Ships That Pass In The Night

The Commissar at the Politburo Diktat posts today about a new Internet gizmo that you might find interesting. The link below will let you see the nearest bloggers to me, or at least those who have signed into this service. Just click the link below:

Sign yourself up for this free, fun service, and find out who's closest to you!

A Few Notes From The First Show

I've just returned home from the first Northern Alliance Radio show's wrap party at the Rocket Man's house, and I wanted to make sure I closed the loop on some of your comments and questions, as well as thank a few people.

First, thank you for your comments on the post. When we get a little better at this, we'll take the e-mails on the air just like callers, like Hugh and Michael Medved do. Right now it's all we can do to chew gum and walk at the same time. (Talk radio with Gerald Ford -- now there's a concept.) A couple of people asked about live internet streaming, and I can tell you that we all want that, including the station, but it will likely be an expensive proposition and they'll want to sell some advertising first. I think we proved today that we have a product, and I think we'll see some movement fairly soon to a streaming format. I showed them the amount of traffic that we got today on my live-blogging post, and I think that also made an impression.

A couple of local people noted that the signal was on the weak side and suggested "listening parties". Hey, I can tell you that we are all in favor of parties, so if we can provide the excuse, we say go for it. You may be able to check around in Eagan to see if a local restaurant would allow people to play the radio. I'll check with a couple around the area to see what I can find out. Mary at Fresh Bed Goodness talked about holing up at Culvers in Eagan; maybe that will work out.

For those who might be interested in the details on the photos, I shot them with my Canon A70 digital camera and downloaded them to my IBM laptop. They were originally shot in 3.2-megapixel format, and using Roxio Photosuite 5.0, I resized them to their current size and compression ratio. After you've done it a few times, it's a snap.

Now for a few thanks. First, Hindrocket and his lovely wife were kind enough to host the party this evening for the Northern Alliance, and they made us a terrific dinner. We even got a chance to meet the Yale Diva, who assures us all that she will be blogrolling the Northern Alliance sometime soon. Also, a big thanks to Patrick Campion, our producer Joe, and the entire staff at The Patriot for giving us the air time. Also, once again thank you to Glenn at Instapundit, who linked us just before airtime and sent us tons of traffic for the live-blog, which may just convince everyone that there's a market for our show on the Internet.

Next Saturday -- same time, same place, and probably live-blogging again, too!

Northern Alliance Radio: Live Blogging!

We're a little over an hour from the start of the Northern Alliance Radio show here in the Twin Cities, and as I said earlier, I will be live-blogging during the second and third hours, complete with digital photographs of the gang. Keep checking back on this post!

12:01 - We're all getting settled into the booth. First segment: Mitch, Hindrocket, Saint Paul, and myself ...

12:07 - Our first topic was graffiti in public restrooms -- yeah, we're rolling, baby! ...

12:16 - Out to our first break, after discussing John Kerry and the "inept" accusation. When we come out of our break, we'll have our first caller on the line ...

12:26 - James Lileks is our first caller, and talks about Kerry's assertion of starving the troops of equipment -- he reminds us of Black Hawk Down ...

12:46 - We've taken three callers, and the last one was someone we didn't know! He wanted to hit Kerry again for his negativity and said that the Democrats were poised to run an almost-completely negative campaign from now on ...

1:05 - I'm now off the air, and for the second segment we have Big Trunk from Power Line and King from SCSU Scholars joining Hindrocket to discuss the "peace-in" at St. Olaf that Jimmy Carter led. Trunk's discussing the "orgy of pacifism," which gets us all pretty keyed up. After all, talking about orgies makes for great radio, right? ...

1:13 - I should have a few photos on this post shortly, now that I'm out of the studio ... The pictures will be in the Extended Entry below this post (click on the link) ...

1:22 - Saint Paul takes my picture while I'm live-blogging ...

1:28 - Trunk, King, Rocket, and Mitch are conducting a terrific interview with Britt, who is part of the students organization that brought the Trunk out to St. Olaf's, billing him as "the man they don't want you to hear" ... Trunk posted about this last week, about how he discussed Winston Churchill. I'll link back to the post in a moment ...

1:33 - Actually he posted on this two weeks ago, and here's the link ...

1:37 - Katherine Kristen from the Center for the American Experiment is calling in to weigh in on the St. Olaf story. She agrees that this reflexive defeatism is something that the entire generation needs to address, not just St. Olaf ...

1:48 - We have two people on the line at the same time -- Britt and Katherine -- and we're not melting down, at least not yet ... I've made the file size a bit smaller on some of the pictures, in case you've had some slowdowns on loading my post ...

1:56 - Wrapping up hour two discussing the conservative counter-counterculture at universities these days with Katherine Kirsten and Britt Haugland. We're out to break, and next hour we'll move onto more cultural topics rather than pure politics ...

2:10 - Now we have Trunk discussing Bob Dylan with JB Doubtless and Atomizer from Fraters Libertas. Trunk definitely has some great insights into Dylan's catalogue ...

2:19 - Coming back in, and the rest of the hour will be all Fraters Libertas, God help us all. We're going to be talking about the Biased Liberal Hack Columnist of the Week, and Saint Paul will be opening with Brian Lambert ...

2:26 - Saint Paul is savaging Brian Lambert's column on Christopher Leyden's arrival in the Twin Cities and MPR -- and he's having far too much fun. Let me back in the studio, dammit! ...

2:35 - We have, perhaps, gone a tad bit overboard by describing the local homeless as "urine-caked drunks riding the buses". Send your mail to JB Doubtless at Fraters Libertas ...

2:42 - According to our caller, Frank, we found out that the buses here aren't as bad as Paris. Frank tells us that they are frequently free from the aroma of urine ...

2:52 - Going into the last segment, we're still discussing the homeless. We're just about at the end of the show, and I think we're up to our last topic. We have one more caller on the line. Douglas congratulated us on our launch, and he's another blogger, too. Great call! ...

2:58 - Wrapped up. Now we wait for the analysis from station management to see whether they promote us or shoot us ... Thanks to everyone who stuck with the live blog, and to all of you who got the chance to listen in! (If you want us to have a live Internet feed, make sure you let the station management know!)

Mitch and Rocket Man before the show started.

Saint Paul and Rocket Man at the top of the hour. At least Rocket Man took this seriously.

Atomizer, JB Doubtless, and the Captain

We're not sure who this is -- Mitch's date for the after-show party?

The 2nd-hour crew, left to right: King, Rocket, Trunk

The 3rd-hour crew: JB Doubtless, Atomizer, and a completely psychotic Saint Paul

Mitch, playing center

Barbra Streisand, Deadbeat

Barbra Streisand's $10 million lawsuit against software developer and environmentalist Kenneth Adelman backfired on her recently, with a judgment against her for over $200,000 in legal fees and court costs to be paid to Adelman. So far, the reclusive entertainer has yet to comply with the court order:

A man sued by singer Barbra Streisand for posting photos of her Malibu mansion on the Internet claims she is refusing to pay his $220,000 legal bill after he won the case.

A judge in December dismissed Streisand's $10 million invasion of privacy suit against retired software entrepreneur Kenneth Adelman, his Internet service provider and a photo agency that distributes his work. The singer was ordered to pay his legal fees and costs.

Adelman filed papers Thursday in Superior Court seeking another court order that Streisand pay an estimated $204,000 in legal fees from the original case, along with $15,000 in fees spent to enforce the first order.

For those who may not be familiar with the case, Adelman took extensive aerial photographs of the California coastline and combined it with some programming, posting the results on the California Coastal Records Project Web site. The effort intended on documenting the damage done to the coastline from natural and man-made efforts by keeping a documentary record of the Pacific Coast.

This is exactly the sort of effort that normally would be applauded by people like Streisand except when it intrudes on their lives. Streisand tried to block publication of the photographs by using the novel idea that when she bought her Malibu mansion, her property rights included all of the air space above it. She was eager enough to take the dispute to court, but now that she lost, she doesn't want to play any more. I doubt she would have approved of Adelman ignoring the judge's orders had the decision gone the other way.

Just another example of the hypocrisy of limousine liberals ...

Elementary, My Dear Watson

The LA Times reports today that the current popular theory for the extinction of the dinosaurs may not hold water after all:

Scientists investigating a vast crater off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula are questioning a popular theory about dinosaurs, saying the collision that formed the crater happened too far back in time to have caused their extinction by itself. ... "Since the early 1990s the Chicxulub crater on Yucatan, Mexico, has been hailed as the smoking gun that proves the hypothesis that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs and caused the mass extinction of many other organisms at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary 65 million years ago," the researchers write in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

But they said a core drilled out of the middle of the crater suggests it dates back more than 300,000 years before the K-T boundary and "thus did not cause the end-Cretaceous mass extinction as commonly believed."

To put that in perspective, current scientific research indicates that Homo sapiens doesn't go back 300,000 years. In other words, that's a very long time for a cause-and-effect hypothesis. It's too bad, too, because this theory had rapidly been absored into mainstream thinking, producing such great entertainment as Deep Impact and the unintentionally hilarious Armageddon, featuring Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck as heroic interplanetary oil riggers who save the world. And Affleck manages to hook up with Liv Tyler while her dad sings background, definitely one of the ickier moments in celluloid history.

While I was thinking about this, I managed to solve the entire mystery of the dinosaurs' disappearance. What happened to the dinosaurs and the vegetation of that age? It all turned to oil, didn't it? Who had the motive? Who benefitted?

It's all Halliburton's fault.

Kerry Goes Cajun

From the LA Times, an amusing portrait of the presumptive Democratic nominee trying desperately to make inroads in the South:

Friday, Kerry accused the president of ducking his record, saying Bush's new television commercials featuring images of the destroyed World Trade Center were an attempt to avoid domestic issues.

"As you know, George Bush wants this whole deal just to be about war," Kerry said. "His first advertisements have pictures of ground zero." The crowd booed.

Yes, and since Kerry has been all over the map on the war on terror, it's the last issue the Democrats want to debate. Lieberman was consistent, and Dean was at least consistent throughout the primaries. But Kerry has tried to have his cake and eat it too all along, trying to explain how a vote authorizing military action actually demonstrated his opposition to it and a vote denying funding for the deployed troops demonstrated his support for them, which leads to this hilarious assertion:

Aides said the presumptive Democratic nominee will give a national radio address today, in which he will rebuke the administration for the lack of readiness of soldiers in Iraq.

And holding up the funding would have increased their readiness? Somehow, I doubt that the families of the troops will buy into this notion. Next, we have a record-setting flip-flop:

Even as he called for an inclusive campaign that would appeal to Republicans as well as Democrats, Kerry stoked the partisan fervor, laughing as the audience booed a mention of Vice President Dick Cheney.

"Just promise me you'll keep that primal instinct alive all the way through November," he said.

Okay ... he'll be inclusive as all get-out except for those evil Republicans. It'll be fun! It'll be wonderful! Why, it'll be just like a [Democratic] party!

Finally, a portrait of Kerry as a man of the people to combat the haughty, imperious perception of him in the mainstream:

Friday, he did his best to fit in with the local culture. "Laissez les bon temps rouler!" he declared at the rally, throwing out the popular Cajun phrase, "Let the good times roll!"

Earlier, he and Landrieu sat down at a seafood diner to enjoy a large plate of steaming red crawfish and a bowl of seafood gumbo, a meal Kerry declared "his favorite." Cameras snapped away as Kerry peeled one of the crustaceans and popped it in his mouth. "There's nothing worse than a public person putting food in their mouth and you guys photographing it," he said mildly, looking over at a bank of reporters.

With that, his staff quickly ushered the photographers and cameramen out of the room.

Ah, yes, one mustn't disturb the emperor at repast while making nice with the commoners, after all. What did you photographers think that was -- a campaign event??

Someone Issued An Opinion! AAAAGH!

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune once again gives new meaning to the term thin-skinned in its headline article on the recent bus strike, skewing the reporting with a bias so obvious it's laughable:

The bus strike was quiet on all fronts Friday -- until the Minnesota Taxpayers League lobbed a grenade into the battlefield.

"Transit just isn't that important to the smooth functioning of the Twin Cities transportation system," said league President David Strom. "That's the obvious conclusion to be drawn from the lack of chaos engendered by the bus-system strike."

If indeed any strike could be called "quiet", the Strib's coverage of it certainly doesn't give that impression. Today, for instance, the Strib has two articles on the strike, including this one, and has headlined the strike since before it began. Yesterday the Strib ran seven stories on the impasse.

Besides, while the Taxpayers League has been an active and influential conservative political movement, it hardly qualifies as a player in the bus strike. Currently, the union and the Metro transit district is negotiating on several issues, most problematically the workers' contribution to soaring health-insurance costs. The impact that a conceptual statement like Strom's would be negligible at best on strike negotiations, although I am sure Strom will be prepared to present evidence for them during the next budget cycle at the Legislature. Using prose like "lobbed a grenade" is so far outside of reality, it's almost a satire of the Strib's collectivist nature.

Beyond that, Laurie Blake first prints Strom's assertions, and then prints five rebuttals from people with vested financial interests in public transportation. The Strib includes a picture, presumably of someone who normally rides the bus, walking through the snow with a cane over a caption that reads, "Walking Farther Due To Strike". (I wonder how Marlin Levison managed to get that 'candid' photograph.) Finally, Blake includes this little zinger in the midst of the rebuttals:

In a rare moment, Strom's comments bound the union and the Met Council together in opposition to the Taxpayers League, which was founded by a small group of wealthy Republican conservatives.

Oh, yes, those eeeeeevillll wealthy Republican conservatives, making that poor man walk through the snow with a cane, all because one organization had the temerity to inquire whether the bus service was efficient and cost effective.

I think Strom, actually, is probably wrong in his conclusions, and as much as I hate driving behind a bus in downtown traffic, forcing the 650,000 residents of the Twin Cities into single-occupancy vehicles would quickly create New York-style gridlock. The result would turn the taxi companies into a private mass-transit system and lock non-residents out of the two downtown areas. But Blake's hysterical writing and op-ed instincts only inflames the already-accurate perception that the Strib is far more interested in editorializing on its front pages instead of reporting, and does further damage to its credibility, if such a possibility exists.

Why We Can't Trust the French

The Italians are learning how trustworthy the French are as allies against terrorism:

The Left-wing intelligentsia of Paris have manned the barricades to defend an Italian terrorist turned novelist who is fighting extradition to serve a sentence for political killings in the late 1970s. Cesare Battisti, 49, was convicted by a Milan court in absentia in 1988 of four murders, several attempted murders and robberies while leader of a group called the Armed Proletarians for Communism. ...

The terrorist's lawyers claim that the refusal is a legal precedent which still protects their client. The government's lawyers say the decision was political rather than legal and is therefore reversible.

Just as when the French decided to block the extradition of Ira Einhorn, the hippie murderer, the French literati are more interested in giving aid and comfort to a murder and a terrorist than in cooperating with their Italian neighbors and supposed ally and fellow EU nation. None of this is terribly surprising; the French have always had a sweet spot for anyone who spouted Marxist theology regardless of their criminal activity.

This demonstrates, once again, the folly of allowing France to dictate our national security policy, especially in our battle against Islamofascist terror. Sheltering a known terrorist for over a decade is a funny way of being the partner in the war on terror the French claim to be. Islamofascists will review this case and adjust their message to include just enough Marxist pap to enable Parisian leftists to fall in love with them all over again. And if we elect a president who refuses to act until his French "ally" agrees on our approach, we will be back to arguing in the UNSC, waiting for action while the council passes one meaningless resolution after another and all the diplomats congratulate themselves on looking busy.

Of Course, I'm Biased, But ...

With all of the health issues at the home port lately, this story from the St. Paul Pioneer Press jumped out at me today:

If a bill to give a tax break to living organ donors had been a football, its supporters would have scored a quick touchdown Thursday during a House Tax Committee hearing. ... Under the proposal, Minnesotans who donate a kidney, lung, bone marrow or part of their liver, pancreas or intestine would be able to deduct up to $10,000 on their taxes for out-of-pocket expenses, including travel, lodging, time off from work and extra baby-sitting fees.

"People should not suffer financially for giving the gift of life to others,'' said Rep. Erik Paulsen, R-Eden Prairie, the bill's author. Najarian said the tax break would not entice people into becoming organ donors but it would remove the financial disincentives that prevent some from making the commitment.

We have been blessed to have a good friend volunteer to donate a kidney, and while my medical insurance will cover all of her medical costs as well as the First Mate's, I'd be lying if the issue of her lost wages and ancillary expenses hasn't made us somewhat reluctant to accept her generous offer. She has assured us that she doesn't see it as a problem, and as healthy as she is and with the surgery being done mostly laparascopically, her recovery period will probably be just two to three weeks. That's not always the case, and for those who just get by, donation may not be financially possible.

Giving donors a tax deduction may not solve all of the financial worries and wouldn't make an impact until the following year, but it certainly would help. It would also promote the practice of organ donation, especially kidneys, which can easily be donated by live, healthy people. The economic benefit in restoring the health of productive citizens would outweigh its impact on revenues, but most importantly, would demonstrate the value of life as a central principle in our community.

First Mate Back on Board

Thank you to all who kept the First Mate in your thoughts and prayers -- she's back home, tired but feeling much better, and significantly lighter, too, after three dialysis treatments. We've made the arrangements for her continuing dialysis treatments, so she should do fine right through to the transplant.

However, we got the list of what the First Mate can't have as grub any longer -- and I'm scratching my head as to what the heck she'll be living on. She can have as much protein as she wants, but not prepared or preserved meat (too much sodium). She can't eat bran, beans, or nuts and only a half cup of dairy a day (too much phosphorus). You'd think that fruits and vegetables would be a good idea, but there's half a page of veggies that are off-limits (too high in potassium). Geeeeeez. I thought diabetes was difficult.

Independent: Kerry More Popular Where People Can't Vote

The Commissar at the Politburo Diktat links to an insipid article in yesterday's Independent that begins with this statement:

If the human race as a whole, rather than 50 states plus the District of Colombia, could cast a ballot this coming November, John Kerry would surely win the presidency by a landslide.

Unfortunately for President Bush-haters around the world, only the 200 million United States citizens of voting age will have that right - and the outcome is anything but sure.

As I responded in the Commissar's comments, if the human race as a whole could cast a vote, we wouldn't need George Bush in the White House. Until that time, we can't afford John Kerry.

Airheads Poised On The Brink

We're almost exactly 24 hours away from the debut of the Northern Alliance radio show on AM 1280 The Patriot here in the Twin Cities. Mitch Berg will play center and moderate the three-hour talkathon; I'll be on in the first hour tomorrow, discussing events from the past week and interacting with callers. I'll join Saint Paul of Fraters Libertas and Hindrocket from Power Line. Mitch has the rest of the schedule on this post, and I may duck back in for a segment during the last hour, depending on availability (and whether I have anything intelligent to say).

If you're in the broadcast area, make sure you tune in to The Patriot for the launch, and call in. For those outside of the Twin Cities, we're hoping to get a streaming service for the show very soon. Keep checking at the Northern Alliance site for more news and information.

I will be live-blogging when I'm off the air, so you can also check here on Saturday to see what's happening!

Libya: 44,000 Pounds of Mustard Gas

George Bush's alliance with Tony Blair in using force to unseat Saddam Hussein continued to bear fruit as Libya revealed the extent of their chemical weapons programs at the Hague earlier today:

Libya acknowledged stockpiling 44,000 pounds of mustard gas and disclosed the location of a production plant in a declaration submitted Friday to the world's chemical weapons watchdog. Libyan Col. Mohamed Abu Al Huda handed over 14 file cartons disclosing Libya's chemical weapons programs to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said general director Rogelio Pfirter. ...

Libya also declared thousands of tons of precursors that could be used to make sarin nerve gas, and two storage facilities, Pfirter said. The production and storage facilities were near Tripoli and in the south of the country, Pfirter said.

Even Moammar Gaddafi acknowledges that the military action by the Anglo-American Coalition, which included support from over thirty other nations, forced Libya to comply with international agreements on disarmament and the elimination of chemical weapons. Pulling Saddam out of his hole in the Sunni Triangle made the dangers of further obstinacy crystal-clear to Gaddafi, who has quickly settled all accounts with the West in the hopes that Libya will not apprear on the Coalition's short list of potential dangers.

Our previously feckless foreign policy in the Middle East created the environment that allowed tyrants like Saddam and Gaddafi to thumb their noses at international pressure for compliance in WMD disarmament. Why would we want to return to that policy? Ask yourselves this: had we still been at the UN Security Council, demanding action on seventeen previous UNSC resolutions for Iraqi compliance and watching Saddam continuing his brutal reign in Baghdad, do you think for a moment Gaddafi would have voluntarily given up his nuclear and chemical weapons programs? If so, then why did he wait until 2003 to do so?

UPDATE: Power Line weighs in with an important point regarding parallels between Libya and Iraq:

It was frequently pointed out by United Nations authorities at that time, that the U.N. inspectors were never intended to be detectives. The procedure for weapons inspections was designed to help a cooperative government identify and safely dispose of weapons. It was never designed to somehow outsmart a government that was trying to hide weapons programs from the inspectors. And, as every U.N. report on Iraq plainly stated, Saddam's regime was not cooperative, not forthcoming, and not honest in its dealings with the inspectors.

In Libya, we see the weapons inspection process as it was intended to occur, but in Iraq, never could have taken place.

California In Play?

While President Bush still regularly polls below John Kerry in the Golden State, the LA Times publishes an op-ed today by Robert Grady that analyzes the state ballot results from this week and sees red flags for Kerry's campaign:

The state Democratic establishment, which backed and advises Kerry, also put its full weight behind Proposition 56, which would have reduced the vote required for the Legislature to pass the budget and taxes from two-thirds to 55%. ... The voters were not fooled. Proposition 56 was crushed 65% to 35%. It lost by well over a million votes. The message is clear, both for Kerry and George W. Bush: California voters — like voters nationwide — are overwhelmingly against tax increases.

If Kerry thinks this is a fluke, he might consider the results of California's recall election last year. ... Republicans Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom McClintock captured 49% and 13% of the vote, respectively. Memo to Kerry strategists: Republicans got 62% of the vote in this "heavily Democratic" state.

Schwarzenegger's magic is still working, as the two initiatives he put his credibility on the line to support — Proposition 57, which refinanced the state debt, and Proposition 58, which mandated a balanced budget in each fiscal year going forward — passed with 63% and 71%, respectively. So Proposition 56 didn't just founder because California voters weren't in the mood for ballot measures.

Grady, a venture capitalist, advises both Bush and Kerry on the messages that will resonate with Californians this year: free trade, tax reduction, economic growth, and the return of California's federal investment to California's citizens. Kerry's message, so far, fails on at least the first two and possibly all four, while Bush is already delivering the first three.

With Arnold Schwarzenegger building a strong political base on the Left Coast, it's possible that California could go Republican in 2004, especially with Barbara Boxer facing off against a skilled political opponent for the first time in her career for her Senate seat. At the very least, it's obvious that the Democrats will have to spend heavily in California to keep it in their column, and that helps the Republicans everywhere else.

Wrong on Many Levels

The Washington Post tells about a teacher in the DC area who somehow got a copy of The Passion of the Christ and showed it to his students in class -- at an elementary school:

As a teacher showed sixth-graders at the District's Malcolm X Elementary School parts of the movie "The Passion of the Christ," 11-year-old Cutairra Ransom was growing upset by the violence unfolding in front of her. ... After about 15 minutes of watching the R-rated film about the final hours of Jesus's life, Cutairra said she walked out of the room.

She was one of the 16 to 20 students who were shown the movie Tuesday at the public school, which is in the Congress Park neighborhood of Southeast Washington. D.C. school officials, who said sixth-graders should not be shown R-rated movies at school, have placed the teacher, Ronald Anthony, on leave with pay pending an investigation.

What's to investigate? All you need to know is that he showed them the film, which isn't in dispute. That means that Anthony did the following: he bootlegged the movie himself or has possession of a bootleg, a misdemeanor, and he showed an R-rated movie to children without their parents' permission. They'll be lucky to avoid being sued over the trauma. Oh, wait -- he has tenure, that lovely artifact that allows idiots like Anthony to feel that they have immunity from the consequences of their actions. Silly me.

Of course, there's also the matter of showing religious material in class -- which, of course, is also against the rules, and in this case almost deliciously ironic. A teacher at Malcolm X Elementary showed a film about the birth of the Christian religion; you can't find irony like this every day.

Watcher's Council Has Spoken

The Watcher's Council has made their selections for the week's best entries. My post on my opposition to Kerry came in an honorable second place in the non-Council entries, behind Kim du Toit's great post, Never Again. Congrats to Spiced Sass and King of Fools, who provided the one-two punch for the Council entries. Big thanks to the Council for the nomination and the votes!

At Least the North Koreans Are More Honest About It

Last weekend, I incurred the ire of Pandagon readers by suggesting that the Iranians were attempting to influence the presidential election by claiming John Kerry sent them e-mail and then putting out a phony report that Bush had Osama locked up but was waiting until the fall for the maximum political impact. Readers on the Left interpreted my post as an attack on John Kerry's patriotism, for some reason, instead of an attack on the Iranian leadership's intelligence. Now another member of the Axis of Evil has publicly made its choice for the American President known, and surprise, surprise, it ain't W (via Hugh Hewitt):

North Korea's state-controlled media are well known for reverential reporting about Kim Jong-il, the country's dictatorial leader. But the Dear Leader is not the only one getting deferential treatment from the communist state's propaganda machine: John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic candidate, is also getting good play in Pyongyang.

In the past few weeks, speeches by the Massachusetts senator have been broadcast on Radio Pyongyang and reported in glowing terms by the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA), the official mouthpiece of Mr Kim's communist regime.

Why do you suppose they're giving Kerry the Kim Jong-Il treatment in Pyongyang? They're unhappy that the Bush administration insists on multilateral negotiations and won't bend on complete, verifiable, and irreversible disarmament. Bush learned from the mistake Jimmy Carter foisted on a reluctant Bill Clinton (to be fair) and won't trust the NoKos with just pledges. The Financial Times makes it clear that Pyongyang feels that they can get a better deal from Kerry, one that closely resembles the deal they abrogated with such ease during the Clinton administration:

But both Mr Kerry and Mr Bush are committed to North Korean disarmament. Mr Kerry, however, would renew bilateral negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, while Mr Bush has sought to manage the conversation with North Korea through multilateral talks. Mr Kerry has also been more forthright about setting out the economic rewards for North Korea if it disarms.

Once again, the dictatorships that oppress millions of people under brutal conditions have made their choice for the American President clear.

The Myth of 3 Million Jobs

Sean's excellent blog, Everything I Know Is Wrong, explodes the myth of the three-million-job loss during the Bush administration in a funny and well-sourced post from last night. Apparently, Sean did what John Kerry's entire staff was unable to do and check out the data at the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

It took about as long to do it as it took you to read about it. Take a look at the left side of the table; the column marked “Jan”. Now look down to the rows marked 2001, 2003 and 2004. The Jan 2001 figure is 137,790,000 (the numbers are all in thousands) and the Jan 2004 figure is 138,566,000. That means that there are 776,000 more jobs now than there were in the first month of George Bush’s administration. Look at the Jan 2003 number, 137,477,000, which means there are 1,119,000 more jobs than this time last year.

Sean attributes Kerry's inability to figure this out to either stupidity or dishonesty. Sean reports, you decide, although I'm willing to entertain the notion that it's a combination of both ...

Protective Custody

Since I work in the security industry, stupid criminal stories like this never fail to amuse me. In this case, the police did this guy a favor by arresting him before he killed someone -- namely, himself:

A Brazilian crook shot himself in the foot while trying to burglarize a bar, then left a trail of blood that led police straight to his home, police said Thursday. ... Police said Auad had broken into the bar several days earlier and had stolen a television set. He broke into the bar through the roof again on Tuesday night, but fell down and accidentally shot himself in the right foot, police said.

Not only does crime not pay, sometimes it hurts like hell.

How The Left Lost Younger Voters

Glenn Reynolds notes an article from Reason which reviews the new book from Danny Goldberg, Dispatches from the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit. In the Reason review, David Weigel rightly skewers Goldberg's analysis that the problem is one of marketing instead of policy and Goldberg's insistence that musical tastes are particularly revealing of political philosophy:

Convinced of the righteousness and appeal of Democratic policies, Goldberg skips over whether those policies might be the problem. Instead, for him, it’s all about effective advertising. He believes that a majority, especially a majority of young people, will rally around, say, abortion rights, affirmative action, and soak-the-rich taxes as long as they’re slickly packaged via pop culture. Thus, Goldberg’s Big Idea is a progressive reconquista of pop culture. Embrace Bill Clinton’s "boxers or briefs" MTV interview, and be irreverent. Join forces with the hip-hop stars whom Al Sharpton is taking for granted. Paint the other side as the heirs of crusty 1950s DJs who wouldn’t play "black" music.

However, I also disagree somewhat with Weigel's implication that it's all about policy, too. Certainly policy is important, but more so, what opened the minds of younger voters to viewpoints other than those blasted at them by the entertainment industry? After all, we're not talking about a fringe movement; we're seeing a large shift in political alignment in the 18-34 demographic than we had twenty years ago, while the messages have remained fairly constant.

Two issues come to mind, one a specific event and the other a chronic condition. First, it is impossible to overestimate the impact that 9/11 had on this group of voters. They grew up on the ascendancy of moral relativism and internationalism, constantly fed the line that there was no such thing as evil in the world, only misunderstandings. To have that stripped away in one morning where 3,000 of your fellow citizens died, especially without a longer experience in life, is (rightfully) catastrophic to such thinking. Suddenly, this generation found out that there are enemies and they wanted to kill Americans in large numbers, and that a good portion of what they'd been taught was drizzly pap.

Second, the preceding generation -- the Boomers -- have to be the most self-involved, self-referential generation this country has ever produced. For the boomers, the Me Generation has never changed; they hold onto the Vietnam War as a touchstone from which they draw their power, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it's been over for thirty years and the resultant massacres proved them terribly wrong. This presidential campaign gives us great examples of this dynamic at work. Howard Dean, for instance, once described the 1960s as a period of unprecedented national unity that he wanted to recreate as President. Boomer-fed groups such as International ANSWER create protests with tired, retreaded slogans from the 1960s complete with the music of the day.

This relentless focus on their own youth as a mythical Golden Age, combined with their greedy, ever-increasing grasp on public resources in the form of expanding retirement entitlements must strike the younger generation as ridiculous and tiresome. Even younger boomers such as myself wonder when my ge-ge-ge-generation will finally realize that they are not the center of the universe. In this environment, the Beatles and Tipper Gore are irrelevant, except as reminders of how narcissistic boomers remain. It may not be enough, on its own, to mold their political philosophy, but it's certainly enough for them to open their minds to other possibilities.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers! I suspect that Glenn may be right in his analysis of my post.

UPDATE II: Another big welcome for readers of the Volokh Conspiracy, and thanks to Randy for linking to my post. Randy, obviously, is quite accurate in calling this a "rant".

New Group Blog: Oh, That Liberal Media

The Captain has been invited to participate in a new group blog that launched this week: Oh, That Liberal Media. Organized by Stefan Sharansky and including contributors such as Ombudsgod and Patterico -- who's been brilliant at holding the LA Times accountable for its egregious bias -- the aim is to create a clearinghouse of items that will not only demonstrate the leftist bias in today's mass media but encourage their readers and viewers to demand more balance.

My first contribution to the effort is a cross-post of my earlier item on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's editorial against the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act. I hope you get a chance to keep up with this exciting new project.

Indecency Fines May Get Much Tougher

The FCC will have the ability to levy much larger fines for indecent broadcasts if a bill approved by a Congressional subcommittee passes:

A House committee voted Wednesday to increase from $27,500 to $500,000 the fines that could be imposed on broadcasters for airing indecent material. A House Energy and Commerce Committee subcommittee had approved a tenfold increase, to $275,000, in fines the Federal Communications Commission could impose for each indecency violation. But the full committee voted 49-1 Wednesday to nearly double that.

The Super Bowl broadcast exposed CBS to fines that potentially reached $5.5 million -- or less than the revenue it received for three minutes of advertising during the event. Under the new rules, if adopted, CBS could have faced upwards of $100 million in FCC fines. Faced with growing anger in Congress over the perceived rapid degradation of broadcast material, perhaps especially in radio, the industry lobbying group responded with polite disagreement:

National Association of Broadcasters President Edward Fritts said the group prefers voluntary industry initiatives to government regulation when dealing with programming issues. He pointed out that just recently, a number of broadcasters have taken steps to address concerns of parents and policy-makers.

Some of this is true, such as Clear Channel's suspension of Howard Stern in six markets for a particularly vile segment on his show that aired recently. As many have pointed out, though, Clear Channel's new indecency standards are just that -- new -- and they certainly understood what Howard Stern's show was all about when they picked it up for those markets to begin with. John Hogan just got ahead of the curve in order to mitigate the FCC response, which seems to have worked, at least as far as avoiding a fine.

Does this amount to censorship? Of course not; since 1934, the FCC has been tasked by Congress to enforce public control of broadcast frequencies, and the broadcasters themselves entered the business with complete awareness of their responsibilities and the regulations controlling their industry. The FCC does not engage in prior restraint by reviewing scripts ahead of time; they fine violators after the fact, and repeated violators can face revocation of their broadcast licenses. For a more comprehensive explanation of why FCC enforcement of indecency regulations does not constitute censorship, see my earlier post.

Nighthorse Won't Run

Colorado Republican Ben Nighthorse Campbell, one of the more colorful members of the Senate and a strong favorite for re-election this year, has abruptly left the race, citing health concerns:

Campbell, 70, made the surprise announcement Wednesday, citing declining health. He was treated for prostate cancer last year. His Washington office also faces allegations that a longtime aide had taken kickbacks.

Campbell's decision gave Democrats another open Senate seat to target in November and threw the Colorado Senate race wide open. Pollsters suggested heavyweights like GOP Gov. Bill Owens and former Democratic Sen. Gary Hart might get into the race, but there was no immediate word from them. Hart earlier declined to seek the seat.

Obviously, this sets back Republican hopes of expanding its control of the upper chamber. This creates a vacuum and a relatively short campaign where name recognition may be the deciding factor. Pollsters are already looking at blasts from Colorado's past, such as former Senator Gary Hart (D) and current Governor Bill Owens (R). Hart refused to run earlier, but that may have been because of Campbell's popularity.

Campbell has had a running battle with prostate cancer, but when he announced his re-election bid last November, he claimed the illness was completely under control. Two recent hospital stays, one of which was for chest pains that turned out to be heartburn, may have killed the desire for six more years of political battles. At 70, running for the Senate acknowledges that one will never have a retirement of any significance, and perhaps Campbell would just like to enjoy life for a while. Hopefully, he will be able to do so in good health for a long time to come.

Kerry'd Away

Hey, I know John Kerry has to say something to convince people to vote for him, and so far, all he's had to say was that he hates George Bush, Bush is evil, Bush is inept -- well, things like this:

"This president has in fact created terrorists where they didn't exist," he said. "And I believe this president has run the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of our country. And we need to hold him accountable."

Hugh Hewitt notes tonight that Kerry apologist Joshua Micah Marshall insists on validating that ridiculous notion on Hugh's show, so apparently this will be the catchphrase up through the convention, and perhaps beyond. Let's test this by looking at highlights of the past 40 or so years, which I assume would satisfy Kerry's "modern" qualifier.

1961 - President John F. Kennedy implements a leftover plan from the Eisenhower adminstration of supporting a native insurgency in Cuba, but at the last minute and without warning the insurgents, Kennedy withdraws American Air Force support for the attack on the Bay of Pigs. The resultant disaster destroys any basis for improving US-Cuba relations and pushes Fidel Castro to seek protection from the Soviet Union. The USSR begins installing ballistic missiles in Cuba, leading to the worst crisis of the Cold War and almost touches off a nuclear war between the US and Soviets. The solution requires the dismantling of missile bases in the Near East and may have contributed to the building of the Berlin Wall.

1962-3 - The Kennedy administration tries several fruitless and laughable methods of assassinating Fidel Castro. They manage to stage a coup in South Vietnam, getting a government that is more inclined to fight the Communists than the preceding Diem government, which was more inclined to negotiation with Ho Chi Minh.

1968 - The Johnson administration, up to its eyeballs fighting a proxy war in South Vietnam to stop the spread of Soviet Communism, fails to respond to the Soviets spreading directly into Czechoslovakia to put down the "Prague Spring" uprising for democracy.

1978-9 - Based on human-rights concerns, Jimmy Carter withdraws political support for Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran, creating a vacuum into which Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini steps, dislodging Pahlavi in February 1979 and starting the Islamic Revolution. Despite Khomeini's fiery diatribes against the American "Great Satan" and demands for the West to return the Shah to stand trial for his "crimes", Carter allows the former Shah asylum in the US, ostensibly for medical treatment, and then expresses surprise when the Iranians overrun the American Embassy. Despite this overt and humiliating act of war, Carter refuses to use military force to drive the Iranians off of American territory (the embassy) and instead involves the US in a degrading, 444-day-long negotiation for the return of dozens of diplomatic personnel.

1980 - After declaring that the foreign policy stance on Communism changed from 'containment' to peaceful co-existence and famously kissing Leonid Brezhnev on the cheek, Carter is shocked (again) when the Soviets march into and occupy Afghanistan. Carter's response: boycotting the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.

1979 - 2000 - America either retreats in the face of successive attacks by Islamofascist terrorists or attempts to negotiate with them, instead of attacking them outright. Incidents include the Teheran embassy hostages, the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, a string of hostage-taking in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center bombing, Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, simultaneous attacks on two American embassies in Africa, and a suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen.

In contrast:

2001 - 04 - After sustaining the worst attack on American soil with almost 3,000 civilians killed, Bush warns the Taliban government -- almost universally considered one of the most oppressive regimes -- to turn over all al-Qaeda operatives within their country. After they refuse, Bush attacks the Taliban with UN political support and overthrows their government, freeing 25 million people from a brutal tyranny. Within two years, the Afghans create and ratify a constitution establishing a democracy, and do so unanimously. Later, Bush attempts to resolve a twelve-year Iraqi quagmire by insisting that either the UN enforces its sixteen resolutions requiring Saddam to verifiably disarm or warns that America will build a coalition on its own to bring the situation to an end. When Saddam refuses to comply and the UNSC refuses to enforce their own resolutions, Bush and Tony Blair build a coalition that overthrows Saddam, freeing 24 million Iraqis from Saddam's brutal oppression. As a result, Iran negotiates a settlement with the IAEA to finally comply with its non-proliferation agreements and Libya agrees to get rid of its nuclear and biological weapons programs.

If this is John Kerry's idea of inept, it speaks loudly and unpleasantly to his suitability for the White House.

UPDATE: Welcome to Hugh Hewitt readers! Also, check out Slings 'N Arrows for a good assessment of the party-line hack that Joshua Micah Marshall has become.

Same-Sex Solutions That Make Sense

In the middle of all the heat and noise about same-sex marriage, the Bush administration is quietly pushing a same-sex solution for education that may wind up enraging some on the Left, but will make educating our daughters more effective:

The Education Department plans to change its enforcement of Title IX, the landmark anti-discrimination law, to make it easier for districts to create single-sex classes and schools. The move would give local school leaders discretion to expand choices for parents, whether that means a math class, a grade level or an entire school designed for one gender.

U.S. research on single-sex schooling is limited, but advocates say it shows better student achievement and attendance and fewer discipline problems. Critics say there is no clear evidence, and that single-sex learning doesn't get students ready for an integrated world.

At least 91 of 91,000 public schools offer a form of same-sex education now, including The Philadelphia High School for Girls, which sends almost all of its graduates to college.

Part of Bush's education plan was to allow local school districts a wider range of choices as long as they produced well-educated students. These changes allow the districts to determine whether single-gender classes or schools help them deliver on that mandate, mostly to the benefit of girls. Study after study demonstrates that boys get more focus in the classroom in coeducational settings, especially in the sciences and math, resulting in a sharp deficiency of young women choosing engineering and scientific fields in college. Under the Bush administration's enforcement of Title IX, districts will have the latitude to offer girls-only versions of these classes in order to ensure that they get the same focus as do the boys. Unlike earlier, they will not be required to offer boys-only classes, but simply provide coeducational alternatives.

Several years ago, I assisted at my local parish in the sacrament of confirmation, which took two years preparation and finished when the candidates were usually 16 years old. (In fact, I did this as part of my service for my confirmation, but that's another sea tale for another day.) We worked with many teenagers at a time, and several of the girls in the group attended girls-only Catholic high schools. During an open-discussion exercise that had been going a bit slow, I asked the girls how they liked going to a 'segregated' school, expecting to hear a great deal of complaining; even back then, the Captain was a troublemaker. To my great surprise, every girl enthusiastically endorsed the idea, telling me that without the boys in the environment, the girls got plenty of attention in class for their scholastic effort -- some felt that public-school teachers focused too much on the students' looks -- and the tensions usually present regarding boyfriends, clothing, and makeup were nonexistent at their school. They felt themselves to be better students, and happier teenagers as a result. For my part, these young women were among the most emotionally mature of the large group.

Oddly but perhaps predictably, womens' groups object the strongest to the idea of providing single-gender choices in public schools:

"The notion that you can have schools that are 'separate but less than equal' is a new low in the understanding and protection of anti-discrimination principles," said Jocelyn Samuels, vice president of education and employment at the National Women's Law Center.

Nonsense. First off, no one's arguing providing substandard education in single-gender settings, and furthermore, changing the demographics of the students shouldn't affect the quality of the instruction. Rather than focus on the best and most effective way to educate young women, Samuels sacrifices young women on the altar of political correctness. It certainly demonstrates what's important to the National Women's Law Center, and what isn't, and young women fall into the latter category.

Six Digits

For those of you who are inclined to notice such things, Captain's Quarters passed 100,000 visitors this afternoon. Thank you to all of you who visit, who comment, and who blogroll me. I certainly appreciate your presence, and I'll prove it by finishing this post and blogging on something more substantial now ...

Watchers Council Nominations

Once again, I have been honored with a nomination in the weekly Watchers Council contest for this week. The Council has nominated my extensive post on my opposition of John Kerry and support for George Bush, which makes me feel pretty good; normally, I write posts quickly, but I struggled for hours over that one.

As always, the Council has gathered a serious collection of excellent posts from around the blogosphere. Be sure to check them all out.

Kerry Strong Among Base, Not Holding Independents

In what could portend disaster for the Democrats in November, John Kerry -- the most liberal Senator in 2003 -- seems to fall short in attracting independent voters:

Yet even in California, Kerry did not run nearly as well with independents — who were eligible to vote in the Democratic primary — as he did among party members. This trend was more pronounced in Tuesday's voting in Ohio and Georgia, according to exit polls conducted by Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International.

In that way, the results underscored Kerry's ability to mobilize Democrats and the challenge he may face with independents as the campaign's focus shifts to the battle against Bush.

The LA Times exit polling showed the same trend throughout most of the contests yesterday and points out the folly of nominating a candidate from the extremes. John Kerry's record of attacking military and intelligence spending plays well in San Francisco and Massachussetts, but there's little risk of those voters going for George Bush in any case. They could go Nader or Green, of course (especially San Francisco), and some of the Deaniacs may indeed do just that. However, independent voters will tend to consider the war and support military spending, and those will go to Bush. Others will focus on economy and jobs -- and since both of those are improving, a good portion of those will also go to Bush in November.

Kerry's problem is that his extreme record will only appeal to the true believers among the Democrats, once that record is carefully vetted in debates and by the media. Therefore, the next month or so is critical for the Kerry campaign in the battle for the middle voters. If Kerry can't attract independents at this point in the race, before Bush really goes on offense, he's going to get creamed in November.

Hospiblogging

Today is the First Mate's surgery to install a dialysis shunt, and the didn't start off too well. Her blood sugars were too low and her blood pressure too high, and so the hospital delayed her procedure for a while. Eventually she got settled down and they've taken her in for the surgery, which fortunately only requires sedation and a local anaesthetic.

In the meantime, I'm waiting in the hospital lobby with a restaurant pager for them to tell me when the doctor is ready to talk with me. (You can't have a cell phone on, but you'll know when your table is ready, monsieur.) After asking about a dozen people if the hospital had Internet access, someone told me about a few workstations they have just off of the lobby. None of them had an access port, but a table nearby has a computer for job applicants. Above the computer is a large sign that reads, "THIS COMPUTER WILL ONLY ACCESS THE HOSPITAL SITE". Never one to do what I'm told, I took out my laptop and hijacked the network port, and to my mild surprise, I'm on line. Thank goodness, too, as I don't think I could read another magazine from the last century.

I'm sure this story would amuse the First Mate if I told her, but seeing as she's convinced I'm addicted to the computer, I think I'll keep my mouth shut. I'll update this post later on to update her condition, as long as my secret remains undiscovered...

UPDATE, 2:56 PM CT: The First Mate's procedure went well, and now she's getting dialyzed for the first time. Her blood pressure is already dropping and she's dozing through most of it. I've hijacked the network access point again and I'll check on her in a bit to make sure she's still doing well. The dialysis unit is in the ICU, so there's no place for me to sit while she's up there.

UPDATE, WED EVENING: The First Mate had a successful run on dialysis and is resting comfortably at the hospital. She'll stay a couple of more days and have a couple of more runs on dialysis before they release her on Friday. She's looking a bit better already, and I think she'll be feeling a lot better tomorrow and Friday after her treatments. Dialysis is a fascinating process; if you'd like to know more about it, check this out.

Speaking Truth to Power

When people ask me to identify a hero, sometimes I have difficulty answering. Sir Thomas More? General Anthony McAuliffe, who famously replied "Nuts!" to a German demand for surrender at Bastogne? The Canadian diplomats who risked their lives to smuggle Americans out of Teheran in 1979?

All good answers, of course, but now one man can take his rightful place with these other people of courage: Saint Paul of Fraters Libertas. JB Doubtless writes today about how SP spoke truth about an evil, in the middle of the lion's den (er, Giants den) itself. Here is an excerpt of this inspiring display of righteous bravery:

Something sent SP off (a Bonds dinger? the memory fails) and he yelled "HE'S JUICED". Embarassed, but laughing, TRAH and I continued watching the game. But he wasn't done. In what could only be described as drunken, maniacal boorishness SP launched into a ten minute LOUD diatribe about Bonds and his relationship to steroids.

It almost seemed that the more offended people around him became, the louder and more vociferous his rantings became. "73 HOME RUNS FOLKS YOU THINK HE DID IT NATURALLY?" Families, disgusted, left the section in droves. Various Giants fans were yelling obscenities. An old woman shook her fist at us.

A fist-shaking old lady? Could anything be more daunting than that? [sniff] Saint Paul, you are this Dodger fan's Hero of the Year. God bless you.

UPDATE: Saint Paul has weighed in with his recollections of the evening in question. The only question I have is: who the hell is Jesus Vega?

KSTP Drowning, Uses Ed Asner as Life Preserver?

I noticed during the Oscar broadcast that our local ABC affiliate, KSTP, began running a new commercial for its news shows. Ed Asner, reprising his Lou Grant role but without using the name, stands in front of the KSTP newsroom and gruffly tells them that the nonsense stops now, and if they're looking for dancing bears, they need to work somewhere else. I remember thinking at the time that the whole concept was pathetic; it's been twenty-two years since the Lou Grant character was last performed.

Today, the Star Tribune explains it all -- the desperation, the dropping revenue, and the tortured explanation of how KSTP News sold its brain, if not its soul, in order to attract viewers:

KSTP-TV, Channel 5, has launched an image-building campaign featuring actor Ed Asner, who reprises his signature role of Lou Grant, the gruff, no-nonsense news director beloved by Minnesota audiences since his days at the fictional Minneapolis TV station WJM on the '70s hit "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

"It's not about how pretty we look or how many fancy awards we've won," Asner growls in one commercial. "It's about how much news we can fit in 30 minutes."

But for KSTP the new campaign is also about ratings and revenue. The flagship property of St. Paul-based Hubbard Broadcasting empire has spent years stuck in third place in the local news ratings, and that's having a big impact on its bottom line. News programming can account for as much as half of a station's total ad revenue. The lower the ratings for a station's newscast, especially among the prized 18-to-34 age group, the lower its revenue.

Stop right there. To begin with, if someone thought that Ed Asner attracts 18- to 34-year-olds, they should immediately get themselves to Lens Crafters. What math genius made this decision? 18-year-olds weren't even born yet when Asner was last on TV as Lou Grant in either of the character's shows. 34-year-olds were 12, and I'm sure they thought that Lou Grant was the heighth of cool in their prepubuscent years. I do seem to recall the fashion wave of potbellies and bald heads that plagued middle-school campuses in 1982.

More seriously, how exactly does having a fictional character endorsement give credibility to a news show? Perhaps their local marketing strategist also advises the Dennis Kucinich campaign; will we see Grandfather Twilight flacking for KSTP soon too? Having a make-believe character delivering a sermon about straight news to a roomful of actors in the KSTP newsroom does not give me confidence in the reliability of their news broadcast, especially since Grant's last choice of a news anchor was Ted Baxter.

In short, this promotion is about everything except the news. When this doesn't work, perhaps we'll see the guys from Sports Night make an appearance.

Cheney: I'm Not Going Anywhere

Speculation has swirled about the status of Dick Cheney in this election, with some suggesting that the Vice President may be an albatross in the general election. Cheney has been a lightningrod for controversy in the run-up to the war in Iraq, with the lunatic fringe -- and others -- charging that the war only served to inflate Cheney's Halliburton holdings. (Way out on the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe, Ted Rall thinks that Cheney went to war in Afghanistan so his buddies could build an oil pipeline.) But today in Washington, Cheney told MS-NBC that Bush has asked him to run again:

"He's asked me to serve with him on the ticket again for the next 4 years,'' Cheney told Fox News in one of a series of cable television interviews. "I'm happy to do that as long as I can be of assistance and he wants me in that spot, I plan to serve.''

While this alone won't eliminate the speculation, especially since Cheney mentioned that a medical problem would change everyone's mind, it should dampen the enthusiasm of those who have been busy suggesting replacements, including me. I still think that Cheney could still serve in a second Bush term in some other role, perhaps in the NSA, and allow Bush to find a running mate that brings more positives and fewer negatives to the ticket, but I'm not unhappy or surprised that he's sticking around for the election. I doubt that Cheney will make much difference to the Left whether he's there or not; they're focusing their rage at George Bush, and even if he had Mother Theresa as his running mate, nothing would change that.

UPDATE: Jon at QandO makes a good point about Bush's loyalty, which I should have considered as well.

Politburo Diktat: The AWOL Media

The Commissar notes a story that has escaped attention from the ever-vigiliant mainstream media:

Comrades, February has ended, and evil Amerikan forces lost 23 soldiers in Iraq. To date, MiniTruth has employed appropriate full media blackout on this development. ... As far as Commissar has been able to Google, there are no reports of February casualties in this context. Therefore, Commissar will award new dacha, Hero of Soviet Union medal, and bolshoi linkage to any comrade identifying traitorous, counter-revolutionary mention of low February casualties in any mainstream MiniTruth media.

Full blackout, comrades; enemy bombers overhead!

Jay Reding also notes that this has received no media coverage whatsoever. Why not? When we sustained a (relatively) high rate of casualties in November, it's all we heard about from the mainstream news media. Gee ... you don't suppose they've got an agenda, do you??

Try Googling it yourself, or use the search engines on media websites.

UPDATE: The Captain has been sentenced to the gulag for forgetting to include the link to the Politburo Diktat! You know me, I'd forget my anchor if it wasn't chained to my deck ...

You're All Winners, But Some More So Than Others

Thanks to everyone who entered Friday's caption contest! I had a lot of great responses, which everyone can see in the comments section of the original post. I'd tell you that every one of you is already a winner, but the Captain doesn't want to clean up after the massive bout of seasickness that would surely follow ...

Here are the winners:

Captain's Favorite: Bryan

If I pretend to be napping, maybe I won't have to speak to that commoner.

You Have The Conn #1: Dorkafork

John Kerry tries to pry open his eyelids as rigor mortis sets in...again.

You Have The Conn #2: Linda

Presidential candidate, John Kerry, is suddenly struck by the fact that he is not drawing better looking volunteers.

You Have The Conn #3: Dean Esmay

Sen. Kerry wistfully remembers his days portraying Lurch on The Addams Family.

Don't forget to check back again on Friday, when I'll have the next photo begging for your captions!

No Kerry Sweep; Edwards to Withdraw

It appears that the ghost of Howard Dean has appeared in Vermont to spoil John Kerry's dreams of Super Tuesday sweeps, according to CNN:

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean -- who dropped out of the race two weeks ago -- won his home state, CNN projected based on the exit polls.

It appears that Kerry will easily beat Edwards in most of the other contests. So far, Edwards leads in Georgia, but that's all. The only other state that Edwards had any momentum at all, Maryland, looks like it will go solidly for the Yankee rather than the Southerner.

Breaking news has John Edwards withdrawing from the race tomorrow. Finally, we get the two-man race we always wanted: John Kerry vs Dennis Kucinich.

Friday Photo Caption Contest

Maybe we'll make these a regular Friday night feature at Captain's Quarters -- check out this photo below and give us your best caption! But be careful, because it looks like we may have hurt John Kerry's feelings the last time out ...

The contest will be open until Tuesday at 6 PM CST. Enter as often as you like, no purchase necessary to win, rules at selected Captain's Quarters locations near you ...

UPDATE: Bumping it up for the weekend ...

UPDATE: Don't forget that the caption contest ends tonight! Get your entries in!

UPDATE: I'm closing entries now, and thanks to all of you who entered. I'll have the winners posted by late tonight. Next Friday, we'll be doing this again, and The Patriette will guest judge the entries with me (I hope!) ...

Someone's Confused

Warren Grantham, executive director of the Minnesota Education League, has resigned his position from both the MEL and apparently the Taxpayers' League due to an inflammatory e-mail he sent to various state legislators:

The executive director of the Minnesota Education League and an advocate of the No Child Left Behind law, resigned last Friday in a dispute over an e-mail he wrote that attacked several legislators for their opposition to the law. ... Grantham said the e-mail to legislators, which he characterized as "very, very critical, using some inflammatory images," led to a disagreement between him and his boss, Taxpayers League of Minnesota president David Strom. That led to Grantham's resignation.

The basics of this story are fairly straightforward so far -- Grantham wrote an e-mail that somehow offended its recipients, among them current Minnesota legislators opposed to the No Child Left Behind federal law, including some Republicans. His boss disagreed with his methods and Grantham resigned for what's known as "creative differences" in Hollywood. But there's apparently more to the story:

In an e-mail to the Star Tribune on Monday, Grantham noted that he was "the first and only black person to work for the Taxpayers League of Minnesota," the Education League's parent organization, and that he was "given the message on the last day of Black History Month that his services were no longer needed." ...

He insisted that the rift between him and Strom had nothing to do with race. But the e-mail to legislators did have racial overtones, Strom said. "I think the e-mail could be read in such a way as having accused them of being very insensitive to racial issues," Strom said.

So on one hand, Grantham insisted that his resignation had nothing to do with race, but announced it by noting that he was the "first and only black person" at the Taxpayer's League in a letter to the largest and leftist newspaper in the state, noting also that he resigned on the last day of Black History Month. So which is it? If it had nothing to do with race, why did Grantham make such a big deal about his ethnicity?

Strom and Grantham refuses to release the e-mail Grantham sent to the legislators so that his "inflammatory" comments can be dissected, but the Star Tribune describes it as equating legislative opposition to NCLB with pre-1954 racial segregation. In effect, he accused the Minnesota legislature of racism, a reckless charge that we're more accustomed to seeing from the hysterics on the Left. While one can argue with some merit that substandard public schools inordinately affect minority children, that has more to do with economic classes than racial demographics, and has nothing to do with intent; clearly, the intent of Jim Crow apartheid was to keep black Americans in a second-class status. It is possible to disagree with NCLB and not be racist, just as it is possible to oppose Affirmative Action and not be racist.

Grantham is either trying to play both sides of the street by holding himself out publicly as a racial martyr to the Left while assuring the Right that he holds no racial animus ... or he's just one confused fellow. In either case, Strom almost certainly acted in the best interest of the Taxpayer League in making this change. I predict, though, that the Star Tribune will make a lot of hay out of Grantham's termination and the racial issues that Grantham both stoked and disavowed in almost the same breath.

The Kidney Chronicles

For those of you who have been kind enough to ask about the First Mate, I just wanted to give you an update on her status. The collection of doctors we've gathered have decided that her kidney function has dropped off too much for her to wait for the transplant for treatment, and so she will be starting dialysis tomorrow. She'll go in to have a shunt installed in the morning, have a dialysis treatment, stay overnight for observation, have another treatment in the morning, and hopefully will be ready for release in the afternoon. While it sounds like a setback, this actually will help relieve the symptoms of kidney failure that trouble her the most, and should be a marked improvement in her quality of life. We're both optimistic.

One of our friends from Twin Cities Marriage Encounter (where we volunteer as board officers) has volunteered to donate her kidney to the First Mate and so far, the tests have been going well. She needs to go through an extensive physical evaluation still, but her tissue match is excellent. If all goes well, the transplant should take place in a couple of months. We're also hoping for a cadaver pancreas transplant -- if we're really lucky, we'll be able to time it so that both can be done at the same time. If not, the pancreas will be done a few months later. So things are definitely looking up. Fortunately, we live in the capitol of transplants, as the University of Minnesota pioneers most of that research in the United States.

Keep your fingers crossed, and I'll continue to keep you updated. Here's the First Mate with the Little Admiral from last Christmas:

News Flash: Barry Bonds Took Steroids!! (Yawn)

Sometimes a post is difficult to categorize; this one could go under Sports or Science, I suppose. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on its website late last night that San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds took steroids and human-growth hormone from a lab in the center of a federal investigation, according to information provided to the feds:

Investigators also were told that New York Yankees stars Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield, as well as three other major leaguers and one NFL player, were given steroids, the newspaper reported. Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, gave the players the drugs from the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, according to information given to the government and shared with the newspaper. ...

The Chronicle reported that two of Bonds' former teammates — Marvin Benard of the Chicago White Sox (news) and Kansas City catcher Benito Santiago — and former Oakland infielder Randy Velarde also received performance-enhancing drugs, as did Oakland Raiders (news) linebacker Bill Romanowski.

An anonymous source told the Chronicle that Anderson provided Bonds with steroids and human growth hormone as far back as 2001, when the slugger hit 73 homers to break the single-season record. Bonds has 658 career homers — 97 shy of Hank Aaron's career mark.

Anyone who watched baseball over the past ten years could see that Bonds was juiced, and he wasn't the only one, either. [Full disclosure: I'm a lifelong Dodger fan who's predisposed to hate anyone wearing a Giants uniform.] Once Bonds' trainer became implicated in this lab -- which created designer steroids capable of avoiding detection -- it didn't take a calculus professor to add things up. Given his perpetual moodiness, no one probably noticed any personality changes, although I think Bonds is probably a nicer guy than sportswriters like to admit. Sheffield and Romanowski, on the other hand, are perpetual discipline problems, unlike Bonds, and again provide no surprise being included. Again, anyone shocked by this simply isn't paying attention.

Baseball needs to get serious about steroid testing if it wants to retain any credibility, especially in terms of its individual records. John Smoltz made the same argument just a couple of days ago. It's not just in the best interest of the game, it's in the best interest of the players as well.

Definition of 'Is', Part II

Senator John Edwards, whose presidential run will likely run onto the shoals tonight, has made a lot of noise about refusing money from lobbyists, especially in the wake of a number of scandals involving frontrunner John Kerry. However, it turns out that Edwards and Kerry have more in common than first thought:

While Democrat John Edwards boasts that he hasn't taken a dime from Washington lobbyists for his presidential campaign, he has accepted thousands of dollars from people in the capital's lobbying profession or their spouses and children. ...

Even if donors lobby at the state level or run firms or organizations that lobby Congress, their money is accepted by Edwards as long as they are not personally registered.

For instance, Edwards, a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, received a $500 donation from National Education Association executive director John Wilson. Wilson himself isn't a registered lobbyist, but the union he runs spends roughly $1 million a year lobbying in the nation's capital.

Note that Edwards sits on the Senate committee that oversees education, too. The article provides other examples, to which the Edwards campaign responds that the donors were not lobbyists at the moment they donated. Some people have called Edwards the Clinton heir apparent -- I suppose we now know why. If Edwards had a prayer of stopping John Kerry, I suppose we'd be in for another round of redefining the word 'is' all over again.

Now, is there anything illegal about accepting these donations? Not at all. However, just as in Kerry's case, it is the height of hypocrisy to set oneself up as the public scold on lobbyist money in the political system and simultaneously stuff one's pockets full of it. Presidential campaigns are usually exercises in cynicism, but this year's group of Democrats may be the crassest examples in decades.

Why I Oppose Kerry and Support Bush

Mark asked me a direct question yesterday in response to my post about the laughably transparent Iranian attempt to influence the election Friday:

And what do you have against Kerry? Or has Bush really fought to improve your way of life?

I wrote later that his question was valid, and rather than point to a collection of earlier posts on various incidents, I think it would be more honest for me to put together a comprehensive argument for my position on this election. I will address this in two parts, just as Mark asked: why I oppose John Kerry, and why I support George Bush.

Primarily, I don't trust John Kerry, and I never have. He's spent most of his Senate career carrying Ted Kennedy's water and regularly competes with Kennedy for the most liberal voting record -- a contest he won last year, according to the National Journal. He rarely writes legislation, preferring to follow rather than to lead. He's been mostly a non-entity for the past 19 years.

His sudden aspiration for the Presidency hasn't brought out any coherent philosophy of governing, either, except to continually state over and over that he would be the Anti-Bush. For example, he's continually carped over and over that Bush "lied" to him when Kerry voted for military action in Iraq, and derided Bush's attempts to gather UN support for an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein (which he spent five months negotiating before finally giving up on France and Russia). However, as soon as Haiti popped up, Kerry derides Bush for taking five days to get a UN resolution creating the multinational force that Kerry insisted Bush should have waited for in Iraq!

Kerry (D-Mass.) said he would have sent troops to Haiti even without international support to quell the revolt against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. "President Kerry would never have allowed that to get where it is," Kerry said, though he added he's not "a big Aristide fan." (via Tim Blair)

This is part of a pattern of equivocations by a completely reactive Kerry, who keeps playing both sides of every argument. He voted against action to expel Iraq in 1991 and later claimed he supported it in concept but felt the timing wasn't right. In 2002 he voted for military action, and spent all of the latter half of 2003 claiming he opposed the war. He has made a great deal out of his support for the troops in Iraq and his determination to keep America secure, but was one of only 14 Senators to vote against the spending appropriation to keep the troops supplied.

During the campaign, he has repeatedly thundered about his staunch opposition to "special interests", famously saying in Iowa that he was coming, they were going, and don't let the door hit them on the way out. But Kerry's own record demonstrates his hypocrisy, as he has gone way out of his way to use his influence to benefit his contributors. In one instance, he personally wrote 28 letters on behalf of a company that made several thousand dollars in illegal contributions to his 1996 re-election campaign. In another, he used his influence on the SEC to arrange a meeting for a contributor's friend -- who turned out to be a Chinese spy. Kerry's raged about Benedict Arnold CEOs who move their corporations offshore for tax shelters and send jobs overseas, but then has received more than half a million dollars from the same CEOs he excoriates. That's not counting his wife's fortune, which relies on a company that locates most of their manufacturing facilities overseas.

In short, Kerry is Clinton without the charm. He doesn't just attempt to triangulate his opponents -- he triangulates himself. Someone who twists himself into these kinds of pretzels isn't the kind of man who will stand up to the challenges that face this country. Not to say that he's a coward, but that he won't lead; instead, he'll take polls and follow the political winds of the moment, which is what leaders without vision do.

Which brings me to why I support George Bush. He's not the most accomplished politician, and in 2000 I was a McCain supporter. I've been a Republican for most of my life, except a short period when I registered Libertarian. My social philosophy doesn't match up well with Bush; I'm a laissez-faire man for both economics and social issues. I think that the government which governs and spends least governs best, and we got precious little of that philosophy so far in the Bush Administration. However, on the most pressing issue not of this time, not of the past couple of years, but over the past three decades, Bush grasps the issue completely: the rise of Islamofascistic terror and its targeting of America and Americans.

Starting in 1979 with the sacking of our embassy in Teheran, Islamofascism has pressed its attack against the "Great Satan" in a number of ways -- and successive American administrations have retreated in the face of it, both Republican and Democrat. Starting with Carter's paralysis in the face of a clear act of war, proceeding through our retreat from Beirut, negotiating for hostages in Lebanon, the shameful bug-out in Somalia, and our complete failure to respond in any meaningful way to the attacks on our African embassies and the USS Cole, American Presidents have continually communicated that we were less interested in protecting our assets than in covering our ass. For instance, shortly after taking office, Clinton discovered an Iraqi plot to assassinate former President G.H.W. Bush. That is an act of war, and Saddam only held power due to a cease-fire that he already was continually violating. Instead of taking decisive action, Clinton followed his polls and tossed a few missiles at Baghdad, solving and resolving absolutely nothing. The lesson we taught our enemies -- and that is what they are -- was that we would not risk anything to protect ourselves and our interests, that we were paper tigers who would not risk open war in case an American got hurt.

After 9/11, the rest of the country realized we were at war, but I don't think it's really settled in that we've been at war for 25 years against Islamist terror. But George Bush got it. He understood that we weren't dealing with a law-enforcement problem. Serious people wanted to kill Americans by the thousands, by the millions if possible, and they were being funded and sheltered by hostile governments. Bush also understood that in order to beat those dictatorships and kleptocracies, America would have to create a new reality on the ground in Islamofascism's breeding ground. That's why Phase I was Afghanistan -- to specifically go after al-Qaeda -- but Phase II had to be Iraq. A good portion of our military in the area was already pinned down there, enforcing a sanctions regime that had already become riddled with holes, and provided yet another example of American and UN vacillation in the face of provocation.

The Democrats, with the notable and honorable exceptions of Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephardt, fail to understand the lessons of the last 25 years, and in John Kerry's words, continue to see terrorism as a law-enforcement issue. Ironically, even the one law-enforcement approach all of them supported, the Patriot Act (which passed in the Senate 95-1, with Kerry and Edwards voting yes), they have spent the last year vilifying when even Joe Biden, Ed Koch, and Dianne Feinstein called such criticism unwarranted. The problem with using a law-enforcement model is that law enforcement takes place after a crime has been committed. We arrested a dozen or so people after the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 even though we had intelligence that other governments and terror networks were involved, got our convictions, and stuck them in prison. How effective was that? Take a look at the New York skyline and see for yourself.

Finally, instead of campaigning on issues and his record, Kerry has missed no chance to make this campaign personal. He started by explaining his law-and-order philosophy as "John Ashcroft won't be the Attorney General" and explicitly equating Bush's Guard service with draft dodging and implying it was morally inferior to it, egged on by his party's national chairman. Every time his voting record in the Senate comes up for discussion, he hides behind Max Cleland and cries about attacks on his patriotism. He throws his fine service record around on the campaign trail but insists that discussing his politics on his return -- which he played out on a national stage -- is nothing but "dirty politics".

George Bush has his flaws, no doubt; everyone does, including (and especially) me. John Kerry has his virtues. But when it comes to securing the United States and creating a better world, I'm going to vote with the man who liberated 50 million people in the Middle East and got Moammar Gaddafi to knuckle under. I'm going to vote for the man who finally resolved the 12-year quagmire of Iraq and the multibillion-dollar drain it represented on our military. I'm going to vote for the man who woke up on 9/11 and saw the danger that our country and the Western world faces, and who has remained consistent in his determination to fight and beat that danger regardless of the polls and the calls for appeasement from weak and corrupt allies.

That's my answer, Mark. You may not agree, and that's why we have elections. But you asked me an honest question, and you deserved an honest answer. Thank you for reading, and thank you for asking.

Now This Is a First Amendment Issue

I wonder if the same people who screamed about government intrusion on First Amendment rights when Clear Channel Communications dropped Howard Stern's radio show will demonstrate any level of outrage over this:

A Roman Catholic charitable organization must include birth control coverage in its health care plan for workers even though it is morally opposed to contraception, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. ... The high court said Catholic Charities is no different from other businesses in California, which is one of 20 states that require company-provided health plans to include contraception coverage if the plans have prescription drug benefits. In California, "religious employers" such as churches are exempt from the requirement. ...

The Supreme Court ruled that the charity is not a religious employer because it offers such secular services as counseling, low-income housing and immigration services to the public without directly preaching about Catholic values.

The court also noted that the charity employs workers of differing religions.

So the California Supreme Court has ruled that a religious organization that doesn't discriminate in its hiring practices and offers services to its community is not allowed to conduct itself within the bounds of its religion. Instead of being commended for its community involvement, the California state government used Catholic Charities' outreach as an excuse to impede their practice of religion. The state will force Catholic Charities into one or a combination of reactions in order to avoid funding contraception and abortion, two anathemas of the Catholic religion:

* Terminate all non-Catholic employees
* Stop performing community outreach
* Close its doors

The actions of California go directly to the rights of religious organizations to act in accordance with the tenets of their religion. The government of California excuses this as an equal-access issue, but the 14th Amendment does not trump the First Amendment, nor does it allow the state to redefine the definition of 'religious' organization to suit itself in its pursuit of liberal social policy. It means that any religious "organization" must petition for recognition as such for its members to practice freely, a policy that bears more resemblance to the People's Republic of China than to the United States of America. Moreover, this precedent will eventually allow the state to demand other actions of religious organizations, such as recognition of gay marriage and equal-access policies for hiring of priests, that directly contradict what the churches teach, for right or wrong.

The left, notably the normally rational Jeff Jarvis, warned of the terrible consequences to free speech that would result if the FCC started enforcing its existing regulations on indecent speech over public broadcast resources, which I have rebutted more than once. I wonder if as many people will stand up for Catholic Charities, their community outreach, and their open-arms hiring policy, as did those who stood up for Howard Stern's access to the public airwaves to broadcast the Lesbian Dating Game.

The Strib Endorses Blackmail

The Star Tribune predictably shrieks with hysteria today about the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act, which the Senate is about to pass after the House has already done so. For those not in the know, the PLCFA protects gun manufacturers from the same sort of tort extortion that the tobacco industry has endured over the past several years. Trial lawyers love these class-action lawsuits because they have the potential of nine-figure legal fees; Micheal Ceresi's firm received over $400 million from the eventual multi-billion settlement for Minnesota in the tobacco lawsuits. However, unlike true liability cases where a defective product was knowingly sold to consumers, causing injury, these lawsuits are intended on extorting huge sums of money from gun manufacturers for producing their legal products at all. The lawyers intend on banning guns by bankrupting their manufacturers -- while stuffing their own pockets -- and they're not even subtle about their goals.

In any rational world, this strategy would be called an abuse of the tort system and legislation precluding it would receive support from everyone who is concerned about an overreach of government and the safety of our Constitutional freedoms. Not the Star Tribune, however:

The ill-conceived measure, which is headed for passage by the U.S. Senate this week and has already been approved by the House, would bar most civil lawsuits against gun makers, importers and dealers. ... We're not fans of frivolous litigation either, but blanket immunity is not the solution. This would set a dangerous precedent and could lay the groundwork for turning long-accepted liability laws upside down. Carving out wholesale exemptions from civil lawsuits has never been done for alcohol, tobacco or any other dangerous product.

Perhaps the reason "wholesale exemptions" haven't been carved out before is that there was no reason to do so. Until everyone started suing tobacco companies for selling a product that everyone knew was dangerous and addictive -- and forty-plus years after the government forced them to label it as such -- no one considered the fact that companies could be sued just for producing a product. Further, the possession of alcohol and tobacco isn't Constitutionally guaranteed; the Second Amendment would be meaningless if the government was allowed to sue firearms manufacturers into oblivion. Finally, when would this stop? As we've seen, it didn't stop at tobacco or guns, but lawyers have attempted to file class-action lawsuits against fast-food restaurants for serving high-fat, high-calorie foods -- as if we're all forced to eat it.

The Strib doesn't even have the courage of its own convictions. In the very next paragraph, the article suggests a trade-off for the novel idea of allowing gun manufacturers to continue producing a legal product:

If the Senate follows the House down the immunity path, at the least it should pass two provisions that would help mitigate the damage. Early this week, the Senate will consider and should pass an amendment that would close a gaping loophole in current regulations. Under federal law, you can't purchase a gun from a licensed dealer at a gun show without a background check. But if the seller is an unlicensed private seller, no check is required. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, gun shows are the second leading source of firearms recovered in illegal gun trafficking investigations.

The Senate also should approve an amendment that would extend the federal ban on semiautomatic assault weapons, which is scheduled to expire next year. There is simply no legitimate need for those types of rapid-fire weapons.

Note that these two issues are completely unrelated to gun manufacturing. The first has to do with a secondary market in which the manufacturers have no control, or does the Star Tribune really think that Smith & Wesson prefers people to buy used weapons instead of new? The amendment would create a requirement for all private sales to have a background check for completion. In other words, if I wanted to sell a gun to my neighbor, I would have to run a background check before being allowed to do so. If the amendment restricts such requirements to gun shows, it opens up such a large loophole that the amendment itself becomes useless, which is that private sales will simply occur outside of gun shows.

The Strib's true aim -- a ban on all gun ownership -- comes through loud and clear. The transparent attempt to preserve a civil-liability option for lawyers to exploit, followed by these ludicrous fallback positions, betray their intentions. It's a measure of the Strib editorial staff that they don't have the intellectual honesty to simply say so.

Economy Continues to Improve

The Commerce Department reports today that consumer spending continues to increase, growing at a rate of 0.4% in January, in line with investor expectations and continuing to demonstrate the strength of the economic recovery:

The over-the-month increase reported by the Commerce Department on Monday matched analysts' expectations. The advance came after a bigger 0.5 percent rise in December, which was slightly stronger than first estimated a month ago.

Disposable incomes — what's left after taxes — rose by 0.8 percent in January, up from a 0.3 percent increase the month before. January's sizable increase was helped out by a number of factors, including a reduction in federal incomes taxes and pay raises for government workers and those in the military.

The news gets even better when you look at non-durable spending, like food and clothing, and services, both of which grew faster than the overall rate. Personal savings is up to 1.8% and businesses are increasing capital spending, indicating that new job creation is about to explode. Democrats who argue economic disaster may be digging their own political graves later in the year...

Dean Campaign a Civil War: Post

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz wrote an extensive article on the Howard Dean campaign, revealing deep divisions within the ranks and a candidate afraid to win:

In different conversations and in different ways, according to several people who worked with him, Dean said at the peak of his popularity late last year that he never expected to rise so high, that he didn't like the intense scrutiny, that he had just wanted to make a difference. "I don't care about being president," he said. Months earlier, as his candidacy was taking off, he told a colleague: "The problem is, I'm now afraid I might win."

As Dean was swallowed by the bubble that envelops every major candidate, he allowed his campaign to sink into a nasty civil war that crippled decision-making and devastated morale. In the end, say some of those who uprooted their lives for him, these tensions hastened the implosion that brought Dean down.

The polarization revolved around two people: Joe Trippi, the rumpled, passionate, sometimes headstrong campaign manager who drew rock-star coverage in the press, and Kate O'Connor, the quiet, shrewd, low-profile Vermont confidante who never left Dean's side.

Without a doubt, Kurtz's article includes blockbuster revelations, but none that will prove more controversial than his conclusion -- supported by his sources -- that Dean didn't want the nomination. The rest of the modern political soap opera is all there, too, from the senior aides who want to control the access to the King to the money woes, the rabid press corps, and the hatchet men who became sworn enemies to each other while professing undying loyalty to the nominee.

Perhaps the most interesting revelation, apart from Dean's reluctance to win, is the internal fallout of the Gore endorsement. Kurtz describes the Dean campaign as two camps that struggled against each other: Kate O'Connor's Vermont delegation and Joe Trippi's Washington establishment retinue. Trippi claims that Dean and O'Connor kept Trippi in the dark about the endorsement until it occurred:

It was early December, and Dean and Gore had agreed to keep quiet about the former vice president's plan to announce his support within days, fearing a premature leak. Trippi grew suspicious when staffers were asked to charter a large plane to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He asked Dean, who said someone would be endorsing him but he couldn't tell Trippi who it was. Trippi reminded him that he was the campaign manager. But Dean wouldn't budge.

The larger message was that O'Connor had known and the Washington faction had not. O'Connor said she was simply doing what Dean and Gore wanted. What no one knew was that this would be the high point and that the corrosive sense of mistrust would eat away at the campaign at the worst possible time.

Definitely read the entire article; it may one day be the seed of a much-needed look at the Dean phenomenon from a reasonably disinterested outsider, as I am sure that more than one "insider's look" at the campaign will shortly be available at your local bookstore. For such an innovative venture, it descended rather quickly into the venality and pettiness that seem to be the destiny of so many failed campaigns.

US, Pakistan Agree on Osama Hunt

Reports have surfaced claiming that Pakistan has finally agreed to allow US troops to operate on Pakistani soil in the upcoming Special Ops spring offensive on al Qaeda (via Drudge):

Thousands of U.S. troops will be deployed in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan in return for Washington's support of President Pervez Musharraf's pardon of the Pakistani scientist who this month admitted leaking nuclear arms secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote in the issue [of the New Yorker] that goes on sale on Monday.

Musharraf came under fire earlier for his breathtaking pardon of the man responsible for nuclear proliferation to the "Axis of Evil" and seemingly everyone else. The Bush administration leveraged that into a sweeping deal which Musharraf publicly claimed he'd never allow. And without being able to freely operate on both sides of the border, we wouldn't be likely to get much accomplished in the rugged terrain of the Afghani/Pakistani border.

Now that some solid intelligence is coming through, the US reportedly will scale back its operations in Iraq in order to transfer thousands of troops and Special Forces into Afghanistan to pursue leads on the #1 man on the American Hit Parade, Osama bin Laden, and as many of his pals as possible. I would expect to see some results from the new mission as early as this month, when the weather clears up and our forces can freely negotiate the terrain.

Better Late Than Never

The Iraqi Governing Council has finally agreed on a transitional constitution, two days past an American deadline but with broad agreement on its contents:

Besides a comprehensive bill of rights, including protections for free speech, religious expression, assembly and due process, it also spells out the executive branch. Under the terms of the document, Iraq will have a president with two deputies, a prime minister and a cabinet. ...

The document "strikes a balance between the role of Islam and the bill of individual rights and democratic principles," the official said.

It also contains a "goal" of having the Iraqi Parliament consist of at least 25% women, although this is not a quota. The documents attempts to establish individual rights as the basis of government, including freedom of religion, and aspires to be not only historic for Iraq but for the entire region, one official said.

The new constitution still leaves unaddressed the demands for autonomy by the mainly Sunni Kurds in the north, as well as the reactive demand for the same by the Shi'a in the south. The council reached a consensus to focus on those points where agreement could be found and to leave the rest to the transitional government that will result from the first elections later this year or early next. That government will draft a final constitution and the elected members will debate and decide the most contentious issues, rather than leave it to the present appointed council.

That approach probably represents the highest wisdom on government, and the Iraqis are to be commended for recognizing it. That's not to say that whatever decision reached will make all sides happy or would completely avoid the dangers of secession, but to attempt to make those decisions at this stage would be disastrous. It's a measure of how novel and attractive the new Iraqi reality is that the south and the north aren't scuttling talks by insisting on autonomy now, let alone secession. A united, free, and federalized Iraq would be the best of all possible results, and one that would transform the region. So far, they're still on the right track.

The Chieftains Visit The Twin Cities

The Chieftains, the most well-known traditional Irish music group, tours through the Twin Cities this week, and the Pioneer Press profiles the legendary band:

Chalk up another one for Irish charm and musical diplomacy. But Moloney and his bandmates have long been known as Irish music's foremost ambassadors, hauling their jigs, reels and airs across every continent but Antarctica. Wednesday, the globetrotters will stop in the Twin Cities for a performance at Orchestra Hall that will show off some of the cross-cultural fusions they've fashioned but will mostly be an Irish folk showcase from its most famous purveyors.

The Dublin-bred Moloney formed the group in 1963 with the idea of not only preserving his country's folk music traditions but also finding open ears elsewhere.

"I wanted to be able to do a kind of music that brought in the tradition," he said, "but made it a little more exciting, particularly to the uneducated ear. And you don't have to be Irish to enjoy it. We've played it all over the world, and it fits in with every kind of folk music you can imagine. We've done it with Chinese, South American and Cuban music, from Galicia right across to Japan. It just has that special thing that makes people happy and sad at the same time."

The Chieftains have survived across five decades by not only relying on traditions in Irish music but by merging and incorporating many elements into their repertoire. Several of their albums are collaborations with many popular artists, such as Sting, Sinéad O'Connor, The Corrs, and others. Their latest album explores the similarities between Irish and American folk music, and as someone who has listened to a fair bit of both, you'd be surprised at how much the two are alike.

This marks their first American tour, I believe, without their long-time harpist, Derek Bell, who died in 2002. The writer describes Bell as their effervescent comic spirit, but above all he was a brilliant musician. Musicians have come and gone from the Chieftains, but I think Bell was the first to pass away, and it's remarkable that the band has carried on.

If you haven't heard them before, and they're coming your way, definitely go see them. Try a couple of their albums, especially Water From The Well.

The Envelope for Pushing The Envelope Goes To ...

I will be live-blogging the Academy Awards tonight, and it appears that this will be a long, long night -- the Academy has removed speech restrictions for the Oscar winners for the first time in recent memory. Odd, don't you think, or perhaps the Presidential election has something to do with it?

7:25 - Catching the pre-awards show, and it's as lame as ever. I felt sorry for Nicole Kidman and Renee Zellweger, who were cursed to sit on either side of Billy Bush and forced to respond to his inane non-question commentary. As if that wasn't bad enough, he then re-enacted the "Uma-Oprah" debacle from several years back. I'm sure that the Academy appreciates that walk down Memory Lane ...

7:35 - The opening sequence rocked! Loved the elephant stepping on Michael Moore as he protested the Battle of Gondor, and Jack Nicholson made a great Gandalf. Seriously. Somehow, though, I feel it will be downhill from here ...

7:44 - All right, the opening songs were terrific, too. [Dammit, I liked Clint Eastwood in Paint Your Wagon!] ...

7:50 - The first award was announced at the 20 minute mark. And you wonder why this show takes so doggone long? Best Supporting Actor: Tim Robbins, who seems a bit rattled to have won; normally he's a better speaker, even if his material stinks. Nothing political, just a good plea for abuse victims to seek counseling...

7:59 - Angelina Jolie onstage to "Wild Thing". Okay ... First Oscar to Lord of the Rings: Art Direction.

8:05 - Finding Nemo for Best Amimated Feature -- coooooool. Sweet moment in the speech, too, although I think his wife was embarassed. (Hi, Linda!) ...

8:12 - 2nd Oscar for Lord of the Rings: Best Costumes ...

8:20 - No surprise: Renee Zellweger wins Best Supporting Actress for Cold Mountain. She was terrific, and of course she was expected to win this one...

8:27 - A very nice tribute to Bob Hope and his Oscar presentation career. It would have been nice to show how his work on screen, where his legendary approach to comedy could be appreciated by a new audience ... Mickey Rooney's still with us! I agree with Linda -- it's good to see him ...

8:34 - I guess there IS a time limit on speeches tonight, and even that brown-nosing didn't give the Best Live-Action Short winner a break ...

8:58 - Bily Crystal has it working tonight. Great little bit about what's going through people's minds! Lord of the Rings wins #3 for Visual Effects, the second year in a row they won ...

9:03 - For such an accomplished comedian, Jim Carrey has lousy timing tonight ... Linda notes Carrey's huge ears, which his shaved head highlights. I'd have said something first, but my ears are just as bad, which is why I don't shave my head ...

9:07 - Funny wheelchair gag. I didn't see that coming! ...

9:14 - Make sure you visit Linda's terrific blog. Great design and use of color, and Linda writes well ...

9:18 - Lord of the Rings wins #4: Makeup. Scarlett Johanssen needs to get a cup of coffee and wake the hell up ...

9:22 - Lord of the Rings wins #5, Sound Mixing, and the comedy definitely suffers whenever Billy Crystal isn't involved. John Travolta did well, but Sandra Bullock's portion was a dud. The audience is starting to look uncomfortable during these sketches. Who's writing these -- Saturday Night Live? ...

9:43 - Errol Morris makes the first political speech of the night, but his claim of "millions died" could also be said of our departure from Southeast Asia as well ...

9:52 - Great commercial take-off on Caddyshack, with Tiger Woods in the Bill Murray role. Why didn't American Express use that during the Super Bowl?? ...

9:57 - Lord of the Rings #6 - Best Score. Looks like a Rings night to me ...

10:00 - LotR #7: Film Editing. New Line Cinema brings you the Academy Awards -- not that I'm complaining, mind you! ...

10:07 - I'm going to predict that "A Kiss At The End of The Rainbow" wins the Best Song Oscar, but I liked "Belleville Rendezvous" the best ...

10:14 - I've changed my mind -- the Oscar should go to "You're Boring", by Jack Black and Will Farrell, who sang it beautifully! One the best moments of the night. Instead, it went to LotR -- #8 -- for Into the West. Lesson for the night: Don't bet against the Rings juggernaut ...

10:21 - Thanking the Academy for not making LotR eligible for the Foreign Language category was the highlight of acceptance speeches thus far ...

10:30 - LotR #9, Best Adapted Screenplay, and if there was one nomination that had to be a lock for LotR, this one was it. First appearance of Peter Jackson on the stage, and hopefully not the last ...

10:33 - Is Susan Sarandon having a wardrobe malfunction? And welcome to Ian of Pinwheels and Orange Peels, another great blog. Sofia Coppola won her first Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. She's more animated than she was in the entirety of Godfather III ...

10:39 - If you're not in the Twin Cities, you're probably not seeing an exceedingly lame ad for Eyewitness News starring Ed Asner as Lou Grant. I mean, how pathetic is that? Three decades later and he's using that persona to shill for a local news show. Just remember that Ted Baxter used to be his anchorman ...

10:42 - LotR #10, Peter Jackson, for Best Director, and he gets a (very) chaste kiss from Liv Tyler. Is it too late to go to film school? Dang ...

10:48 - I knew Charlize Theron would win, but I loved Adrien Brody's breath freshener ...

10:54 - I'm predicting that Bill Murray wins in an upset for Best Actor, while Ian wonders why Diane Keaton keeps dressing like she's nominated for that category ...

11:00 - This is why I don't gamble in Vegas. Sean Penn won for Best Actor, made a dumb WMD reference, and then gave a gracious speech about the quality of the work from everyone that was and wasn't nominated, followed by the thank-yous. Probably the last opportunity for political speechifying, and it seems like there just won't be much this year. Anyone taking bets for Best Picture? ...

11:05 - LotR #11 and a "clean sweep," as Steven Spielberg exclaimed as he announced the Best Picture award. 11 Oscars ties Lord of the Rings with Ben-Hur and Titanic, and also marks the first time a fantasy movie has won the top prize. A very funny moment during the acceptance speeches, when producer Barrie M. Osborne revealed that he had once dated Billy Crystal's cousin, apparently to Crystal's surprise.

Great finish -- and the show wrapped up at three hours, 39 minutes. Not too bad, and a relatively entertaining experience, if short on stars embarassing themselves politically. My film won all of its nominations, so how can I complain?

Thanks to Linda and Ian and everyone else who checked in tonight. Don't forget the caption contest and come back soon!

When Blogs Attack!

No, this isn't a new Fox entertainment special, although the thought of, say, Lt. Smash pre-emptively striking Atrios does have its charms. [Would it look like the "Crimson Permanent Assurance" segment of Monty Python's Meaning of Life? Probably, except that Smash would have a younger crew and an armor-plated building with night scopes -- Ed.]

Yesterday, I wrote a post about the Iranian Pashtun-service radio report that claimed Osama bin Laden had been captured by American troops "a long time ago" and that he was being held secretly until the election. To me, this ludicrous piece of propaganda -- even their one named source claimed he'd been misquoted -- was yet another example of a clumsy attempt by Iranian hard-liners to influence an American presidential election. They had tried in 1980 to claim that they would never negotiate with a Reagan administration, to no effect; and a couple of weeks ago, tried to claim that the Kerry campaign would have much more effective diplomatic results in the Middle East and produced an e-mail, supposedly from the Kerry campaign, to prove it. My point was not that Kerry had really sent the Guardian Council an e-mail or that Kerry loved Iran more than the US; it was that the Iranians had a deep interest in getting George Bush out of the White House in order to turn our national policy on terrorism from war to law enforcement.

However, and perhaps predictably, once Instapundit linked to it (and thanks for the link, Glenn!), a left-wing blogger linked it and characterized my post as an attack on Kerry's patriotism. (The blogger also impugned my intelligence, and if I had feelings, they'd be hurt, I assure you.) I replied in kind in an update on the original post. I've received several comments from readers of his blog, and I thought I'd respond to them here. A couple of them contained substance and actual argument -- perhaps Quicksauce more than any -- and those readers are always welcome. I may not agree with the argument, but at least it's honest debate.

Some of the rest, however ...

Me: And here I thought it was the Republican party who had the history of dealing with the Iranian government to rig elections.

Hee hee! Me -- who couldn't be bothered to use his real name or give an e-mail address -- also doesn't bother to provide any evidence for the thoroughly debunked "October Surprise" story to which the Carterites have been desperately clinging. Get over yourself, pal, and reread the post. I'm not claiming Kerry has anything to do with Iranian machinations.

Jesus: You are an intellectual midget.

It's nice of Jesus to take some time off of his publicity tour for his new film, but anyone whose e-mail is jesussaysyousuck@hotmail.com, whether real or not, is not a very reliable source on anyone's intellect. Great debate method, too. Don't argue the facts or the conclusions -- just toss an insult. Very convincing.

We have two people who love photography:

photoshop Tennis: i'm waiting for the vets against kerry authentic photo of kerry and osama playing shuffleboard together on the deck of the USS Arizona, while in the background john mccain gives bill clinton a blowjob.

instapundit rules! [I agree with this much, anyway.]

Pat Fornler: When Osama is captured, I hope Bush makes the announement in his flight suit. He's awesome in the flight suit. Did you know he personally pulled Saddam from the spider hole? They keep it quiet, he's modest. But if you look at the pictures, you can see Bush is the guy on the right.In an Army suit, not the flight suit.

Again, thanks for advancing the debate while demonstrating your keen abilities to grasp the concepts. It's good to know the Iranians aren't completely wasting their time by spinning lunatic conspiracy theories. At least Pat had the guts to put his/her real name and e-mail address on the post.

But one of the commenters nailed me -- and I deserved it. Here's the one that found the stupid weak spot I left in my response when I was irritated by the "patriotism" red herring:

Carleton Wu: No one doubts that John Kerry loves America, although he sometimes doesn't seem too fond of Americans. But his inconsistent stands on the war and his track record of opposing military spending reflects bad judgement, not a lack of patriotism. Why do Kerry supporters screech about his patriotism every time his voting record and policies get debated?

Wow. Most conservatives wait at least a paragraph before contradicting themselves in such a painfully obvious manner.

I mean, the rest of your BS is just the party line (eg does the fact that Kerry voted against a specific Defense appropriations bill mean that he wanted to abolish the Armed Forces?), but if your going to get all weepy about how you're being accused of questioning Kerry's loyalty to Americans, you ought to remember to edit out the dumbass joke about how Kerry doesn't like Americans...

Smarter monkeys, please.

I'll own that one. To be honest, I was trying to be funny. I was reminded of a Peanuts cartoon where Lucy tells Linus that he would be a lousy doctor because he doesn't love mankind. Linus responds, "I love mankind -- it's people I can't stand!" So, Carleton Wu, you were right and I was wrong. I don't have any proof that Kerry doesn't love Americans, and in fact I'm sure he does. The Captain accepts the 10 lashes with the whip, held in the left hand, and promises not to do it again, or if so, to at least write something funny.

Finally, Mark wrote and actually asked me a direct question:

Where did you hear about this story? And what do you have against Kerry? Or has Bush really fought to improve your way of life? I'd like to hear from you Ed.

I heard about the Iranian radio report from several news sources. I read a number of on-line news sources every day (and no, not Fox News except on occasion). The rest is my opinion. As for what I have against Kerry and why I support Bush -- that I will address later today, directly. It's a fair question and you deserve an answer.

I hope you will return to read it.

LA Times Endorses Schwarzenegger's Referenda

In an unusual twist, today's Los Angeles Times endorsed both Propositions 57 and 58, the twin budget-rescuing referenda pushed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Times still thinks that tax increases will be necessary, but at least agrees with Arnold that the road to fiscal sanity starts on the March ballot:

Even with Proposition 57 and Schwarzenegger's proposed cuts, the state still faces a deficit of $6 billion or so in its next budget. Schwarzenegger, unlike most of the Legislature's Republicans, has never said "never" to taxes. His next campaign may be inside the Capitol, persuading members that more cuts and a modest temporary tax are unavoidable. But Proposition 57 and its companion, Proposition 58, must pass first to clear the decks.

Schwarzenegger clearly said to Tim Russert on last week's Meet the Press that he would only consider new taxes in an emergency, and ticked off a few that the previous Republican governor, Pete Wilson, faced during his tenure: earthquakes, floods, forest fires, and riots. Absent any of that, Arnold said, and he would not support new taxes. He pointed out that in the previous five years, California tax revenue increased 29%, only to be outstripped by a spending increase of 43%.

Taxes are clearly not the solution as revenues are clearly not the problem. Profligate spending has brought California to this pass, and now, with the worst bond rating of any state in the nation, their hopes are tied to a bonding issue that will only increase their debt. It's still the right move, but the Times and everyone else should realize by now that you can't spend your way out of debt. California must be made to live within its means. That includes reducing an oppressive worker-comp regimen so that small business can thrive and create jobs, and entitlement spending must be corraled and brought under control.

Unfortunately, politicians don't get elected by telling people "no", except under unusually bad circumstances. Let's hope that Arnold sticks to his "no" and gets California back on its feet again.

UPDATE: Lt. Smash has the low-down on the California referenda here.

Brilliant Stewards of Money

In yesterday's Los Angeles Times, David Pierson wrote about the re-election campaign of Assemblyman Ron Calderon, a first-term Democrat representing southeast Los Angeles County, including some of my old stomping grounds. Calderon apparently has interesting notions on how to spend his campaign money, something my fellow Angelenos should consider at the voting booth:

California Assemblyman Ron Calderon has obliterated his campaign war chest months before he faces an opponent in November, spending the money on Las Vegas hotels, restaurants and cigars, according to campaign spending reports. Calderon, whose 58th Assembly District encompasses southeast Los Angeles County communities, including Whittier, Downey and East L.A., raised $342,600 last year in contributions and spent $427,300, according to financial records filed with the California secretary of state.

Having been born, raised, and lived most of my life in that general area, I'm not too sure about how relevant Las Vegas hotels are to East LA County. Of course, the gaming industry has made inroads in places like Bell and Hawaiian Gardens, although the article doesn't mention anything specific about that. Vegas junkets for his staff weren't the only drain on Calderon's campaign budget. Other expenses:

* $20,000 to his sister-in-law's campaign for Montebello USD in November
* $60,000 in consultant fees to his brother in 2002
* $6,100 to Celebrity Connection, a celebrity look-alike entertainment agency

Calderon's contributors don't understand what's happened to the money they intended for an actual political campaign. Paul Smith, VP of the California Grocers' Association, expressed dismay at Calderon's failure to build a war chest, saying, "I was hoping he would be stockpiling his money." No one talks of pulling their support yet, but now Calderon faces debt of almost $100,000, and it will take a whole heap of donations to make it back to zero, let alone build war chests.

Of course, Calderon is running unopposed in the primary and faces a rookie Republican in a district where Democrats outnumber the GOP 2-1, again demonstrating the political trainwreck that reapportionment has become for Californians. Calderon's family has held this seat in the Assembly for 16 of the last 22 years, and it's so safe that the Democrats don't bother to groom better candidates for the general election. Building safe districts only creates terrible candidates and officeholders, and Calderon is just one example of many.

With free-spending incumbents like these, is it really any mystery why California has a $15-billion deficit and has increased its budget by 43% over the past five years?