grades to get into the University of Michigan Law School. In my experience, campus radicals are the guys who secretly, or even unwittingly, wish they could have been on a team - preferably the ultra-hip Lacrosse team. Name me one guy who didn't want to be on the Lacrosse team. Or at least the football... or any sports team. I know - I wasn't. The "radical" girls were just dogs with an attitude, as I recall. Hated their mothers, or something like that. Nice. Wonder what they are doing today? Probably on play dates with other moms, or, at worse, valiant single mothers by guys who just wanted to get laid... or maybe working at Vogue. But there was a basic lesson for guys: don't get involved with gals who hate their mothers, because they will hate you, too, in time. There was a line somewhere in The Strawberry Statement where someone - maybe the author James Kunin - confessed that he was attracted to radicalism to get dates, which he had trouble getting. That "statement" stood out as one truly human and humane statement in that book about that silly period. Kunin was nobody's fool and. like most Lefties, a closet capitalist - he sold a ton of books, and got a movie deal. The Che t-shirts? Means no more than James Dean t-shirts used to mean. Which is: "I wish I were a tough SOB with an edgy, pointless mission in life instead of Mom and Dad's pampered college student with a BMW and a C+ in Rocks for Jocks, in comfy, decadent, free America." Someday, these kids' kids will look at these old photos say laugh and say "Dad - I can't believe that was you!" For some kids, being obnoxiously irreverent is good sport, and can turn a nobody into a somebody. It's tough, as a young person, to accept that we are all nobodys. Does irreverence towards the things that I hold most dear piss me off? Of course. But I knew such kids in college: it is designed to have that effect. Let's not react like Moslems to foolish kids, or like our parents - or grandparents - did to the great Elvis! Or, God forbid, the Beatles. "Turn that crap down!" The thing that cracks me up most about such stories is when the grown-ups admire them. That is a sure sign of arrested development, but many college faculty never fully grow up, due to insulation from hard knocks and ordinary reality in the ivory towers. Not that I do not, in some ways, envy those who can devote their life to the world of ideas... Nice gig, but too political for me.
Several others have noted this prime example of BDS. Quite remarkable the way he is able to explain away the fact that Bush did not institute martial law after the last election. From Ted Rall (I could have written this as satire): A year of crisis commences. As ugly secrets surface, Bushists will turn desperate. Democracy has failed their grand schemes; token resignations like Rumsfeld's come too little, too late. Only tyranny can save their skins. Will the beleaguered neocons led by Cheney and Bush, cornered like rats, unleash their brand-new police state on their political opponents? Or will they tough it out and suck up the fines and prison sentences to come? The next year or two could go either way. The nightmare is not over.
The nightmare in this guy's brain isn't over, and will not be until he renews his Haldol prescription. Paranoia seems to bring meaning to his life, don't ya think? He just won't let it go. And do you think that, just maybe, he hopes something unimaginable would happen?
Friday, November 10. 2006
Thursday, November 9. 2006
Many have already read Dick Armey's End of the Revolution at Opinion Journal, but, if not, it's recommended. I do not know whether Dick, or our Barrister (below) are correct, but it's all good food for thought. A quote from Dick Armey's critique of Repub performance: I've always wondered why Republicans insist on acting like Democrats in hopes of retaining political power, while Democrats act like us in order to win. I've also wondered why Republicans let their fears and insecurities get in the way of important reforms. They missed the opportunity of a lifetime by failing to embrace retirement security based on personal ownership. Instead, from both parties we heard about "saving Social Security"--to the extent we heard anything at all. Republicans should be for reforms that free individuals and their families from failed government programs. We should not be for "saving" failed government programs. When we took on welfare reform in 1995, we knew we were taking on a Goliath. Once we threw the first rock, we knew we had to finish the job. Otherwise, the worst claims of our opponents would have stuck with us in future elections. With legislative success, the horrible accusations of our opponents were replaced with reduced welfare roles, and the individual dignity and self-sufficiency that naturally followed.
Welcome, RWNH readers. Check out our blog, while you're here. You might like it, and the price is right. The loudest voices in political parties tend to be the ideologues, and ideologues always want ideological purity. Ideologies become almost like religions to some people but, like religions, most of them are wrong. (I write this as an old-fashioned Yankee conservative ideologue, for whom freedom from government intrusion, control, taxation, and annoyance is a primary consideration. And defence, of course, for national elections.) But American political parties are not liberal vs. conservative,and definitely not Left vs. Right - whatever "right" means. Both parties, most of the time, are pragmatic in governance, with a few sexy issues thrown in as red meat to their ideological base. (The news rarely reports the 99% of non-controversial governance that goes on in the executive offices of administrations, from the local to the federal.) Purity is not a good thing: internal debate is much more wholesome and American - unless politics is a religion to you. Mutts are always healthier than pure breeds. When you think about it, how do party affiliations begin? They are either inherited via argument or habit, or someone who wants to get into the game tends to join the party that has the most power where they live. I repeat: the Republican Party is not a Conservative Party, nor is the Democratic Party a Liberal or Socialist Party, in essence. Nor should they be, but the ideologues always want them to be. That is natural. What parties are, in essence, are fund-raising financial organizations designed to elect people who join their club, and to provide and support debate and opposition. Like baseball teams. That is why I was offended when a conservative Repub challenged liberal Republican Chaffee in RI, and I have no doubt that the damage from the primary is why Chaffee lost reelection: the controversy interfered with his quietly winning as people named Chaffee tend to do in RI, like people named Kennedy in MA. And this is why I was offended by Lamont's primary challenge to Lieberman. Both of those challenges were done on the grounds of ideological purity, as if motivated by Stalinist party-line doctrine. That is silly, and self-destructive: it's a big country, with many points of view on things (and anyone who disagrees with me is, of course, also Wrong Wrong Wrong). America is a majority conservative, tradition-respecting country, but above all, it is a pragmatic country. DeToqueville figured out, a long time ago, that pragmatism was a big part of our genius as a nation. While we tend to think that the two parties do tend "conservative" and "liberal," in fact there is plenty of overlap. For one example, the federal budget grew faster during Bush's time than it did during Clinton. So who is fiscally conservative, really? And who is the big spender? (Yes, I know about the war, but that is just part of the spending of our money. And yes, I know, Clinton was restrained by Repubs - but Repubs cannot restrain themselves!) Why was that? Bush was trying to be a pragmatist, not a conservative. Same as his dad, same as B. Clinton, same as Nixon, same as John F. Kennedy, same as Truman, same as Eisenhower. FDR, I believe, was a pragmatist who was captured by ideologues. Our (and my) conservative hero, Reagan, was a great teacher, but he was not even able, in eight years, to get a majority to close the highly annoying and intrusive federal Department of Education. His most important domestic accomplishment was to add some good folks to the Supreme Court - and the same goes for Bush. My point is highlighted by the number of conservative Democrats who have been elected this go-round, including, late last night (giving the Dems a Senate majority), the seemingly excellent candidate Jim Webb of Virginia. Good for them. It's healthy - and sane, because you could not build a national party with 100 Ted Kennedys or with 100 Tom Tancredos (although I do like Tom very much). So although it makes it convenient for the MSM and blog ranters to ideologically divide the parties, and then demonize the image of the party they dislike, and to idealize the image of the one they like, usually the reality is not exactly like that. What I want to see are most conservative Dems from the South and the West, and more liberal Repubs from the Northeast and California. Rahm Emanuel learned this from Clinton - or vice versa. Yes, it makes things more complicated but, heck, it the whole system was designed to be complicated, on purpose. Is this really about the election? Not really, I guess. Mid-terms are usually rough on incumbent parties, and this was no different - except that the margin had grown so thin since the 1994 Gingrich Revolution that it tipped the balance. But conservatives always have a tough challenge: their goal is to devolve power back to the people and to localities - which means undoing more than doing. A tough row to hoe, always. Even for Reagan. Like Christians in the Coloseum, conservatives shine most brightly in adversity, and in opposition. Cheerful warriors!
Wednesday, November 8. 2006
 From a piece on paleoclimatology in the New York Times (h/t, Owner's Manual):
Skeptics say CO2 crusaders simply find the Phanerozoic data embarrassing and irreconcilable with public alarms. “People come to me and say, ‘Stop talking like this, you’re hurting the cause,’ ” said Dr. Giegengack of Penn.
Read the whole piece. Classic case of abusing science for a political agenda. The scientific debate hasn't ended: it has just begun. Image: a spectroheliogram image of good old Mr. Sun
Long-time readers of Maggie's know that I am an evil Dem, but not an ideological Dem. My advice to my Repub friends after this lousy day at the polls: 1. Dump your baggage of sleazebags. 2. Find some decent leadership who can communicate: Frist was worthless, as was Hastert. 3. Make a stand on illegal immigration, or Hillary will do it for you 4. Show some interest in regular people - how they live and what they worry about. Don't offer them freebies - offer them cheer, interest and inspiration. 5. Iraq may or may not be a good thing - but it's not the only thing going on. 6. Listen to Mike Pence, below (h/t, NRO): Election day 2006 will be remembered as a turning point in American political history. Twenty-five years after the Reagan Administration came to Washington with a conservative agenda of limited government, the American people chose a different course.
It is the duty of the losing party in a free election to humbly accept defeat and to acknowledge that the people are sovereign in the People's House.
As we examine the results of this election, it is imperative that we listen to the American people and learn the right lessons.
Some will argue that we lost our majority because of scandals at home and challenges abroad. I say, we did not just lose our majority, we lost our way.
While the scandals of the 109th Congress harmed our cause, the greatest scandal in Washington, D.C. is runaway federal spending.
After 1994, we were a majority committed to balanced federal budgets, entitlement reform and advancing the principles of limited government. In recent years, our majority voted to expand the federal government's role in education, entitlements and pursued spending policies that created record deficits and national debt.
This was not in the Contract with America and Republican voters said, "enough is enough." Our opponents will say that the American people rejected our Republican vision. I say the American people didn't quit on the Contract with America, we did. And in so doing, we severed the bonds of trust between our party and millions of our most ardent supporters.
As the 110th Congress convenes next year, Republicans must cordially accept defeat and dedicate ourselves to advancing our cause as the loyal opposition knowing that the only way to retake our natural, governing majority, is to renew our commitment to limited government, national defense, traditional values and reform.
Tuesday, November 7. 2006
 We are not going to even try to keep up: it's not our mission. Ice a few or more brews, ring up Domino's, and go over to Pajamas.
All we know is that if you won, it's certainly because you ran a sleazy, dishonest campaign. (Same thing holds if you lost.) Image: Too funny. Harold Ford appeared today with a camo baseball cap, just to let you know his polls are not looking good. h/t, Michelle. I'm sure he's not a bad guy, but he's never had a job and couldn't pass the bar exam. Is it true that his family builds cars?
Monday, November 6. 2006
 Karl Rove admitted to a reporter last night, after a lengthy series of tequila shots in a bar known to be frequented by political insider and evangelical Christian transvestites in Georgetown, that "We never expected the Dems to anticipate our game plan."
In a moment of uncharacteristic candor, the genius went on to say that "I have the Diebold master key code in my briefcase, and I can get any result I want, just through my laptop - even without our usual black voter intimidation program and our magic chad trick." "The only risk was that we overplay our hand with the computer voting," he bragged. "but now that the Dems are on to us, we may need to go to Plan B - martial law." News reports from Pierre indicate that Dick Cheney has already retired to what is rumored to be his CIA-constructed "duck blind" command center in South Dakota, ready to put Plan B into effect at a moment's notice. Before removing his wig and scarf to make a quiet, if stumbling, exit, Rove added "Don't try to come up here after the election with no ACLU lawyers - Cheney fired his warning shot last fall, so now everyone knows what he is capable of."
From Dr. Tawfik Hamid (via piece at Singleton): .... "We're not talking about a fringe cult here," he tells me. "Salafist [fundamentalist] Islam is the dominant version of the religion and is taught in almost every Islamic university in the world. It is puritanical, extreme and does, yes, mean that women can be beaten, apostates killed and Jews called pigs and monkeys.".... But I can tell you what it is not about. Not about Israel, not about Iraq, not about Afghanistan. They are mere excuses. Algerian Muslim fundamentalists murdered 150,000 other Algerian Muslims, sometimes slitting the throats of children in front of their parents. Are you seriously telling me that this was because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians or American foreign policy?"
He's exasperated now, visibly angry at what he sees as a willful Western foolishness. "Stop asking what you have done wrong. Stop it! They're slaughtering you like sheep and you still look within. You criticize your history, your institutions, your churches. Why can't you realize that it has nothing to do with what you have done but with what they want."
 At Maggie's Farm, we are always skeptical when people try to politicize science, whether the subject is stem cells or climate. Rush Limbaugh always says "Follow the money," but here our rule of thumb is "Follow the power." Since politics tends to be more about power than about truth, I believe that we are wise to be skeptics.
Monckton has a series in the Telegraph: Climate Chaos? Don't believe it, which I highly recommend. If I could remember who linked it, I'd give them credit. Quotes: This week, I'll show how the UN undervalued the sun's effects on historical and contemporary climate, slashed the natural greenhouse effect, overstated the past century's temperature increase, repealed a fundamental law of physics and tripled the man-made greenhouse effect. Next week, I'll demonstrate the atrocious economic, political and environmental cost of the high-tax, zero-freedom, bureaucratic centralism implicit in Stern's report; I'll compare the global-warming scare with previous sci-fi alarums; and I'll show how the environmentalists' "precautionary principle" (get the state to interfere now, just in case) is killing people.
Is Mr. Stern a fearmonger? You bet. TCS. Do human activities effect climate? Sure - they have for 10,000 years, at the margins. But we just have to cope with change. Change is always with us, and we humans are clever sorts. Image: Work garb in the year 2050, as predicted by global warming fearmongers. Image scientifically demonstrates that the crisis of global warming will result in women going around in scanty clothing. The so-called experts never calculate in just how much money we will all save on winter coats and long johns - and winter heating. Plus the ladies can give their seal coats back to the baby seals.
Sunday, November 5. 2006
 Attended a talk by a preacher on that subject on Friday morning. I don't know the answer to the question, nor do I know the answer to the larger question: "Does God want us to be happy?" Or to the sillier question: "Does God want us to have fun?"
However, I suspect larger, deeper issues than these preoccupy God, and that "life in abundance" does not mean owning five expensive cars, or a 10,000 square foot house, or having a million sycophant friends, or a gun room full of Purdys and Perazzis - however pleasing and desirable those things may be. Speaking as just one regular guy, who is wealthy by world standards but well below average by my local neighborhood standards, it has always seemed that God is more interested in humbling me, and teaching me gratitude, and seeking my devotion, than in raising me up by worldly measures. But what I want to post is a quote from Nelson Mandela, with good comments following from Worstall, which which I agree: "Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is people who have made poverty and tolerated poverty, and it is people who will overcome it." If you start out with such a misdiagnosis you'll never be able to offer the right treatment.
Poverty is, how ever much we wish it wasn't, the natural state of mankind. It is the starting point, not something that is created at all, it's something that is there before we start to try and do anything.
The thing that is created is wealth, not poverty. What we need to study is not how poverty is created, for that is what is there already, but how wealth is created, which is the different and interesting thing.
Saturday, November 4. 2006
 The Dem strategy for these midterm elections has involved a very clever sleight of hand, and it's all about Obama and Foley.
What they did was to say "Look at Obama and Foley, don't look at us." Reid, Pelosi, Kennedy, Dean, Gore, etc. all went into hiding (Kerry's gaffe blew that scheme, and Dean has trouble keeping his mouth shut), and the MSM cooperated mightily to distract the country with the fresh face of the likeable but thus far unaccomplished Obama - a guy with no track record who goes to church, and with the now-unlikeable mug of sleazeball Mark Foley. This is indeed a strategy of distraction: distraction from the people who may be in charge of the House, and from their unspoken (and unspeakable) goals. Above all, remember: It's NOT THE ECONOMY, STUPID. And just one additional question: How come the Dems can call Michael Steele a "Republican lawn jockey" but you cannot call Obama a "Dem plantation slave"? The real secret is that the Dems only love blacks and gays and women, etc. as long as they stand with their wealthy and privileged Dem masters. When they think for themselves, and stray from the Plantation, they are tracked down by the Party Hounds, and find themselves targets of hate, and in big trouble. It is a filthy business.
Friday, November 3. 2006
 The crisis of depleted fish stocks in the north Atlantic has been slowly evolving for 100 years. The vast schools of "groundfish" - cod, hake, and haddock -are gone; the redfish are gone; the swordfish and big bluefin tuna are in a fight for survival.
The tale of woe is highlighted this week by a piece via the AP here, and another at the WaPo here. It's the tragedy of the commons. And these commons" aren't really all that large. Most of the Atlantic is very thin in fish. They congregate, during their migrations, on the banks, like George's Bank, Stellwagen, and the Grand Banks, where their food is plentiful.  Government made it worse; federal subsidies for giant trawlers made it possible for fishermen to eradicate entire populations. And the significant commercial fishing lobby in Maine and Massachusetts - with their senatorial allies in John Kerry and Olympia Snow - adopted a "get it while you can" approach, and local politicians take the bait.
 Trawlers not only scoop up entire schools, they also degrade the ocean bottom, and catch the bait fish which end up dead in the nets and thrown overboard - along with the dead undersized cod, haddock, and flounder.
The Bush administration, interestingly, has made some real progress towards unwinding some of the anti-conservation regulations in the Atlantic fisheries, but New England politics remains a factor: commercial fishing is "a way of life," despite the fact that it is now dominated by what you might call "Big Fishing." Bush has been a staunch conservationist about fishing in general, also here, most recently. This summer, he signed a bill creating the world's largest marine preserve. I always have hoped that fish farming would ge a good solution. It's been successful in some ways in some areas - salmon, for instance, oysters and mussels. But problems with disease transmission sunk the cod farming attempts in Canada. It may be far too late to rebuild the Atlantic fishing stocks. There is a tipping point at which restoration cannot occur. And it is a damn shame, because for us at Maggie's Farm, we care not only on conservation and stewardship grounds - we love to eat fish, and we love to go fishin'. We gain hope from the story of the Striped Bass, which is having a real resurgence since commercial fishing for them has been controlled. I just finished a book, The Doryman's Reflection: A Fisherman's Life, by Paul Molyneaux. It's not a great book, but it gives a good flavor of what is going on from a guy who has seen the transition from the old to the new ways of fishing, and who understands the regulations, and the science too. The concern about our fish is not wacky greenie hysteria, it's not crying wolf. It is as real as what happened to the Passenger Pigeon and the Buffalo. There is a role for government here (is that not shocking to hear from us libertarian-minded folks?), and it shouldn't cost the taxpayer a penny. But, if done right, it will hurt the brave fishermen who daily risk their lives in the rugged and most dangerous occupation in the US. Sad, but necessary: these are not guys who could switch to an office job. The industry has succeeded beyond its ability to sustain itself.
Thursday, November 2. 2006
 From Orson Card - a quote from an emotional and heart-felt piece:
To all intents and purposes, when the Democratic Party jettisoned Joseph Lieberman over the issue of his support of this war, they kicked me out as well. The party of Harry Truman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- the party I joined back in the 1970s -- is dead. Of suicide.
Read the whole thing. Our Yankee blog supports Joe. Like the hedgehog, he knows about one big thing (and is wrong about the rest).
Wednesday, November 1. 2006
Welcome to the Farm, all of you friendly visitors from RWNH. Check out ye olde blogge, and visit us again - we are unpredictable, and pretty good.  Everybody else is commenting on Kerry, and our editor wanted something from me, since he is my Senator (although I have never voted for him).
Let me begin by saying that I do not think that Kerry misspoke. I believe he said what he meant, regardless of whether it is what he was scripted to say. Why do I think that? Because what he said is classic, typical Eastern lefty condescending elitist talk: I hear this kind of thing at every Cambridge cocktail party. It is completely normal talk in the Kerry's circles. And because he is still stuck in 1968. But, just for the heck of it, let's be generous and give him the benefit of the doubt, and imagine that he made a non-Freudian slip of the tongue. Say he made a little mistake of wording, but that can be a big mistake for politicians: they are not supposed to ever say what they really think. And when they make a mistake, regardless of how it occurred, the right thing to do is to say that you goofed. Everybody makes mistakes in life - mistakes of judgement, impulsivity, recklessness, fecklessness, foolishness, nervousness, over-emotionality, or sheer cussedness. But mistakes stick to a person when: 1. they crystallize something already felt about the person (eg Dukakis and the tank helmet, or Dean's scream). 2. the mistakes are so repetitive that it is clear that they are not anomalous, but personal characteristics (eg Clinton and Monica, or Mark Foley - remember him?). 3. they are mishandled in such a way as to make a smaller goof into a big mistake (eg Clinton and Monica). We recommend self-deprecating humor as the best way to go. 4. it's a key moment, like an election, (or in romance) when every little thing is scrutinized. (eg in a passionate moment with Bill, sighing "Oh, Carl, you're so...manly.") Kerry's little slip had the misfortune of embodying all of the above. Image above: Kerry at Yale, where his grades were worse than George Bush's. Believe me - neither of them could get into Yale today. 
Image: from AOL news. (Editor's note: Dr. B emailed me this incomplete draft to look over, but I figured we'd post it due to timeliness. She can complete it at her leisure. I added the images.)
From a piece about the Michigan rust-belt economy at Polipundit: So can you guess in which direction taxpayers are moving between these two states? Here are the U-Haul rates for a 26-ft truck on October 29, 2006 (an arbitrary date):
Detroit to Nashville: $1659.00
Nashville to Detroit: $295.00
 Excellent summary of the current state of the ACLU at Tammy Bruce (h/t, Driscoll).
I know well that the ACLU was founded by communists, but it once had a worthy mission nonetheless. No longer. Now it's mission is to undermine America and to subvert freedom and tradition. It is astonishing to me that they get $ support from the US government: Chavez or Osama would be more likely sources. The ACLU is just one of many non-profits which have been taken over by Leftists, to their detriment. We have written about the YWCA, Planned Parenthood, the World Council of Churches, and the UCC, but there are many more examples. And in case you have never checked it out, Stop the ACLU website is always on their case.
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