Pete The Elder

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February 28, 2005

The Middle East Today

Lebanon's Syrian backed government has resigned while Lebanon's citizens continue to protest Syrian occupation. Egypt's government is not popular with its citizens either and appears to be headed toward direct elections.

Captain Ed has some observations on what is going on in the Middle East right now: "Make no mistake. This transformation didn't just happen to coincide with the terms of Bush, Blair, and Howard. Expect the mainstream media to sell that meme in the next few weeks -- how George Bush, especially, got lucky to just happen to be President when all of this happened. Don't buy it for a second. He saw how to change the world and eliminate terrorism over the long haul and more importantly had the political courage to act in that regard."

Do any Kerry voters out there actually think these Democratic revolutions in Lebanon, Ukraine, Iraq, etc. would be happening if Kerry had won last November?

Posted by Pete at 05:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Columbia Unbecoming

Here is a good article from the Village Voice on Columbia University and its Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures. Several students have complained of bullying and other unprofessional conduct by professors when the students disagree with the professors about Israel or other controversial issues. Students even made a short documentary about the department called Columbia Unbecoming.

Posted by Pete at 05:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 25, 2005

Picture of The Day 2

Jay Nordlinger said back in 1999 she would be rock star big.

Posted by Pete at 05:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Pictures Of The Day

Ward Churchill: The Gift That Keeps on Giving. In case you thought that the curious case of Ward "little Eichmanns" Churchill could not get any stranger, here is proof from Michelle Malkin (in the form of artwork Churchill claims is original) that it indeed can get stranger.

Here is some background info on the Churchill story for those of you who have not been following it. Churchill is a tenured professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder even though he only has a masters degree. He claims to be an Indian, but is not a member of any tribe and there is no real evidence that he is an Indian. He breaks Godwin's Law by calling people he does not like "little Eichmanns", including people who died in the World Trade Center. He has also been accused of serious academic fraud.

Posted by Pete at 02:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 24, 2005

Libertarians: Huh? Part 3

Randy Barnett discusses the effectiveness of the Libertarian Party here and here and argues that the Libertarian Party is a hindrance to libertarian policies because only the two major parties have any real influence over policy.

I have long believed this to be a problem with Libertarians. The demand for purity of thought and an unwillingness to compromise means no libertarian policy changes. I posted about this months ago here and here, where I argued that libertarians are really good at talking about stuff, but that the Libertarian Party and libertarians as a group are irrelevant when it comes to real life policy decisions made by elected officials.

Here is Barnett doing a good job summing up the Libertarian problems: "In our political system, you have to be a member of a political coalition to influence its direction. This means working and compromising with people with whom you share some goals and disagree about others. This is the insight behind Groiver Norquist's vision of the "leave us alone" coalition in the GOP that advances the disparate interests of its members, while marginalizing those who want to advance their agenda by interfering in the lives of others.

Like other Americans, however, many libertarians think of political parties like sports teams. They want their own team to root for and cannot root for the other teams. Voting Libertarian gives them psychological satisfaction, while in the aggregate diminishing their political impact.

Libertarians should stop thinking of parties as teams and think of them instead as the playoffs. In NFL football terms, The Democrats are the AFC and the Republicans he NFC. To get into the Superbowl, you have to survive the season and the playoffs in your respective conference. In effect, Libertarians want to form their own league which no one but themselves is interested in watching. And they assure themselves of never making the playoffs much less the Superbowl."

Posted by Pete at 03:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 23, 2005

The UN Fails Again

China is obligated under international treaties to allow asylum seekers refuge status. There are around 300,000 North Koreans in China right now that qualify for this status and who if returned to North Korea face almost certain torture and death. And the UN group in China that is responsible for them is content to let them languish and die. Here is more:

"The UNHCR keeps an office in Beijing, with a budget this year totaling $4.4 million, to which asylum seekers have no access. Four years ago, a family of North Korean refugees actually stormed the premises and gained asylum after threatening to eat rat poison from their pockets if forced back out onto the street. Since then, the UNHCR has allowed China's security agents to better defend the compound against further visits by the people the UNHCR is supposedly in China to protect.

For years now, the U.N. policy in dealing with North Korean refugees in China has been one of what its spokesmen call "quiet diplomacy." The hushed implication is that behind the scenes, the UNHCR is in deep and earnest discussion with the Chinese authorities. No doubt. And there has been some help for a small number, mainly by way of easing them quietly out of the country once they have risked their lives by storming foreign compounds other than the UNHCR's. But the broad picture, for the hundreds of thousands, is a quiet but dire absence of any help whatsoever."

Posted by Pete at 02:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Worst Teacher

Here is a worthy candidate for worst teacher/class in the country.

Posted by Pete at 02:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 22, 2005

Back From Waco

I got back from Waco on Sunday afternoon. Most of the retreat I was at focused on preparing college seniors for life after college. This included giving a lot of practical advice like how to pick a church (focus on how you can serve, not on how the church can serve you), how to have community after college, and going over a potential budget.

Unfortunately I now have the flu so I doubt I will blog much until I start to feel better.

Posted by Pete at 11:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 18, 2005

Waco

I am off to Waco for the weekend to help out at a retreat for college students in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Then next weekend I get to go Abilene for a wedding so I will be seeing a good chunk of Texas over the next week.

Posted by Pete at 10:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 17, 2005

Cosby at the Rodeo

I went with my wife and some friends to the San Antonio Rodeo last night. After some bull riding, bronco busting, barrel racing, and the Budweiser Clydesdale horses there was Bill Cosby. He performed for about an hour and a half after first giving a five minute tribute to the troops. It was typical Cosby with him talking about how his mother used to beat him and lots of jokes about kids, marriage, and old people. He finished with his dentist routine. I was most impressed with his story telling ability and his ability to talk for that long without a real break.

Posted by Pete at 05:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Greenpeace Bites Off More Than They Can Chew

35 Greenpeace protesters attacked the International Petroleum Exchange yesterday. So the oil traders beat the protesters severely. One protester said, "We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs ... I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.” Maybe that is because instead of politely trying to talk to them you broke into their place of work and interrupted them.

Here was the end result of the Greenpeace attack, "Mr Beresford said: “They followed the guys into the lobby and kept kicking and punching them there. They literally kicked them on to the pavement.” Last night Greenpeace said two protesters were in hospital, one with a suspected broken jaw, the other with concussion."

This is a bit reminiscent of when the French Navy sunk the Greenpeace ship The Rainbow Warrior when it tried to interfere with French Nuclear Tests.

Posted by Pete at 05:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 16, 2005

Debunking 9/11 Myths

Here is Popular Mechanics take on it.

Posted by Pete at 11:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 15, 2005

UN Sex For Food Scandal

Here is Mark Steyn writing about some of the problems with the UN, "If you don't want to bulk up your pension by skimming the Oil-for-Food programme, don't worry, whatever your bag, the UN can find somewhere that suits - in West Africa, it's Sex-for-Food, with aid workers demanding sexual services from locals as young as four; in Cambodia, it's drug dealing; in Kenya, it's the refugee extortion racket; in the Balkans, sex slaves."

Posted by Pete at 01:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Robots Instead of Guns

This robotic ball is designed to chase away burglars. The article quotes Patrick Mercer a Tory MP as saying, "It would be interesting to see whether the ball had used grossly disproportionate force or whether it would be deemed reasonable. But I would much rather a burglar be terrified of householders and shopkeepers, rather than some sort of futuristic device." He is referring to the fact that in the UK people who defend themselves against burglars are often prosecuted for using violence and are not allowed to have guns for self defense purposes.

Posted by Pete at 01:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 14, 2005

Finding the Love of Your Life

My wife and I read Finding the Love of Your Life by Dr. Neil Clark Warren before we got married and I thought it was one of the most practical books on relationships I have read. Today NRO has an interview with Dr. Warren. Warren argues that what is most important for a successful marriage is compatibility and that if you do not share the same values as your spouse, then you will run into a lot of conflict later on.

My favorite part of the book was his list of fifty issues couples fight about, but usually do not talk about before they marry. Some of it was very basic stuff like will you have pets, what temperature do you keep the house at, and how will you spend vacations. For all of these it is important that you at least discuss these issues. Sometimes pets are not a big deal, but I had to sacrifice ever having a cat or dog when I married my wife. If we had not discussed this before we got married, it could lead to resentment on my part.

Posted by Pete at 06:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What Does The State Have To Do With Marraige?

Reason Magazine has an article by John Coleman about St. Valentine arguing that the state really should not have anything to do with marriage. That is roughly my opinion. Marriage is an institution primarily between individuals that take place in their community. After listing off state abuses of marriage Coleman writes, “It is time to privatize marriage. If the institution is really so sacred, it should lie beyond the withering hands of politicians and policy makers in Washington D.C. There should be no federal or state license that grants validity to love. There should be no state-run
office that peers into our bedrooms and honeymoon suites. If the church thinks divorce and homosexuality are problematic, it should initiate the real dialogue to address these problems in-house rather than relying on state-sponsored coercion to affirm doctrinal beliefs. And if tax-codes and guardianships need some classification for couples, let's revise civil union standards to reflect those needs.”

The only legitimate reasons I can see for the state to be involved in marriage is because of the children and property issues that result from marriage and from divorce. Who should be able to marry who should not be a concern of the state.

Posted by Pete at 05:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Bias and the New Yorker

I found this New Yorker article fascinating. It tries to answer the question "Why is everyone mad at the mainstream media?" The authors try to sound like they are asking honest questions, but they rationalize away many fair criticisms. They focus on several far-fetched claims by readers instead of the more obvious cases of bias. They try to examine conservatives, but do not once in the entire fairly long article mention Dan Rather and the fake TANG memos.

Take this paragraph for instance:
"Since the election, the mainstream media—tagged as the M.S.M. by bloggers—have conceded a couple of points to Rove: that they failed to appreciate fully the dimensions of the Republican organizing effort; and that they misunderstood the way that the Republican Party’s religious base lives and thinks. But the idea that the M.S.M. made these mistakes intentionally, because they had taken sides in the election, makes mainstream-media organizations indignant, and worries them—at a time when there is much else to feel indignant, and worried, about."

What was Rathergate if not a case of the MSM taking sides in an election? And why no mention of Rathergate here, one of the biggest stories of the last year and probably the biggest story involving public mistrust of the media in years? There are other examples like the media not covering Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia fantasies - a case where something "new" was discovered - while it endlessly rehashed Bush's TANG service even though there was nothing new of significance to report, except of course the fake memos.

For the media to fix its trust problem it first has to figure out what the problem is and what is causing the problem and while the authors of this article may be trying to do these things, they have a long way to go. Large portions of the MSM wanted Kerry to win (or at they wanted Bush to lose). Until people like these authors can admit that, then they will continue to lose audience trust.

Posted by Pete at 05:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Corrections

Patrick Frey has a good guest column in the L.A. Times on the proper way to run corrections. To sum up: make major corrections as visible as the original story. If the mistake was on the front page, then put the correction on the front page. Admitting mistakes is hard, but newspapers not giving the same amount of attention to corrections as they do to the original mistaken story has always stuck me as cowardly.

There are two things that keep hurting the MSM in cases like Dan Rather and Eason Jordan. The first is dishonesty. Saying your source for obviously fake documents is “unimpeachable” when he is a Bush hating loon who claims to have gotten the documents in a parking lot from some mystery woman is dishonest. Repeatedly saying U.S. troops targeted journalist when all you have to back it up is hearsay is not honest.

The second problem is trying to cover up these dishonest mistakes. Once caught with fake documents Rather refused to accept it and (along with many others in the MSM) insulted his critics. Once caught slandering U.S. troops Jordan claimed he never said quite that (and it seems made no effort to get the video tape released that could prove this). Jordon said his critics were misquoting him while once again many others in the MSM insulted his critics.

Posted by Pete at 04:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What if a Witch Hunt Finds Real Witches?

Now that the KGB files have been opened we know that many of the communists in the U.S. in the 1940's and 50's were agents of the Soviet Union. Institutions like the American Communist Party were actively on the other side in the Cold War and were attempting to destroy the United States. Here is an old New Criterion article about the legacy of Communists in America. Even though Joe McCarthy was wrong about a lot of people and dishonest in many of his accusations does not mean that there was no Communist conspiracy. The Soviet Union's own files disprove this.

Oh, and Alger Hiss was guilty.

Posted by Pete at 03:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Video Games And Soldiers

I have a friend from college who is a lieutenant in the air force and who is going to be shipped off to somewhere in the middle east in a few weeks. He is not allowed to tell me where he is going and is intentionally not remembering the names of places he will be going to until after he gets there. I was talking to him last night and he says that many air force bases now have many different types of video game systems to keep the troops occupied.

This matches was is reported on the Strategy Page in Why The XBox is Important in the Iraq War. It seems that the military really likes it when soldiers play video games: "The “Internet generation” has already been studied and found to be quicker and more confident when it comes to decision making. So any impact all this electronic entertainment is having, it’s society wide, and not just the military. In fact, the armed forces are quite pleased with the new skills their PC savvy recruits have brought with them. Moreover, the military does not allow booze or prostitution for the troops in combat zones these days. So compelling electronic entertainment solves a potentially serious morale problem."

Posted by Pete at 03:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 11, 2005

Reporting on Police Shootings

Jack Dunphy has an article today about the shooting death of a 13 year old "unarmed" boy in Los Angeles who tried to drive over a police officer. As Dunphy points out, "Press descriptions of Brown as being "unarmed" overlook the fact that he was aiming a 2,000-pound car at a cop." Dunphy also points out that Brown committed three different felonies that night.

Some are proposing that police policy should be changed: "That shooting prompted Bratton to announce last March that the department should create new rules on when officers can shoot at moving vehicles. Bratton said such a policy should prohibit officers from shooting "unless the officer or other person are threatened by deadly force, other than the moving vehicle," according to The Times."

So the solution to people ignoring police officers instructions and trying to kill police officers is to not let police officers defend themselves. Under this proposed policy a police officer would not be allowed to shoot at someone trying to run over a group of small children. The sad part is that all of these problems would end if the drivers stopped trying to run people over and instead followed police instructions. But that must be too much to expect of criminals.

Posted by Pete at 03:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 10, 2005

Spinal Tap and Mark Twain

I finished A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court yesterday. It was worth reading just for the conversation with the blacksmith. In it the main character “the boss” has a long debate with a blacksmith over the concept of purchasing power. In one village everybody makes twice as much as in Camelot, but everything also costs about 2.1 times as much money as it does in Camelot. One month of labor in Camelot will get you more stuff than an equivalent month of labor in the other village will get you. But the blacksmith always replies that the people in the village make twice as much money as those in Camelot!

It was extremely reminiscent of the scene in Spinal Tap with the amp:

"The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board. Eleven, eleven, eleven."
"Oh, I see, and mostly, the amps go up to ten?"
"Exactly."
"Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?"
"Well, it's one louder, isn't it?"
"One louder."
"Why don't you just make ten louder, and make ten be the top number, and make that a little louder?"
“These go to eleven."

The constant scientific realism of the Connecticut Yankee was a great contrast to the romanticism of the knights, wizards, monks, etc. of Camelot. I read Huck Finn again a year ago or so and had a similar reaction to the end of that novel, where Twain has Tom Sawyer use as much romanticism as possible to rescue Jim to show how ridiculous romantic ideas can be in the real world.

Posted by Pete at 05:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

California Revolution

Here is George Will on Schwarzenegger's attempt to fix California, including changing California's gerrymandering laws. In the last election, in 50 of the 53 congressional races the winner had at least 60% of the vote. As Arnold would say "What kind of a democracy is that?"

In a related note, today I received the classic documentary about Schwarzenegger, Pumping Iron, in the mail from netflix.

Posted by Pete at 05:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 09, 2005

Think About Your Laws

The Volokh Conspiracy has the text of a poorly written and thought out proposed law defining rape in Oaklahoma: "9. Where the victim is an undergraduate student under twenty-one (21) years of age attending any college or university in this state or the victim is attending any public or private secondary school in this state, regardless of the person's age, and engages in sexual intercourse with a person who is an employee of the same college, university or school system unless the two persons were legally married prior to enrollment or employment in such college, university or school."

If two 20 year old people both attended and worked for the same university (in cafeteria or the library for instance) and then engaged in consensual sex, then both of them would be guilty of raping each other at the same time. It is also rape if these same people marry after they have started school and working for the university, but still are under 21 or if only one of them worked for the school. This is besides the more general problem with the law of prohibitting sex between consenting adults.

Posted by Pete at 06:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Two Good NRO Thingies

The first interesting thing is a question about libertarians and religion. I am fairly libertarian in my leanings, although I think the Libertarian Party is full of nutjobs (see here and here). As you can see from my blogroll I am also an evangelical Christian. Today in the corner Stanley Kurtz asks a series of questions related to this: "To what extent are contemporary libertarians religious? What proportion of folks who read, say, Reason Magazine belong to a church or synagogue and attend services either regularly, or even with moderate regularity? What proportion of libertarians are self-consciously atheist or agnostic and/or attend church seldom or never?" I think it is the fact that today is Ayn Rand's 100th birthday that prompts this question. I have read a couple of Rand's books (including all of Atlas Shrugged) and although I agree with many of her conclusions I disagree with how she arrives at them. Rand of course was both an atheist and a libertarian and is still extremely influencial among libertarian types.

The second interesting thing is from yesterday where Rich Lowry responds to the dynamist blog by going after farm subsidies: "Ten percent of farms — i.e., the biggest ones — receive 60 percent of the subsidies. According to Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, giant Riceland Foods got $110 million in federal largess alone last year. By his calculation, the feds could guarantee every full-time farmer an income of $35,000 a year at a cost of "merely" $4 billion. Subsidies now run roughly $15.7 billion annually."

Posted by Pete at 04:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Moyers Apologizes

Bill Moyers has reportedly apologized to James Watt for misquoting Watt in a column.

Posted by Pete at 04:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 08, 2005

Sometimes Movies Fail

The Last Castle is an instance of this failure. You are supposed to root for the plucky former general Irwin played by Robert Redford who has been thrown into prison for disobeying an order that led to eight of his men dying. He was a hero in many wars and a POW in Vietnam, while the evil prison warden Col. Winter played by James Gandolfini never saw combat and collects military memorabilia. (I tried to think of a movie with a non-evil prison warden and the only one I could think of was Half Past Dead staring Steven Seagal and Ja Rule. A prison movie with a good prison warden and either a good or bad inmate could be interesting.) The movie tried to get me to root for Redford bucking the tyrannical warden and his cruel rules, but it failed in so many ways.

Let me count them.

First was the fact that the people I am supposed to be rooting for are prisoners. The simple minded one disfigured another soldier with a hammer and the crafty one was an officer who used the soldiers under him to smuggle drugs. For the rest I had to use my imagination and assume that they are there for crimes like rape and murder. I want these people to be in prison so it hard to root for them.

Second was the fact that the warden was mean and thus a bad man. But throughout the movie he only punished people who broke very reasonable rules like do not assault the prison guards. And again all the people he punished were criminals to begin with, so why I am supposed to feel sorry for them? If prison was fun they would call it the happy fun zone instead of prison.

Third was how they expressed Irwins contempt for authority. Irwin thinks the warden is a disgrace and stages a revolt so that they can hang the flag upside down to show how messed up the prison is. They repeat the phrase hang the flag upside down about twenty times to let you know what they are going to do. During the revolt at least one prison guard is definitely killed and it looks like several others may be killed as well. Instead of contacting an attorney to file a complaint against the prison staff, Irwin murders several U.S. soldiers. This is supposed to make me feel inspired by his courage?

Then there are the plausibility flaws. First there is the scene where the guards leave the entire prison population completely unsupervised for several minutes so Irwin can give his plan to the prisoners. Irwins biggest complaint is that guards kill soldiers. They do this by firing rubber bullets into the back of the head of prisoners who do not obey orders. Of course the guards fire at the prisoners from several hundred feet away and are armed with shotguns and do not even have scopes. Also early in film the warden notices every thing that goes on in the prison yard, even little things like salutes and basketballs. But he does not notice the prisoners building a two story tall trebuche. The prisoners can use the trebuche with great accuracy even though professional engineers with experience building these machines have great trouble doing so even with days of practice and the prisoners have never used this machine before in their lives. Then there is the grappling hook with attached chain fired with great accuracy out of water cannon. Again, the prisoners have never tried this before, but it works on the first shot and it hits the one spot that will attach it onto a moving helicopter from several hundred feet away. The drug smuggling prisoner then climbs the chain on the moving helicopter, overpowers the armed crew, and uses the helicopter to murder a guard. We never see what happens to the crew, but the helicopter crashes and no one bothers to rescue them so we can assume they are both dead as well.

And finally there is the climactic conclusion. Irwin has the prisoners fall in as the warden positions troops (finally armed with non-rubber bullets after at least 3-6 guards are dead). The warden orders the troops to fire upon the prisoners if they do not obey his orders to lie down. They do not lie down for the warden, but Irwin orders the prisoners to lie down and being rebellious murderers they instantly obey him. Irwin then goes to raise the flag and the warden orders the troops to fire at Irwin, but the guards (no doubt inspired by Irwin) refuse to fire on a hardened criminal who not ten minutes ago murdered around a half dozen of their fellow soldiers and tried to murder several more. As Irwin starts to raise the flag the warden shoots him in the back multiple times. Good for him and my favorite part of the movie. Saves the taxpayers the expense of a murder trial. Gandolfini finally takes the advice Tony Soprano would have given him and nips the problem in the bud. Then as the warden is arrested by the captain the prisoners salute the flag, which is raised right side up (!!!) to signify that the warden no longer runs the prison. I am sure that after a prison riot in which at least three guards and one prisoner are killed and a good part of the prison destroyed that the new warden will be much nicer.

Posted by Pete at 03:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 07, 2005

Laser Floyd

Dude it is Pink Floyd, but with lasers.

My wife bought me tickets to Laser Floyd at the Majestic Theater in San Antonio for Christmas two years ago. They played the Wizard of Oz on a big screen (with lasers added of course) while the Dark Side of the Moon played in synch to the film. It looked like there were more people for this event than there usually are for the symphony, which also performs at the Majestic.

Posted by Pete at 04:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Moyers and Factchecking

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has a problem with fact checking. There have been several recent incidents mentioned here. The most recent instance was when the printed a column by Bill Moyers about how Evangelical Christians want to destroy the environment to encourage the second coming of Jesus Christ. In it he included a completely fictional quote by former Secretary of the Interior James Watt and truncated a quote by Senator Zell Miller. Part of what he said about James Watt is, "Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious."

The only problem is that Watt never said that and it is close to the exact opposite of what Watt says he believes. Moyers took the quote from a secondary source and never bothered to check with Watt or to check the Congressional Record to see if the quote was accurate. Considering that the Star Tribune recently criticized Powerline for supposedly not doing proper fact checking (in a column that the editors of the Star Tribune did not bother to fact check themselves) they should have learned to be better about checking the facts in a column like Moyers.

Moyers also writes, "The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought." Of course if Moyers quoted more of what Miller said it would read, "This blunt-speaking moral conscience of his time warns, in Chapter 8, verse 11 of the Book of Amos, as if he were speaking to us today: The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land. Not a famine of bread or of thirst for water, but of hearing the word of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea and from the north even to the east. They shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. ``A famine in the land,'' has anyone more accurately described the situation we face in America today? A famine of ``hearing the word of the Lord.''"

So it is absolutely clear that Miller was not talking about a physical famine of food, but a spiritual famine in "hearing the word of the lord." Was Moyers too lazy to look up the quote to see its context (it took me about five seconds to find the entire speech on google) or was Moyers intentionally dishonest about what Miller was saying?

Posted by Pete at 03:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Arming Pilots

Time reports that "more than 4,000 pilots are authorized to carry guns, and each day they fly armed on more flights than do air marshals." I always thought it was obvious that if you trust pilots to fly planes then you should trust pilots to carry weapons. Instapundit has a reader who claimd that it is incredibly difficult for pilots to get permission to possess a gun, that they must pay for their own required training, and they must check the gun if a passanger, which results in a lot of missing guns. He writes "The original number of pilots that signed up for the program was in the tens of thousands, but most dropped out after seeing all the hurdles and hassle that TSA has thrown up"

Posted by Pete at 03:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ag Subsidies

The dynamist blog asks if any conservatives (or liberals or libertarians) are going to support Bush on agricultural subsidy reform. I like the reform from what I read and think the federal government should not subsidize anyone (or offer protectionism to some groups), including agriculture. It is a waste of tax dollars and results in situations like this, where non-subsidized/protected businesses suffer because of other businesses getting preferential treatment.

Posted by Pete at 03:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Reform Issues

John Fund has a column in the Wall Street Journal today about gerrymandering reform in California. I am in favor of the general type of solution that Governor Schwarzenegger advocates. His proposal takes it out of the hands of the state government and lets a bipartisan three judge panel decide what the legislature distrcit boundaries will look like. I have mentioned Iowa doing something similar before and the above column mentions that Arizona and Washington also have standing committees that decide the issue.

Posted by Pete at 03:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 04, 2005

Iraqis Take Charge

These Iraqis did not care for terrorists telling them not to vote and threatening to kill them. So they killed 5 of the terrorists instead.

Posted by Pete at 05:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

King County Update

Sound Politics has details on the discrepency between the number of voters vs. number of votes in both the 2004 presidential election and the 2000 election in King County, Washington. In the 2004 elections there are at least 3,700 ballotless voters and voterless ballots. in 2000 there were only 17. In contrast to this, Jefferson County in Washington has no discepency. This is why I included having audits to make sure the number of voters and ballots match as a part of voting reform.

Posted by Pete at 05:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Stephen Green Freed!

I posted here about the tragic kidnapping of blogger Stephen Green, who was captured by Imperial Storm Troopers with the help of Boba Fett. He escaped but was captured by a group of desert nomads. Thankfully, Green was soon freed by a group of rebel heros.

Posted by Pete at 02:47 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 02, 2005

Seattle Joins Ogdenville, North Haverbrook, and Brockway!

"Well, sir, there's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car monorail! What'd I say! Monorail!"

Sound Politics reports, "The Seattle Monorail has finally admitted that the financial plan that it sold to the voters in 2002 is not viable. Now it wants to put city car owners on the hook for the Monorail Tax for decades longer than originally promised. Some state officials and legislatures are "uneasy" with this plan, but I don't expect them to try very hard to oppose it."

Posted by Pete at 03:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Vaclav Havel for UN Secretary!!

Even though I do not care about Gorbachev's opinion on democracy in Iraq, I do care about what Vaclav Haval has to say about Cuba and the EU. Jim Lindgren writes that the "EU has publicly asked its members not to invite dissidents and human rights activists as guests to its embassies in Havana."

Lindgren then quotes Havel's response to this. Here is a short excerpt: "I can hardly think of a better way for the EU to dishonor the noble ideals of freedom, equality and human rights that the Union espouses — indeed, principles that it reiterates in its constitutional agreement. To protect European corporations' profits from their Havana hotels, the Union will cease inviting open-minded people to EU embassies, and we will deduce who they are from the expression on the face of the dictator and his associates. It is hard to imagine a more shameful deal."

As Jim Lindgren says in the above link and as Glenn Reynolds says: Vaclav Havel for UN Secretary!

Posted by Pete at 02:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Eason Jordan: What The Hell Are You Talking About?

Eason Jordan runs CNN and at the Davos forum in Switzerland accused American troops of intentionally killing 12 journalists in Iraq. Here is a link to the forum blog whose author was an eyewitness to what happened. I posted about Jordan just the other day when discussing how journalists won't report stories because they fear retaliation and lost access. Jordan refused to report many atrocities that occurred under the Saddam regime so that CNN could stay in Iraq for ratings.

Here is part of what the forum blog reported, "During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd) and cause great strain on others.

Due to the nature of the forum, I was able to directly challenge Eason, asking if he had any objective and clear evidence to backup these claims, because if what he said was true, it would make Abu Ghraib look like a walk in the park. David Gergen was also clearly disturbed and shocked by the allegation that the U.S. would target journalists, foreign or U.S. He had always seen the U.S. military as the providers of safety and rescue for all reporters.

Eason seemed to backpedal quickly, but his initial statements were backed by other members of the audience (one in particular who represented a worldwide journalist group). The ensuing debate was (for lack of better words) a real "sh--storm". What intensified the problem was the fact that the session was a public forum being taped on camera, in front of an international crowd. The other looming shadow on what was going on was the presence of a U.S. Congressman and a U.S. Senator in the middle of some very serious accusations about the U.S. military."

CNN needs to broadcast the tape of that event. And if they won't then Fox or someone else needs to. Jordan made a charge that if true should lead to the courtmartial of several soldiers. If not true, then Jordan needs to be fired for spreading slanderous rumors. See this Captain's Quarters entry for more details about how CNN reporters who read on air documents handed to them by the Iraqi Information Ministry without any commentary. Hugh Hewitt also has a good roundup.

Gaypatriot (via TKS) reports that it was Barney Frank, a Democrat congressman, who pressed Jordan to give details, "And then, this liberal Democrat pressed Mr. Jordan to be more specific, putting the CNN Executive on the spot. The newsman rambled on a bit and mumbled some sort of response about how "'There are people who believe there are people in the military who have it out' for journalists." He could provide no evidence to buttress his claims, then "offered another anecdote: A reporter who'd been standing in a long line to get through a checkpoint at Baghdad's Green Zone had been turned back by the GI on duty. Apparently the soldier had been displeased with the reporter's dispatches, and sent him to the back of the line."

TKS reports that CNN nows claims, "Many blogs have taken Mr. Jordan's remarks out of context. Eason Jordan does not believe the U.S. military is trying to kill journalists. Mr. Jordan simply pointed out the facts: While the majority of journalists killed in Iraq have been slain at the hands of insurgents, the Pentagon has also noted that the U.S. military on occasion has killed people who turned out to be journalists. The Pentagon has apologized for those actions."

Whoever has a video tape of the event needs to release it as soon as possible.

Update 2/2/05: Eason Jordan has some very fuzzy math.

Posted by Pete at 11:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Yet Again More Voting Problems in Wisconcon

Milwaukee had thousands of more votes than actual voters. This is from Captain's Quarters who specualtes that it was more likely gross incompetance on the part of election officials than fraud, "Greg Borowski reports in today's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that an analysis of voting records done by the newspaper reveals that seventeen precincts in the city showed at least 100 more votes than the number of registered voters, even counting the already-problematic same-day registrants. Four precincts, or wards, had more than 500 extra votes"

The Republican Party in Wisconson is trying to add a requirment that people must show ID when they vote party because 30% of the vote in Milwaukee was from same day registration the last two presidetial elections. Naturally the Democratic Party is opposed to this common sense reform as is the ACLU.

Previous Wisconson post.

Posted by Pete at 10:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Update on Soldier From Yesterday

Yesterday I brought you the tragic story of one our country's finest being kidnapped by terrorists in Iraq. There is a sad follow up today. Elmo has also been taken hostage. And the hostage takers are now targetting blogs. Yesterday, with the aid of notorius bounty hunter Boba Fett, Imperial Stormtroopers captured Stephen Green of Vodka Pundit.

On an even funnier note, as of time of this posting, the UK Gaurdian still hasn't figured out what is going on. (via instapundit, who thinks Evil Bert may be behind it all)

Update 2/2/05: Conferadate Yankee also thinks this means we may have won.

Posted by Pete at 09:30 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Gorbachev Thinks Iraq Elections Fake

Gorbachev does not like Iraq's last Sunday elections. These elections are so much more fake when compared to the time when Gorbachev was elected in .... what's that you say? Gorbachev was never elected?!? Gorbachev was an unelected dictator who had his secret police murder and imprison thousands of people trying to free themselves from the tyrannical iron grip of the Soviet Union? Who knew?

Gorbachev also had this to say, "Democracy cannot be imposed or strengthened with guns and tanks." But death and tyranny can be imposed on innocent Lithuanians that way, can't they Gorbachev? Gorbachev started caring about honest elections and national determination about 17 years to late for me to care what he thinks.

Posted by Pete at 09:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 01, 2005

Who Did Your Neighbors Donate To?

Use this site to find out which political campaigns people donated to. People with my name are only recorded donated to Howard Dean and John Kerry last year, so my $25 to Bush did not get recorded (all donations over $200 were recorded and only some under $200 were). I looked up George Bush and it turns out that George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush each donated $2000 dollars to George W. Bush's campaign. George W. Bush did not donate to anyone.

Posted by Pete at 05:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

CIA and Vodka

This story shows why the CIA can still be useful. There were over a thousand eastern Ukranian thugs sent to Kiev to beat up the pro Yushchenko demostrators a few weeks back during the orange revolution. The CIA bought a lot of vodka and gave it to the thugs so they got too drunk to beat any one up and then went home. Had the thugs succeeded in attacking the demonstrators, then martial law might have resulted and the revolution could have failed or at least been a lot more violent.

Posted by Pete at 05:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Pictures of the Day

Does this mean we've won? Terrorists in Iraq are reduced to kidnapping toys and pretending they are soldiers being held hostage. Here is the original story, "Iraqi militants claimed in a Web statement Tuesday to have taken an American soldier hostage and threatened to behead him in 72 hours unless the Americans release Iraqi prisoners. The U.S. military said it was investigating, but the claim's authenticity could not be immediately confirmed.

The posting, on a Web site that frequently carried militants' statements, included a photo of what that statement said was an American soldier, wearing desert fatigues and seated on a concrete floor with his hands tied behind his back. The figure in the photo appeared stiff and expressionless, and the photo's authenticity could not be confirmed."

Backcountry Conservative has more details as does LGF, while wizbang tracks the media reporting that this was a hoax.

Posted by Pete at 03:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

What if Bush Was Right?

That is what several anti-war liberals are starting to wonder. First there is Mark Brown of the Chicago Sun Times, "But after watching Sunday's election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong? It's hard to swallow, isn't it? If you fit the previously stated profile, I know you're fighting the idea, because I am, too. And if you were with the president from the start, I've already got your blood boiling. For those who've been in the same boat with me, we don't need to concede the point just yet. There's a long way to go. But I think we have to face the possibility."

John Stewart said yesterday, "I’ve watched this thing unfold from the start and here’s the great fear that I have: What if Bush, the president, ours, has been right about this all along? I feel like my world view will not sustain itself and I may, and again I don’t know if I can physically do this, implode." (via the corner)

I kind of sympathize with them. I thought at the time Clinton was slightly wrong about the whole Bosnia/Kosovo intervension, but in retrospect I think it was probably the right decision given the two bad choices Clinton had to pick from. One choice was to go along with the UN and do nothing and let the genocide continue. The other choice was to go against the UN and go to war to end the genocide. I guess the difference between me and the above quotes was that I realized back then that it was a complex decision and knew that there was a pretty good chance I was wrong about it, while the idea that they could be wrong seems to be a revelation to the two people quoted above. I am not going to implode over this.

Posted by Pete at 03:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack