tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35595292012-02-16T00:22:21.538-06:00Notes on politics, news and issues of the day by an irritable fool.Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comBlogger1981100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-79429933404696509202011-06-14T20:30:00.002-05:002011-06-14T20:33:31.218-05:00

This intense eagerness to get Sarah Palin for whatever it is she might have done on line unfolded concurrently with all the attention that had to be paid to Anthony Weiner for his on-line antics. What we can’t see is the agony the poor journalists must have endured as Weiner’s wienerisms hurt the Democratic Party just when they stood ready to damage the Republican Party with Sarah’s misdeeds. And

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-68127187113531091092011-06-13T14:29:00.000-05:002011-06-13T14:30:19.092-05:00

Among the emails in the Palin document dump is one in which Palin contemplates the birth in a few weeks of her child with Downs Syndrome. The maturity, wisdom, equanimity, and thoughtfulness with which she approaches this is a joy of which to read.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-78372318871634729182011-06-13T14:24:00.002-05:002011-06-13T14:27:29.828-05:00

Atmospheric CO2 levels have increased even more than the IPCC predicted in 2001. If their predictions were correct there should have been an even bigger increase in atmospheric temperatures than they predicted, but over the 10 years since their report was published there has been no increase in those temperatures at all.Why? What is missing?The core idea of every climate model the IPCC uses is

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-72414947998408474042011-02-18T17:43:00.002-06:002011-02-18T17:48:09.464-06:00

From Power Line:A common theme of the union demonstrators in Madison today was that Governor Walker is a “dictator.” This showed up on sign after sign. It sheds light, I think, on how public union members in particular, and liberals in general, think. What is going on here is that the voters of Wisconsin have elected a Republican Governor and–overwhelmingly–a Republican legislature, precisely so

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-56338907336529237042010-01-16T20:44:00.002-06:002010-01-16T20:45:11.861-06:00

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-72424979642216034612010-01-10T09:33:00.009-06:002010-01-10T11:52:27.491-06:00

As I've demonstrated (to my own satisfaction, at least) the strange, arcane adjustments for HIE made by CRU and GISS are not even necessary. One gets the same trends whether they are made(GISS Data Set 2) or not (GISS Data Set 1) if an unbiased and well understood method for determining temperature anomalies is used. What exactly they are doing with those adjustments is up in the air, but the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-15011137768351183422010-01-09T16:01:00.004-06:002010-01-09T17:30:14.102-06:00

It has often been observed that the center of a city is warmer than the surrounding countryside. Thus the claim has been made that global warming is an error due to weather stations gradually being taken over by urbanization. As detailed in previous posts, I've been unable to demonstrate that from the weather station data available from NASA. The hypothesis I address on this occasion is that

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-2938979435741117432010-01-08T20:15:00.002-06:002010-01-08T20:31:26.737-06:00

Continuing on with the data mining of the GISSTEMP material, I have been looking for evidence of a heat island effect, and my conclusion is that it won't be found in this data.Since my own analysis didn't show a robust HIE, I looked for bias in the dset1 data.I thought it might be due to urban records being longer than rural ones and therefore dominating the data set. This did not prove out.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-56732360210947623032010-01-06T20:54:00.005-06:002010-01-06T20:57:16.842-06:00

Here's the problem with the GISSTEMP station data:Not enough coverage.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1026565755330886092010-01-05T20:06:00.011-06:002010-01-06T21:33:47.926-06:00

As Steve McIntyre has so brilliantly shown, Jim Hansen's methods for processing station temperatures into global temperatures don't really make sense. The burning question for me therefore has been: If the stick guys' methods don't make sense and perhaps introduce bias, then what do we get when proper methods are used? What, exactly, is the truth of the matter? And so I've worked through

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-47134554066000916412010-01-03T16:49:00.005-06:002010-01-06T13:36:52.340-06:00

Someone told me back during the days when I took the anthropogenic global warming claims at face value that if I wanted to completely lose faith in the climate models I should take a look at them. And so I did, and he was right.I looked at the code for the model used by GISS to do the predictions for the IPCC report of 2001. What is striking is how crude the model is. It divides the earth into

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-76139692032397266212010-01-02T13:18:00.003-06:002010-01-02T13:43:02.678-06:00

My interest in this material isn't in terms of trying to see if Hansen and the other stick players are doing things right. I'm more interested in seeing if processing the data in a simple and straightforward manner that makes sense to me gets results similar to what they are getting.I've always had a great deal of trouble with the idea that a basic measurement like temperature is in need of

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-42076551577755845692010-01-01T19:13:00.005-06:002010-01-01T20:35:28.430-06:00

I might as well share this shocking discovery that I made this evening.Shocking to me, at least.You may recall from my previous post that I came up with a simple-minded way of calculating yearly anomalies, that is by subtracting the mean of all data from a given location from each of the yearly means.Hansen describes a much more complicated method of calculating the yearly anomalies. I won't go

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-91629818156879512322010-01-01T14:55:00.011-06:002010-01-01T20:33:03.857-06:00

What is one to do these days with regard to climate change except look at the data oneself? And so I've been doing some of that.I downloaded raw temperature data sets from http://www.climateaudit.info/data/station/giss, then loaded the files into R:load("giss.dset0.tab.old") #Data set 0, raw data with some adjustmentsload("giss.dset1.tab") #Data set 1, stations at one location combined and

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-26644464604462574482009-12-05T17:59:00.001-06:002009-12-05T18:01:27.440-06:00

Now the hard core Obama supporters like Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank are reduced to defending Obama from his erstwhile supporters on the far left.And thus I address myself to the members of the far left:According to Milbank, you guys are just being unrealistic. You have made Obama out to be something that he never was. You thought that he'd advance your far left wing agenda, but he

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-3825687351770638842009-12-04T15:12:00.000-06:002009-12-04T15:13:03.336-06:00

Hansen's data set at NASA GISS is used by all of the other surface temperature labs in the world, and it represents most of the surface temperature station measurements available.Over the years Steve McIntyre has been able to show how the folks at NASA GISS have been altering the temperature data set. The effect of this is to make more recent times appear to be warmer. They apply "corrections" of

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-12433766371832956462009-11-22T09:55:00.002-06:002009-11-22T09:56:25.584-06:00

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-4945267924184636272009-11-21T15:54:00.003-06:002009-11-21T15:59:58.374-06:00

RE: Gleaned from emails leaked by a hacker from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit.All in all it's pretty damning. This is a world of True Believers with a Manichean mind set and a predetermined political agenda coming straight out of the left. Either you're with them or you are a skeptic, and if you're a skeptic your facts don't matter your good faith doesn't matter your arguments don't

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-34733802393005472312009-06-08T20:51:00.001-05:002009-06-08T20:52:51.308-05:00

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-40022589726344862162009-06-08T20:43:00.001-05:002009-06-08T20:45:14.785-05:00

Despite all the crowing about how the Republican Party is dead and so on, a recent Pew poll shows that since the election self identified Republicans and Democrats have declined as a percentage of voters, Democrats down by 6% and Republicans down by 4%, and independents have increased. In terms of policy preference, there is no consistent movement away from either conservatism or liberalism.As

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-69413834059842879112009-06-08T20:28:00.002-05:002009-06-08T20:35:32.292-05:00

Many proponents of the creation of Amtrak in 1971 insisted that Amtrak would be self sustaining in a few years and that government involvement in the enterprise would be temporary. Critics thought that public interest in rail transportation would dwindle to the point that Amtrak would be dismantled. Neither scenario came true. Instead, public support and use of passenger rail was significant but

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-48597161373556363212008-08-28T17:35:00.003-05:002010-01-05T23:44:05.850-06:00

Apropos of nothing in particular...Obama's recent use of the same sorts of symbolism is disturbing to us older folks.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-88954483027392096612008-07-13T09:44:00.005-05:002008-07-13T10:15:49.006-05:00

John McCain has famously expressed his admiration for Theodore Roosevelt, especially when it comes to his trust busting and government regulation.What McCain and many others don't seem to realize is that government regulation of business existed in Roosevelt's time and onward in order to protect big business from consumers, not the other way around.Progressives have constructed an army of tall

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-13988910026075443122008-07-12T08:48:00.005-05:002008-12-12T22:26:38.544-06:00

Dr. James Hansen, testifying before Congress, said that global warming "deniers" ought to be tried for crimes against humanity.What about Dr. Hansen himself? If it turns out that his endless tinkering and fudging of surface temperature data is leading us to believe there is warming when none exists then should he be tried for crimes against humanity? Steve McIntyre at climateaudit.org has already

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-84258320035062457062008-07-11T08:10:00.002-05:002008-07-11T08:31:00.292-05:00

In a wild and woolly improvised space walk, Russian Cosmonauts struggled to remove a defective explosive bolt that they feared would throw their Soyuz craft off course during reentry, and event that plagued two previous Soyuz flights.In stark contrast to space walks on Space Shuttle missions, in which every move is planned out well in advance and every tool specially built for the particular set

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-31913411862057201182008-07-09T13:59:00.002-05:002008-07-09T14:09:33.538-05:00

Iran launch several test missiles, including one that could reach Israel.The White house decried the move.Senator Obama said that this indicated the need for more direct diplomacy with Iran.Senator McCain said that this indicated the need for better missile defense.Iran shows no signs of slowing down its development of the ways and means to attack surrounding nations, including Israel, with

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-25811875532145987602008-07-09T08:03:00.002-05:002008-07-09T08:07:47.059-05:00

Sameh El-Shahat argues that George W Bush has been the most under-rated president... ever. Yes, yes, all you bleeding heart liberals are cringing out there. I can just hear you. But the fact is, Mr Bush has had to take some very tough decisions and the world needs people who can not only talk but also act tough and admit mistakes. Of course you think Mr Obama is going to make a difference, but as

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-33042947399516908692008-07-08T17:26:00.005-05:002008-07-08T17:59:39.078-05:00

Many liberals hold it as a matter of established fact that Southern segregationists became Republicans because Republicans are the party of racism. But the historical facts don't bear this out.Following the Civil War it was Republicans who repeatedly pushed legislation through Congress that improved the legal, civil and cultural status of former slaves, and it was the Democratic Party that

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-19640920836786590602008-07-08T15:15:00.000-05:002008-07-08T15:19:21.121-05:00

Obama supporters have presistently and repeatedly played the race card. They are constantly accusing the Anointed One's critics of being racist, of saying racist things, of being about to say racist things, of of being motivated by racism.The only ones talking about race are them.They are not being honest. What they do is scream RACISM every time someone raises a legitimate criticism of the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-51729533917006387102008-07-08T15:12:00.000-05:002008-07-08T15:13:32.057-05:00

American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-68990763975051027112008-07-08T15:07:00.000-05:002008-07-08T15:08:21.166-05:00

Saddam did indeed have a nuclear program. The AP says so....today, on July 6, 2008, the Associated Press reports that =Saddam Hussein had a nuclear program=At the Tuwaitha nuclear complex just south of Baghdad=Which included 550 metric tons (over 1.2 million pounds) of "yellowcake", or concentrated uranium=And multiple devices that could be used in a nuclear weapon. The AP does not say alleged

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-66594609541725557392008-07-03T15:10:00.000-05:002008-07-08T15:11:29.137-05:00

You may have thought it was big news Tuesday when the administration reported to Congress that Iraq has made satisfactory progress on 15 of 18 political benchmarks set by the U.S.Just last year, there was progress on only eight of those benchmarks and war critics have repeatedly cited the lack of political progress in arguing against the troop surge.But the Media Research Center says there was

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-44101348530365855982008-06-17T15:26:00.001-05:002008-07-08T15:29:18.880-05:00

Barak Obama once again reveals his abysmal ignorance of counterterrorism:And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks -- for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.Well, no, not actually. We were able to

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-60029003676548486322006-08-17T10:01:00.000-05:002008-07-08T10:03:00.947-05:00

No sooner is the NSA phone tracking program shown to be valuable and instrumental in saving thousands or even tens of thousands of lives in the cracking of the London terrorist plot than a Carter appointed liberal Federal judge strikes the program down, without even knowing the exact nature of the program, while ignoring pleas from the Administration not to destroy the program, and while ignoring

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-49750726769801410962006-08-10T09:58:00.000-05:002008-07-08T09:59:20.943-05:00

Two people arrested recently on terrorism charges in the US were in possession of something like 12 cellular phones, and the pair had purchased 600 phones earlier in the month. Why so many phones? Why, most likely because, thanks to the New York Times, they knew that their calling patterns were being monitored, and they hit on the idea of using a bunch of cellular phones all with different

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-342025908257153422006-07-25T09:52:00.000-05:002008-07-08T09:54:56.731-05:00

Some of the liberals in Israel who advocated withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 are now admitting they were wrong. They see the current conflict as unavoidable, a struggle to prevent the destruction of Israel and the deaths of themselves and their fellow citizens. One of liberals who advocated withdrawal said that she thought that economic prosperity in Lebanon through engagement would help to

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-49222946991617481092006-07-11T09:48:00.000-05:002008-07-08T09:49:49.248-05:00

At this point the UN or someone is supposed to step in and save the terrorists so that they can go off, regroup, and then strike Israel again later. That's what happened in 1982 when the IDF had Arafat's PLO surrounded in Beirut. They could have wiped the PLO out, but instead they agreed to let them escape to Tunisia. And the rest is history recurring again and again.Kofi Annan is trying to do a

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-61842401048551289322006-07-10T09:44:00.000-05:002008-07-08T09:47:19.927-05:00

Let me summarize the mainstream media coverage of Iraq for you:1. Car bombs!2. Soldiers rape Iraqis!Having gotten that out of the way, you might want to know some particulars from the rest of the story:1. Oil production in Iraq is up, and three weeks ago insurgent activity against oil production dropped to almost nothing, which accelerates the production time scale.2. The insurgency is crumbling,

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-63898625242358274942006-07-08T09:41:00.000-05:002008-07-08T09:55:51.591-05:00

David Brooks, writing on the netroots phenomenon:...We're talking about the netsroots [sic] ... people generated by the Daily Kos and other web sites-- I find privately most of the Democrats despise those people because of the way they practice politics so viciously that they don't want to get in the crosshairs. And they don't want to offend the liberal base of primary voters. So, the ultra left

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1148613965721316502006-05-25T22:19:00.000-05:002006-05-25T22:43:09.266-05:00

Many will already have read of Jessie McBeth, the young imposter who attempted to pass himself off as a former Army Ranger. McBeth had a number of stories of atrocities that supposedly occurred in Iraq.This caused a number of people to think of the Winter Soldier investigation of 1971, in which John Kerry was a participant.The remarkable thing about the accounts of that event is that you can pick

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1148134847745237912006-05-20T09:07:00.000-05:002006-05-20T09:20:47.760-05:00

And this guy, basically a gangster and a thug who abuses and intimidates his own Congressional staff, would be the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee if the Donks take over the House.Last year he held a mock impeachment hearing against President Bush where he served as the Chairman and paraded a series of kookburgers in as witnesses who testified to the effect that the President had broken the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1148133663140022872006-05-20T08:58:00.000-05:002006-05-20T09:02:48.923-05:00

Women and children died and feminists lied about it.Some radical feminists and anti-war liberals have very short memories. It's just three years after Saddam Hussein's ouster and some would have us believe the tyrant was in fact a protector of women's rights in Iraq. That Iraq under Saddam actually had progressive, pro-women policies that are now being "rolled back" thanks to the Bush

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1148065173036568032006-05-19T13:57:00.000-05:002006-05-19T15:33:54.166-05:00

With regard to this story in the New York Times...Remember the end of Apartheid in South Africa? Did the New York Times run stories almost every day describing the plight of whites there, how they were being killed and oppressed, how they were trying to leave the country? Were some white portrayed oh so sympathetically, about how they were hiding now in their upscale neighborhoods afraid to go

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1147298342465518202006-05-10T16:58:00.000-05:002006-05-10T16:59:02.483-05:00

Members of the Democratic party have called him the worst President we've ever seen and said that history will judge him harshly for the way in which he has abused power. They have called him a despot, and, in effect, a fascist. They have railed against him for starting a bloody and unnecessary war, which they have called a "failure." They have been critical of what they thought were mistakes in

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1147297314486779222006-05-10T16:39:00.000-05:002006-05-10T16:41:54.486-05:00

From the Pittsberg Post Gazette:Zarqawi is running scared. He can no longer hide in urban areas, his people are being turned in when they try that. He can no longer recruit enough suicide bombers. In apparent desperation he is attempting to return to more conventional military tactics with bases in the countryside and organizaed military strikes, but every attempt at this has been an utter

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1147297064571425412006-05-10T16:36:00.000-05:002006-05-10T16:37:44.583-05:00

The US military in Iraq recently released a grimly amusing blooper reel of Zarqawi as he fumbles with an automatic weapon, seemingly unable to get it to work. But the New York Times is quick to jump to Zarqawi's defense. The Times interviewed "former and current" military officers who offer explanations for Zarqawi's difficulty with the weapon -- it's a complicated weapon, Zarqawi's probably not

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1139898005760025092006-02-14T00:17:00.000-06:002006-02-14T00:20:05.773-06:00

I've said all of this before, but this fellow says it so much better:Much of Democratic politics seems to now consist of embracing and fanning similarly comforting, but ultimately deceptive, liberal memes. Enron has fatally damaged Bush, Abu Ghraib has fatally damaged Bush, Katrina has fatally damaged Bush, Abramoff has fatally damaged Bush, the Plame investigation will fatally damage Bush--you

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1139685277759825792006-02-11T13:09:00.000-06:002006-02-11T13:14:37.773-06:00

This is a scholarly article written by a free market economist, a "classical liberal:"My purpose today is to make just two main points: (1) To show why Nazi Germany was a socialist state, not a capitalist one. And (2) to show why socialism, understood as an economic system based on government ownership of the means of production, positively requires a totalitarian dictatorship.The article makes

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1139682220124375312006-02-11T12:21:00.000-06:002006-02-11T12:23:40.136-06:00

Here's a new word for you to learn: dhimmitude.The Dhimmi are the non-Muslim peoples, Jews and Christians, who have been subjugated by Muslims. There are Dhimmi all over the world, and their experience and their treatment by Muslims, not just radical Muslims but ordinary, every day Muslims, has always been the same.Wherever Islam conquered, surrendering dhimmi, known to Muslims as "people of the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1139675529794722042006-02-11T10:02:00.000-06:002006-02-11T12:33:10.706-06:00

It is stupid and base to gratuitously insult the beliefs or symbols of religious people. That is the sort of thing that civil organizations like newspapers would do best to avoid. But once that line has been crossed, as is the case with the Danish cartoons of Mohammed fiasco, then it is even worse to cave in to terrorist's demands for censorship.When the average person looks at what has gotten

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1139673475446047382006-02-11T09:52:00.000-06:002006-02-11T09:57:55.460-06:00

As one of my left leaning friends said,But [Hitler] was no Socialist, and anyone who takes his word for it that he was a Socialist, shame on you.And shame on you, I replied, for refusing to acknowledge the plain facts:1. For years and years the Nazis ran on a platform indistinguishable from any other socialist party (see below). 2. When they took power they followed through on many of those

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1139430154757361972006-02-08T14:02:00.000-06:002006-02-08T14:22:34.770-06:00

There is an astonishing amount of ignorance these days about how Israel go started, and the way that the antique media portrays current events doesn't help much, spinning things so that Israel is transformed into an occupier and oppressor of the poor Arabs around them.Israel's Arab opponents have declared that it has no right to exist, and they have done nothing but attack Israel without letup

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1131661329464347362005-11-10T16:21:00.000-06:002005-11-10T16:22:09.466-06:00

Some Democrats in Congress have hit upon what they think is a way to explain why so many elected Democratic leaders voted for the War in Iraq: "We were duped." I't not their fault, they are easily fooled. In pursuit of this strategy they stepped up demands for the administration to "come clean" on their handling of pre-war intelligence, saying that the indictment of Libby "raises questions" on

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1131661015289963812005-11-10T16:13:00.000-06:002005-11-10T16:18:55.133-06:00

In 732 AD, Moorish forces under the command of Abd al-Rahman advanced from Spain toward the capital city of Paris. They met a force of Franks under the command of Charles Martel. Three days later the Islamic commander was dead and his much diminished army was heading back to the South. This was the Battle of Poitier, and if it had gone the other way it is likely that all of Europe would now be

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1131660487871899582005-11-10T16:05:00.000-06:002005-11-10T16:18:28.996-06:00

Is France a socialist state? The definition of socialism usually includes the central ownership of the means of production and control of the economy, and France is not to that point yet. France still has a strong element of capitalism and reliance on markets despite the chunk of the national product gobbled up by the government and redistrubuted as various services and benefits. All democratic

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1120235117695377232005-07-01T10:57:00.000-05:002005-07-01T13:33:58.013-05:00

I don't know if this is original, I'm certainly not an expert in this field, but I'd like to share some of the observations I've made about socialist ideology. A lot of this is obviously garnered from bits and pieces of stuff I've read but don't want to go back and organize. Regardless, it's only a blog, and so I will argue in this and subsequent posts that Marxists have made 3 critical errors

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1120224075058090632005-07-01T08:20:00.000-05:002005-07-01T08:21:15.063-05:00

Dateline: Hawaii, April 28, 1945.Well into the third week of the invasion of Okinawa, congressional Democrats criticized the President for poor planning and execution of the invasion."The troops are bogged down in the southern part of the island, we haven't made any progress in days. How could this have happened?" said Theodore Kennedy, Mass. Democrat.Other Democrats questioned the reasoning

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1120152472013493192005-06-30T12:15:00.000-05:002005-06-30T12:27:52.016-05:00

Except for certain parts of the Middle East, there has been a decline in international terrorism the world over since the invasion of Iraq.http://www.tkb.org/Home.jsp

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1111531141056605322005-03-22T16:33:00.000-06:002005-03-22T16:39:01.060-06:00

You know, after the 2000 and 2004 elections I really had begun to think that it was the people on the left end of the political scale that habitually ginned up crises, distorted the facts, ignored established law in favor of their own emotional take on a given situation, constantly wanted to change the rules or ignored the rules to suit their own whims, and so on.How totally un-cynical to think

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1111530721335465942005-03-22T16:30:00.000-06:002005-03-22T16:32:01.336-06:00

The UN is just a joke. Might as well have fun with it.If you're going to play the oldest established permanent floating transnational crap game for laughs, might as well pick an act with plenty of material. What I love about Bolton, America's new ambassador to the U.N., is the sheer volume of "damaging" material.Like this:"There is no such thing as the United Nations.""If I were redoing the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1111499250680464362005-03-22T07:30:00.000-06:002005-03-22T07:48:44.956-06:00

No doubt a lot of people will be slamming this judge for being "activist" for not granting the Schindlers an injuction, but he in fact had no choice. He was just following the letter of the law in a straightforward manner just as conservatives have always said that judges should do.The granting of an injunction hinged only on whether or not the Schindlers were likely to prevail on appeal. There

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1111009606230341112005-03-16T15:44:00.000-06:002005-03-16T15:46:46.236-06:00

We have been struggling in this country with the issue of rationing medical care for as long as I can remember. First it was restrictions on what traditional medical insurance would pay for. This was quickly eroded by lawsuits against insurance carriers. Then it was the gatekeeper concept for a while, and that was also eroded by patient dissatisfaction and by lawsuits. Restricting access to

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1110818129974133032005-03-14T10:02:00.000-06:002005-03-14T10:43:27.870-06:00

Everyone is familiar with George Orwell's novel "Animal Farm" wherein the faults of Marxist-Leninism were explored using barn-yard animal characters. But there is little recognition of the extent to which it is on the farms of a nation that the practice of a centrally controlled economy and collectivism is shown to be unworkable.From the very beginning of the socialist experiment in Russia the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1110815906469668182005-03-14T09:54:00.000-06:002005-03-14T10:00:51.493-06:00

The Instapundit writes:A LOT OF PEOPLE are noticing this story from the New York Times about prepackaged fake news from the Bush Administration. But if you read the whole thing, to coin a phrase, you come upon this passing acknowledgement:The practice, which also occurred in the Clinton administration, is continuing despite President Bush's recent call for a clearer demarcation between journalism

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1110463248007881352005-03-10T07:56:00.000-06:002005-03-10T08:00:48.010-06:00

...They're not marching for Arab democracy:Why are so many Westerners, living in mature democracies, ready to march against the toppling of a despot in Iraq but unwilling to take to the streets in support of the democratic movement in the Middle East?Is it because many of those who will be marching in support of Saddam Hussein this month are the remnants of totalitarian groups in the West plus a

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1110395498634635342005-03-09T12:56:00.000-06:002005-03-09T13:11:38.636-06:00

Europe has pretty much given up on the whole undertaking [the idea of freedom and democracy] now: we tried it and it ended in the Terror. We went through our phase of proselytising democratic revolution with Bonaparte and look where that ended. Spreading freedom? All that amounts to is killing off one generation of autocrats and replacing them with another. Trust the people? They are just as

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1110389161980636202005-03-09T11:14:00.000-06:002005-03-09T11:26:01.983-06:00

This author thinks that at the very time when Democrats need to be seriously rethinking their agenda that a Hillary candidacy for President would encourage them to dig their heels in and refuse to examine what has been going wrong for their party:Mr. Clinton himself was, of course, re-elected. Otherwise, since his ascension, the Democrats have lost two Presidential races; lost control of the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1110382106430931082005-03-09T09:26:00.000-06:002005-03-09T09:28:26.433-06:00

WASHINGTON, D.C.: In a far-reaching decision that will likely create complicated consequences for the American livestock and wedding-planning industries, the Supreme Court this morning ruled 5-4 that all US marriage dowries "must include three non-diseased oxen."Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy cited "the weight of the expansive penumbra surrounding the historically emerging and

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1110381887365606942005-03-09T09:23:00.000-06:002005-03-09T09:24:47.366-06:00

Let us now praise Paul Wolfowitz. Let us now take another look at the man who has pursued - longer and more forcefully than almost anyone else - the supposedly utopian notion that people across the Muslim world might actually hunger for freedom.Let us look again at the man who's been vilified by Michael Moore and the rest of the infantile left, who's been condescended to by the people who

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1110381710997456822005-03-09T09:20:00.000-06:002005-03-09T09:30:01.026-06:00

Perhaps soon the "lessons of history" from the War in Vietnam that the left attempts to apply to Iraq and every other conflict that the US has become involved in since the '70's won't even apply that well to Vietnam any more.This story details a conversation with Dr. Que, a pro-democracy dissident in Vietnam that the authorities there, under international pressure, have recently released from

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1110389431002539302005-02-27T11:28:00.000-06:002005-03-09T11:30:31.060-06:00

This sums up the situation better than I ever could:This is what the Left has left. They were enraged by the "stolen election" of 2000. Many of 'em opposed war in Afghanistan. Lost. They campaigned hard for the Democrats in 2002. Lost. Opposed war in Iraq. That happened anyway. They hoped for a quagmire. The statue came down in three weeks. They celebrated the hard times in Iraq. But they didn't

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1107299469713315422005-02-01T16:49:00.000-06:002005-02-01T17:11:09.713-06:00

(1) The Ba’ath regime was in some sense “progressive”: It is very revealing that few western “leftists” ever went beyond ritualised, purely verbal opposition to the “excesses” of the regime, even in the midst of their efforts to hijack the leadership of the anti-war movements from the pacifists, Muslim fundamentalists, “Not in My Name” solipsists and other malcontents with whom they made such

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1107297282190461112005-02-01T16:32:00.000-06:002005-02-01T16:46:14.040-06:00

I found this very sensible analysis of the sitation in Iraq vis-a-vis the left on, of all places, democraticunderground.com, where it was linked from a Marxist web site in Britain. Of course, the author is a Marxist. Yes, of course, many Iraqis, both during the war and since it ended, have visibly expressed at best wariness and at worst outright hostility towards the coalition forces: who but a

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1106682326714863112005-01-25T13:42:00.000-06:002005-01-25T13:45:26.713-06:00

Regardless of the huffing and puffing I sometimes do in my ferociously morose moods, I don't think that left wingers are bad people. But I do think that they have, perhaps with good intentions, set themselves on a road and become imbued in a culture that ends up in a very bad place. If a leftist could show me how their ideas would end up with the kind of just society that they want, then I could

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100784652393404602004-11-18T07:22:00.000-06:002004-11-18T07:30:52.393-06:00

Accounts of the plight of common people under the Iraqi insurgents lends insight concerning what they have in mind for the whole country if they succeed in driving the USA out. Such is the fear that the heavily armed militants held over Fallujah that many of the residents who emerged from the ruins welcomed the US marines, despite the massive destruction their firepower had inflicted on their

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100710524999520082004-11-17T10:29:00.000-06:002004-11-18T08:02:22.626-06:00

"Once they have finished in Fallujah, they will head toward you. You must not let them succeed in their plan," said terrorist leader Zarqawi in a taped address that must have sounded more desperate than encouraging to his followers. The Fallujah campaign has been a success on a number of levels. 2500 enemy combatants have been put out of action or killed, their intent for all of Iraq should they

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100606328079783352004-11-16T05:54:00.000-06:002004-11-16T06:00:27.786-06:00

Following University President Don Randel’s warm introduction, the famed author, host, and wry wit of A Prairie Home Companion, started by commenting on election results. “I am a Democrat—it’s no secret. I am a museum-quality Democrat,” Keillor said. “Last night I spent my time crouched in a fetal position, rolling around and moaning in the dark.” Not one to shy away from speaking his mind,

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100538053136286482004-11-15T10:52:00.000-06:002004-11-16T06:03:01.790-06:00

Left wingers have their panties in a twist about the President's plan to get rid of malcontents at the CIA, the ones that were working so hard to get Kerry elected by leaking damaging information about foreign policy to the press. They didn't get upset about this when it happened before, 10 years ago, under Clinton: Senior managers of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100525447910605332004-11-15T07:17:00.000-06:002004-11-15T07:30:47.910-06:00

If Democrats are losing elections then it can only be because the people are not smart enough. Even while John Kerry was making blunder after blunder during his campaign and making a mess out of its management the meme was being propagated in the mainstream press that he was too smart for most people to properly understand. That he didn't poll well and eventually lost the election was, to them,

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100480932683927262004-11-14T18:52:00.000-06:002004-11-14T19:12:40.266-06:00

Surely you didn't need much help with this one. It ought to be clear to you that I'm not exactly a liberal. But here are a few bullet points: 1. I am deeply skeptical of the government's ability to do most of the things that real liberals want it to do. ...like eliminate poverty, or educate the young, or manage the economy, or you name it. 2. I am against liberal attacks on our religious and

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100479965329345372004-11-14T18:35:00.000-06:002004-11-14T19:11:58.653-06:00

Reasons why I can't be truthfully described as a conservative: 1. I'm against the death penalty. ...for one principle reason, and that's that the legal system of America is a horrible mess of mistakes, a huge comidy of errors, a horrible mess of human affairs, a series of blunders. It doesn't deserve the power of life and death over a mad dog, much less a fellow human being. 2. I'm pro-choice

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100473138336852632004-11-14T16:57:00.000-06:002004-11-14T16:58:58.336-06:00

The mujahideen talk tough. They make idiotic claims about their God smiling upon their despicable acts. They run around in their kaffiyehs and face masks for the AP and Reuters photographers, trying to look fearsome, like delusive adolescents. But in the end, they are flattened by the U.S. military anti-jihad machine.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100447663640421542004-11-14T09:53:00.000-06:002004-11-14T09:54:23.640-06:00

Micheal Moore has some serious competition.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100362071799101452004-11-13T10:07:00.000-06:002004-11-13T10:07:51.800-06:00

Heh.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100357859039879542004-11-13T08:35:00.000-06:002004-11-13T09:02:13.863-06:00

My girlfriend called me for her work at one of Houston's downtown energy trading companies to say that the Peterson verdict was coming in. The guys in her office were making book on the outcome, and would I like a piece of the action? She wasn't serious, of course, because she knows I don't gamble. (When I have the urge to lose money on a bet I use the stock market.) But, going along with the

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100288077974208982004-11-12T13:02:00.003-06:002008-07-12T09:16:19.374-05:00

Arctic indigenous peoples urged the United States on Friday to join other nations in cutting greenhouse gas emissions to brake an accelerating thaw of the polar ice. What do the scientific studies of artic ice show?Johannessen et al. (1999) used surface-based measurements to derive variations in area-averaged Arctic sea-ice thickness from 1978 to 1991. They, too, detected a downward trend in

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100282876366192862004-11-12T13:02:00.000-06:002004-11-12T12:09:39.306-06:00

The left in America has become a reactionary force. The left champions Cold War-era international institutions, fascist dictators like Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro, and insists that New Deal and Great Society programs like Social Security and Medicare must not be changed. The recent election was a triumph of the reformers over the reactionaries. The untold story from last week's Republican

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100280204654445862004-11-12T10:35:00.000-06:002004-11-13T09:07:40.953-06:00

1950 - Founded Fatah 1965-1969 - Several terrorist attacks against infrastructure targets in Israel. First attacks against airliners, including a multiple simultaneous hijacking, using Jordan as a base. Sept. 1971 - Arafat driven from Jordan by Jordanian forces after giving the government there no end of grief. Sept. 1972 - Arafat moves his base to Lebanon. Israeli olympic team murdered in

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100266629195923222004-11-12T07:09:00.000-06:002004-11-12T07:37:09.203-06:00

With the 2004 presidential election an exit poll was conducted that included the following question: Which one issue mattered most in considering your vote for president? A. Education, 4 percent. B. Taxes, 5 percent. C. Health Care, 8 percent. D. Iraq, 15 percent. E. Terrorism, 19 percent. F. Economy and Jobs, 20 percent. G. Moral Values, 22 percent. Because "moral values' includes so many

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100196748683171222004-11-11T13:08:00.000-06:002004-11-11T12:34:06.596-06:00

An astonishing letter from a member of a humanitarian organization who has worked all over the Middle East: Every time I went to Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq on humanitarian missions the people begged me to assure them that Bush would be elected. These weren't a few people, as I'd first hoped (as a committed left winger,) but hundreds, thousands. They saw their struggle as I saw Cuba, Angola or

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100199877075799022004-11-11T13:07:00.000-06:002004-11-11T13:08:09.803-06:00

NPR reports that a truck containing canisters of the deadly nerve agent was found hidden in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. The source and age of the supply of Sarin was not known, but labels on the canisters were in English. US forces have suspected that nerve gas might be used in the defense of Fallujah and have had gas masks available during the attack.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100193752971834832004-11-11T11:19:00.000-06:002004-11-11T11:22:32.970-06:00

I have enabled comments from this post forward. Attempts to add comments for posts older than this one won't work. There are no comments for those older posts even though a comment link has been added to them.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100193354424310792004-11-11T11:14:00.000-06:002004-11-11T11:15:54.423-06:00

Too late he accomplishes the one thing that would have helped so many.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1100185107271474912004-11-11T08:54:00.000-06:002004-11-11T08:58:27.270-06:00

A pro-abortion, pro-legalization-of-marijuana, pro-gay marriage, pro-human rights, pro-world democracy generation X person defends his decision to vote for Bush. This letter was written in response to John Perry Barlow's article "Magnanamus Defeat" in which the author makes some attempts to understand the pro-Bush voter: I think what bemused me most when reading your missive, Mr. Barlow, was

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1099893677485231392004-11-07T23:55:00.000-06:002004-11-08T00:01:17.486-06:00

So much for exit polls. So much for the power of the mainstream media. So much for the idea that undecided voters always go for the challenger. So much for the Democrat's belief that the popular vote should decide the Presidential election. So much for the idea that a big turnout always favors the Democrats. So much for Tom Daschle. So much for the youth vote. So much for the winds of

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1099893289997186472004-11-07T23:49:00.000-06:002004-11-07T23:54:49.996-06:00

Darwinism is as true as scientific truth can be as a theory of biology, and most of us can agree that teaching creationism in biology classes is a bad idea. The efforts of Christian fundamentalists to include creationism in the public school biology curriculum is often cited as archtypical of the conflict between the forces of rationality and science and those of fundamentalist religious

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1099893983096810182004-10-15T01:04:00.000-05:002004-11-08T00:06:23.096-06:00

...we, first of all, will give up the notion that America can do big things. Once a nation that tamed a frontier, stood down the Nazis and stood upon the moon, we will announce to the world that bringing democracy to the Middle East is too big of a task for us. But more significantly, we will signal to future presidents that as voters we are unwilling to tackle difficult challenges, preferring

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1099894404982448952004-10-08T01:11:00.000-05:002004-11-08T00:13:24.983-06:00

1. The world is a dangerous place, filled with deadly people. Not just people who are misunderstood. Not just people who are poor. Not just people who have different "values." 2. Most nations in the world look out for themselves. We cringe at the idea of a 'global test' because we know who's going to be grading the test. 3. America is not the world's problem--America is the world's solution.

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1095008871234056312004-09-12T13:00:00.000-05:002004-09-12T12:07:51.233-05:00

The whole point of the bloggers was that someone could just sit down at at a computer with MS Word and start typing the memos. Not even have to change default margins etc. Then run the output through a copier a few times to "age" it.Well, if this is not MS Word Times New Roman, that theory flies out the window. And one consistent character difference means it is not MS TNR. I think you make a

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3559529.post-1093793486014694882004-08-29T10:29:00.000-05:002004-08-29T10:37:00.670-05:00

According to people who attended Harvard Business School with George W. Bush, the President was in those days an avid and skilled poker player. One of the best strategies in poker is to convince one's opponent that one is a boob who doesn't know what he is doing, and so gets the opponent to bet a lot on a weak hand. It's a pattern one sees again and again in Bush's political career. It must be a

Rodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06192271646564782946noreply@blogger.com