Peace In Our Time, Part 3 - Robert Pollock writes about something I've been thinking for most of the past decade; Bill Clinton was the Neville Chamberlain of our era.
The mantra - no, the cliche - of the era was the "peace process", as if dictators could be weaned from butchery by an international twelve-step program. "Step One: You need to recognize you're a racist totalitarian butcher...".
Pollock writes:
For Colombia's peace process was based on an idea so stupid that it could only have been the culmination of a U.S.-led decade of appeasement that saw terrorists installed in the governments of Palestine, Northern Ireland and Sierra Leone, and butchers like Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic and Kim Jong Il using negotiations as cover for the pursuit of aggressive aims.War is bad. Sometimes an unjust peace is worse. A peace that allows dictators and terrorists to aggrandize themselves through manipulating the "process" - and allowing it to happen in the name of "process", like achieving piece is some sort of law-school project-mediation exercise - is utterly unjust.
Adios, Jesse? - Will Ventura recover from the big override?
Let's connect the dots; he has one fellow party member in the legislature. He's just had his head handed to him by the legislature on the budget. His star power is in the toilet. His major legislative initiative, the unicameral legislature, was DOA from the beginning and is deader still now. The only people who still support him are sitting in icefishing shacks wondering if the world isn't just an atom in a much bigger organism, dude.
He was a fluke - a fluke that served as a mouthpiece for influential wonks like Tim Penny and Dean Barkley, but an electoral fluke nonetheless.
My bet - it's over. He'd be nuts to run.
But then, he was nuts, and I was wrong, in 1998...
Bombay Calling to the Faraway Towns - Critics of America's system of government rarely deign to show better alternatives. Perhaps because there aren't any.
As we see now in India. This is scary.
Not only did ABC extinguish the last remaining reason to watch Monday Night Football by firing Dennis Miller, they've now stomped on the ashes of those reasons by hiring the most irritating voice in the world, John Madden.
Not that it's normally an issue - I never watch it, I'll take baseball every time. But...ick.
The Devil and Bono Vox - I've been playing in rock and punk bands since I was a kid. I've also been a Christian pretty much my entire cognitive life. It's a given that a lot of my rocker friends don't "get" the Christianity part. But many of my Christian friends had an even bigger problem. "You should be playing in a Christian band", they'd insist. I'd reply, "why preach to the choir?". "Contemporary Christian" music always bored me stiff - because it was designed from the ground up to be safe to the consumer, the already-converted.
The examples I held up of Christians who were Rockers were the ones I wanted to emulate (back when I wanted to be a rock star), the ones who took their beliefs and waded into the jungle of the world's most profane business: Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, T-Bone Burnett, Mike Sharp and Dave Peters of The Alarm, arguably the late Stuart Adamson of Big Country...
...and the big kahuna, U2, led by Bono (Paul Hewson), the greatest rock band since the Beatles (and as distinct from Bruce Springsteen, who's less a Rock act than a Rock 'n Roll institution).
In the wake of their magnificent performance at the Super Bowl, Jim Boulet of the National Review finally nailed the dichotomy that Bono, U2, and that entire generation of Rockers who are Christians represent.
The System - Here in St. Paul: A local businesswoman with deep ties to the DFL, the Hamline/Midway Community Coalition, and DFL councilman Jay Benanav is buying a piece of city-owned property at 60% under market value - under the rubric of "Neighborhood Revitalization". This transfer is the subject of a St. Paul Housing Redevelopment Authority hearing today.
I wrote a long post on the subject for the St. Paul Politics discussion list. I was going to post it under my "Articles" section - but later yesterday afternoon, it got more interesting. I'm going to rewrite it, and post it under "Articles", later today or early tomorrow.
Is it a great smoking gun of urban corruption? Perhaps not. Is it a piece of the system that allows patronage perks to local politicians? I'll post the article, and let you be the judge.
The Free Market Versus Islamic Extremism - Reason Magazine points out why the market - not sanctimonious posturing - might hold part of the answer to Islamic Extremism.
Oops - Yes, I ended up taking yesterday off. Work called. Drat the luck. Hopefully bigger and "better" today.
Sorkin it up, Toughin' it Out - Liberal drug addict and TV producer Aaron Sorkin is in trouble for ripping on the president.
So in the interest of kicking a dog when it's down - "West Wing" is almost as dull as it is prissily sanctimonious, but not quite as much as it is blinkeredly pollyanaish about liberal dogma.
And "The American President" was a groaningly dull movie.
And I could never be bothered to watch "Sportsnight".
The Councilman and the Coffeepusher - The story of Jay Benanav, and the sweetheart deal given to St. Paul businesswoman and Benanav supporter Kathy Sundberg, tomorrow.
A Tale of Two Politicians - When Ronald Reagan contracted Alzheimers, he kept his ailment to himself until he couldn't any longer - and then gracefully withdrew from public life, to protect his family's privacy and, one might presume, not inflict his suffering on the rest of the public.
Yesterday's news - Senator Paul Wellstone has a very mild form of Multiple Sclerosis. So why did he pick yesterday to announce it - during the same news cycle that Roger Moe was using to announce his gubernatorial bid?
Why is he announcing it at all? If it's not serious or life-threatening, why is it a matter of any public importance?
Could it be a craven play for the sympathy vote in a race that even his supporters say is going to be brutally tight?
Can we expect to see fawning coverage of the Senator rescuing a cat from a tree, soon?
I Blog, Therefore I Am - I've had people ask me how this site is done, and what I use to do it.
It's a good question - and the tip of a new web-society iceberg, as explained by Andrew Sullivan.
WebLogs are either one possible path for the future of web "journalism", or a fun fad. The next few years will tell!
Other World Alert - My kids watch a bit of "The Disney Channel". Tonight, they were promoting a made-for-Disney-Cable movie ("Cadet Kelly", not that it matters), where a young hippie girl is sent to a military school.
In a scene in a promo for the "movie", a girls drill team is seen, flipping rifles around in that drill-team-y sort of way. The scene in the promo was subtitled: "No Real Guns were Used in This Movie".
Whew, that's a releif. Disney exposes kids to sex ("Boy Meets World"), mockery of parents (too many of their programs to name), valuing athletics over doing schoolwork ("Double Team", "Totally Hoops"), rabid self-centeredness and plenty of other lousy influences - but by jinkum, there are no "real guns" in that movie! Woo Hooo!
It's a great era for sarcastic people.
Weekend - I'll be spending the weekend at that most glorious of American institutions - an elementary school girls' basketball tourney. My daughter kicks butt, by the way. At any rate, although I've promised to take the last two weekends off, this weekend I really, really, really am.
I guarantee it.
Stop the Sketch! - In a state that gave us Rudy Perpich, Phyllis Kahn and Jesse The Mind Ventura, sometimes it helps to remember that there are states out there who are just as silly and trite and profligate with the voters' money and patience as our wierd state.
Iraq 'n Roll - James Robbins discusses a possible endgame in Iraq.
More on the "Clinton Military" - Apparently after eight years of neglect and downsizing, the National Guard isn't as ready for action as we thought.
EuroAlert - Further proof, were any needed, that after 200-odd years, Europeans still haven't gotten this democracy thing figured out.
The EU has all the makings of a bureaucratic police state. And I never thought I'd say it, but - kudos to Tony Blair (if you're reading, Tone!) for swimming against the mediocre bureaucratic tide.
Cold Lampin' with Diddy - Slate addresses the would-be Don King of the 21st century, Puff Dad...er, P-Diddy...er, Sean John...er, Sean "Puffy" Combs. It - and the stories about similar hip-hop megacapitalist Master P - explain less about hip-hop culture than they do about...
...yes, why America is a great place! As long as there's a P.T. Barnum working some room somewhere in this country, things can't be all bad.
My New Screen Saver! - This, from Germany's "Der Spiegel".
The issues is titled, in English, "The Bush Warriors". Spiegel is hilariously liberal - but in Europe, news outlets are at least honest about their biases.
The Slavery is Freedom Act - Sam McDonald writes in Reason Magazine that the Democrats have at least learned one important lesson from John Aschcroft; are you pushing legislation that is sure to assault civil liberties? Give it a warm, fuzzy name.
Thus, Ted Kennedy's latest whack at controlling the law-abiding American's access to firearms is:
...titled "Gun Sale Anti-Fraud and Privacy Protection." It bears a striking resemblance to the "Gun-Sale Anti-Fraud and Privacy Protection Act" the senators proposed in July. Both bills propose to protect Americans’ privacy by making sure the federal government keeps track of how many guns they buy
Perhaps it's time for the "Americans United and Happy, putting Ted Kennedy in a UPS Box bound for Tadjikistan while Uniting Around the Flag" act to be introduced.
Why I Love Ann Coulter - Sure, she's as subtle as an M1 tank in a feminist caucus meeting, but Ann Coulter sometimes fires off a line that sums things up better than the rest of the landed punditry put together.
When we were at peace, Democrats wanted to raise taxes. Now there's a war, so Democrats want to raise taxes. When there was a surplus, Democrats wanted to raise taxes. Now that there is a mild recession, Democrats want to raise taxes. There is perennially some sector of the economy Teddy Kennedy is longing to socialize and this, too, will require raising taxes.
So it was interesting that Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., recently said of the Bush tax cut: "Ideology dictated that – tax cuts, no matter what the circumstances." At least Republicans admit it.
How's that? - The Politics section of the Star/Tribune online today includes one of those quickie polls about same-sex benefits. The poll asks:
"Should the state support same-sex employee benefits?
Why isn't this ever brought into the debate?
Wonk Power - How Speech Rationing (aka Campaign Finance Reform) helps the ultimate special interest - politicians.
The Treehugger Has No Clothes? - Scientists who break from the ranks of environmental activists find themselves being attacked for the darnedest things.
Danish scientist Bjorn Lomborg started writing a book attacking Julian Simon - a scientist who questioned the thesis of global warming. As he continued his research, he found that the evidence favored Simon. Being intellectually honest, Lomborg wrote as much in his book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World". This article explains the reactions he's gotten.
Now - looking at how the academic community attacks heritics from their predetermined, PC conclusions - let's look over how the academic community has reacted to John Lott, shall we?
Too Sad to Joke About - September 11 all but wiped out what had been for me, up to then, the saddest story of the year - the Andrea Yates case, which went to trial yesterday. It brought up an interesting question: in a land where we're all supposed to be equal before the law, are women just a little more equal than the rest of us?
Feminist groups are demanding Yates be released to treatment - that post-partum depression is the villain, not Ms. Yates herself. Imagine a man trying to skate on five murders by claiming he was depressed? Conservative feminists have their own take on this.
In many areas of the law - for example, rape shield laws, which are in the news with the final disposition of the Jovanovich case, and various campus behavioral codes that put the burden of proving innocence against virtually any sex-related charge on the men - women risk being infantilized by the law. In the workplace, they're perfectly equal, of course - but in court, they're weak little creatures that must be deferred to and defended.
It's not a news flash - feminism isn't about equality any more. It's just depressing to see it playing out over the lives of five children.
Ah, well. Back to the real war.
Distorted Priorities - William Safire wrote a great article yesterday about the distortion in security priorities in Washington since the start fo the war, and the danger that poses to our freedom.
Talk Talk - The concealed carry debate begins on Politalk today. In theory, my article "The Top Three Myths about Concealed Carry Reform" should appear. Again, I've posted it on my articles site a day in advance of the debate (because I can, that's why!
First, I Take Your Leg - Fascinating article in the Strib that puts a name to something conservative talk-radio has been noting for years - the tendency of bureaucrats, when "cutting budgets", to slash the things that'll get the most public resistance first. Then, maybe, start trimming actual fat.
Worth reading when dealing with your local school board, come levy time.
Fraying About the Edges - One more sign that life in the Twin Cities just isn't as good as it was.
This was one thing about the greater Twin Cities that always astounded my friends from Chicago and LA. Sorry to see it on the skids.
Now 75% Less Vacuous! - Great article in Reason Magazine about how the press is - or at least sees itself as - being a whole lot less frivolous now than before the war.
Blah - The worst kind of hangover is the one where you haven't had a thing to drink in weeks.
I've got the same upper-respiratory crud that everyone else has. Hacking cough, headache, general Mencken-ish dyspepsia...
So this might be a thin issue today. More to come!
Liberals and Defense - We talked last week (see the Archives) about liberals' exaggerated faith in "the Clinton Military". Another idea popped to mind this week along those lines.
Liberals are criticizing President Bush's defense budget, lambasting "programs left over from the Cold War", and crowing that the victory in Afghanistan proves that Mach 2 fighter jets and M1 Abrams tanks are obsolete - that "the wars of the future" will be won by intelligence and special forces and precision-guided bombs.
They say the military always trains to fight the last war. Whether that's true or not - let's ignore that for a moment - what's obvious is that liberals are even more prone to that tendency.
After Vietnam, liberals said the tank and the B-52 were obsolete. After the Gulf War, some liberals said special forces didn't hold a candle to the tank and the cruise missile! And now...the Green Beret is suddenly the measure of warfighting potential.
Well, indeed, in Afghanistan the Green Beret (and the British SAS trooper) indeed were the arbiter of victory. But who's to say the next war will be like Afghanistan? Who's to say they won't have an air force? The former USSR has been selling off its highly advanced aircraft and surface to air missiles for a decade now. Is the tank obsolete? Not when driving across the desert or the plains, where groups of special forces can't hold a candle to teams tanks and helicopters and close support aircraft.
Will we ever fight a war like that again? Well, the first thing to remember is that defense pundits are about as accurate, in the main, as TV weathermen.
Reminder - if you haven't signed up for the Politalk debate on Concealed Carry reform, do. The array of contributors promises to be excellent and well-informed. And the forum - unlike some others we could name - is impartial and actually dedicated to a useful debate of the issues.
OK... - This weekend, I'm really not going to post anything. Honest. I'm taking two days off. For real. No takebacks.
Freedom as Commodity - Why the free market is a better answer than Speech Rationing...er, Campaign Finance Reform.
French, Toast - The National Review's Victor Davis Hanson parodies the European response to our actions since September 11. Hilarious.
And the Luge They Rode In On - International Olympic officials, upset about the intensely nationalistic fervor and intense security at the Salt Lake City games, are pondering never staging an Olympics in the US again.
I have also groaned, in past Olympiads, at some of the "America First" angles of the media coverage, and the boorishness of some American fans (who, on a bad day, act like Scottish soccer fans). But for Stu's sake, what does the IOC expect?
And I'm sure, as the article notes, that the fact that the IOC was punished for taking bribes in setting up this Olympic Games has nothing to do with the story...
The IOC, like the UN, is an international body we could probably do well without.
Incumbancy Protection Act Passes - John Fund, as is frequently the case, nails the Shays-Meehan bill on the head.
The American Empire? - Andrew Sullivan's site is in quite a discussion about the dawning of America as an Empire. He also refers to this article by Paul Kennedy.
More to come.
Happy Valentine's Day! - For the first time in 13 years, I'm not giving out any valentines! Do you have any idea how much money I'm saving?
Concealed Carry Online Discussion - Politalk.com , a local political debate site, will be hosting a two-week-long debate about Minnesota's proposed Concealed Carry Reform bill. I'll be writing a piece - "Top Three Myths about Concealed Carry Reform", which will state at least part of the "pro" case. That'll also appear in the Articles page on my site.
Please sign up for the discussion - whatever side you're on - and join in.
Sorry - Running a bit late today. Life calls. Bleah.
Even More Shocked - Judi Dutcher throws her hat in the ring for Governor. She was a stealth democrat when she was elected State Auditor, before Jeffordsing the MN GOP. Now, she'll provide the teacher-union-coddling "alternative" to...Pawlenty?
Good thing this election isn't being decided by photogeneity, though. Although I can't imagine how else she became the State Auditor, now that we mention it.
Promises, Promises - The stars that promised to move to Europe if President Bush won the election...haven't.
Through the Past, Dankly - My archives are now available. See the menu on the right.
"We Meet Again - but this time, I Have Control! - I remember all the way back to high school, hearing radical feminists saying - no, treating as an article of hope and faith, the notion that eventually we'd develop a way to fertilize an egg without needing sperm. Ergo, without needing men. In fact, many feminists, or merely anti-male men, (and more anti-male men) revelled in the idea that men would soon be irrelevant to the propagation of the species.
Now, it seems the tables are turned - science could apparently develop an artificial womb, rendering women redundant for purposes of procreation. Suddenly, it seems that not only can we create babies without women, but the technology to do so is advancing faster than that which would obsolete the male of the species.
And - read the article - the same knuckle-dragging fasco-feminists that were rejoicing in the imminent redundancy of the male, are suddenly having paranoid dreams of "the elimination of females". According to test organizer Dr Scott Gelfand, of Oklahoma State University:
'Some feminists even say artificial wombs mean men could eliminate women from the planet and still perpetuate our species.
My Predictions - As I predicted, the Personal Protection Act is on rocky ground - but only ever-so slightly. The Star Tribune continues to astound with its relatively balanced coverage, by the way. The bill may be back - but I think next year's the charm.
Conrad DeFiebre wrote an excellent story about the de facto existence of "Shall Issue" outstate, and the rank bias in the metro area.
Here's a question for you metro-area anti-carry advocates: proposals for concealed-carry reform are always answered with a lot of vagaries, none more vague than "it'll decivilize society".
Please, someone, anyone: provide me with an example of this mysterious, unquantifiable de-civilization from any of the 28 states that have adopted "shall issue" laws in the last 20 years. I'll give you space on this page to present your opinion, if you can just show me an example.
You have your opportunity. I doubt anyone can use it - because no such example exists. The whole idea is an attempt to put a sociological patina on what is essentially prejudice born of fear.
This debate will continue.
The Foul-Mouthed Sandy Pappas is hard at work in St. Paul, making Minnesota safer for illegal immigrants, orphanage-bashers, big porkbarrel projects and the teachers' union - but making it a crime to talk on your cell phone in your car.
We get the government we deserve. I hate to think we're this bad, though.
Speech Rationing Moves Forward - the Shays/Meehan Speech Rationing bill (aka "Campaign Finance Reform") may come to a vote in the House today. Call your congressperson.
This is the most cynical bill of goods I can recall anyone trying to sell me. Any group that isn't in tight with the media - think the NRA, R-Kids (or any father's rights group), any prolife group, CCRN of Minnesota...and if you don't agree with them, think of any left-of-center group that doesn't have a massive lobbying presence.
Speech rationing must go.
Good Sign, Bad Sign? - In these days of creeping war, terror alerts and economic stress, it's so good that America's most vacuous diversion is going to be back.
Fortune Favors the Innocuous- The United Nations has banned child soldiers.
"The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, and campaigners, will mark the treaty's enforcement with a special ceremony in the grounds of the UN's European headquarters in Geneva"says the BBC.
One wonders if the "enforcement" will ever be carried out outside the "grounds of the UN's...European headquarters".
Laws don't keep children out of the army. Prosperity, and an end to chickenspittle dictatorships, just might.
Fortune Favors the Blunt - When Ronald Reagan gave his definitive speech at the Brandenburg Gate in 1987, his advisors were shaking in their shoes. Yet he pressed ahead - and the message got across, and history changed sooner than any of us had any right to expect.
Well, like clockwork, Tom Daschle is criticizing the President for the turn of phrase "axis of evil". Yet, in a BBC piece I heard today, it seems the Iranian moderates are taking their cue, and have been at least somewhat emboldened by the President's bluntness.
Has there ever been a less inspiring leader than Tom Daschle?
Public Campaign Financing - The notion of making elections "fairer" by financing them with tax dollars keeps popping up.
John Fund addresses this issue in this week's Opinion Journal.
The supporters' notion is that elections will be fairer and more equitable if the taxpayer picks up the tab. The opponents note that it will further entrench incumbents, further exaggerate the role of our biased media, and freeze out groups (like the NRA or, on the other side, anti-globalism groups) that don't have enough clout with the mainstream press to get their positions fairly and impartially heard.
This should be a Republican litmus test. You listening, Bill Cooper?
Dispatches from the Drug War - the Pioneer Press' Ruben Rosario notes that many states are finally seeing the fiscal and moral light, and abolishing mandatory minimum sentences, especially for first drug offenses.
The conservative case for ending the "Drug War" (and getting tough on real crimes), coming soon.
Minnesota is, of course, the home of Minnesota Nice, a euphemism for "The closest America gets to a Swedish cradle-to-grave social welfare state".
It's possible that we may be facing a referendum on that image.
This fall Minnesotans will be electing a Senator and a Governor. The Senate race is likely between current senior Senator Paul Wellstone, and popular former St. Paul governor Norm Coleman.
As of this weekend, the race is a dead heat, according to the Strib. Now, Wellstone has won this race twice, more or less easily. But some of us maintain Minnesota is growing more conservative, and is doing it sooner rather than later.
Coleman's hardly a prime example of a conservative - which may be the point, here. He's "conservative-lite", sort of like George W. Bush. Will Norm, coming off a great but subsidy-laden eight years in St. Paul, be the candidate to start weaning the Minnesota voter off the nannystate? Four years ago, Coleman came in second behind fluke Jesse Ventura, garnering more votes than DFL candidate Skip Humphrey. Ventura himself won on a message that resonated with at least as many conservatives (rationalize and lower license tab fees, advocate concealed carry reform) as liberals (cozying up to the teachers union, being a mouthpiece for Tim Penny and Dean Barkley).
I know. It's a poll, taken nine months before the election, and likely spun to make Wellstone look like an underdog. But the election is going to be an interesting one.
Cheetos for thought.
Pick Your Sources Carefully - The DFL website is currently leading with an article about New York Times economics pundit Paul Krugman, warning about "more Enrons". The tale, told in the DFL website's customary fratboy smirk, cautions people that noted NY Times economist Paul Krugman is warning everyone that we could be facing more Enrons, thanks to the big, bad Republicans.
What is not noted - perhaps because the DFL website staff is unaware of it? - is that Paul Krugman contributed to the Enron problem, through fairly blatant conflict of interest.
Paul Krugman was on Enron's payroll! Krugman was on a "board of advisors", composed of media figures from around the business. In exchange for $50,000 a year, he spent a day or two a year confabbing with Enron executives. Since he was exposed on Andrew Sullivan's website, he has seemed unable to get his story straight. Even liberal columnist Maureen Dodd is onto Krugman, while Howard Kurtz ably notes the conflict of interest involved. Even Krugman seems to realize there's a problem, albeit not in any way that sticks to him...:
It's worth noting that Sullivan also caught conservatives Bill Kristol and Peggy Noonan in conflicts of interest, after having served Enron in some capacity or other (Kristol on the same board as Krugman, Noonan as a glorified marketing-communications writer). However, neither of them is a New York Times Economics Correspondent, charged trying to report fairly about economic issues, and uncovering problems like Enron's!
Note to DFL webmaster - you might want to check your sources...
Here, from the excellent defense site Global Security.org, is the list of the troops we have in or around Afghanistan. Read my post on the subject from Friday. Notice the number of units with "special" in their titles. Then notice the numbers - men, ships, planes - involved in the units.
Compare this with the half-million men and 100,000 vehicles sent to the Persian Gulf ten years ago - that we couldn't send now if we tried. Then talk about the Clinton Military.
More to come.
I'm not one of those conservatives that gets off on holding liberals up to their endless predilection for rewriting history - especially as it regards their own gaping mistakes in appraising the world around them.
But I do like to point you to conservatives that do get off on that. Yesterday, I cited Dinesh D'Souza's exposition of liberal revisionism about Reagan and the Cold War (1987: "The Soviets are here to stay". 1992: "WE knew the USSR was doomed all along").
Today: Ann Coulter bites a chunk out of Maureen Dowd. Before 9/11, Dowd exulted in how "out of touch" Bush's cabinet was. Today...well, you get the picture.
The miasmic stench hanging over St. Paul's "West End" neighborhood is matched only by the controversy about "Gopher States Ethanol" (GSE).
Bear in mind, Ethanol brewing is a new, non-economically-viable industry mandated by the State of Minnesota's creation of an artificial market for Ethanol; they mandated several years ago that all gasoline sold in Minnesota had to contain a certain percentage of Ethanol during the winter months. So Minnesotans are forced to buy gasoline that is rendered harmful to their cars, and support an unviable industry with their tax dollars (because Ethanol is NOT an industry that can sustain itself in the private market as of yet).
But I digress. There is a lawsuit underway against GSE by a group of neighborhood activists (and a few activists, or if you prefer "opportunistic carpetbaggers" from other neighborhoods), claiming that the brewing of ethanol is making the neighborhood unliveable. One of the factors they cite is the smell that comes from distillery.
Well, I drove through the West End last weekend for the first time in years. And I don't want to minimize the suffering anyone's undergoing, and my experience with GSE's smell is about ten minutes at a gas station downwind.
But - if that's what the locals call "unbearable stench", none of you'd ever better try to live in any farm town on the Great Plains.
It's just a first impression. My mind is thoroughly open on this.
I intend to keep this to a Monday through Friday schedule. A guy's gotta have a life.
Well, theoretically.
Many of my liberal friends (yes, I have quite a few of them) simply can't understand why so many of us on the right still care about Ronald Reagan, much less honor the accomplishments of his administration. For starters, they don't recognize the accomplishments. As Dinesh D'Souza pointed out, before the Berlin Wall fell, most of the left's pundits said Communism was here to stay - but the moment the first brick hit the ground, they said they'd predicted it all along!
Peggy Noonan explains, in last week's Opinion Journal, about why we do this.
I suggested on the Minnesota Politics mailing list (and repeat here), that since the era of the "big tent" party might be wheezing to a close, perhaps the GOP needs to focus on the "small tent" issues that truly separate it from the Democrats.
I suggested these issues were:
Interesting concept. But the IP has historically aligned itself with "moderate" (meaning soft-liberal, albeit not blinkeredly-so) policies - coddling the teachers' union, belief in government fiscal activism (albeit not so profligate as in the DFL), and a general mushiness on social disintervention on the part of the state government.
There are times I wonder if any of Minnesota's parties know what they're about. The DFL is lock-step-left, at least as far as endorsed candidates - but they can't seem to get elected to the important posts, and get regularly trounced by unendorsed DFL and even GOP candidates. The GOP is in the midst of a serious identity crisis. And the Independence Party, despite the presence of thinkers like Tim Penny and Dan Barkley, pretty much revolves on Jesse Ventura's whims.
Which is why I think the GOP needs to focus on its money message - less government BS, more money in your pocket, safer streets.
And, I hate to say it, but the GOP needs to get tough on officials who don't support at least those three broad goals. Disagree on abortion, or on gay marriage - but for G-d's sake, close ranks on taxes.
One of the right's campaign platforms was rebuilding a military that atrophied badly under the Clinton administration. The Army, which had 18 ground divisions during the Gulf War (and sent seven of them to the Gulf), has exactly ten now, and several of them are not capable of going into action. Friends of mine in the military - many of whom served under Carter, Reagan and Bush the First - were forthright and ferocious in their condemnation of the slide the military underwent on Clinton's watch.
Now, with the military's great performance, many on the left are claiming that the conflict in Afghanistan is a referendum on the Clinton Military, and it has passed with flying colors.
Not so fast.
While the conflict in Afghanistan is important, it involves a relatively tiny number of our troops - and they are our best troops. Special Forces, Rangers, Deltas, a battalion of Marines, and a few Air Force squadrons; aircraft numbering in the dozens to low hundreds (a Rapid Deployment Wing, basically, plus a wad of transports). They - our "elite forces" - were among the few units that maintained their budgets to train, actively, for this sort of mission during the previous administration. All of these troops have been painstakingly trained and equipped to do exactly what they did - fly or sail around the world on short notice and carry out mayhem on an enemy. This, they've done.
Now - if Saddam Hussein opted to invade Saudi Arabia again, how would we react? Of the seven Army divisions that retook Kuwait, three no longer exist (the 24th Infantry and 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions), and two are scattered about the globe on peacekeeping missions. If we had to react in serious force to a real military threat somewhere, we could not.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said yesterday that we have more troops on scene at the Olympics in Utah than we have in Afghanistan. He's being modest. We also have more troops in the former Yugoslavia. The British sent more men to the Falklands in 1982 than we've sent to Afghanistan.
In other words; claiming that Afghanistan is a positive report on the "Clinton Military" is like claiming my grilled-cheese sandwich makes me a gourmet chef. It might be a dang fine sandwich, but it's not a real test of cheffery (?).
And Afghanistan is not a true test of a whole military.
Concealed Carry Reform Now says the proposed Personal Protection Act has been rewritten, already - and, contrary to some opinions in the press, will be bringing the bill back to the floor, despite the knock from the MCPA.
Also - the Senate will be getting a report shortly from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension that will, according to an email from CCRN, "...show that Minnesota and Minnesotan’s already have Concealed Carry in 80% of the state without any problems."
Much more later.
I'm going to start putting together the list, and settling this thing once and for all :-). But here's one litmus test I suggest.
No support for Speech Rationing. (AKA "Campagn Finance Reform"). Not only does "CFR" silence conservatives and their grassroots organizations, it is an infringement on freedom - which we, as Republicans, had better oppose.
I've been playing with this for years. It still makes me laugh. I should probably worry.
The media are portraying yesterday's rejection of the Personal Protection Act by the Minnesota Police Chiefs Association as a setback. And I suppose it is, thinking purely in the short term. But think about this:
1) The MCPA has always opposed liberalization of concealed carry laws! But this year, they were actually dragged to the table - likely by their outstate membership, but that is a huge gain for PPA supporters.
2) Five years ago, Concealed Carry Reform Now couldn't get into legislators' offices, and their bills routinely died in committee. Today, CCRN members are in on all discussions, the bill nearly passed last year, and CCRN members are given nearly equal time in the news (outside of the editorial pages, of course).
3) Minnesota is getting more conservative.
My fearless prediction: the PPA may be defeated this year, but it will be every bit as close as last year. The plucky grassrooters of the CCRN will battle a full-court DFL and Media press to a standstill, maybe a near-victory. And next session, after a redistricting that will likely reflect Minnesota's growing conservatism, the bill will pass.
You heard it here first.
Who needs "reality TV", when America's most sordid drama is going on under our noses? The endless saga of parental kidnapping continues. Underground Watch is a small grassroots organization that tries to locate abductors. One of their targets is Atlanta activist Faye Yager, who runs (so it's said) a worldwide "underground railroad" (documented in soft-focus by photographer and Yager sympathizer Allan Detrich) which, critics say, helps women who've lost custody cases to abscond, with the children.
Reading the stories, and following the characters involved, summons equal parts righteous indignation, Jerry-Springer-style "what's gonna happen next", and revulsion.
More to come.
The US isn't the only country undergoing contortions over Afghanistan. The Frankfurter Allgemeine (English Version) ran this article about how the Germans' fragmented, fractured response to 9/11 may hurt the Greens and Social Democrats (Think Highland Park DFLers in lederhosen) in the next election.
Still waiting to see how the US Left's response affects their showing.
Channel 9's morning show (Mmmm - Alex Kendall!) is running a poll on what Minnesotans feel about Concealed Carry laws. Go to the site, it'll ping you for a vote.
As of about three minutes ago, it was running 3-1 in favor. Now, of course the poll is utterly non-scientific. On the other hand, I doubt you can show me that Channel 9's morning audience (Mmmmm, Alex Kendall!) is skewed terribly to the right. Can you?
By the way, Channel 9's morning show did a man-on-the-street...at Keys Cafe, in St. Paul! Oh, THERE's a representative sample, the middle of St. Paul's arts 'n croissant ghetto! Why not do the interview at the DFL headquarters, while you're at it?
Snack food for thought.
Today's article in the Strib says that the proposed concealed-carry liberalization bill suffered a big blow when the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association reneged on four months worth of negotiations and went back to opposing the bill.
But the MCPA has opposed this bill every year! It certainly made a difference last year, when the bill fell two votes short of passage in the Senate.
You - and the media - need to remember that the members of the MCPA are mostly political appointees, many of them appointed by soft-on-guns urban mayors. The very fact that they addressed this issue among themselves is a victory of sorts for MN-CCRN.
Some of Bill Cooper's detractors seem to think his current stunt - "exposing" moderates in the party - is a ploy to get Bill Sullivan into the pole position for the nomination this fall.
Question to those who believe this: Since endorsement by the conservative wing of the MN GOP seems to carry all the weight of, say, endorsement by the DFL, where precisely is the logic in that?
Again, I'm just asking.
I was amazed to read an editorial supporting Mary Jo Copeland's proposed orphanage...in the Minnesota Daily!
The author makes an interesting point - while foster care may be a great option for many kids, others, especially older children, can't get a decent foster home. Furthermore, which is better for a child's sense of long-term belonging; the all-too-common series of transient foster homes, or a well-run, close-knit small community of children in the same boat?
I don't pretend to know the answer to that not-at-all rhetorical question. But, it seems, neither does anyone else...
Today is Ronald Reagan' s 91st birthday. I brought cupcakes to work, and put them under the lunchroom whiteboard. "We begin eating in five minutes!"
For those who don't already know, here's why he was - and still is - important - a year-old Sunday Times of London article from the Andrew Sullivan website. Tell a liberal friend!
Last year I started - tongue partially in cheek - a Reagan's Birthday National Holiday movement. Just to get my tongue out of my cheek (where it looks ridiculous), wish a friend a happy Reagan's Birthday today. Posterity will thank you.
"Bipartisanship (noun): to belong to a non-DFL party, but to espouse and support DFL policies without any serious question".
We're collecting more DFL Dictionary entries. I'll publish them here, shortly. Write me with your entries! I'll publish them when I get enough...
My biography page includes (or included) a link to a small consulting company I used to run. I let the domain name for that company lapse last year - but never updated my bio site.
An urgent email just informed me that that domain was bought by a porn company. Sorry if any of you were offended - and no, that's not what a good conservative does for a living! (Thanks for the catch, though...). The link is gone.
I've always opposed gay marriage - and always thought I knew why.
Andrew Sullivan - a conservative columnist and former New Republic editor - may have changed my mind. He's conservative, Catholic, and gay. He writes eloquently about the conflicts and contradictions that entails (and why it shouldn't, and what needs to change).
And here is a 1996 New Republic article that might start changing your mind - a conservative case for gay marital rights.
Bias Watch! - Amazingly, in the story linked in the previous blurb, the Star/Tribunes Dane Smith does not refer to Bill Cooper as "Conservative Bill Cooper".
What's this world coming to? First, Conrad DeFiebre gives fair coverage to the Concealed Carry issue - and now this?
Bill Cooper - The Star/Tribune writes this morning about Bill Cooper's move to "purify" the Minnesota GOP.
Here's the question: If you ARE a Minnesota Republican, what ARE the party's bedrock issues that are worth fighting for? According to Bill Cooper and Jason Lewis, you seem to have your choice from among:
We'll get back to this later.
In Minnesota, the land of 10,000 Grassroots Groups, there may be no pluckier band of underdogs than Concealed Carry Reform Now. Yet in the 2001 session, MN-CCRN got their bill passed in the Minnesota House of Representatives, and came within two votes of passing the more liberal Senate.
Perhaps more importantly, the media (especially the Strib's excellent Conrad DeFiebre) started questioning some of the assumptions being spoonfed them by some of the more alarmist opponents of the bill - like Minneapolis DFL representative Wes Skoglund.
This year, with a more conservative national tenor, a probably more-conservative redistricting in the wings, and with considerable momentum left over from last year, perhaps the unthinkable could happen.
Watch this space for details and commentary.
Welcome to Shot in the Dark!
I'm Mitch Berg. I'm a divorced father of two kids, living in St. Paul. I'm as politically active as time permits - which is to say, not very much. My bio is not really all that interesting, but here it is.
I'm a Christian, an unreconstructed rock and roller, intensely committed to equality before the law for everyone, and am way too intense for my own good.
I work as a software designer - but in a perfect world, I'd do this for a living! And I'm a new initiate to the world of Blogger sites, so this should be interesting.
And I'm going to try to publish my take, and (more importantly) the takes of a bunch of people MUCH more adept at this, on this collection of the news of the day. Hope you enjoy it - or at least are motivated to some sort of reaction, good, bad or uproarious.
Enjoy!