Kerry's War Record Under Fire

Tomorrow's Telegraph runs a story that puts John Kerry's war narrative of a highly-decorated combat veteran at odds with the recollection of one of his crew, who charges that Kerry displayed cowardice under fire:

The testimony of Steven Gardner, a gunner's mate on the first patrol boat commanded by Mr Kerry in the Mekong delta, contradicts accounts of the senator's military career that depict him as a brave and aggressive lieutenant who won three Purple Hearts and which are a key element of his campaign against George Bush.

"He absolutely did not want to engage the enemy when I was with him," Mr Gardner said in an interview with the Boston Globe, which contacted him about the presidential candidate. "He wouldn't go in there and search. That is why I have a negative viewpoint of John Kerry.

"His initial patterns of behaviour when I met him and served under him were of somebody who ran from the enemy, rather than engaged it."

So far, Kerry's only answer has been to point out that Gardner is a Republican, which isn't much of a response. Douglas Brinkley, Kerry's campaign biographer, echoes Kerry and also chalks it up to politics. However, Gardner responded that he called no one; the Globe called him to talk about Kerry's war record, although it's unclear why they sought him out. It sounds like not every member of Kerry's "band of brothers" retained familial feelings for the young lieutenant, even before he started describing them as war criminals in front of Congress.

This kind of story would have never been brought to light had the Democrats not tried to make George Bush's service record such an issue. Now, everything from that period is fair game, thanks to the big mouth of Terry McAuliffe. In fact, it may prove that McAuliffe's odd and wildly inaccurate attack on Bush was a pre-emptive smear to make Gardner's story look like a response in kind. I doubt that Gardner's story will receive anything like the kind of media coverage that came Bush's way, however.

Al-Qaeda Claims Responsibility for Madrid Bombings

Reuters reports that Spanish authorities have found a videotape of a Moroccan spokesman for al-Qaeda, taking responsibility for the Madrid rail bombings, according to the Spanish Interior Minister:

"It's a claim made by a man in Arabic with a Moroccan accent. He makes the declaration in the name of someone who says he is the military spokesman of al-Qaida in Europe," he told reporters.

This story is breaking just now, but it seems to confirm what we suspected all along.

Network News Biased Against Bush

A study released today by Mediachannel.org demonstrates the media bias of the national broadcast news networks -- and the disparity of treatment of George Bush and John Kerry isn't subtle in the least:

The report reveals a strong negative cast to ABC, CBS and NBC news coverage of the president thus far in 2004. Meanwhile, Senator John Kerry, Bush's certain opponent for November, has received more positive coverage by the same three networks.

According to data compiled for MediaChannel.org by international media monitoring firm Media Tenor, network news broadcasts in January and February contained on average nearly three times more negative news statements about President Bush than about Senator John Kerry.

This trend is demonstrated on all three major network news broadcasts, but none so pronounced as on CBS, where 35% of statements about Bush were negative, as opposed to 8% positive. In contrast, CBS was positive about John Kerry 38% of the time, closely followed by ABC and NBC in the mid-thirties as well. Positive Bush statements averaged 11.9% across all networks, with NBC being the most positive.

When pundits like Eric Alterman attempt to claim that the American mass media is either neutral or conservatively biased, you can read this report and determine their credibility on all other issues. If you can't figure this out just by listening to their broadcasts, then you are either hopelessly extreme or completely clueless. (via Blogs for Bush)

Northern Alliance Radio: Live Blogging!

Once again, we gasbags bloggers of the Northern Alliance march bravely down to AM 1280 The Patriot to do our weekly radio show. We're trying to find a streaming service that won't charge us an arm and a leg for a three-hour stint once a week (most of them charge a flat monthly rate based on 24-hour-a-day usage), so that you can tune in, turn on, and drop in. With any luck, in a couple of weeks, we'll be live on the Internet.

Until then, I'll be live-blogging again today, where we'll be discussing topics such as John Kerry's accusations against Bush and the Republicans, the Madrid bombing and what it might mean for the war on terror, the launch of the liberal radio network AirAmerica, our weekly Hack Columnist of the Week in the Twin Cities, and JB Doubtless and I will debate the artistic merits of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. We'll also have live guests (as opposed to dead ones?) during our second hour, plus lots of callers to keep us on our toes.

Keep checking back on this post for the live blogging!

12:01 - Getting the prep done -- our first topic will be Madrid and the wider war on terror ...

12:18 - First break -- Fox News reports that Spanish intelligence is 90% sure that the bombing was al-Qaeda and not ETA, according to Mitch...

12:31 - Second break. Now we're fully into the presidential campaign again, talking about the polls that show 60% of the American public think that terrorists want John Kerry to win the election -- but that doesn't translate to more support for Bush, interestingly enough ...

12:47 - Third break - Interesting couple of callers. One caller thought that Kerry would be off the ticket by the convention and alluded to a Hillary "white knight" arrival on the scene ...

1:07 - Sharon Yecke is on the air now via phone, talking about educational standards with Hindrocket and Trunk in the studio and King (from SCSU Scholars) on the phone. Sharon makes a good guest ...

1:29 - The Elder and I are having a better discussion in the Green Room than we can put on the air -- it's easier, of course, to keep the conversation on track when it's just two people and no one listening. We got an e-mail last segment scolding us for using our nicknames, calling us cowards -- of course, it was an anonymous e-mail. ROFL...

1:41 - Spain announced five arrests in the bombing -- three Moroccans and two Spaniards of "Hindu" origin. (via Instapundit) ...

2:00 - Getting back in studio for the third hour, discussing Gibson's Passion ...

2:15 - I'm getting creamed by JB on this Passion issue ...

2:45 - The callers have been supportive of me, so apparently I didn't do all that bad ... or at least, I didn't hurt my cause. One of the callers was DC from Brainstorming -- you were great!!!

I'm shutting it down for now, but I'll be back to blogging later this afternoon from the First Mate's dialysis center!

Wrong Numbers

From the blog Two Cents comes this amusing tale of a New York City girl who got a bit more than she bargained for when she changed her cell service. Her new number turned out to be the old number ... of comedian Chris Rock:

I picked up the phone, flipped open the top and questioned, "Uh, hell-o?" "Is Chris Rock there?" Chris Rock?! Of course not! That's ridiculous. "No," I replied. I figured his asking for "Chris Rock" must have been some sort of inside joke with a friend, but he'd dialed my number instead of his friend's by mistake. I continued, "This is my cell phone number -- so you've got the wrong number." "Oh," the caller replied, "I must have dialed wrong." We hung up, and I didn't think anything more of it.

Two days later, I was upstate, cruising around a Wal-Mart parking lot looking for a space (thrilling, I know), when my cell phone rang. A number I didn't recognize appeared on the Caller ID.

Make sure you read the rest of it. One pleasant revelation was that Adam Sandler is as nice and funny off the screen as on (although his films still mostly stink). Laura doesn't use her newfound power for evil, either, although the temptation for mischief must have been pretty hard to resist ... especially with Jack Nicholson's assistant.

Which leads me to this question: if you could get the old cell number of any celebrity, which one would it be? And would you use your powers for evil or for good? Post your answers in the Comments section!

Following the Money

After George Bush's use of 1.5 seconds of 9/11 footage in his initial campaign ads, several families of 9/11 victims protested loudly, receiving a great deal of publicity from their accusations that the Bush campaign was acting inappropriately in mentioning 9/11 during the campaign. Only after some digging did the press mention that these same families had long since formed the "September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows" -- an antiwar campaign funded by George Soros, the main MoveOn.org financier and a man who has pledged to buy the presidency for the Democrats. As the March 9th New York Post puts it:

Leading the rhetorical charge has been an outfit called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows - which, the group admits, has only a few dozen members and represents relatives of no more than 1 percent of the 9/11 victims. More to the point, the group was formed specifically to oppose the entire War on Terror: Not just the campaign against Saddam Hussein, but also the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Post goes on to detail some of the antiwar activities of this "victim's group", including traveling to Afghanistan to protest US military action against the Taliban and to Baghdad to "demonstrate solidarity" with the Saddam Hussein regime, instead of its hundreds of thousands of victims, if not millions of them. It also notes that funding for Peaceful Tomorrows comes in part from the Tides Foundation, which receives a significant amount of money from the Heinz Endowment and other "philanthropical" funds associated or controlled by John Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. (Another donor: the notoriously anti-Semitic Ford Foundation.)

As Bit's Blog says:

Clinton himself couldn't wiggle better. The impression they're trying to leave, that they got no funding whatever from Kerry...simply does not wash with the tax records. They did, in fact, get money from Tides and the other Kerry orgs, and they're trying to cover Kerry's butt with a bit of slight of hand.

It certainly seems that Democratic politics make strange bedfellows these days.

Post: Kerry Won't Disclose Big Fundraisers

Today's lead editorial in the Washington Post demonstrates again the hypocrisy of the John Kerry campaign. After publicly referring to George Bush and Republicans as the "most crooked ... lying group," Kerry still stonewalls on the people who collect money for him -- unlike President Bush, who regularly updates his list of donors:

Facing the Bush campaign's outsize war chest, the Kerry campaign is planning a 20-state, $15 million fundraising blitz; overall, it is aiming to raise another $80 million by July. To get there, Mr. Kerry will have to rely heavily on both his own big financiers and those of his Democratic rivals. Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) -- who repeatedly rebuffed our requests for a list of his top fundraisers -- introduced Mr. Kerry to about 100 of them at a meeting on Thursday. Likewise, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), who was similarly unforthcoming with a list of big bundlers, is making his money men and women available to the Kerry campaign.

Kerry, after being the only Democrat to actually release a list of these "bundlers" in January -- before he actually started getting the big money after Dean's ignominious fall -- has so far remained silent when asked to provide updates. Apparently, secrecy is the DNC policy when it comes to donors and fundraisers. The Post, not exactly a bastion of conservative politics, notes in the next sentence: "Knowing the identities of the campaign's bundlers would be critical to assessing the policies and personnel of a Kerry administration." Indeed it does, and it gets back to what I wrote earlier about campaign finance in general -- that full disclosure works a lot better than attempting to create artificial distinctions between political parties and 527s.

Crooked people rarely operate in the open. If you want to judge the relative honesty of each campaign, one place to start is to see which is the most secretive about its financing. So far, Kerry's campaign fails in that test.

NY Sun: Kerry Quit VVAW After Assassination Proposal

Yesterday's New York Sun published a front-page article on a little-known chapter in the history of Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- a proposal to assassinate conservative politicians who supported the war or who opposed anti-war activities. These plans were drafted by Scott Camil and debated at the November 1971 VVAW meeting in Kansas City, which John Kerry denies attending. However, at least two people who were there -- one of which heads Kerry's veteran support in Missouri -- claim that Kerry was there for the debate:

The anti-war group that John Kerry was the principal spokesman for debated and voted on a plot to assassinate politicians who supported the Vietnam War.

Mr. Kerry denies being present at the November 12-15, 1971, meeting in Kansas City of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and says he quit the group before the meeting. But according to the current head of Missouri Veterans for Kerry, Randy Barnes, Mr. Kerry,who was then 27,was at the meeting, voted against the plot, and then orally resigned from the organization. Mr. Barnes was present as part of the Kansas City host chapter for the 1971 meeting and recounted the incident in a phone interview with The New York Sun this week.

In addition to Mr. Barnes’s recollection placing Mr. Kerry at the Kansas City meeting, another Vietnam veteran who attended the meeting, Terry Du-Bose, said that Mr. Kerry was there.

While this may not be as damaging as some would think -- after all, according to Barnes, he resigned as a result of the debate -- it does raise the question as to why Kerry would not have alerted authorities to a conspiracy to murder duly elected members of the Senate (or anyone else). By 1971, Kerry had already run for Congress, at least publicly buying into the political process as an agent of change. So why would he cover up for potential assassins?

But Kerry's story doesn't add up at all. Kerry claims that he had resigned from VVAW months before the November 12 Kansas City meeting, contradicting his own supporter in Missouri and the biographer that his campaign relies upon to promote his Vietnam Veteran credentials, Douglas Brinkley:

Clearly there is considerable confusion about the time of Mr. Kerry’s resignation.According to Mr. Nicosia,“He resigned from the executive committee” after a spectacular argument with VVAW leader Al Hubbard at the July national leadership meeting in St Louis. But on behalf of the John Kerry campaign, spokesman David Wade told the Sun yesterday that Mr. Kerry resigned from Vietnam Veterans Against the War “sometime in the summer of 1971 after the August meeting in St. Louis, which Kerry did not attend.” Mr. Wade also said,“Kerry was not at the Kansas City meeting.” ...

But in a footnote, Mr. Brinkley acknowledges,“I could not locate Kerry’s November 10 VVAW resignation letter supposedly housed at the Wisconsin archives. The quote I used comes directly from Andrew E. Hunt’s essential ‘The Turning: A History of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (1999).” When asked by the Sun who told him Mr. Kerry was “no-show” at Kansas City, Mr. Brinkley replied, “Senator Kerry.” Mr. Brinkley also stated that Mr. Kerry did not have a personal copy of the resignation letter either. ...

But Mr. Barnes, the head of the Missouri Veterans for Kerry, said, “I don’t think there was a letter of resignation. He just said he was resigning after the vote.”

Despite the fact that Scott Camil has publicly acknowledged heading a conspiracy to assassinate political figures in the US, he claims the Kerry campaign has offered him a position and that he will be joining them shortly:

Another source is an October 20,1992, oral history interview of Scott Camil on file at the University of Florida Oral History Archive.In it,Mr.Camil speaks of his plan for an alternative to Mr.Kerry’s idea of symbolically throwing veterans’ medals over the fence onto the steps of the Capitol during the Dewey Canyon III demonstration in Washington in April of 1971.

“My plan was that, on the last day we would go into the [congressional] offices we would schedule the most hardcore hawks for last — and we would shoot them all,” Mr. Camil told the Oral History interviewer. “I was serious.”

In a phone interview with the Sun this week, Mr. Camil did not dispute either the account in the Nicosia book or in the oral history.He said he plans to accept an offer by the Florida Kerry organization to become active in Mr. Kerry’s presidential campaign. Campaign aides to Mr. Kerry invited Mr.Camil to a meeting for the senator in Orlando last week, but they did not meet directly.

John Kerry calls Bush and the Republicans the "most crooked, you know, lying group," and then goes out and hires a man that he knew to have plotted assassination attempts on political figures. Kerry needs to explain exactly when he left the VVAW, why his own supporters in this presidential campaign recall him being a party to assassination planning if he wasn't there, and why Scott Camil is being offered a job instead of serving prison time. (via Power Line)

Minnesota Manufacturing Sector '03 Q4 Strong, '04 Stronger

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, usually a Chicken Little on economics during Republican administrations, contradicts the Democratic party line on jobs and manufacturing -- at least in Minnesota:

Minnesota's factories are starting to hum, and so are some of the people who run them. Two state government reports released Friday showed the sector finishing 2003 with a crescendo, and expecting 2004 to start out strong, too.

The state said manufacturing export growth hit a record pace in the last three months of 2003, showing a gain of 17.3 percent compared with the same period of 2002 -- more than double the comparable 8.6 percent rise in U.S. exports. Separately, a survey of Minnesota manufacturers showed a surge in optimism about this year, with a rising number expecting more sales and hiring against a background of improving economic conditions.

Both reports come on the heels of recent declines in initial unemployment claims and modest gains in employment in goods-producing industries across Minnesota.

So, after all of the fire and smoke over the past year, it turns out that the manufacturing sector really was bouncing back after all. Unemployment claims in the state are down, and the outlook for 2004 is even rosier as manufacturing facilities spend capital to expand. Even national output increased 8.6%, despite all of the gloom and despair that the Democrats have been selling. The state DFL website has a quote from DFL chief Mike Erlandson just last week:

"Working families all across Minnesota know the impact of the Bush administration's failed policies, because they struggle through them every day. The plain fact is, no amount of ad money will convince a person without a job that they have a job."

It's an old lawyer's trick -- when you don't have the facts on your side, play on people's emotions. Just remember, that's all the Democrats are selling in 2004 -- Bush hatred and invective.

The Nobility of the Insurgency

Somewhat lost in the shuffle of the news from Spain is this story from the New York Times, which demonstrates the depravity of the former Ba'athists who terrorize the new Iraq:

A day after two American civilians and their Iraqi translator were killed in a roadside ambush, two Iraqi washerwomen working for American forces were attacked by masked gunmen and shot to death, police officials said Thursday.

Maj. Riyadh Kadhem Jawad of the Iraqi police said the women, who cleaned and ironed clothes for American soldiers in the southern city of Basra, were driving home Wednesday night in a taxi when four gunmen surrounded their car, ordered the taxi driver out and then shot the women.

The Ba'athists deliberately targeted the women, eschewing the car that the driver offered to the gunmen thinking they were robbing him. Each woman was shot five times, or as the driver put it, "five bullseyes". Nor is it the first time Iraqi women have been shot; the story mentions the execution of three other washerwomen as well as the four-year-old daughter of a translator (who was also killed).

True "freedom fighters" make war on the military power of their enemies, and of course in a war, that kind of action is expected. Terrorists, as we have seen in Madrid, New York, and Istanbul, kill indiscriminately, taking out whomever happens to be unlucky enough to be around when the attack occurs. But these Ba'athists now deliberately target non-combatant women and children for their terrorism, sinking the Saddam regime to new lows of morality. In my experience, such specific targeting is unprecedented.

On the day following the carnage of Madrid, it's understandable that this story remains in the background. However, it clearly demonstrates the necessity of the removal of the Saddam regime and the need to hunt down the last remnants of his twisted supporters.

Bush Attends 9/11 Memorial, Families Don't Object

In a stunning development, the families attending a 9/11 memorial didn't protest when George Bush arrived, and even supported his right to talk about it during the upcoming campaign:

Ernest Strada, the mayor of Westbury, N.Y., was waiting in line to attend the groundbreaking with his wife, Mary Anne. Their son, Thomas Strada, was on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center North Tower during the attacks. He was 41 years old when he died.

Ernest Strada said he had no problems with Bush using Sept. 11 imagery in his campaign ads or coming to East Meadow for the groundbreaking. "It's important that everybody in the country, led by the president, continue to remember what happened 2 1/2 years ago," Strada said. "I think the memory of that has waned since it occurred."

Rosemary Cain of Massapequa was waiting in line with a large poster of her son, George Cain, a 35-year-old firefighter who was killed on Sept. 11. "Anything that memorializes the victims of 9/11 is right and good," she said.

She said she had little use for the debate about whether Bush's use of Sept. 11 imagery was appropriate. "It angers me that they are flapping over this," she said. "President Bush displayed courage and tenacity. He deserves to be able to speak on Sept. 11."

Bush gave no speeches at the memorial, preferring to remain low key while he mingled with the families at the memorial's groundbreaking. However, you'd never know it from the Los Angeles Times' opening two paragraphs:

President Bush participated in a somber groundbreaking ceremony Thursday for a memorial dedicated to nearly 300 Nassau County residents who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Bush's appearance at Eisenhower Park came on a day he devoted largely to improving his reelection chances in November.

It's not until you get to the seventh paragraph that you find out that this wasn't a campaign stop and he didn't "participate" in the ceremony at all, preferring to quietly connect with other attendees. In fact, he had been invited by the aide to Nassau County's top Democratic office-holder!

Some bias may be unintentional, but this is particularly egregious. I recall a few weeks back when the Democrats scolded Bush for not attending more memorials, and now the media subtly accuses him of exploiting them. Unbelievable.

Krauthammer Pounds Le Monde Editor

In today's Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer fisks a Wall Street Journal editorial by Jean-Marie Colombani, the editor of the French magazine Le Monde:

Colombani glories in Europe's post-Sept. 11 "solidarity" with America: "Let us remember here the involvement of French and German soldiers, among other European nationalities, in the operations launched in Afghanistan to . . . free the Afghans."

Come again? The French arrived in Mazar-e Sharif after it fell, or as military analyst Jay Leno put it, "to serve as advisers to the Taliban on how to surrender properly." Afghanistan was liberated by America acting practically unilaterally, with an even smaller coalition than it had in Iraq -- Britain and Australia, with the rest of the world holding America's coat.

But then came Iraq. "The problem was not so much the war itself, but the fact that it was launched without U.N. approval," Colombani explains.

Rubbish. The Kosovo war was launched without U.N. approval and France joined it. Only two wars have ever been launched with U.N. approval: the Korean War (an accident of the Soviets having walked out of the Security Council on another matter) and the Persian Gulf War.

Make sure you read the entire article. One point that Krauthammer misses, but which I think is key, is that while France moans about the US turning its back on international organizations, France (and Russia) still have not come clean about their involvement in the oil-for-food kickbacks which lined the pockets of our "allies" who now presume to judge us for our actions in Iraq.

As I posted back on January 30th, Russia received options for 1.3 billion barrels of oil, coming in first on the list, with France coming in second, with Jacques Chirac's crony and financial supporter Patrick Maugein controlling options on 36 million barrels alone. With an average profit of 50 cents per barrel, you can understand now why our French and Russian "allies" were so eager to appease Saddam, and why they were so eager to undermine US efforts to make Saddam comply with 17 UNSC resolutions and the terms of the Gulf War cease-fire.

Until the French and Russians account for their sell-out to Saddam, they have no business writing sad and mournful editorials (in the Wall Street Journal!), lamenting their exclusion from our calculations. They got their 30 pieces of silver, and now they also want our trust. As far as I'm concerned, that alliance is dead until the French account for their betrayal.

The Folly of Minimum-Wage Increases

The Minnesota Senate will begin consideration of a series of increases to the state's minimum wage, currently set at the federal level of $5.15 per hour, the Star-Tribune reports:

Minnesota's minimum wage, frozen at the federal rate of $5.15 an hour for the past seven years, would rise to $6.65 over the next 16 months under a bill sent to the Senate floor Wednesday.

A party-line vote of eight DFLers in favor and six Republicans opposed in the Jobs, Energy and Community Development Committee produced one of the rare legislative movements on the state's wage floor since it was increased from $4.75 per hour in 1997.

Proposals to increase minimum wage provide an opportunity for Democrats to throw some red meat to their base and normally appear, as this bill does, in election years. The Strib takes its normally biased approach, accepting the statements of the bill's proponents without rebuttal but challenging its opponents twice:

If the minimum wage is raised, replied Mike Hickey of the National Federation of Independent Business, "job loss is going to occur. The question is how much and where." Under questioning, however, he said he had no evidence that Minnesota lost jobs when the minimum wage was raised in 1997 along with the federal rate. Hickey and other business spokesmen said Minnesota should not get ahead of the federal rate, which also has stayed at $5.15.

But 12 other states and the District of Columbia have done that, with minimums ranging from $5.50 an hour in Illinois to $7.16 in Washington state. Washington and Oregon also have indexed their rates to inflation, a feature of Anderson's bill, as well.

Too bad the Strib doesn't apply the same critical approach to the entire concept of raising the minimum wage. It's popular economic pap, as anyone who ever had to meet a budget will tell you, because while it changes the numbers on the paycheck, it does nothing to increase buying power in the long run. Businesses create jobs when their revenue stream requires servicing, and the number of jobs they create depends on that revenue stream. The wage is set by market factors, job demand against supply, but limited by the revenue stream itself.

If I make pizzas, for instance, and I hire ten people at $6 per hour for full-time work, I'm paying out $2400 per week in straight salary just in labor, and I'm not including fringe for health insurance or other benefits. Factor that it with the rent, the suppliers, and all of my other expenses. Now, if the government changes the minimum wage, I will have to increase my wages to at least that level, but in reality I will probably have to go up $1.50 to match the upward pressure of the labor market.

Now I'm paying $7.50 an hour, and my straight labor costs have gone from $2400 per week to $3000 per week, costing me an extra $600. If I'm selling $10 pizzas at a profit margin of 10% (which would be a healthy margin for the food industry, believe me), I would have to sell an extra 130 pizzas (see extended entry for calculation) a week to pay for that! Instead, what's more likely to happen is that I will either have to increase the price on my pizzas, or I will have to get rid of two workers to bring my labor costs back in line.

If I lay two people off, I pay the same amount in salary but get less productivity, and the community pays more for unemployment services. If I keep them on, I get the same productivity but my prices go up, and not just my prices but the prices on all of my supplies and services as well, as those companies have to also raise their rates to cover their labor costs.

As those price increases roll through the economy -- also known as inflation -- earning power decreases proportionally, and eventually that $7.50 wage winds up being the equivalent of the prior $6 wage. At that point, people start agitating for another increase in the minimum wage to address the lack of buying power for entry-level jobs, and the whole cycle begins again.

Wealth is not created by government wage and price controls, especially simplistic and pandering proposals such as these. The only way to achieve a true increase in buying power in a market economy is to work hard and move up. People who tell you something different want you to believe that government can take care of all your problems by offering artificial and superficial band-aids. The Strib, in its zeal to push this solution, ignores basic economic reality and ridicules those who understand it.

In order to calculate the amount of extra product at a 10% margin, which is the owner's salary, after all, I made the following assumptions:

1. Labor, supplies, and fixed costs comprise equal portions of my overhead (33% each).

2. Wage pressures will force a 25% increase in labor and supplies cost while leaving fixed costs unchanged.

Under these conditions, the current output at an average cost of $10 per unit (a pizza), I am currently selling 792 pizzas, and in order to maintain the margin, I would need to sell 924, or 132 extra pizzas a week, or almost 20 per day. In order to maintain profit at a flat dollar amount of $720, I would have to sell 912 pizzas a week, 119 more, or 17 a day.

Reviewing al-Qaeda's Claim of Responsibility

While we don't know for sure whether the claim of responsibility from al-Qaeda for today's bombing in Spain is genuine or a sick attempt at PR, the statement itself is useful for focusing us on the true nature of our enemies:

The five-page e-mail claim, signed by the shadowy Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, was received at the paper's London offices. It said the brigade's "death squad" had penetrated "one of the pillars of the crusade alliance, Spain," and carried out what it called Operation Death Trains.

"This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam," the claim said. ...

"When we attacked the Italian troops in Nasiriyah and sent you and America's agents an ultimatum to withdraw from the anti-Islam alliance, you did not understand the the message. Now we have made it clear and hope that this time you will understand," the statement said.

"We, at the Abu Hafs brigades, have not felt sad for the so-called civilians," the statement in an apparent reference to the hundreds of casualties in Thursday's attacks in Madrid. "Is it OK for you to kill our children, women, old people and youth in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Kashmir? And is it forbidden to us to kill yours?" the claim asked.

Sorry for the long excerpt, but I wanted to get as much of the direct quotes into this post as possible. A couple of issues pop out at me when I read this: it has nothing to do with misunderstandings between reasonable people or simple cultural miscommunications. References to "crusader" Spain reflects the idiocy of the Islamofascists who still haven't recovered from their expulsion from Europe over 700 years ago. Their twisted view of history, and the obvious fact that their own structure left them behind the evolution of civilization, feeds their hate of enlightened society, creating a rage at anything and anyone who benefits from the society that continued and continues to grow.

The truth is harder for them to face. Over that period of time, Islamic enlightenment disappeared, as the Ottoman Empire stagnated and oppressed its subjects and ossified in its dual role as ruler of state and Islam. Its society could not match the intellectual flexibility of the West. Western societies slowly reduced the power of the monarchy and successfully divorced the state from religion in all but name only. Republican structures and democratic processes developed for people to express their will and their anger without resorting to violence, and the practical separation of church from temporal power allowed people to express their religion safely without seizing power.

The area known as the Middle East never experienced this process.

As a result, Islam, as practiced in that area, equates itself completely with temporal power and recognizes that power as the ultimate expression of religion. The concepts of the value of the individual and the value of life are subordinated, much the same as fascism and communism, to the ideal of the Ummah. Fanatics therefore experience no cognitive dissonance to the murder of non-combatants who stand in the way of their expression of Islam; in fact, it isn't even a consideration, except in calculating the benefits of the terror it inspires. Their radical concept of Islam assigns no value to nonbelievers.

In truth, these zealots are dangerous to everyone around them, including the foolish kleptocracies that shelter and fund them, as they are just as deadly to Muslims who don't share their fascist view of Islam as they are to those outside the Ummah. Their continued support springs from a political calculation that these idiots target the enemies of these states without the kleptocracies being held responsible, and so they allow them to continue their operations. For instance, the Saudis refused to allow the FBI to investigate the Khobar Towers bombing that killed American servicemen in the 1990s because they didn't want the real perpetrators caught; al-Qaeda served the Saudi's purposes back then.

To expect these kleptocracies to suddenly start cooperating with US "law enforcement" efforts is ludicrous; they aren't about to endanger their own grip on power by either introducing democracy or making enemies of the fanatics. The only way to end state support of these fanatics is to make the cost of that support so high that continuing it means losing power permanently. The Taliban found out that we were serious, and while the issues surrounding Iraq had other elements of security risks, the message we sent was clearly understood throughout the region. Moammar Gaddafi certainly understood it, and rushed to comply in order to retain his position.

George Bush warned us in 2001 that this effort would be long, hard, and if we remained focused, ultimately successful. Do not think for a moment that we will change the minds of the fanatics; we aim to change the calculations for those states that support them physically and financially. Without shelter and money, these groups are nothing but rock-throwers, and when that time comes, that's a law-enforcement problem. Failure to excise the malignancy now only guarantees that it will continue to metastasize, and the resultant explosion may not just threaten Western civilization but all civilization.

Pray for Spain

The Spaniards were brutally attacked this afternoon by terrorists, using coordinated bombings that occurred almost simultaneously, that has left almost 200 people dead and more than 1,400 injured:

Spanish government officials pinned the blame on the Basque separatist group ETA for Thursday's blasts in Madrid that killed at least 192 people, but investigators were also exploring a lead with Arabic and Islamic links.

The brazen morning rush-hour terror strikes at city train stations also wounded at least 1,400.

It's far too early to know who committed these cowardly attacks and why, but thus far ETA has denied responsibility when it normally claims credit, and an al-Qaeda-affiliated group has announced that they committed the bombings:

A U.S. official cautioned it was "still too early to say" whether the bombings were the work of ETA or other terror groups, including al Qaeda.

Referring to a statement claiming responsibility and attributed to a group allegedly affiliated with al Qaeda that was received by a London-based Arabic-language newspaper, the U.S. official said "keep in mind we often see false claims of responsibility," and that even for attacks it did commit, "al Qaeda frequently takes no public credit.

However, as many are already noting, ETA normally attacks more symbolic and less populated targets, such as army barracks, while al-Qaeda normally targets population-dense targets as they have done in the US, Iraq, and recently in Turkey. They aim to cause as many civilian deaths as possible, and if they're responsible here, then they succeeded. As Hugh Hewitt noted on his radio show a few moments ago, 200 deaths in Spain is comparably equivalent to over 1,200 here in the US.

If -- a big if, mind you -- if this is al-Qaeda, it sends a message to everyone that this war is not over yet, and those who wish to declare victory and go home risk fighting the same people we are now, but on our turf rather than theirs. Remember that in the days ahead. But for now, pray for Spain and the Spaniards.

California Supreme Court Enforces the Law -- Finally

This afternoon, the California Supreme Court finally called a halt to the flouting of state law going on in San Francisco, ruling that same-gender couples cannot be married pending review of a court challenge to the applicable law approved 2-1 by referendum:

The California Supreme Court today ordered San Francisco officials to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples until the court can hold a hearing on gay marriages. The hearing would be held later this spring.

The question of whether same-sex couples can legally marry exploded into Americans' consciousness in the month since San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered gender-neutral marriage licenses to be issued. He argued that to prohibit same-sex marriages violated the equal protection clause of the state Constitution. ...

More than 3,800 licenses have been issued to same-sex couples in San Francisco. And from city halls to the streets to the capitols in several states, there have been tearful nuptials, impassioned demonstrations and debates.

Gavin Newsom made a mockery of his office by declaring that his personal view of the law overrode that of California voters. Just as when Justice Roy Moore refused to remove the 6-ton monument he installed in the Alabama Supreme Court building, public officials who flout laws of their choosing must be immediately brought up short and, if necessary, impeached from office.

Executives have one function: enforcing the law, not interpreting it to their own ends. As I postulated earlier, this would lead to other executives around the country taking a Lutherian view of the law, that of personal interpretation trumping that of authority. Had this continued, mayors could have started reviewing other laws and enforcing their own interpretations, such as: issuing concealed-carry permits for handguns based on the 2nd Amendment, interpreting that the federal Constitution overrode local restrictions; closing abortion clinics, interpreting abortion as murder, and so on.

Our form of government creates specific processes for passing laws, and checks on power between the branches to ensure that loose cannons cannot do lasting damage to society. Newsom's contempt for these processes should disqualify him for public office, and would if it were anywhere else other than San Francisco.

Glenn Reynolds on John Kerry

Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, also writes a regular column for MS-NBC/Slate and in this installment, he discusses yesterday's Kerry outburst:

Kerry's bluster is disturbing, but the media treatment is revealing: It's been largely ignored. Imagine the reaction if Bush had said these sorts of things. He'd be savaged for viciousness, and people would wonder if that sort of macho posturing suggested a temperament unfit for the White House.

Glenn then goes on to link back to my post from yesterday:

John Kerry needs to put up or abjectly apologize. If Kerry has evidence of corruption or lying, then put it out for all to see. Then we can all be enlightened and investigate it, and determine if Kerry is right or a full-fledged member of the Tinfoil Hat brigade. If he refuses to do so, then he is a coward and a sneak, a mumbler who won't take responsibility for his rumormongering.

Big thanks for the link, Glenn, and welcome to all Instapundit and MS-NBC/Slate readers!

New Media Blog Gets Results

For those who say that political and cultural blogging only preaches to the choir and doesn't really change anything, I refer you to this post at Oh, That Liberal Media and also cross-posted on his own blog, where my friend and colleague on the group blog details how he got the Los Angeles Times to balance its coverage:

The other day, when the Times ran a story about Justice Scalia's having spoken before an advocacy group, I told you here that Justice Ginsburg had done substantially the same thing in January. I explained that the experts' criticisms of Justice Scalia's speech applied equally to Justice Ginsburg's speech. I noted the fact that the group before which she had spoken had filed an amicus brief in a case on which she had ruled just 15 days before the speech.

I also told you that I had sent an e-mail to the Times's "Reader's Representative" about Justice Ginsburg's speech. In a subsequent post, I explained that I didn't really expect the Times to do anything about it.

I was wrong.

Patterico's efforts resulted in the Times printing this story in today's edition:

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has lent her name and presence to a lecture series cosponsored by the liberal NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, an advocacy group that often argues before the high court in support of women's rights that the justice embraces.

In January, Ginsburg gave opening remarks for the fourth installment in the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Distinguished Lecture Series on Women and the Law. Two weeks earlier, she had voted in a medical screening case and taken the side promoted by the legal defense fund in its friend-of-the-court brief.

Not only did Patterico prove that the coverage was unbalanced (probably unintentionally in this case), but that a determined and informed readership can make a difference in media coverage. That's why we blog, and in the case of all my colleagues at OTLM, that's why we keep our eyes on the major media outlets. They won't change without people holding them accountable.

Congratulations to Patterico, and at least two cheers for the Los Angeles Times, who made an excellent effort to correct the situation once Patterico had pointed it out. Perhaps next time they run a story like this about a conservative, they'll look around a little more to see if the issue applies across the political spectrum. If not, we'll be here.

Mitch Berg on Liberal Talk Radio

No, Mitch is not defecting: the much-ballyhooed liberal talk-radio network has announced its schedule and on-air talent. (Thank goodness we got our show on when we did!) Rather than tear this group to pieces, I'll direct you to the Northern Alliance's own Mitch Berg from Shot In The Dark, who does a great job of it this morning.

Mitch even makes predictions on how long the hosts will last. I think he gives Janeane Garofalo too much credit -- she'll be gone in 90 days. She'll be lucky to fill an hour; she'd better hope for a lot of in-studio guests and phone calls. I notice that Al Franken had to rip off Bill O'Reilly's show name instead of coming up with one of his own ("The O'Franken Factor"?). That level of creativity doesn't bode well for a show that bills itself as three hours of relentless "satire".

To Boldly Go Where Grandma Goes Every Weekend

Somehow, this story gives little hope to this one-time Star Trek fan:

The Borg is about to attempt to assimilate Las Vegas -- and if the invasion is a success, the alien collective may not only breathe new life into one of that city's tourist attractions but also could help to rescue the fading "Star Trek" franchise. On March 18 at the Las Vegas Hilton, Paramount Parks will open "Star Trek: Borg Invasion 4D," a state-of-the-art attraction replaces the six-year-old "Star Trek: The Experience."

Like the Borg itself -- part machine and part living organism -- the new attraction is a hybrid, part ride and part movie.

As the attraction's visitors tour a futuristic research facility, the drones of the Borg collective will try to capture them using 24th century technology. In the movie portion, the Borg queen, played by "Star Trek: First Contact's" Alice Krige, attempts to assimilate the visitors. The day is saved when the Enterprise arrives, along with its commander, Adm. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), and the doctor (Robert Picardo) from the "Star Trek: Voyager" TV series.

Lo, how the mighty have fallen! I wasn't aware that Las Vegas had a Star Trek attraction over the last six years, but somehow this new interactive proposal reminds me more of the documentary Trekkies than of anything remotely positive about the long-running series of TV shows and movies. Perhaps this wouldn't be so pathetic if new movies and TV shows were being produced or even solidly in development, but the franchise has been in decline since Deep Space Nine went off the air, and the movies with the Next Generation crew have mostly been duds.

People go to Vegas to gamble and get close to a seamier side of life, if only for a weekend; I thought Star Trek stood for something more than that at one point. While I don't lionize the vision that Gene Roddenberry had as much as some other fans -- it always smacked of a benign New-Agey communisim with a paradoxical military hierarchy -- I'm quite sure that Gene's vision didn't include playing twice a night on the Strip, and competing with the strip clubs, casinos, and hookers in Sin City.

Las Vegas is where entertainment acts go to die quietly (with a few notable exceptions), outside of the mainstream of entertainment, making it a living museum of American pop culture. Star Trek's inclusion in Vegas sadly completes its journey from radical to relic after a run of almost 40 years.

Broder: Bush Ads, Campaign Mild Compared to FDR

David Broder, writing in today's Washington Post, takes apart the notion that the Bush campaign is out of line for mentioning 9/11 in its advertising, and takes us back to the campaign of the last president that experienced a massive foreign attack on American soil to compare:

I went back, with help from Washington Post researcher Brian Faler, to 1944, when Franklin D. Roosevelt, almost three years after Pearl Harbor, was running for reelection. What you learn from such an exercise is that Bush is a piker compared with FDR when it comes to wrapping himself in the mantle of commander in chief. ...

Keynoter Robert Kerr, then governor of Oklahoma, declared that "the Republican Party . . . had no program, in the dangerous years preceding Pearl Harbor, to prevent war or to meet it if it came. Most of the Republican members of the national Congress fought every constructive move designed to prepare our country in case of war." ...

Kerr was restraint personified compared with the convention's permanent chairman, Sen. Samuel Jackson of Indiana. As he contemplated the possibility of a Republican victory, he was moved to ask: "How many battleships would a Democratic defeat be worth to Tojo? How many Nazi legions would it be worth to Hitler? . . . We must not allow the American ballot box to be made Hitler's secret weapon."

If Kerry's campaign gets the screaming meemies and runs behind Max Cleland's skirts every time 9/11 gets mentioned, it's because they don't want to talk about the fact that this country is at war, and for good reason. By almost 2-1, polls indicate that voters approve of his actions in the war on terror; it's his best issue by far, and it would be irresponsible for Bush to ignore the subject entirely.

Note too the language used in 1944 to cast the opposition party as appeasers inclined to leave America dangerously unprotected. Unfortunately, it was true, although the country had been in the middle of its worst economic crisis ever and the accusations overlooked the fact that the Democrats had held the White House for nine years previous to 1941. By the time these speeches were given, the Allies were rolling like thunder across France, had almost made it to the Japanese home islands, and Italy was out of the war, and yet no one said, "Well, that's good enough," or "We can't force democracy on people at bayonet point."

The war wasn't over yet, and Americans knew it. They re-elected the man who had fought through defeats like Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, and the Kasserine Pass to victories in North Africa, Midway, and D-Day. What's more, they elected the man who ran on the war, not away from it, and certainly not one who proposed to take on the Nazis through "law-enforcement action".

Memo to Senator Kerry: Bush will continue to mention 9/11 and his plan to keep America safe from these kinds of attacks in the future. Keep squealing.

Hello to My Friends in the US Armed Forces

One last quick note before I head out for the night -- I notice that I get a lot of traffic from military servers, especially from a central access server called NIPR. I just want to tell you how much I appreciate your readership and your service in keeping our nation and my family safe. I hope you remain safe and well, and keep coming back to Captain's Quarters.

And if anyone else wants to chime in, feel free to leave a message for our men and women in uniform in the comments section of this post.

Imagine The Star-Tribune With A Brain

In tomorrow's Star Tribune, the editorial staff sees fit to spread Iranian disinformation in the op-ed section by reprinting this story from the UK's leftist broadsheet, the Guardian:

In order to save time, the following article is being printed several months ahead of schedule as a service to readers and nascent conspiracy theorists.

The capture of Osama bin Laden, while warmly welcomed around the world, raises several questions about the interface between the war on terror and the U.S. election cycle. The most worrying of these is the suspicion that Bin Laden had already been in custody for a considerable period. George Bush's official spokesman has vehemently denied charges that the Al-Qaida leader was actually apprehended in December 2001. But there is more than a hint of a "nondenial denial" about the White House's rejection of claims that news of Bin Laden's capture was timed to coincide with the climax of the Democratic Party convention. It is not just die-hard cynics who found the White House spokesman Scott McClellan's "Where'd you get a crazy idea like that?" less than frank.

It's great to see that the Strib is consistent, at least, in its vitriolic and pathological hatred of the current administration. Faced with some empty space and with no actual story, the editors of the newspaper decided to run with regurgitated Iranian innuendo, fresh from its Pashtun-language service targeted at Afghanis and gullible American media chiefs, which was discredited the day it ran. Not only that, but they couldn't be bothered to come up with something original; they just copied it from another, more original leading Leftist organ. This is also the same paper that chides Bush for being a divider and not a uniter (third section, just under the part titled WWWD for What Would Wellstone Do?).

More evidence that the Twin Cities needs a newspaper in this area, not a DFL-MoveOn.org newsletter with a sports page.

And the Oscar for Hypocrisy Goes To ...

In attempting to spin John Kerry's ugly, sotto voce smear earlier in the day, Kerry campaign spokesman David Wade blamed unnamed Republicans instead:

Afterward, Kerry campaign official David Wade told reporters that Kerry did know his microphone had been on when he was speaking. ... Wade also pointed to a doctored photograph that placed Kerry alongside Jane Fonda during protests of the Vietnam war. That doctored photograph surfaced after an authentic photograph surfaced that showed Kerry sitting several rows behind Fonda at an anti-war rally.

Wade blamed all such incidents on a GOP attack "machine."

Of course, this must be the work of the "machine" on John Kerry's official campaign web site:

Not only does it appear that the Kerry campaign does most of the Photoshopping, but they've also stolen the image of the Oscar -- something to which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn't take kindly:

The Academy, as the copyright owner of the Academy's "Oscar" statuette, and owner of its trademarks and service marks, "OSCAR®," "OSCARS®," "ACADEMY AWARD®," "ACADEMY AWARDS®," "OSCAR NIGHT®," "A.M.P.A.S.®" and the federally registered "Oscar" design mark, is required to protect its properties against unauthorized uses and infringements.

So not only does the Kerry campaign accuse Republicans of offenses they themselves commit, they also steal the intellectual property of other while doing so. Classy people, that Kerry team!

UPDATE: More official Kerry classiness here: "When Teresa Heinz-Kerry arrived, she handed me a pin that read in the center: “Asses of Evil” with “Bush”, “Cheney”, “Rumsfeld” and “Ashcroft” surrounding it." What a group of self-indulgent louts. (via Hugh Hewitt)

UPDATE II: Blackfive has this image of the Teresa Heinz-Kerry button, in case you were curious:

The AP Uncovers Liberal Media Bias -- at the AP!

John Kerry today stuck his foot squarely in the warm messy stuff today when he made an aside to a group of union workers while he thought he was off-mike:

"Let me tell you, we've just begun to fight," Kerry said. "We're going to keep pounding. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's scary."

The AP's Mike Glover, who originally covered this remark, wrote this about the incident:

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Wednesday called for deeper tax cuts for the middle class than proposed by President Bush and described his Republican critics as "the most crooked ... lying group I've ever seen."

Contrast that passage with this passage in an article on the Kerry smear:

Earlier Wednesday in Chicago, Kerry toughened his comments about his GOP critics after a supporter urged him to take on Bush [emph. mine]. "Let me tell you, we've just begun to fight," Kerry said. "We're going to keep pounding. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's scary."

Your confusion at this point may be excused; which story are we to believe? If you think it's confusing now, wait until you find out that both passages were published by the AP -- and written by the same reporter and appear in the same story! Mike Glover attempted to mitigate the damage to Kerry by changing the context of the quote in the lead paragraph, knowing that many people don't read much past that.

The AP needs to explain itself. Why are its political reporters taking it upon themselves to act as spin doctors for the Kerry campaign?

UPDATE: I've been informed by someone in the newspaper business that stories are often massaged by people other than the original reporter when the wire service updates them later, even though they retain the original by-line. It may not be the reporter's fault for any oddities in updated stories -- but of course, either way the wire service is responsible.

John Kerry: Bush/Cheney "Most Crooked...Lying Group"

Senator John Kerry revealed an ugly and poorly controlled side of himself when he thought he was off-mike this afternoon while speaking with AFL-CIO union workers in Chicago:

Sen. John Kerry, all but officially the Democratic presidential nominee, called Republicans he is battling "crooked" Wednesday. ... "Keep smiling," one man said to him.

Kerry responded, "Oh yeah, don't worry man. We're going to keep pounding, let me tell you -- we're just beginning to fight here. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group of people I've ever seen."

Simply appalling. In the picture above, you can see a Kerry aide hurriedly trying to disconnect the microphone, to no avail, which leads me to wonder what else John Kerry says when he thinks the mikes are off. Does he speculate on Roswell? Discussing alien abductions?

Kerry's campaign immediately retreated into damage control, saying that Kerry was referring to the Republican "attack machine", but that's absolute hogwash. The Democrats have spent the last nine months throwing all sorts of personal ad hominem attacks against George Bush and Dick Cheney, including allegations that Bush was AWOL during his National Guard duty, that Cheney was getting rich off of Halliburton contracts in Iraq, and most notoriously until now, that George Bush had been told by the Saudis ahead of time about the 9/11 attacks and did nothing about them. They're not discussing issues -- they're slinging mud, and that should tell you something about their intellectual bankruptcy in this election cycle.

John Kerry needs to put up or abjectly apologize. If Kerry has evidence of corruption or lying, then put it out for all to see. Then we can all be enlightened and investigate it, and determine if Kerry is right or a full-fledged member of the Tinfoil Hat brigade. If he refuses to do so, then he is a coward and a sneak, a mumbler who won't take responsibility for his rumormongering.

Die-hard Democrats will probably cheer Kerry for his character assassination, but independents should take note: this man is not temperamentally or morally suited for the job of an executive. The Democrats should be ashamed of this behavior instead of trotting out weak justifications about "attack machines". Grow up and take responsibility, or go home.

If you aren't listening to Hugh Hewitt on this topic, go here and start listening to the live Internet stream. Now.

UPDATE: Here's the AP article that broke this story. Money graf:

Earlier Wednesday in Chicago, Kerry toughened his comments about his GOP critics after a supporter urged him to take on Bush [emph. mine]. "Let me tell you, we've just begun to fight," Kerry said. "We're going to keep pounding. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's scary."

That's the context; it wasn't about talk radio, it wasn't about people with Photoshop and too much time on their hands, and it wasn't about Captain's Quarters. Kerry meant George Bush and Dick Cheney, and by association, their entire administration.

NOTE: See my next post above for a clumsy attempt at spin doctoring by the AP.

UPDATE: Welcome to all of Glenn Reynolds' readers from MS-NBC/Slate! I hope you bookmark/blogroll Captain's Quarters and come back again soon.

John McCain: Smoking the Drapes?

What in the world is John McCain thinking?

"John Kerry (news - web sites) is a close friend of mine. We have been friends for years," McCain said Wednesday when pressed to squelch speculation about a Kerry-McCain ticket. "Obviously I would entertain it."

But McCain emphasized how unlikely the whole idea was.

"It's impossible to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a pro-life, free-trading, non-protectionist, deficit hawk," the Arizona senator told ABC's "Good Morning America" during an interview about illegal steroid use. "They'd have to be taking some steroids, I think, in order to let that happen."

Senator McCain must be taking something himself to even start such a rumor. I supported McCain in 2000, but now I'm wondering if he's in full command of his faculties. If he wants to be considered for the Democratic presidential ticket, I would assume the first step would be to change party affiliation. Even John Edwards knows enough to say "No" when asked that question.

Perhaps Senator Bill Frist needs to have a chat with the loose cannon from Arizona, and President Bush should scratch McCain off of his list of allies on this year's campaign trail. Given the history of John Kerry, McCain has already dropped off of my list of favored politicians. (via Drudge)

UPDATE: Lt. Smash is a bit more sanguine about this, predicting it would disrupt Kerry's campaign too badly to work. Just the mention of it makes the President vulnerable, I think. What does McCain want -- a bit of revenge for 2000? Because this only makes sense if McCain intended to make Bush look like a radical or a fool.

Dump the MPAA Ratings Systems, Please

In a statement that has gathered way too much attention already, an anti-smoking activist has challenged Hollywood to consider tobacco use when assigning MPAA ratings:

If Nicolas Cage lights a cigarette in a movie, Hollywood's ratings board should respond as if he used a profanity, according to authors of a new study that criticizes glamorous images of smoking in movies rated for children under 17.

Nearly 80 percent of movies rated PG-13 feature some form of tobacco use, while 50 percent of G and PG rated films depict smoking, said Stanton Glantz, co-author of the study, which examined 775 U.S. movies over the past five years.

"No one is saying there should never be any smoking in the movies," Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said Tuesday at a press conference at Hollywood High School. "What we're simply asking for is that smoking be treated by Hollywood as seriously as it treats offensive language."

Um, yeah. This demonstrates the silliness of the MPAA system: eventually, everyone's pet peeve will have its impact on the system. Think tobacco is evil? Rate the film R. Don't like alcohol? Give me an R! Eat too many fatty foods? That's an R, too, regardless of context. For instance, here's the list of offending films cited by Dr. Glantz:

Glantz singled out The Walt Disney Co. for smoking in the PG-rated "Holes" and G-rated "102 Dalmatians," Time Warner for its PG "Secondhand Lions" and "What a Girl Wants" and Sony Pictures Entertainment for its PG "Master of Disguise."

The character that smoked in 101 Dalmations and 102 Dalmations was Cruella DeVille -- the villain! In fact, the use of tobacco through the cigarette holder identifies her as a rich, evil person, something that Dr. Glantz should be happy to see in a children's film. I haven't seen any of the other films, but insisting that giving them R ratings (which would require parents to attend the movie with the child) almost qualifies as satire. When does it stop?

It should stop with the elimination of the current MPAA rating system. If ratings are necessary at all, they should only address parental supervision and nothing else. Set objective thresholds for requiring the exclusion of underage viewers unaccompanied by an adult. The thresholds for supervision could be as simple as realistic bodily harm, full-frontal nudity or realistic sexual encounters, and excessive use of profanity. It's still a judgment call, but at least we won't be fooling around with silly letter grades that mean exactly nothing.

Once a picture is released with or without a requirement for supervision, publish the various possible objections as is done on pay channels such as HBO, Showtime, and the like. That way, parents can make their own decisions on what they wish their children to see, filmmakers won't have to dance around with the MPAA board to get a PG-13 rating when no one really knows what the requirements are for it, and national scolds like Dr. Glantz can publish the lists of films that offend their particular sensibilities to their hearts' content.

Given the facts, parents can reach their own conclusions, but the amorphous and arbitrary nature of the current system helps no one, and single-issue nannies like Dr. Glantz will only make problems worse.

(link via Oh, That Liberal Media, which also skewers this piece from another angle)

The Folly of Campaign Finance 'Reform'

This year, we all will have front-row seats to watch the folly of campaign-finance reform in a nation whose first ideal is freedom of speech. Round One kicked off this week, as the New York Times reports:

Three advertising campaigns by political groups harshly critical of President Bush are getting under way in 17 states, in an effort to counter Republican commercials that began showing last week.

The largest campaign opens on Wednesday, paid with $5 million in unlimited donations that political parties can no longer collect. Republicans say the tactic is an illegal way to support Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, contending that it violates campaign finance laws.

Stepping in to help Mr. Kerry's campaign offset what has been Mr. Bush's 10-to-1 fund-raising advantage, these groups are part of a handful of committees that some critics call a "shadow" political party.

Since Congress passed McCain-Feingold as the latest act in a thirty-year battle to get money out of the political system, we've seen a growth industry in various tax-related interest groups that qualify for the money instead of the actual principals involved: the candidates. It represents an overwhelming silliness on the part of everyone involved: political parties who can collect some money and not others, the candidates who give speech after speech about their policies and motivations but somehow must avoid "coordinating" with shadow groups, and the electorate that insists on these elaborate dances -- except when their candidate winds up with less money.

Thirty years after Watergate and the initial attempts to outlaw money in politics, all we're doing is spreading the problem further and driving it further underground. It's like trying to put out a grease fire with water.

It's time that everyone involved grew up and realized that attempting to restrict donations is wrong on free-speech grounds as well as pointless in practical reality. Both parties rail against "checkbook politics", but Kerry wrote himself a $6 million check earlier, and George Soros has been up front about buying the presidency for almost a year now, and there are plenty of other examples on both sides.

Eliminate these artificial distinctions and simply require all political donations to be a matter of public record. Now that we have the Internet, require all candidates to maintain a public website that lists the name and address of everyone who donates money to their campaigns. Quit creating criminals out of people who want to participate in the political process by setting up arcane and esoteric legal barriers that even the FEC doesn't clearly understand. Emphasize that freedom of speech is paramount, especially for political speech.

Politics has enough hypocrisy in its natural state; there's little sense in creating it artificially as well.

Caption Contest: By The Dawn's Early Light

The results are in for the weekly Photo Caption Contest! The Patriette, at the twilight's last gleaming, began the laborious process of weeding through the 62 outstanding entries in the comments section. These, then, are the winning entries that the rockets' red glare and bombs bursting in air give proof are still there:

Patriette Missile Award -- Cassandra:

Edwards: "Well... if you're sure this will win over the Log Cabin Republicans..."

The Patriette's Star-Spangled Banter Award (for the most creative dialogue used as a caption) -- Don:

(for those who remember the old Saturday morning 'Justice League' superhero cartoon):
Both: "Wonder twin powers activated!"
Kerry: "Form of: A Presidential Candidate"
Edwards: "Wait! I wanted to be the Presidential Candidate!"

1st Runner-Up -- Bryan:

The attached-at-the-brain Democratic candidates were separated after a long, grueling procedure that led to one's demise and the other suffering from schizophrenia and delusions of grandeur.

2nd Runner-Up -- Jim S:

John Edwards turns down a surprise offer from John Kerry to be his "Third Lady".

Honorable Mentions:

Brian:

"By marrying John Edwards, clearly I am showing my opposition to gay marriage."

Pile On:

I'm John Kerry, and I have approved this public display of tender man on man affection.

Report to Sick Bay (On The Double) -- Erick-Woods Erickson:

Kerry: "Boy, let me put this in terms someone from North Carolina can understand. If you don't drop out now, I'm gonna make you squeal like a pig."

Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks again to everyone who participated. Big, big thanks to The Patriette for doing all the work. (Man, I love that!) As usual, the comments section on this post are wide open for disputes, slander, and obloquy towards the Captain and the Patriette for their selections, as well as any late entries that people want to throw in. Just remember, there are no losers here except the guy who runs this garbage scow ...

This Friday, I've arranged to actually have a prize for the top caption -- a humorous book written and self-published by a friend of mine. I'll post the details along with the new picture on Friday. We'll see you then!

Steelers Draw a Duce

The Pittsburgh Steelers, who underperformed their way to an out-of-the-playoffs finish last season, made a huge step forward in kick-starting their moribund offense by signing former Eagles running back Duce Staley this afternoon:

Free-agent running back Duce Staley will continue to play his football in the state of Pennsylvania, but to do so, he's going to have to take the turnpike west to Pittsburgh. Staley, the former Eagle, has agreed to a five-year, $14 million contract with the Steelers, agent Leigh Steinberg said Tuesday night.

One of the most sought-after rushers in the free-agent marketplace, Staley will receive a $4 million signing bonus as part of the deal.

The Steelers plan on releasing last season's feature running back, Amos Zereoue, who has talent but for some reason could never catch fire in Pittsburgh. They intend on teaming up the Duce with the Bus, Jerome Bettis, who will continue his amazing career as a specialty back in support of Staley. Pittsburgh outbid Detroit and Philadelphia in landing the A-list free agent.

How will this work out for the Steelers against tough division rivals Baltimore, Cincinatti, and Cleveland? Hard to say, although the lack of an effective running game last season put too much pressure on Tommy Maddox, who really hasn't been the same since he was temporarily paralyzed two seasons ago. (Who could blame him?) It's the best move so far among the four teams; the Browns only managed to get Jeff Garcia, who spent his career in Frisco reminding the Bay City how great Steve Young really was.

Don't tell Hugh ... but the Steelers may be waving those Terrible Towels well into next January.

Tenet Explains It Again, Uses Smaller Words This Time

George Tenet appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to explain to them -- again -- that the intelligence on Iraq was the same that the Senate had seen when they voted for an official policy of regime change in 1998, and that Bush just happened to have the stones that the previous administration and the nation lacked before 9/11. I'd go into detail, but Jon at QandO deals with it succinctly and humorously. Make sure you read everything Jon and McQ are writing at QandO while you're there -- definitely one of the outstanding blogs, especially for those with libertarian views or leanings.

Domestic Terrorist Arrested

The FBI captured an alleged domestic terrorist this afternoon in Southern California, a Caltech student suspected of torching dozens of SUVs in attacks on car dealerships last year:

A Caltech graduate student allegedly affiliated with an eco-terrorist group was arrested today in connection with last summer's arson attacks aimed at Hummers and other sports utility vehicles at four dealerships in the San Gabriel Valley. Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested William Jensen Cottrell, 23, on federal charges of arson and vandalism, said FBI Assistant Director Richard T. Garcia. ...

Cottrell, using the alias Tony Marsden, sent several e-mails to the Los Angeles Times claiming responsibility for the arson attacks and confirming his affiliation with the Earth Liberation Front, according to the FBI. In the messages, which were sent one month after the fire bombings, Cottrell gave specific details of the attacks to prove his involvement.

The Earth Liberation Front regularly uses violence to further its political ends, and Cottrell left messages at the crime scenes where he firebombed the vehicles and buildings at the dealerships such as "ELF" and, ironically, "SUV = TERRORISM". Even ELF's own website proudly proclaims various ELF members taking credit for acts of violence, including the planting of "incendiary devices" -- bombs -- and tracks the trends of ELF violence. (ELF reports that 2003 productivity increased 8% over the previous year, for instance.)

If Cottrell is convicted, I hope that the judge sentences the young man while keeping in mind the damage Cottrell caused -- and I'm not talking about the SUVs. Allowing radicals like Cottrell and the ELF ilk to serve short sentences because their violence was directed at politically-correct targets only encourages others to follow suit. Cottrell, and people like him, can't stand the fact that most people disagree with their extreme political views and when they cannot convince a majority to vote like they do, resort to violence to achieve their ends instead. They represent the antithesis of a free and democratic society, madmen who seek to impose their political will by force. They only differ from al-Qaeda by a narrow margin of philosophy and the scale of their attacks. Allowing them to escape with a slap on the wrist will only guarantee that others will follow along the same path, and that Cottrell will be there to guide them on their journey.

Dialyblogging

The First Mate is getting her first outpatient dialysis this afternoon at what appears to be an excellent facility here in the Twin Cities (in one of the South Metro suburbs, actually). She seems to be in good hands -- she's relaxing in a comfortable recliner while the dialyzer is running. Thanks to the conveniences provided by the clinic, I have network access to the Internet with my laptop, and I'm listening to Hugh Hewitt while blogging and keeping an eye on my wife.

So far, her labs look pretty good and she's tolerating the treatment very well. Her nephrologist just came by to check on her and a couple of his other patients, and he's optimistic that after a couple of weeks her energy levels will be back to normal. One of the side benefits is that they will be able to draw blood regularly to check her labs, so they'll know right away if she's getting off track.

I'd take a picture, but I think she'd kill me in my sleep if she found out ... and I'd deserve it!

Is John Kerry Trying to Torpedo US Foreign Policy?

John Kerry, according to a Reuters story that got a lot of attention yesterday, claims that foreign leaders are telling him that he's their preferred candidate:

Kerry opened another front against Bush on Monday when he said foreign leaders have told him privately that they are eager for him to win. "They look at you and say, 'You've got to win this, you've got to beat this guy, we need a new policy,' things like that," he said in Florida, Reuters reported. Kerry declined to name those leaders.

That's because, as Hugh Hewitt notes, no one has been able to substantiate a recent meeting between John Kerry and any foreign leader. Since Kerry isn't elaborating, we can assume one of two things: either Kerry is lying, or Kerry is telling the truth.

Option 1: Kerry Lied -- If Kerry lied, then this is an egregious lie. It would be a lie designed to hide a particular weakness of Kerry's -- that his foreign-policy approach would leave the US weaker internationally by tying our ability to act to the whims of countries like France and Russia, two countries that made a fortune off of Iraqi kickbacks from the oil-for-food program. It demonstrates yet again Kerry's propensity for saying whatever he thinks will sell at the moment instead of standing for something and sticking with it. Like I posted earlier -- Clinton without the charm.

Option 2: Kerry Told the Truth -- If Kerry really is in clandestine communication with foreign leaders and discussing changes in American foreign policy under his proposed administration, then he is interfering with the foreign policy of the current administration, which may be an actionable offense, depending on the circumstances. It certainly would demonstrate his willingness to subordinate the country's security and interests to his own political ambitions. Nations currently negotiating on trade and security with the Bush administration would suddenly have incentives to stop, or to issue hard-line demands with no flexibility, assisting Kerry's election effort in order to get a better deal in 2005. Such contacts during presidential campaigns are so inappropriate that it's hard to believe Kerry bragged about them.

Kerry needs to answer for his statement and detail exactly what contacts he had and their nature so that we can understand what damage has been done to our foreign policy as a result. His failure to do so either demonstrates his lack of honesty or his avaricious pursuit of his ambitions above the national interest.

Avast, Ye Maties! CQ Has New Buccaneer Skin!

Mel at Skinny Dippin' Designs has finished the third and final (for now) skin for Captain's Quarters, and we're calling it Buccaneer. It's a new, two-column look for the blog, and uses a more basic color scheme of black-on-white text, for those of you who were having a difficult time using the color schemes of the first two skins. I asked the lovely and talented Mel to come up with a more basic look after getting some feedback along those lines, and she's done that while still maintaining an artistic flair. It's another reason that you should be checking with Mel if you need any website design done!

I'll be adding a poll later on so that everyone can vote on their favorite skin. In the meantime, be sure to try them all out. Even the Captain can't make up his own mind about which one he'll be usin'! Arrrr...

UPDATE: The poll is up in the left sidebar -- you can vote once a day for your favorite skin. Let me know what you think!

Friday Photo Caption Contest!

It's time for the weekly Photo Caption Contest, and The Patriette has found a doozy for you. Put your crafty minds to this picture:

Put your best quip in the comments, but beware; our previous winner, Bryan, later complained of painful swelling of the ego and difficulty getting his head to fit through doorways! Comments will close on Tuesday, March 9th, at 6 pm CT, when The Patriette and I will carefully select the winner.

UPDATE: Time to get your entries in, if you haven't already done so! I'll keep the comments open until 8 PM CST, as I'm not likely to have Internet access at 6 pm anyway ...

UPDATE II: Comments closed! Going to the judges' scorecards ...

Kerry Flip-Flops on Arafat

In an interview with the Associates Press, John Kerry backpedaled away from his 1997 assertion that Yasser Arafat was a "statesman" who was a role model for aspiring leaders of oppressed people:

In a 1997 book, Kerry described "Arafat's transformation from outlaw to statesman." But in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday he said he no longer views Arafat favorably. "Obviously, Yasser Arafat has been an impediment to the peace process," said Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting. "He missed a historic opportunity and he's proved himself to be irrelevant." ...

Referring to the Palestinian leader as a statesman would be potentially damaging in Florida, which has a heavy Jewish population and a Democratic primary Tuesday. Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas also hold primaries Tuesday.

"He was (a statesman) in 1995," Kerry said, recalling frequent White House meetings between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in search of peace in the Middle East.

For those who aren't clear on the context, John Kerry wrote a book that he published in 1997 titled The New War, explaining his worldview on many global issues, and one to which Kerry points as evidence of his foreign-policy expertise. Unfortunately for Kerry, he's been proven mostly wrong. Kerry asserted that the primary national-security threat facing the US after the collapse of the Soviet Union would be global crime syndicates, whose terror threat would be criminal in nature, not military and political. His book failed to predict the rise of Islamofascist terror, even though Islamofascists had been attacking US interests since 1979, and never mentions Osama bin Laden, as TNR's Michael Crowley noted in January (reprinted by CBS News):

... he failed to acknowledge even the possibility that those threats could be military. That view showed in the positions Kerry took in the mid-'90s, questioning the size of America's defense and intelligence budgets -- positions that may also stem from his innate suspicion of the covert military and CIA operatives best-suited to fight terrorists (the sort of people Kerry exposed in his Central American investigations and who committed some heinous acts in Vietnam).

Kerry probably kicks himself for it today, but in 1997 he apparently didn't have much to say about Islamic fundamentalism. The name Osama bin Laden does not appear in The New War, even though, by the time Kerry wrote his book, bin Laden had become a notorious figure (as evidenced by an August 1996 New York Times front-pager identifying bin Laden as a frightening anti-American terrorist with ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing).

Nor was Kerry alone in his admiration for Arafat. Despite decades as the world's most notorious terrorist, the Clinton administration insisted that Arafat be treated as a legitimate negotiator for peace, foisting him on the Israelis who would otherwise have cheerfully seen him dead. In this, Kerry's support has helped to create the so-called intifada that currently rages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This calls into question Kerry's judgment (not to mention Clinton), because Arafat was no cipher -- he was known to have headed the organization that 20 years earlier, gunned down two US diplomats in cold-blooded murder, and evidence existed that Arafat himself planned and ordered their execution:

On this day 30 years ago, two American diplomats were machine-gunned to death at the Saudi embassy in Sudan by Yasser Arafat's Black September organization. Details of the brutal executions filled the front pages of newspapers around the world for several days in early March 1973. ...

Two years ago, James J. Welsh told WorldNetDaily of virtually irrefutable evidence that Arafat himself planned, directed and ordered the murders of U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel, U.S. Charges d'affaires George Curtis Moore and Belgian Guy Eid on March 2, 1973.

Audio tapes made in Cyprus and U.S. embassies in Beirut and Khartoum left no doubt that it was Arafat's voice directing the operation from Feb. 28 – the day before the men were kidnapped – to their execution two days later, Welsh said in an interview with WND on Friday.

While it's entirely possible that Kerry had no idea that Arafat personally directed the mission that murdered two diplomats, it was well known since the killings that Black September was responsible and that Arafat was the head of Black September. The Clinton administration therefore insisted on creating a diplomatic partnership with the man responsible for murdering US diplomats, and John Kerry in 1997 considered him a "statesman" and supported that initiative. It's not like this was a youthful passion for freedom fighters, either, like a teenager's philosophical crush on Che Guevara; in 1997, Kerry had just been elected to his third term in the Senate.

This demonstrates the bankruptcy of John Kerry's "vision" in foreign affairs, a naivete that would be charming if it wasn't so deadly. In a world where seriously deadly people want to kill Americans by the thousands, we simply can't afford to have that level of ineptitude in the White House.

John Kerry: Not A Black Man After All

A few days ago, John Kerry tried on the Bill Clinton approach to civil rights, noting that Clinton had sometimes been called the nation's "first black President" for his humble Southern beginnings as well as his affinity to African-American leadership, and said that he wouldn't mind being known as the second black President. Oddly enough, having a rich, white, power-born politician describe himself as black didn't sit to well with those who actually are black -- and they're not just giving Kerry disapproving glances:

The head of a civil rights and legal services advocacy group wants Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to apologize for saying he wouldn't be upset if he could be known as the second black president.

"John Kerry is not a black man — he is a privileged white man who has no idea what it is in this country to be a poor white in this country, let alone a black man," said Paula Diane Harris, founder of the Andrew Young National Center for Social Change.

John Kerry seems to think that he can simply mimic Bill Clinton and and all Clinton's constuencies will magically become his own. However, Clinton had charm and wit (and a much different background than Kerry), qualities sorely lacking in the presumptive nominee. Presuming to represent people who are quite capable of representing themselves is the height of condescension, as Ms. Harris reminded Kerry this evening. Not a particularly adept way of winning friends and support among this community, considering the long history of Democrats taking them for granted.

Labor Fading?

Tomorrow's New York Times looks at the decline of the modern labor movement and its associated political power, especially focusing on a few recent events:

As the nation's labor leaders gathered at a luxury seaside hotel here, they were struggling on Monday to find ways to keep the union movement from sinking further after it suffered several recent setbacks.

In the biggest confrontation in years, a 138-day dispute involving 59,000 California supermarket workers, the companies trounced the union, obtaining a two-tier contract that means lower wages and fewer health benefits for new employees.

Organized labor also appeared badly disorganized as unions split over endorsing Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri or Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, for the Democratic presidential nomination and then appeared woefully ineffective when both of the preferred candidates flopped.

And labor was embarrassed by a January government report showing that union membership fell by nearly 400,000 last year and that the percentage of workers belonging to unions dropped to 12.9 percent, down from 35 percent in the 1950's.

Part of labor's problem is that they have been too successful, pressing Congress and the state legislatures to pass into law what used to be negotiated with ownership and management in labor contracts. Overtime definitions, termination policies, workers comp, and even layoffs are much more regulated and controlled by government than by contractual arrangements. State and national Labor Relations Boards have replaced union grievance procedures. Looking back at the level of government protection for workers that has been enacted over the past fifty years, the transformation of the workplace has been truly remarkable.

And that is also the problem -- the organized labor solution has, in some places, gone too far. Workers go on strike now to get benefits and wages that don't resemble anything in the current market outside of organized labor, making their cause much less sympathetic than in job actions from decades past. In California, the grocery strike resulted from organized labor fighting against the employees paying for part of their own health insurance, even though the vast majority of their customers contribute to theirs to a much larger degree than the grocers proposed in their contract offer. Then when the workers went on strike, they harassed these same customers, hardening public opinion even more in favor of the grocers. After all, ultimately the consumer pays for the labor, and most consumers understand that.

Faced with runaway government imposition in labor relations -- California's workers comp system is a nightmare that keeps growing and driving business out of the state -- and fighting battles that bear little resemblance to fairness and much more to privilege, labor rapidly has lost the sympathy of the masses. That is no small thing, either. For many years, labor has been living off of its past glories, when management held coal miners in the thrall of company scrip and workers died by the dozens because of unsafe working conditions. These days, the face of labor is either snarling grocery workers harassing the customers they expect to pay for their health insurance, or overpriced sports celebrities going on strike and disrupting the World Series so that they don't have to be tested for illegal drug use.

Now with membership rapidly declining and facing the debacle of having their endorsements of primary candidates Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt have absolutely no effect on any of the primaries, labor asks why things have gotten so bad. Perhaps it's because they never knew when to declare victory.

News From The Manhunt

Here's a hot news flash from the front lines of O.J. Simpson's quest to find the one-armed man -- er, killer of wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman:

DirecTV is accusing O.J. Simpson of pirating its satellite television signal. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court in Miami, the company demanded the former football star pay DirecTV $20,000.

Federal agents removed satellite TV equipment from Simpson's house in the Miami neighborhood of Kendall during a search in 2001. DirecTV alleges the devices were "bootloaders," for unscrambling the company's signals.

Simpson could not be reached for comment, as he currently is undercover, posing as a dissolute and psychotic ex-celebrity in order to lure the real killer out into the open.

Bush Goes On Offense, Hits Kerry on Proposed Intelligence Cuts

As expected, President Bush went to offense now that John Kerry has cleared the field in the Democratic primaries, and points out Kerry's record of antagonism towards intelligence services:

Bush, during a fund-raiser in Dallas, called attention to a 1995 bill that Kerry sponsored to trim intelligence spending by $1.5 billion over five years. The cut was part of what Kerry called a "budget-buster bill" to strip $90 billion from the budget and end 40 programs that he said were "pointless, wasteful, antiquated or just plain silly."

Kerry's proposal, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and calls for a peace dividend after decades of spending to thwart the Cold War opponent, never came up for a vote.

"This bill was so deeply irresponsible that it didn't have a single co-sponsor in the United States Senate," Bush said. "Once again, Senator Kerry is trying to have it both ways," Bush said, one of the few times recently he has mentioned his rival by name. "He's for good intelligence, and yet he was willing to gut the intelligence services, and that is no way to lead in a time of war."

Bear in mind that John Kerry has written very few bills during his tenure, compiling one of the least distinguished records in the modern Senate, so when he chose to write this bill, it speaks volumes about his intent. Kerry's record provides many such examples of his disingenuousness on the campaign trail, where Kerry says whatever is politically expedient regardless of his record. Fortunately for President Bush, Kerry's Senate record of 19 years will speak for itself, especially in the many silences where Kerry never bothered to vote at all. He missed 64% of the votes in 2003, and only made one so far this year -- to extend the assault-weapons ban. In response, Kerry's campaign spokesman said the following:

"In the age of telecommunications, Sen. Kerry is in daily contact with his chief of staff,'' Meehan said. "Voting is just one small part of being a U.S. senator.'' [emph. mine --Ed]

Does the American electorate really think that showing up for work is "only one small part" of Senator Kerry's current job? How can he represent his consituents if he misses two-thirds of the votes in the Senate? Massachussetts voters should be asking for a refund. Someone who takes such a casual approach to his current job likely doesn't take much else seriously, either, which explains Kerry's double-talk on the campaign trail. He doesn't stand for anything except what benefits him politically. This contortionism flew below the radar as a no-show Senator who rarely wrote legislation, but comes through loud and clear now that he's on his own.

Here's A Novel Idea!

Who says an old Democrat can't learn new tricks? Not the LA Times, who reports that the party strategy in California has changed somewhat after their pet proposition to make raising taxes easier got stomped 2-1 last week:

Democrats recognize that tactics of the past — simply advocating tax increases to protect the needy — won't work, and they are trying to take a page out of Schwarzenegger's playbook, embracing a strategy that looks for waste first and relies heavily on economic arguments.

"We're not saying tax first," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Wes Chesbro (D-Arcata). "We have an obligation before we ask people for taxes or cut any services to people to reduce state government spending in every way we can."

What a novel concept -- rather than running the tab up further on California taxpayers, the Democrats propose to actually look at the budget first to get rid of waste! Who would have thought to do that? Well, actually the Republicans have been demanding that for decades now, but since they represent a minority in California (and especially in their legislature), the Democrats have felt free to cheerfully ignore them, at least until now.

What's changed their mind? The first Democrat in two decades to sit in the governor's seat got recalled, the first time that's ever happened; their only candidate in the recall got trounced while Republicans rolled up two-thirds of the replacement vote; and finally, Proposition 56 got beat by the same margin, which would have removed the supermajority requirement for new taxes and tax increases.

Do you think they're getting the message? Maybe. The story goes on to say that they're doing this to highlight the fact that cuts won't be enough, but for a state that's increased spending by 50% over the past five years, my guess is that they'll find plenty of waste as long as California voters continue to hold their feet to the fire.

Sea Change in Europe?

The Greeks have resoundingly endorsed their conservatives and have sent Socialists to defeat, reversing twenty-three years of governing:

With nearly 98 percent of votes counted, the New Democracy party led the Socialists 45.4 percent to 40.6 percent in Sunday's vote as part of a deep reshuffling of Greece's political order. Papandreou conceded defeat after exit polls showed New Democracy with a strong lead.

New Democracy was poised to take an overwhelming majority in the 300-seat parliament. Under the Greek system, the winning party takes the lion's share of seats for a four-year term.

Although the Greek economy is expanding at a rate of 4.7% -- the best in the EU -- most of that production involves the upcoming Athens Olympics, which played a large role in the election, especially regarding security. Even with that robust growth, unemployment has remained at 9%. The New Democracy movement promises to cut taxes and government spending in order to boost the economy and start job creation.

The Greeks are the latest country to reject leftist governments in favor of conservatives:

Greece is following a path toward the right blazed by other European nations in recent years, including Portugal and Italy. Spain's conservative Popular Party is forecast to win parliamentary elections on March 14, and rightist Joerg Haider secured another term as governor in Austria's Carinthia province on Sunday.

Germany's Schroeder is also feeling the pinch these days, and the French ... well, all right, the French probably won't ever let go of its Socialist fantasies. Even the British have begun taking a new look at the Conservatives there, led by Michael Howard, who has emulated Tony Blair by staking out libertarian positions on social policy combined with traditional Conservative economic and defense policies. Instead of facing a hostile Europe, the US may find its allies integrating with American economic and security policies much more enthusiastically in the future.

Better Late Than Never

Iraq took another step in its long journey to freedom with the signing of its new, interim constitution -- a signing delayed by a demonstration of power by a leading Shi'ite cleric:

Members of Iraq's Governing Council signed a landmark interim constitution Monday after resolving a political impasse sparked by objections from the country's most powerful cleric. The signing was a key step in U.S. plans to hand over power to the Iraqis by July 1. ...

The charter — which includes a 13-article bill of rights, enshrines Islam as one of the bases of law and outlines the shape of a parliament and presidency as well as a federal structure for the country. It will remain in effect until a permanent constitution is approved by a national referendum planned for late 2005.

Originally scheduled to be signed last Friday, the Shi'ite members of Iraq's Governing Council suddenly boycotted at the last moment on instructions from al-Sistani, the leading Shi'ite cleric in the South, reportedly because he objected to several provisions, notably the rights of Kurds to veto any proposed constitution drawn up in the next elected government. The entire exercise had to be put on hold for the weekend and the gathered dignitaries sent home, all to come back today to sign the same document that sat on the table Friday. I doubt al-Sistani considers that a failure, however.

In the end analysis, however, I would say that it is impressive that Iraq got its constitution signed at all, even if the road remained bumpy all the way. The Iraqis may have problems coming together, but this shows that it's not impossible to do so. Hopefully, when elections are finally held, a federal system can be put in place which will give semi-autonomy to the individual states but still allow for a strong-enough central government for civil control of Iraq to guarantee liberty for the Iraqis. One thing is certain: the Iraqis are much better off than they were this time last year.

Passion of the Christ: Brutal, Brilliant Art

After two weeks of release, I finally went to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ this afternoon. Until now, all I had done was read some of the reviews, both professional and in the blogosphere, as well as the various interviews from some of the principals like Gibson and Jim Caviezel, who plays Jesus. I have also kept up with some of the attacks on the movie, Gibson, and his motivations, such as Andy Rooney's late last month.

Now that I have seen the film, I understand the passion about the Passion. Either a viewer will love this film or hate it; there is little room for middle ground, and that's precisely the point. One of the images in the film that stuck with me the most -- one that is present in most of the advertising as well -- is a slow-motion shot of Jesus drawing a line in the sand, which occurs in a flashback to the incident where Jesus tells the crowd, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." The only way you can understand Gibson's Passion is to understand that Gibson also draws a line in the sand, and everything that happens in the movie comes as a result.

The threshold is in the concept of Jesus as the Son of God. It has been said before that contemporary depictions of the New Testament blur the line between Jesus as a philosopher and Jesus as the Messiah, with some justification. Jesus becomes the ecumenical Misunderstood Good Man instead of the Son of God, sacrificed for all, as a way to make the New Testament more palatable to the mass market. Gibson's interpretation -- and of course, that's what it is -- challenges us to face the brutal reality of the last twelve hours of Jesus in order to make clear exactly what Jesus was.

This starts with his arrest and his interrogation by the Sanhedrin. Jesus is delivered after the betrayal of Judas, which opens the movie, and after protests by a contingent about his treatment, Jesus is asked if he is the Messiah. When he acknowledges that he is, Caiphas tears his own robes and sets out to destroy him. While some have complained that the film lacks any context for Caiphas' singlemindedness in this regard, Gibson makes clear that Jesus left no room for interpretation. Caiphas had to choose whether Jesus was the Messiah or a blasphemer -- there was no third choice. Caiphas, in the middle of a campaign to undermine the Romans, seized on Jesus as a pawn in a political game, satisfying both his political ends and also delivering the punishment for which blasphemy calls. Other Jews, most notably the women, take a completely different view of Jesus, and even a decadent and dissipated Herod bears no animosity towards Jesus. Only Caiphas and his followers are determined to see Jesus crucified.

Pilate is surrounded by lines in the sand; on one hand, according to Gibson's vision, he's facing an ultimatum from Rome to keep Judea calm, and on the other hand, Caiphas represents a real threat to that peace. His wife begs him to release the Galilean based on a nightmare she had. Pilate attmpts to appease Caiphas' followers while not giving in and turns Jesus over to his soldiers, knowing what would happen -- he even warns his centurion to make sure they don't kill him. In the end, Caiphas won't be deterred, and Pilate cravenly chooses the path of least resistance, ostentatiously washing his hands of a deed for which he can't escape responsibility. He kills a man who he knows is innocent to buy himself a career and a few more moments of peace.

The violence represents another, more personal line in the sand, this time to the audience. Either we accept that Jesus was scourged and crucified or we don't, and what Gibson does is to present a realistic and horrifying spectacle of these Roman customs. I heard audible gasps when the whips stuck in Jesus' flesh and then were torn out, and crying when the nails were driven into his hands and feet. These disturbing images and sequences are not for everyone, and in fact were almost too much for me to watch; I had to force myself to keep my eyes open. However, the violence in this film pales in significance in relation to your average Quentin Tarantino film, with the only difference that it all happens to one person, and to one who presents no physical danger to anyone.

In other words, The Passion of the Christ is not NBC's Jesus of Nazareth (which I have on tape), nor is it meant to be. It's meant to be a challenge, and like most challenges, it will cause some to accept it and some to reject it. In my opinion, there's nothing in this movie that is excessive or over the top, or especially anti-Semitic. In fact, the only caricatures I saw in the entire film were of the Roman soldiers who took great glee in scourging, beating, and crucifying Jesus, and in general were protrayed as bloodlusting animals.

It's not a perfect picture, though; the decision to make the film in Aramaic and Latin rather than the vernacular makes Passion an art-house film, albeit maybe the most successful one ever made. Unfortunately, it means that the First Mate won't be able to see it in the theater, as she is blind and wouldn't be able to follow along. Somehow it seems inappropriate to make a film about a healer of the blind inaccessible to those who are visually handicapped. As has been pointed out before, the dialect of Aramaic used is highly unlikely to be that spoken in Jesus' time anyway, making the effort pointless from a historical perspective. Undoubtedly, though, the language in the film adds to the artistry of Passion, as well as its cinematography.

The use of Satan, especially in the beginning, and those demons in relation to Judas Iscariot also take the film from verité to vision, belying the notion of "It is as it was." It still worked for me, although it definitely won't for others. The one time it didn't was the scene where Satan held an oddly aged baby, which symbolized, I suppose, the world to come. That to me was one reach too many, and almost a David Lynch moment in a film that did best when it stuck to hard reality. The crow attack at Golgotha almost felt like apocrypha to me; if that's part of the Gospel, I must have missed it. Finally, Pilate as a weak functionary may not be the most historically accurate rendering of the Roman procurator, but it was an interesting and somewhat sympathetic choice. It doesn't get him off the hook for the death of Jesus, but it does make him more understandable.

Otherwise, The Passion of the Christ presented a powerful, horrifying, and utterly gripping interpretation of the last hours of Christ. While I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, I recommend it for those who are open to its message.

UPDATE: For the idiot who linked to this post and suggested that blind people should find something else to do other than go to movies, thank you for your intelligent and compassionate insight. Guess what: blind people DO go to movies, and usually enjoy them, as is the case with my wife. What they DON'T do is attend subtitled movies. Sorry if my wife's disappointment that some alternate-audio technology wasn't included in this release of the film somehow offends you, but I'd say that was your problem and not hers or mine. If you've removed me from your bookmarks, well, you won't be missed, pal.

Before assuming that all blind people can do is stay at home and listen to the radio in the dark, you might use the Internet to learn something about people.

Hybrid Cars Still More Expensive, Less Reliable

The Los Angeles Times takes a look at the so-far unfulfilled promise of electric-gasoline hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius, the darling of the Hollywood set, and determines that hybrids may not be the answer:

But consumer advocates say the marketing glosses over a few things, including the true operating cost of the cars, despite their fabled fuel economy. "If you're looking at this purely as a pocketbook decision, the hybrid won't work," says Gabriel Shenhar, senior auto test engineer for Consumer Reports magazine, although he has no quarrel with the hybrids' environmental credentials. ...

• Although the Prius and Honda's Civic and Insight hybrids do get terrific gas mileage, in real-world use they rarely match the extraordinary fuel economy the Environmental Protection Agency gets on its test circuit.

• The federal government is gradually rolling back the tax deduction hybrid buyers can claim — it was $2,000 last year but $1,500 this year. Unless Congress renews it, the deduction will keep declining until it disappears in 2007.

• Analysts at Internet car shopping and information service Edmunds.com say the technology that makes hybrids appealing is improving so quickly that today's vehicles are likely to depreciate faster than conventional cars as new hybrids arrive.

The second bullet point can, of course, be corrected by simply extending the tax benefits that currently exist. The final bullet point plainly states the generic risk taken by consumers who become early adopters in technology. It's the first bullet point that causes the most concern to me. While the manufacturers are proclaiming the EPA tests that show 60 MPG on the highway and 51 MPG in the city, Consumer Reports' figures are significantly lower: in the low 40s for the Prius, and the Times reports anecdotal evidence for the Honda Civic Hybrid. Back when I bought my first car, a Datsun (now Nissan) 210 with manual transmission, I regularly got 38 MPG combined highway/city driving, and that was in California with all of the emissions equipment installed. Adding all of the expensive and difficult-to-replace electrical systems have only improved the fuel efficiency, and therefore emissions, by less than 20%.

However, the environmental benefit has also been far from proven. Right now, the hybrids rely on commercial electrical power for recharging the large banks of batteries. Even supporters of this technology acknowledge that since commercial power is highly reliant on fossil fuels, there is no environmental benefit to hybrids. In fact, given the higher efficiency of the internal-combustion engine, widespread use of the hybrid would actually increase emissions overall. And this doesn't take into account the disposal issue of the huge battery banks used in hybrids once they no longer function properly.

Hybrid electric/gasoline vehicles are simply not the answer, not while commercial power producers continue to use fossil fuels to produce the electricity that powers the cars. Alternate-fuel technology, such as hydrogen, should continue to be explored as a clean-fuel solution for our vehicles, or else we need to invest heavily in fuel-cell generators for commercial power, or nuclear power, or both.

Telegraph: John Flip-Flop Kerry

In another article on the presidential race, the UK Telegraph has an excellent review of John Kerry's flip-flops -- the kind of research that the US media seems reluctant to do:

Forget the occasional about-face on defence policy and the Iraq war, in the mawkish world of American politics one of the most fundamental questions a candidate can face is: Do they have any Irish blood? ... In a speech to the Senate in 1986 he even said: "For those of us who are fortunate to share an Irish ancestry, we take great pride in the contributions [of] Irish-Americans."

When presented with proof that Mr Kerry's grandfather was the Jewish-born Fritz Kohn, the senator's aides reversed their position without a backward glance. "He has never indicated to anyone that he was Irish and corrected people over the years who assumed he was," said Kelly Benander, a Democrat spokeswoman.

While this is a somewhat silly example of Kerry's prevarications, it's certainly indicative of his general character and his propensity for landing squarely on both sides of any issue. The Telegraph also notes:

As the campaign gets under way, it's a fair bet there will be a role for Wallace Carter, a constituent of Sen Kerry's from Massachusetts. Two letters dispatched to Mr Carter in 1991 provide evidence of the speed with which Mr Kerry can change his mind.

"Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to the early use of military force by the US against Iraq. I share your concerns," the first letter assures Mr Carter. "I voted in favour of a resolution that would have insisted that economic sanctions be given more time to work and against a resolution giving the President the immediate authority to go to war."

Just nine days later Mr Carter was surprised to receive another letter with an opposing view. "Thank you very much for contacting me to express your support for the actions of President Bush in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait," it said. "From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crisis and the policy goals he has established with our military deployment in the Persian Gulf."

He didn't get any better with the 2002 Iraqi vote, either, or on the Patriot Act, for which he voted and against which he now campaigns. The article also reviews Kerry's use of the Vietnam War and the smear campaign against Bush's National Guard service against his earlier statements in defense of the draft-dodging Democratic Presidential candidate in 1992:

An earlier John Kerry, however, deplored the use of Vietnam as a campaign card. In the run-up to the 1992 election Mr Kerry said: "I am saddened by the fact that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign. What saddens me most is that Democrats, above all those who shared the agonies of that generation, should now be re-fighting the many conflicts of Vietnam in order to win the current political conflict of a presidential primary."

This article gives yet another example of how the media across the pond seems to be doing a much better job of covering John Kerry than anything we're seeing from the American media, who fancy themselves the watchdogs of US politics. Either the American media are pathetically incompetent or they're deliberately laying off John Kerry. Make sure you read the entire article.

UPDATE: The California Yankee links to a funny game at the RNC site about Kerry's flip-flops, along with a couple of links to check out.

Hosting Matters Maintenance Today

If you had troubles reaching Captain's Quarters this morning, it's because my excellent hosting service, Hosting Matters, performed planned maintenance -- moving their equipment into more secure facilities. This affected both web and e-mail service, so if you sent me something and it bounced back, that's why. Everything seems good now -- the site is back up and my e-mail service is working. Instapundit, Power Line, Little Green Footballs, and others were similarly affected.

I posted a notice at my backup site of the maintenance as soon as it began. If you don't have that bookmarked, you may want to add it now. I plan on using the old site for extended down times if they occur.

Kerry Not So Eager to Volunteer After All

John Kerry, who has made his volunteer service in Vietnam the centerpiece of his Presidental campaign 35 years later, apparently was not so eager to serve as he has led people to believe, the UK Telegraph reports:

Senator John Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate who is trading on his Vietnam war record to campaign against President George W Bush, tried to defer his military service for a year, according to a newly rediscovered article in a Harvard University newspaper. He wrote to his local recruitment board seeking permission to spend a further 12 months studying in Paris, after completing his degree course at Yale University in the mid-1960s.

The revelation appears to undercut Sen Kerry's carefully-cultivated image as a man who willingly served his country in a dangerous war - in supposed contrast to President Bush, who served in the Texas National Guard and thus avoided being sent to Vietnam.

Why does this matter, if Kerry served, which he did with distinction? The Telegraph notes this later in the same article:

A newly-published biography of Sen Kerry by Douglas Brinkley, A Tour of Duty, makes no mention of the requested deferment or planned year in Paris. At the time, it was still unclear just how long America would remain in Vietnam, and it might have seemed that a year's deferral of service could render enlistment unnecessary.

WorldNetDaily, in the meantime, has been mining the archives of the Boston Globe and found this information about Kerry's volunteerism as well (via the Yale Diva):

As a lieutenant junior grade, Kerry skippered a CTF-115 swift boat, a light, aluminum patrol vessel that bore a passing resemblance to PT-109. He thought he'd arranged to avoid combat.

"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," he later would tell the Boston Globe. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling, and that's what I thought I was going to do."

Does this diminish Kerry's actual service to his country? No, of course not. But it does point out a huge hypocrisy on Kerry's part and on the part of the Democrats who have slung all sorts of mud at George Bush's National Guard service (and Dan Quayle's, sixteen years ago). Far from being the eager volunteer, Kerry at first tried to get an exemption and then wangled an assignment that he thought would keep him out of the fighting.

It also points out a bit of hypocrisy on the part of the national media as well. Why did a British newspaper get the scoop on Kerry's attempt at a deferment to study in Paris, of all places? It's becoming very clear that the mainstream news media are not interested in challenging Kerry during this election cycle, and to such an extent that we will need to rely on foreign media sources to do it for us. Not a word of this appears in today's editions of the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, MS-NBC, or CNN. The managing editors of these media behemoths should be ashamed of themselves for headlining spurious charges of cowardice against Bush and failing to investigate Kerry's service in an equal, or even significant, manner.