Giuliani impressed me by standing up for being Pro-Choice in a wide sea of Pro-Life conservatives. Fred Thompson impresses me similarly; he shares his opinions in a clear and concise manner without a lot of political obfuscation. Like Giuliani, he isn't shy about what he stands for.

Why talk about what Fred Thompspon stands for when you can read his own words over at TownHall.Com? Also, did you know that he has a MySpace page? ...and a blog?

The Castro/Chavez Axis
A Prescription for the Nursing Shortage
An Unsustainable Development
The New Hostages
Sentencing of Scooter Libby
A Story of Vigilance
Speaking Up for Freedom
Living in Terror
I Remember
Tolerating Trafficking
The Immigration Bill: Comprehensive or Incomprehensible?
You're Listening to Radio Free Congress
Those Who Cannot Remember the Past
It’s a Small World After All
Power of The President
First Principles First
Armed with the Truth
A Toast to Monsieur Sarkozy
Tenent’s Time with Tim
To the Shores of Tripoli
Excerpt: Prepared Remarks for Speech to Lincoln Club Annual Dinner
Images of Oppression
The myth of Cuban health care
Sticks and Stones
The NFL Backdraft
Rewriting History a Classroom at a Time
Black and White Decisions
Talking about Federalism

I really enjoyed this interview. The more I see of the man, the more I like him.

If you have the time and curiosity, check it out.

It has been 109 days since John F. Kerry signed his form 180 and the public has yet to see "at least a hundred pages" of unreleased documents from Naval Archives.

According to O'Neill, "The Standard Form 180 could release 'the full military and medical records.' Or it could release just a few. It all depends on how it is filled out and where it was sent."

"There is nothing magic about signing a SF 180," said former Naval Judge Advocate General Mark Sullivan. "It is sort of like your checkbook. You can fill out a check for one dollar or a million. It is the same check form."

"And the Globe story says Kerry sent it to the Navy Personnel Command, which is only a limited storage location. So it is not surprising that the Globe then notes that what they received was largely 'duplication' of records previously released. The Navy Personnel Command primarily stores a subset of service records rather than a person's full military records. There is no doubt there are a lot of after-action records missing from what Kerry has released," said Sullivan.

Of particular interest to this blogger is discovering exactly how John Kerry left the military.

There is strong evidence that Senator Kerry did not receive an honorable discharge, and benefited from President Carter's issuance of amnesty for "military resistors".

That is a serious lie of omission for someone who based their campaign on the image of his service in Vietnam.

Frankly, I'd have had more respect for him if turned out to be a soldier of valor and a citizen of conscience. It's a shame that he was neither. The Swift Boat Veterans cast enough reasonable doubt his character as a soldier. Meeting with the enemy in Paris while still in the Naval Reserve would have easily compromised his honorable discharge, and even Kerry knew better than to delve into his past as a protester - especially after his participation (even leadership) in the fabricated lies of the Winter Soldier Investigation.

While we are on topic, this article should not go unread either.

Cao's Blog is still hosting the Tuesday Blogburst to see Kerry's 180 released to the public in full.

Dr Sanity reads a great article by conservative thinker Thomas Sowell. This is a great quote:

Thousands of people in New Orleans will be saved because millions of other people they don't even know are moved by moral obligations to come to their rescue from all corners of this country. The things our clever sophisticates sneer at are ultimately all that stand between any of us and utter devastation.

That perfectly describes why I feel at home under the "conservative" moniker even though I don't have a problem with things that are typically anethma to the social conservative (not a bad word) such as gay marriage or properly managed welfare (re: work programs).

Moral fiber. Not moral relativism.

Dr Sanity has her own point to make:

What has changed in our society, Sowell wonders? Well, to put it bluntly, we have moved from a society of individual personal responsibility to one of infantile entitlement.

And this underscores one of the reasons why I am attracted to the imperfect Bush administration: ownership versus entitlement. If we all had a firm investment in our future, perhaps we would not be so careless with it.

...like building levees that you know are vulnerable, not evacuating in the face of utter destruction and expecting someone else (like the government) to provide for your family.

This is an interesting article about the evolution of FEMA that began under President George H.W. Bush and was realized and guided to fruition under President Clinton.

Doesn't the FEMA that we have been seeing on the news this past week sound like the old FEMA described in this article?

leaving nearly 200,000 residents homeless and 1.3 million without electricity. Food, clean water, shelter, and medical assistance were scarce. Yet, for the first three days, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is responsible for coordinating federal disaster relief, was nowhere to be found. And when FEMA did finally arrive, its incompetence further delayed relief efforts. Food and water distribution centers couldn't meet the overwhelming need; lines literally stretched for miles. Mobile hospitals arrived late. In everything it did, FEMA appeared to live up to the description once given to it by South Carolina Sen. Ernest Hollings: "the sorriest bunch of bureaucratic jackasses I've ever known."

Florida was slow to realize its own dire straits because many of its emergency workers were among the storm's victims. Half of the members of the Dade County Police and Fire Departments had lost their homes. Most of the area's fire and police stations were destroyed. Like their fellow southern Floridians, disaster management workers were looking for food, water, shelter, and medical care. The state was unable to issue specific requests for aid because it had no one available to assess the damage.

Finally, as the full extent of the damage--and the lack of federal action--prompted heavy criticism, President Bush circumvented FEMA and formed a hurricane task force led by Secretary of Transportation Andrew Card. Card and the task force flew down to Florida to assess the damage. As the Department of Transportation airplane passed over southern Florida, the members of the task force were stunned by the extent of the damage. "This eerie silence came over the plane as we flew over mile after mile of pure devastation," remembers Shelley Longmuir, the task force's chief of staff. "You got the feeling that you were no longer in the United States, but in some far away, mystical place because there were none of the reference points of civilization.... It looked like Beirut."

FEMA would have seen as much--had it bothered to look. Because of its reactive posture, it had never sent a team of damage assessors to survey the wreckage. Not until Card and the task force flew to Florida did the federal government have a true sense of the storm's impact.

Andrew Card pressed then Florida Governor Chiles to accept Federal aid and resources - not FEMA, but military aid. Once the regular troops hit the ground, the people felt it.

The next day 3,500 troops were in southern Florida, the first of 17,000 that would eventually serve. Almost immediately, Hale says, the situation changed. "The first thing that happened was the morale improved the minute that people felt they weren't alone, they weren't abandoned.... You could just see people find the strength to go one more day when they were at the point of collapse."

As life in southern Florida began its long march back to normalcy, Congress began to consider what should be done with FEMA. It was clear to many on Capitol Hill that it was time to either fix FEMA or do away with it altogether.

The agency was restructured and streamlined under President Clinton, earning itself a much better reputation for responding to catastrophies such as the Oklahoma City bombing.

Virtually overnight, the agency has developed a new reputation for quickness and efficiency. Gone are the bureaucratic swamps that the old FEMA had made its hallmark. It is telling that when state disaster officials talk about FEMA's response time, they no longer speak in days or weeks, but in hours. They speak of phone calls, not of forms dropped in the mail.

So how did the FEMA of today become so much like the animal that it used to be?

Is it simply because it was assigned to Homeland Security? Is it the leadership of UnderSecretary Michael Brown? Is it the political landscape of the Department of Homeland Security?

...or are the problems now entirely different?

I look forward to an independent commission's investigation. I disagree with Senator Hilary Clinton's suggestion to break FEMA away from Homeland Security. I think that we need to have one, unified command structure.

Our Intelligence failures in 9/11 should have convinced everyone by now that we need to all be on the same page.

...by the same token, if we have bloated the chain of command with burdensome bureaucracy, then we need to trim the fat and make things more efficient.

I read this great piece over at Little Green Footballs today, I couldn't resist sharing the quote from Scott Randolph with you in its entirety:

I actually felt myself become a republican today. It was around 10am, when I read the latest update of the Cindy Sheehan saga in CNN.com. I then shot over to read some blogs about it, and perused the comments in some of them, which was nothing but a long series of petty (albeit entertaining) partisan bickering.

Then it happened. The good little democrat in me tied the little noose around his neck and jumped off the stool. He just couldn’t take it anymore.

Take what? The whining. The constant whining by the extreme left about the reasons for war, the incompetence of this administration, and how we’ve all been lied to, and how we should pull out of Iraq immediately, because, *gulp* our soldiers were in danger.

Guess what folks….they signed up to join the Army, not the boy scouts. Anytime your orientation to a new job involves an automatic weapon, you should be smart enough to figure out there’s danger involved. I actually read some people’s comments about many of the soldiers over there being naive….they weren’t expecting to go to war, so, they should be allowed to go home. Wow.

I don't know if Scott actually will switch parties now, but I can share his frustration at the very least.

To be honest, I suppose it doesn't really matter what party you are in as long as you have your thinking cap on and are willing to re-examine your positions from time to time.

It's not like the Republican party has pleased me with every choice they have made recently. That highway bill was bursting with Pork. I'm glad that we are starting to turn the deficit around, but we need to reduce the national debt - not just slow down the rate that we are piling it up.

Regardless. Scott, you aren't alone, no matter where you caucus.

Looks like our new ambassador has already started calling it like he sees it:

America's newly installed ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, labeled "inappropriate and unacceptable" the United Nations Development Program financing of materials bearing the slogan "Today Gaza, Tomorrow the West Bank and Jerusalem."

Read the whole story here.

Tip of the hat to Dr Sanity.

RINO
RINO stands for Republican In Name Only, a disparaging term for a member of the United States Republican Party whose words and actions are thought to be too fiscally or socially moderate or liberal.

The term RINO came into widespread usage around 2000 (but has been cited in newspaper stories as far back as 1992) and is used by conservative members of the Republican Party who oppose other members of their party who they deem to be too liberal. Those Republicans who are labeled RINOs counter that the conservatives who call them RINOs are extremists and politically naive to believe that conservative Republicans can be elected in moderate and liberal areas of the United States (i.e., Blue States).

Some famous RINOs:

• Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, a former Democrat
• California politician and former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan
• Gov. Arnold A. Schwarzenegger of California, who is pro-choice
• Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who has in the past voiced pro-choice beliefs
• Former New Jersey governor and EPA head Christine Todd Whitman, a moderate
• Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is pro-choice
• Former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani, who, though very critical of John Kerry at the 2004 Republican National Convention, is pro-choice and has voiced support for gay rights

NEO-CONSERVATIVE
As compared with traditional conservatism and libertarianism, which sometimes exhibites an isolationist strain, neoconservatism is characterized by an increased emphasis on defense capability, a willingness to challenge regimes deemed hostile to the values and interests of the United States, pressing for free-market policies abroad, and promoting democracy and freedom. Critics have charged that, while paying lip service to such American values, neoconservatives have supported undemocratic regimes for realpolitik reasons.

But the newly aggressive support for democracies is founded on a new recognition that, over the long term, it will reduce the extremism that is a breeding ground for islamic terrorism. Neoconservatives have often postulated that democratic regimes are, on aggregate, less likely to instigate a war than a country with an authoritarian form of government. In support, they argue that there has been no war between democracies anywhere in the world since the War of 1812. Further, they argue that the lack of freedoms, lack of economic opportunities, and the lack of secular general education in authoritarian regimes promotes radicalism and extremism. Consequently, the Administration has advocated spreading democracy to regions of the world where it currently does not prevail, most notably the Arab nations of the Middle East.

According to Irving Kristol, former managing editor of Commentary and now a Senior Fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington and the Publisher of the hawkish magazine The National Interest, a neoconservative is a "liberal mugged by reality." Broadly sympathetic to Woodrow Wilson's idealistic goals to spread American ideals of government, economics, and culture abroad, they grew to reject his reliance on international organizations and treaties to accomplish these objectives.

Some famous NEO-CONS:

• George W Bush
• Jeb Bush
• Dick Cheney
• Donald Rumsfeld
• Paul Wolfowitz
• Jeane Kirkpatrick
• Ann Coulter
• Rush Limbaugh

PALEO-CONSERVATIVE
Many paleoconservatives identify themselves as "classical conservatives," and trace their philosophy to the Old Right Republicans of the interwar period who successfully kept America out of the League of Nations, cut down non-European immigration in 1924, and stood opposed to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal proposals.

Some historians, such as Paul V. Murphy and Isaiah Berlin, see the paleoconservatives' intellectual ancestors as those anti-modern writers who defended hierarchy, localism, ultramontanism, monarchy, and aristocracy.

Paleoconservatives esteem the principles of subsidiarity and localism in recognizing that one must surely be an Ohioan, Texan or Virginian as they are an American. They embrace federalism within a framework of nationalism and are typically staunch supporters of states' rights. They are also more critical of the welfare state than the neoconservatives tend to be. They tend to be more critical of overreaching national power usurping state and local authority. They are more willing to question free trade, harshly critical of further immigration and tend to embrace an isolationist foreign policy, although few call themselves isolationist, and during the Cold War many supported overseas committments as necessary to the defense of the United States.

The paleoconservatives view neoconservatives — or those whom they identify as such — as interlopers. This tends to be a one direction political fight as most neoconservatives do not identify themselves as such and focus their energy on opposing the liberal left, not the extreme right. The paleoconservatives' view of the mainstream conservative movement is that of a self interested movement lacking the self confidence to defend its old ideas.

The best known contemporary paleoconservative is probably the commentator Patrick Buchanan, whose culture war speech is probably the most widely known paleoconservative critique.

Some famous PALEO-CONS:

• Lou Dobbs
• Pat Buchanan
• Paul Gottfried
• Robert Novak

Raging RINOs: A blogging community that loosely orbits the center. It looks like there are a number of colorful members, including The Politburo Diktat, the hosting blog for the group. I think I'll keep an eye on the headlines over at the TTLB community page, which tracks the latest articles posted by the member blogs. The tent looks big enough, I think we'll toss our own hat into the ring there.

Following a link today on the Drudge Report, I learned that Detroit was the most liberal city in the nation - according to research compiled by the Bay Area Center for Voting Research in California.

Well, that made me curious. I know that my home county, Broward, is a fairly deep blue county but when I read that Hialeah, Florida was the 4th most conservative town in the nation... I wanted to know more. I found the full list of the 239 cities that they surveyed over at their home page. Below, for your convenience, is a list of the top 50 most conservative valued cities of those 239.

THE 50 MOST CONSERVATIVE CITIES IN THE U.S.

1	Provo, Utah
2	Lubbock, Texas
3	Abilene, Texas
4	Hialeah, Florida
5	Plano, Texas
6	Colorado Springs, Colorado
7	Gilbert, Arizona
8	Bakersfield, California
9	Lafayette, Louisiana
10	Orange, California
11	Escondido, California
12	Allentown, Pennsylvania
13	Mesa, Arizona
14	Arlington, Texas
15	Peoria, Arizona

16	Cape Coral, Florida
17	Garden Grove, California
18	Simi Valley, California
19	Corona, California
20	Clearwater, Florida
21	West Valley City, Utah
22	Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
23	Overland Park, Kansas
24	Anchorage, Alaska
25	Huntington Beach, California
26	Lancaster, California
27	Tulsa, Oklahoma
28	Rancho Cucamonga, California
29	Garland, Texas
30	Wichita, Kansas
31	Santa Clarita, California
32	Fullerton, California
33	Corpus Christi, Texas
34	Carrollton, Texas
35	Anaheim, California
36	Clarksville, Tennessee
37	Jacksonville, Florida
38	Glendale, Arizona
39	Waco, Texas
40	Pasadena, Texas
41	Chesapeake, Virginia
42	Scottsdale, Arizona
43	Springfield, Missouri
44	Fort Wayne, Indiana
45	Naperville, Illinois
46	Oceanside, California
47	Chandler, Arizona
48	Costa Mesa, California
49	Modesto, California
50	Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Fort Lauderdale, my home, wasn't even close.

But hey. I already knew that. :)

From the Dow Jones Market Watch:

U.S. July federal deficit falls to $53 billion By Rex Nutting

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The U.S. federal budget deficit shrank to $52.8 billion in July from $69 billion a year ago, the Treasury Department said Wednesday. The deficit was about $5 billion less than the $58 billion estimated by the Congressional Budget Office a week ago. Receipts came in $1 billion more than expected, while outlays were $4 billion less than CBO projected. Through the first 10 months of the fiscal year, the federal deficit has totaled $302.6 billion, $110.2 billion less than at this time in 2004. Receipts are up 13.7% year-to-date at $1.75 trillion. Outlays are up about 6.1% year-to-date at $2.05 trillion.

The current administration proposes that if you reduce income taxes then you put more money into the pockets of consumers, who turn around and spend that money in the free market. Tax the free market and the government gets more money than they would if they tagged the consumers directly. In the end, it really isn't reducing the amount of taxes that are collected, is it?

It sounds as if the plan is working, yes?

I don't consider myself to be an economic guru, but when President Bush talked about doing away with the complicated Income Tax laws and going to a pay-as-you-go sytem it sounded like a great idea. If you're interested in reading up about it, there are plenty of websites out there to wade through. Start with FairTax.Org.

Being pleased about the dwindling deficit and looking forward to eliminating troublesome tax code aside - the Federal Deficit is not the National Debt and that needs to be addressed as well.

Our National Debt is almost 8 trillion dollars. This animal needs to be tamed, and forcing the deficit to submit to our will is only the beginning. Forcing congress to adopt wiser spending policies is imperitive. Just take a look at how we have conducted ourselves the last 30 years, and you'll see that getting deeper into debt is one of the only remaining bi-partisan efforts.

If you look at our Federal Budget, you will see that the third largest expenditure is comprised primarly of paying down the interest on our loans. That's what our National Debt is you know, loans. It's kind of like a family paying out a quarter of it's income to pay off minimum payments on credit card bills. *cough* *cough*, not that I would know anything about *that*.

It's still just as scary when it has been adjusted for inflation (thanks to brillig.com for the graphs)

As you can see, except for a rise at the end of World War II, the Debt remained remarkably constant for nearly forty years when inflationary forces are taken into account. After 1983 however, with the notable exception of the Fiscal Years ending in September of 2000 and 2001, the trend has been upward even when inflation is taken into account.

Tip of the hat to GOPBloggers.org

From the Wall Street Journal:

First, more Americans have jobs today than at any other time in history. Second, over the past two decades or so, the U.S. has created more than 40 million jobs -- twice as many as Europe and Japan combined. And third, the U.S. has one of the lowest jobless rates of all developed nations.
[...]
Part of the explanation for this success is that, especially compared to Europe, the U.S. has imposed fewer taxes and regulations (even though we have plenty) that make it onerous for employers to hire and fire workers. A unique feature of the U.S. economy is that Americans move in and out of jobs -- usually to rise up the income elevator -- at a rapid and persistent pace. This is the key to the Great American Jobs Machine, and it explains why Europe and Japan should be more like us, and not the other way around.

Tip of the hat to ThreeSources.com

Concerning the "Downing Street Memos", it looks like our British friends didn't learn a thing watching Dan Rather crash and burn on Blogosphere Prime Time.

The eight memos - all labeled "secret" or "confidential" - were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.

Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.

What bothers me at the moment is that if you read the above article, the title of the AP news story is "Memos Show British Concern Over Iraq Plans".

The quote that offhandedly mentions the destruction of the originals in favor of a hand typed copy isn't even newsworthy enough to make the beginning of the story.

If it weren't for my persual of alternative sources for news and commentary, such as Babalu Blog, I would never know.

I suppose that would make the AP quite happy. After all, the news is accurate, even if the source is potentially fake.

Fake, but accurate.

Moonbats.

Linda stays on target this Tuesday with another call to examine Kerry's 180.

Come on John. The Globe says the records you authorized to be released were pretty much the same ones they already had. The Navy said they had over 100 pages they could not release without your authorization.

Inquiring minds want to know, John, what type of discharge did you get, John, and how did that discharge change after Carter pardoned all draft dodgers and traitors to this country?

It's been twenty-five days since you said you signed it John Kerry, twenty-five days since you said we could see it. We want to see it, John. Where is your 180?? Show it to us.

Beldar demands that the Globe, having received the 180 and accompanying documents, should make them available online.

The Boston Globe should immediately post all the records, and the signed Standard Form 180, as .pdf scans on their website.

Captain Ed spells it out in detail.

Michael Kranish, who wrote unquestioning articles about Kerry's service in Viet Name before and during the presidential campaign, proclaims that the release vindicates Kerry -- but even Kranish can't add up why Kerry kept the file secret...

...Kranish then goes on to describe several commendations and memos of praise. Interestingly, though, Kranish remains silent on several points of controversy that the secrecy of the files helped stoke. Namely, Kranish doesn't mention anything about Kerry's discharge, and why it took him until 1978 to get it, while he quit serving in 1972. He doesn't mention any assignment or attachment to an intelligence unit that would corroborate his later explanations of Christmas In Cambodia or gun-running to the Khmer Rouge. Kranish also doesn't reveal anything about the timeline of events or command assignments that would answer whether he tried to steal part of Tedd Peck's service record in order to provide cover for David Alston to lie about their time together during the political campaign.

The article might be over a month old, but parts of it caught my eye. Myself, I love the "idea" of the United Nations, but am sorely disappointed in the reality I see today.

From "On Being Disliked"

The United Nations has sadly become a creepy organization. Its General Assembly is full of cutthroat regimes. The Human Rights Commission has had members like Vietnam and Sudan, regimes that at recess must fight over bragging rights to which of the two killed more of their own people. The U.N. has a singular propensity to find flawed men to be secretary-general - a Kurt Waldheim, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, or Kofi Annan. Blue-helmeted peace-keepers, we learn, are as likely to commit as prevent crimes; and the only thing constant about such troops is that they will never go first into harm's way in Serbia, Kosovo, the Congo, or Dafur to stop genocide. Even worse, the U.N. has proved to be a terrible bully, an unforgivable sin for a self-proclaimed protector of the weak and innocent - loud false charges against Israel for its presence in the West Bank, not a peep about China in Tibet; tough talk about Palestinian rights, far less about offending Arabs over Darfur. So U.N. anti-Americanism is a glowing radiation badge, proof of exposure to toxicity.

A bit pointed, surely, but interesting points they are. The UN had recently reaffirmed its lack of teeth when it refused to do anything about its own violated sanctions. Soon, the reasons why France, Russia and China objected so sternly became transparent.

From "Iraq and the Importance of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Scandal"

The scam worked through a process of kickbacks. Hussein would sell oil at the low market price, which naturally attracted many investors who wanted to re-sell the oil at higher price. Hussein chose those with whom he would do business and those people in turn would give Hussein a slice of the profits. Accordingly, the money earmarked for the humanitarian needs of Iraqis went instead to whatever Hussein wanted. Hussein used some of this money to buy political influence in the Security Council and secretariat. Some of Hussein's biggest business partners were from China, France and Russia.

On the humanitarian side, Hussein would overpay for goods and the supplier would then kick back some of that money to Hussein. Consequently, the corruption involved in the program led Iraqis to receive only a fraction of the humanitarian supplies intended for them.

By 2002, the US and UK put contracts on hold as a result of concerns over covert Iraqi weapons programs and corruption over oil-for-food. However, the U.S. and U.K. did little about the corruption. Annan retained complete control of processing humanitarian goods and he approved all of the humanitarian contracts, many of which were over-priced. This program might have continued indefinitely if not for the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. It is likely that oil-for-food corruption led to three Security Council permanent members voting against deposing of Hussein.

How to we deal with this? How do we reconcile the ideals that we strove for when we helped create the United Nations… with what we have today?

From "Iraq and the Importance of the U.N.'s Oil-for-Food Scandal"

The U.N. has used diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecutions. There is such a tradition of secrecy in the U.N. that it is hard to achieve reform. The former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Negroponte, was not assertive enough in the U.N.

It appears that this is exactly what the Bush administration is setting out to do by nominating John Bolton as our US Ambassador to the United Nations.

From the Washington Post

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who announced the nomination, alluded to Bolton's reputation when she noted that "some of our best ambassadors" to the United Nations have been those with "the strongest voices," such as Jeane J. Kirkpatrick and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Bolton would replace John C. Danforth, who resigned after barely six months as ambassador. An aide to Rice, calling the appointment a "Nixon goes to China" move, said the secretary recommended Bolton to Bush several weeks ago. Rice told reporters Bolton was selected "because he knows how to get things done."

Another card that we are good at playing: Money. After all, a great portion of UN activity is, ironically, donated by the American taxpayer.

From the World Peace Herald

"The option of withholding money immediately sets you off from all of your allies in this fight," Mark Malloch Brown, Mr. Annan's recently appointed chief of staff, told a House International Relations Committee hearing.

"It would be seen as the United States once again acting alone," he said.

But several lawmakers expressed unhappiness with the United Nations' cooperation in the Iraq oil-for-food program, a $65 billion humanitarian program that has become the largest financial scandal in the body's history.

Really, Mr. Brown. It is actions taken by the UN and attitudes such as this that Americans lean more and more towards "once again acting alone"

This was interesting to hear from a member of Chirac's own party:

In the first rumblings of a call for the franc to be reinstated, Nicolas Dupont-Aignant, a member of Mr Chirac's ruling UMP party, said: "France, Italy and Germany would be in a better state without the euro. However, I don't believe we should ditch it now.

"But either it is reformed, and the central European Bank kick-starts growth by lowering interest rates and pursuing a more American-style monetary policy, or the euro will explode in mid-air."

From the same article, more interesting words from an English Tory:

Last night, John Redwood, the leading eurosceptic Tory MP, said: "You can't have a single currency without a single government. They are in a mess because they have only done half of it and they are now discovering in a painful way what that means."

Next week will be pretty exciting:

FORT LAUDERDALE -- When President Bush and the top diplomats from 34 Western Hemisphere nations gather here, swarms of security agents will clamp down on the area to ensure they can meet without distractions.

But protesters are arguing that some of the protections for the three-day Organization of American States General Assembly starting Sunday are "draconian" restrictions on their First Amendment rights and will keep them far from the event.

"Convening diplomats will be able to talk about democracy, but they won't get to see it practiced," said Carol Sobel, an attorney for activist groups suing over security efforts.

Personally, wherever the protestors are there are bound to be live video feeds and reporters. I don't think anyone's first ammendment rights are being forsaken here. After all, they don't let picketers into the Oval Office...

This is where the business is being conducted. They deserve enough privacy to conduct it.

Give it a rest.

UPDATE: (6/11/05) Here's a little something for the scrapbook. I was responsible for some server equipment that was located inside of the OAS Inner Perimeter, so I got one of these neat passes. :)

I never used it, but it's still a nice addition to the scrapbook, eh?

From the Yahoo Newswire

The heavy defeat dreaded by EU leaders could weaken France in the 25-member bloc, stall European integration and unsettle some financial markets. It also wounds President Jacques Chirac two years before presidential and parliamentary elections.

"The French people have given a huge smack in the face to an entire system that has the nerve to tell us what to think," said nationalist French politician Philippe de Villiers, a leading opponent of the charter. "The constitution is no more."

Over at Decision '08, Mark summed it up nicely before it became official:

Jacques Chirac is hitting the airwaves urging French voters not to use the ratification vote as a referendum on his government, a statement that is remarkable in two ways. First, it is a frank admission by Chirac that his leadership is deeply unpopular, and second, I think the French voters are correct in using this vote as a referendum, for surely, it is the European style of governance that has lead to the woes befalling the French nation.

Those woes include high unemployment, nearly nonexistent economic growth, and a strong anti-capitalist bias that hinders the inflow of foreign capital. France is a strong example that even in 'mild' doses, socialism is a failure. Chirac is not a tyrant, but he is surely a Eurocrat, and a potent symbol of the European Union as a whole.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit

Out of a list of 497 celebrity donors over on NewsMeat, the following celebrities donated over 50% of their political contributions to the Republican Party. I found that to be worthy of noting on the blog.

Here is an eye-opening excerpt from an article in the Wall Street Journal (Online Edition)

So we thought our readers might like to know that so far this year federal tax revenues are booming. Overall, in the first seven months of Fiscal Year 2005 through April 30, they climbed by $146 billion to a total of $1.216 trillion. That's an increase of 13.6% over a year earlier, some four or five times the inflation rate, and the kind of raise that most American families can only dream about. Income tax receipts are driving this windfall, with individual revenues up $66 billion, or 16%, to $547 billion. Corporate income taxes are rolling in even faster, tsunami-like in fact, rising 48% to $134 billion. [...] There are several lessons here, starting with the fact that somebody is earning all that extra income that the feds are getting their share of. The economy has been doing better than media coverage admits, with growth lifting employment and incomes and thus the federal fisc. This revenue boom also is taking place in the wake of the 2003 reduction in dividend, capital gains and marginal income tax rates that Robert Rubin and other worthies predicted would be fiscally disastrous. Apologies accepted.

The "deficit" problem, in short, is not on the revenue side of the ledger. Tax revenues as a share of the economy fell sharply from their Clintonian (post World War II) heights after September 11. But they are now climbing back toward their modern historical average in the neighborhood of 17% to 18% of GDP. This will happen even at the lower Bush tax rates -- or shall we say, because of them -- since as incomes rise more Americans are pushed into higher tax brackets.

It's amazing, amid these results, that some Republicans are reluctant to make the 2003 tax cuts permanent. They should be advertising that their tax policies have helped the economy and will continue to do so if they are extended. The best solution for federal red ink is continued prosperity combined with spending restraint and entitlement reform, not a tax increase.

(hat tip to JK at Three Sources)

It has been 100 days since Senator Kerry made his promise to release his military records.

Thus far, he has not.

We remember, Senator Kerry, even if you do not.

72 86 Days ago Senator John Kerry promised to sign his Standard Form 180 to release his military records, ending once and for all the questions concerning his military discharge.

We're still waiting, Senator...

UPDATE: It's only polite to mention that I was introduced to the "Kerry 180 Blogburst" by Linda over at "Something... and Half of Something..." ; Linda's brand of honesty is both thought provoking and unfettered. Take that as your only warning. :)

From GOPbloggers

Our Democrats, and especially their leftwing core, seems bent on following their beliefs right up to and over the electoral cliff. They really don't know (or at least so rigidly refuse to admit to facts that its as if they don't know) that leftwing political ideology has been rejected utterly by the American people. Its been examined, observed in action, discussed thoroughly and found to be flawed; and deeply flawed at that. The American people have no affinity for people who demand the release of cop-killers, consider abortion a positive moral good, want to judicially impose gay marriage, think the terrorists have a point or two about the United States and think that the broad mass of Americans are ignorant, hate-filled bigots too stupid to know whats good for them.

That really does sort of sum it up, doesn't it?

I really would like to see the Democratic Party collapse entirely, cut free the far left activists that are currently pinning them down (let them form their own socialist party or something) and rise from the ashes with a more moderate message... a larger tent.

I think the Republican Party is doing a decent enough job encompassing a large variety of us. The Far Right may call the moderate middle RINOs, but we still feel at home here. I have a feeling that the new Republicans that we are generating are even more center-centric. Some day I hope that even the Log Cabin Republicans feel that they have a home here as well. Personally, I don't have a problem with Gay people who cherish conservative values (I don't necessarily equate conservative values with religious values, I only recognize that religion is a strong supporter of conservative values)

I think that a non-polarized two party syystem is the most effective, with a large core group in the middle forming alliances across party lines to get essential legislation passed, with the national mood swinging liberal or conservative as our prevailing culture desires.

It has been over a month since Senator John Kerry promised to sign a Standard Form 180 on MEET THE PRESS. This form would authorize historians and partisans alike to have full access to his military records... answering once and for all...

Did Senator Kerry receive a Less Than Honorable discharge, only later to be commuted to Honorable by President Jimmy Carter?

Mark Alexander of the National Review Online speculates as much.

Among Kerry's released records is a 1977 cover letter from Jimmy Carter's Navy Secretary, W. Graham Claytor. What is revealing about this document is that it notes Kerry's original discharge was subject to review by a "board of officers" -- yet no such review should be necessary for an Honorable Discharge.

The review was conducted in accordance with "Title 10, U.S. Code Section 1162 and 1163," which pertains to grounds for involuntary separation from military service.

As many Vietnam veterans who served their nation with dignity and honor will recall, Jimmy Carter's first official act as president was the signing of Executive Order 4483 --less than an hour after his inauguration on 21 January 1977. EO 4483 provided general amnesty for draft evaders, war protesters and other offenders of that era. Its corresponding, and equally dubious, DoD directive took effect in March of 1977, expanding that amnesty to include separation from military service by other than honorable discharges. The DoD specified an appeal procedure whereby discharges could be reviewed on an individual basis to determine whether the status of a particular discharge could be revised.

Having lost his first bid for Congress, Kerry no doubt decided that his political future would be brighter as a war hero rather than a war protestor. While there are several categories of discharges beneath honorable, including general, medical, bad conduct and other than honorable, it is very likely that Kerry's discharge was dishonorable.

Supporting this assertion is the fact that Kerry had all his medals mysteriously reinstated in 1985. He claims that he lost his medal certificates (perhaps these are what he famously threw over that Capitol fence in protest), but when a military officer is subject to a Dishonorable Discharge, in addition to the loss of pay benefits and allowances, all medals and honors are revoked. In any case, it would be a cinch for John Kerry to refute our claim by simply signing that Standard Form 180. But he won't. Nor will hard-hitting journalists like Katie Couric and Dr. Phil press him on this issue.

Thus, while Kerry can correctly say -- thanks to Jimmy Carter -- that he received an Honorable Discharge, he could also say with equal precision that he received "other than honorable discharge." His activities as a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War were, indeed, forgiven by Carter's EO 4483 and the subsequent DoD directive.

Why don't you contact Senator Kerry and let him know that you would like him to put an end to these questions, and sign his Standard Form 180?

Hat Tip to Linda at Something... and Half of Something

UPDATE: Just a link back to an entry I wrote back in October of 2004:
"Dishonorable? OTH? Will we ever know?"

Condi for President? We could do a lot worse. In a lot of ways, it would be hard to do better. There is a WND article that speaks of rumors around the beltway that Dick Cheney will step down for "health problems" next year and allow Condi to take the reigns as VP so we could have a more powerful incumbent in place to go up against what looks like Hillary Clinton in 2008. WND rumors are just that, but it's fun to entertain the thought, certainly!

She was Regan's advisor on the Soviet Union when he felled the mighty collosus, and now she is Secretary of State as the middle east starts coming together. If she can lend an experienced hand to bringing peace to Israel/Palestine, I think she could easily be the next President of the United States.

Two billboards that ought to give you a chuckle from Billboard Blitz to Blast Hollywood at Human Events Online.

HUMAN EVENTS has learned that a billboard blitz "thanking" Hollywood for the reelection of President Bush will be unveiled early next week.

The advertisements feature the faces of liberal Hollywood icons Michael Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Affleck, Martin Sheen, Chevy Chase, Barbara Streisand, and Sean Penn, and offer thanks to Hollywood their help getting President Bush reelected.

Two versions of the billboard were created, both "thanking" Hollywood -- the first for "4 more years" and the second for "W. Still President."

Billboard creator Citizens United, a group that advocates a return to traditional American values, has purchased the use of three billboards near the Kodak Theatre (home of the Academy Awards) for the month of February, which includes Oscar Night, Sunday, February 27.

Asked about the campaign, Citizens United President David Bossie said, "We're taking on Hollywood. We've done it in the past." Of the organization's many actions, one of its most famous challenges to Hollywood was Celsius 41.11, a documentary exposing "the truth behind the lies of Fahrenheit 9/11," the Michael Moore anti-Bush mock-umentary.

(Hat Tip to Little Green Footballs)

On Ann Althouse's blog this morning, I read:

George Carlin was on Tim Russert's CNBC show this weekend, promoting his book "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops." The show ended with Russert asking Carlin "Do you vote?" Carlin answered:

No, I don't. No. I voted up to McGovern. I feel, actually, a little purer, a little more detached emotionally from it. I really have no stake. If you dropped me from an airplane, I would come down left of center, because I believe more in humans than I do in property. But in terms of the minor machinations and the way they put these things together, I've no interest.

If you dropped me from an airplane, I think I would come down slightly right of center because I believe more in humans being encouraged to stand on their own two feet than I do humans being coddled and suckled by a bloated welfare state.

I believe that I would come down fairly right of center because although I believe in letting people live their own lives as they choose, I do believe that there is a minimum morality that needs to be maintained lest we destroy ourselves as a functional society.

I believe that I come down firmly right of center because I believe that we need a strong military that takes an active interest in removing threats to our nation before they materialize.

Leaving George Carlin's single statement behind and making a broader observation about socially liberal and socially conservative arguments... it is sadly funny how the arguments between left and right never truly meet each other head on... they sort of mesh like gears, just missing each other, neither side agreeing to the other's definition of a given thing. With no such point of agreement to begin from, it ends up being more like barking dogs at the end of their leashes than people trying to come to terms with others who don't think like they do.

In April, President Bush signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004.

President George W. Bush:

...The Unborn Victims of Violence Act provides that, under federal law, any person who causes death or injury to a child in the womb shall be charged with a separate offense, in addition to any charges relating to the mother. As of today, the law of our nation will acknowledge the plain fact that crimes of violence against a pregnant woman often have two victims. And therefore, in those cases, there are two offenses to be punished. Under this law, those who direct violence toward a pregnant woman will answer for the full extent of the harm they have done, and for all the crimes they have committed....

This afternoon, Scott Peterson was found guilty of not only murdering his wife, but her unborn child as well.

He was convicted of one count of first-degree murder for killing his wife, Laci, and one count of second-degree murder in the death of the son she was carrying.

My question now is this... With the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 and now the 2nd degree murder of an unborn child on the books, how does this affect Roe vs. Wade and the rights of a mother to have an abortion? Are we now on thin ice? Or did the "Laci Law" and the guilty verdict carefully sidestep the issue with legalese?

As I discover more, I'll update this post...

Hat Tip to LaShawn Barber

...I'm just watching some of the reactions from the left as they come to terms with their loss to an opponent who ran on a moral platform.

Check these out. Be warned, profanity ahead.

Jane Smiley of MSN's Slate

I grew up in Missouri and most of my family voted for Bush, so I am going to be the one to say it: The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not. (Well, almost 58 million—my relatives are not ignorant, they are just greedy and full of classic Republican feelings of superiority.)

Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states. There used to be a kind of hand-to-hand fight on the frontier called a "knock-down-drag-out," where any kind of gouging, biting, or maiming was considered fair. The ancestors of today's red-state voters used to stand around cheering and betting on these fights. When the forces of red and blue encountered one another head-on for the first time in Kansas Territory in 1856, the red forces from Missouri, who had been coveting Indian land across the Missouri River since 1820, entered Kansas and stole the territorial election. The red news media of the day made a practice of inflammatory lying—declaring that the blue folks had shot and killed red folks whom everyone knew were walking around. The worst civilian massacre in American history took place in Lawrence, Kan., in 1862—Quantrill's raid. The red forces, known then as the slave-power, pulled 265 unarmed men from their beds on a Sunday morning and slaughtered them in front of their wives and children. The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America. Listen to what the red state citizens say about themselves, the songs they write, and the sermons they flock to. They know who they are—they are full of original sin and they have a taste for violence. The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind.

I don't suppose that I have to tell you these are from Berkely, California. Do I?

Paul Krugman of the New York Times:

President Bush isn't a conservative. He's a radical - the leader of a coalition that deeply dislikes America as it is. Part of that coalition wants to tear down the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, eviscerating Social Security and, eventually, Medicare. Another part wants to break down the barriers between church and state. And thanks to a heavy turnout by evangelical Christians, Mr. Bush has four more years to advance that radical agenda.

James Wolcott, contributing editor to Vanity Fair

The election was a victory for George Bush and Rovianism, a victory for Grover Norquist. It was also a victory for Osama Bin Laden. I don't believe for a moment Bin Laden was trying to sway voters to Kerry with his taped address. This was the outcome he wanted, a gift from us to him: an unapologetic Christian Crusader in the White House whose reelection giving lie to the notion that Abu Ghraib was an aberration and that the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians weigh upon America's conscience. This morning America could not look more like a grinning aggressor to the Arab world, an aggressor with fresh marching orders.

But there's bitter clarity to knowing the worst. My wife has forbade me from going into the same depressive funk after this election that I did 9/11--"I couldn't take another 9 months of that again"--and I'm not depressed, being filled with far too much healthy loathing for millions of my fellow Americans to let myself droop. I do have a column that is (over)due, so blogging will be light until the weekend, when the statue of Jesus will be installed on the White House lawn.

Eric Alterman with MSN's Slate

Let’s face it. It’s not Kerry’s fault. It’s not Nader’s fault (this time). It’s not the media’s fault (though they do bear a heavy responsibility for much of what ails our political system). It’s not “our” fault either. The problem is just this: Slightly more than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the “reality-based community” say or believe about anything.

They don’t care that Iraq is turning into murderous quicksand and a killing field for our children. They don’t care that the Bush presidency has made us less safe by creating more terrorists, inspiring more anti-American hatred and refusing to engage in the hard work that would be necessary to make a meaningful dent in our myriad vulnerabilities at home. They don’t care that he has mortgaged our children’s future to give trillions to the wealthiest among us. They don’t care that the economy continues to hemorrhage well-paying jobs and replace them with Wal-Mart; that the number without health insurance is over forty million and rising. They don’t care that Medicare premiums are rising to fund the coffers of pharmaceutical companies. They don’t care that the air they breathe and the water they drink is being slowly poisoned and though they call themselves conservatives, they even don’t care that the size of the government and its share of our national income has increased by roughly a quarter in just four years. This is not a world of rational debate and issue preference.

It’s one of “them” and “us.” He’s one of “them” and not one of “us” and that’s all they care about.

There are sooooooo many more examples out there. I don't have that much time in the day.

I'm glad I am not a party to this kind of hatred.

If you have not yet read Tammy Bruce's book, The Death of Right and Wrong, you really need to.

From Germany's