Musings Archive February 2005
Wednesday, February 2, 2005 STATE OF THE UNION: It was nice that George W. Bush began his State of the Union speech mentioning Iraq...that must have galled a few Democrats.
Was it me or were you shocked as well that Bush actually plans a budget that will rise less than the inflation rate and will actually (theoretically) see the deficit cut in half in a few years? 150 programs cut? A big improvement over previous SOTUs which saw nothing but planned spending announcements. Of course, that doesn't mean he didn't want to spend as he did announce some new programs.
Also nice to see was a commitment to tort reform.
For many the centerpiece of the speech is Bush's call for Social Security reform and I have to say that he did a decent job laying out the basic argument of why it's needed. Frankly I wish more than an eventual 4 per cent of contributions was earmarked for personal retirement savings accounts but the fact that this debate will finally occur should satisfy those of us who have been agitating for this for over a decade. There is going to be a massive battle over this and I hope Bush sticks to his guns. For the Democrats Social Security is more godly than God and they won't roll over at what is essentially a minor change to the system.
I rather enjoyed the little cut he threw at judges who "legislate from the bench." On NBC they showed one of the liberal justices who seemed to be smiling in response. Nice that he threw down the guantlet to Democrats in the Senate to confirm his judicial nominees.
I wish, however, he'd drop this fascination with alternative energy. For a cat who wants to restrain spending, wasting it on pie in the sky technology is just that, a waste.
I thought that he really hit his stride with Iraq -- not surprising since the president has historically done better speaking about foreign affairs then domestic ones. It was nice to see an Iraqi voter in attendence and the ovation for her was gratifying. Interesting note: many Republicans died a finger purple in a show of solidarity with the people of Iraq but most Democrats refused. Typical.
I was also happy to hear that action on Syria and Iran will be undertaken. For a while I was worried that America's attention was solely focused on Iraq. There are still two members of the Axis of Evil that need to be addressed.
Nice bipartisan standing ovation for the family of Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood. The longest such ovation I can remember.
At any rate, I thought it was a good speech. Stronger than his inaugural certainly and it laid out a pretty ambitious agenda. I'll give it an B+.
Read the speech here. Visit the White House's 2005 SOTU site here.
Posted by steve @ 10:38 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ STEYN ON IRAQ'S ELECTION: Mark Steyn, as usual, has a great take on Iraq's election and a protest in Spain condemning it.
But nevertheless there they were, prosperous, well-dressed Spaniards waving placards showing US missiles and dollar bills going into the ballot box and noisily objecting to the fraud of a so-called election held under American occupation.
Given the fact that the voters of Baghdad and Basra and Kirkuk showed the cojones the Spaniards failed to last March, you'd think those protesters would have been less careless about reminding us that the terrorists got a much better election result out of the Spanish electorate than they did from the Iraqis.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 09:01 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ I'M NOT SURE WHO TO CHEER FOR: On one side we have a man running a strip joint who began screening movies to get around a ban on commercial businesses in his area and sells fruit juices. On the other, we have a group with a name that only Hollywood could invent if it wanted to satirize such a group, the Citizens Against Nude Juicebars and Pornography.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 04:18 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ YOU'RE ALLOWED TO VOTE ON GAY MARRIAGE ANY WAY YOU WANT AS LONG AS YOU DON'T VOTE AGAINST IT: The governing Liberals up here in Canada have pledged that its non-cabinet MPs will be allowed to vote on the issue of same-sex marriages any way they want. The problem? Liberal MPs report that they're being pressued to skip the vote if they want to vote against same-sex marriage.
"There's great pressure being put on Liberal MPs by some of the party leadership," said London, Ont., MP Pat O'Brien, a vocal critic of the divisive legislation tabled Tuesday. "I've had a couple today tell me they've been encouraged to, as the phrase goes, 'take a walk' at the time of the vote," he said in an interview.
One day people will remember that the federal Liberals became the most corrupt and divisive series of governments in Canada's history.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:48 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ MORONS II: I'm young enough at 33 to remember myself at 16. Boy, did I know it all. Though the very faint traces of my eventual conservatism was beginning to become felt, I felt -- as most teens do -- that I had the answers to everything. As everyone learns, the older you get the more you realize you don't know very much at all. Or to put it another way, you realize that you don't have all the answers. At least that's what the modest among us would say.
At any rate, the reason why I bring this up is up here in Canada a Liberal MP named Mark Holland is campaigning to lower the voting age to 16. Enough MPs from all parties support the notion that his private member's bill is actually being debated.
"I don't think we give them enough credit. We're asking them to be responsible, yet at the same time we're sending a contradictory message, saying you're too young to understand and you shouldn't have a voice," the 30-year-old MP for Ajax-Pickering said.
Noting voter turnout runs as low as 22% for 18- to 22-year-olds and about 33% for those under 30, Holland said lowering the voting age is a good antidote for voter apathy. If young people are engaged in the civic process while they're still in the education stream, they're more likely to keep it up in adulthood, he said.
Why not give them cigarettes and alcohol as well? I don't want to diss the teens of Canada -- or anywhere else for that matter -- but at 16 most teens are simply not equipped emotionally and factually to participate in the political life of the country. I love them, but let them mature a bit before we start giving away the keys to the country's car.
The funny thing is that the Toronto Sun surveyed some teens at a shopping mall and found that most thought it would be a mistake to lower the voting age.
"I don't think kids are responsible enough at that age," said Shre Singh, a 17-year-old high school student in Toronto. "I know I'm not."
Frank Campos, of Brampton, agreed.
"I don't think it's a good idea," the 15-year-old said, explaining, "I don't know much about politics and neither do my friends. I don't think teenagers are interested in that stuff."
Listen to the kids Mark.
Posted by steve @ 03:37 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ MORONS: The elections in Iraq -- and I say this without a trace of hyperbole -- may eventually be viewed by history as no less groundshaking then the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Hundreds of millions of Muslims and/or Arabs in the Middle East have seen the collapse of a dictatorship and free elections being held...something that nearly all of them have never experienced themselves.
Despite the fact that most Iraqis are happy with the experience, the Sunni clerics of Iraq aren't. See, they urged a boycott by Sunni Muslims and unfortunately a large number listened to them and didn't vote. Now the Sunni clerics -- through the Association of Muslim Scholars -- are whining that the election was illegitimate because...wait for it!...a lot of Sunnis didn't vote.
In its statement, the association said the election "lacks legitimacy because a large portion of these people who represent many spectra have boycotted it." As a result, the group said the new leadership lacked a mandate to draft a new constitution and should be considered a temporary administration.
"We make it clear to the United Nations and the international community that they should not get involved in granting this election legitimacy because such a move will open the gates of evil," the statement said.
Nice threat. I suspect, however, those gates will be flooded by the bodies of terrorists who decide to fight the election. Sad when a group is on the wrong side of history and doesn't realize the price they will pay.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:27 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ LOOKING GOOD FOR 100: Today is the 100th anniversary of Ayn Rand's birth. We're running a piece in this week's issue to mark the occasion and feel free to check out the Ayn Rand Institute.
Love or or hate her, it's hard to dismiss the incredible impact she has had on the libertarian and conservative movements. A good many people have come to the cause after reading one of her novels -- including myself -- and her spirited and moral defense of individualism, capitalism and liberty gave many the intellectual tools to do the same. It's amazing how many people today, particularly in the United States, continue to advance her ideas.
Happy Birthday Ayn!
Posted by steve @ 03:18 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ LEARNING FROM MYANMAR: Interesting essay on Reason's web site today. Kerry Howley lived in Myanmar last year, a nation which is run by a dictator. However, even a broken clock is right twice a day and Myanmar boasts something that the United States and Canada doesn't: freedom in the health care field.
There are perks to being governed by an insane military dictator. Creating a whole system of repression is a big job for one general, and anarchy bubbles to the surface in the empty spaces totalitarianism has yet to fill. Last year, while living in the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar, my phones were tapped, my journals were read, my work was censored, and for the first time in my life, I was given the authority to care for my own body.
There is no prescription drug system in Myanmar, but there are plenty of illnesses waiting to befall an effete Western immune system. My expatriate colleagues and I were free to treat our ailments as we saw fit. We staved off food poisoning and bouts of malaria with frequent trips to the local pharmacy, consulting doctors when necessary, but ultimately responsible for our own medical decisions. We formed doctor-patient relationships that were partnerships rather than paternalistic hierarchies, and each of us lived to tell the story.
Obviously Myanmar isn't a model for anyone but interesting to see that the people there are allowed to make their own health care decisions.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:09 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...: I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. CBS announced today that Bob Schieffer will be Dan Rather's interim replacement on "The CBS Evening News" beginning in March. CBS so completely bungled Rather's retirement that they didn't have anyone they could put into the job on a permanent basis. And of course, as Tim Graham over at NRO stated, Schieffer is just another old tired liberal.
Still, it's better than all of those idiotic notions of putting Jon Stewart on the desk.
Posted by steve @ 03:04 PM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ WHEN TENURE GOES WRONG: Ward Churchill, who made headlines over two years ago with an essay declaring some of the victims of 9/11 to be Nazis, was the target of death threats this week. The essay resurfaced after he was announced as part of a panel discussion.
In the scathing essay, Churchill called the traders and other businesspeople who worked at the World Trade Center in New York "Eichmanns" — a reference to Adolf Eichmann, who organized Nazi plans to exterminate Europe's Jews.
That's because he believes American foreign policy and the spread of capitalism around the world for U.S. profit are acts of genocide against Iraqi civilians and others in the same way as the Nazi movement was against the Jews during World War II.
"As to those in the World Trade Center ... true enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire," Churchill wrote.
Churchill resigned as head of ethnic studies at University of Colorado at Boulder and could lose his job tomorrow. No sympathy from me.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:07 AM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ HOW VERY WEIRD: On Canada's cartoon network an hour or so ago they aired the episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled" -- most notable for the first appearance of ventriloquist dummy Gabbo and an all-star group of celebrities that appeared on the program.
It was kind of weird because the episode begins with a 50 foot tidal wave hitting the "Springfield Squares" beachside set and ends with Johnny Carson in Moe's bar. Within the last month a tsunami hit huge portions of southeast Asia and Carson passed away. If I were Hugh Hefner, Bett Midler, Luke Perry, Elizabeth Taylor or the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I'd be worried.
I'm convinced that in a few centuries time The Simpsons will be the Nostradamus of this era. Way too many things happen on that show that end up occuring in real life.
Posted by steve @ 01:13 AM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ WHAT'S THE RULE ABOUT BLOGGING YOUR OWN BLOG?: A couple of days ago I blogged a link to a CNN story about a U.S. Marine who has survived nine bombing attacks during his tour in Iraq. His aunt writes in with an update.
Posted by steve @ 01:08 AM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ YOU CAN ALMOST ADMIRE THEIR INVENTIVENESS: The Al Mujahedeen Brigade bragged on its web site that it has captured a U.S. soldier and posted a picture of the unfortunate John Adam on its web site. And?
Liam Cusack, the marketing coordinator for Dragon Models USA, said the figure pictured on the Web site is believed to be "Special Ops Cody," a military action figure the company manufactured in late 2003.
"It pretty much looks exactly like the same person," he said.
They might also have tried giving him a better name then John Adam.
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 01:00 AM EST [Link] [No Comments]
Tuesday, February 1, 2005 THE BEGINNING OF THE END?: Great report in the The Times Online this weekend about how North Korea may be about to collapse.
Analysts in Seoul say that in recent propaganda pictures the bouffant-haired dictator is wearing the same clothes as in photographs from two years ago, suggesting that they may have been taken then. Observers await Kim’s official birthday, February 16, to see if the state media accord him the usual fawning adulation.
According to exiles, North Korean agents in Beijing and Ulan Bator are frantically selling assets to raise cash — an important sign, says one activist, because "the secret police can always smell the crisis coming before anybody else".
Read on.
Posted by steve @ 03:51 AM EST [Link] [No Comments]
~ I GUESS ALL THOSE BODIES JUST MAGICALLY APPEARED: The United Nations took another step in its long road to irrelevancy Monday with the release of a report announcing that there is no genocide occurring in Sudan. Sure, there were mass killings and perhaps even war crimes, but no genocide!
Posted by steve @ 01:55 AM EST [Link] [No Comments]
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