I'm the village idiot, I don't have anything to do with this pathetic little opera, I just felt like passing through!
So now, instead of the President — whom they also call the Commander-in-Chief [note: corrected the term which is a bit embarrassing given that I am in the military and should have known better] — fighting the war, we’re going to try fighting it from Congress instead. War by committee. This ought to be great. … Read more
Why Do So Few People Vote in the U.S.? According to this article the United States lags behind just about everyone else in voter turn out. Even Iraq, where we are supposedly failing to build a democracy, voter turn out is higher than in the US. I have to admit that in past years I’ve … Read more
Everyone is getting all spun up over Rush Limbaugh’s response to the Michael J. Fox commercial supporting a Democratic candidate. To my mind, this is a little bit like getting spun up over something that Howard Stern says. Limbaugh has positioned himself as a conservative shock commentator. Making brash, rude comments is a fundamental part … Read more
There are three stories that I stumbled across today that I thought are very relevant given the coming election. —–—– This article illustrates one of the major issues today. We have seen all over the media this number of 665,000 Iraqi civilian casualties. Many of us only read the headline. If the headline agrees with … Read more
Had an interesting conversation with a co-worker this afternoon. He told me that Donald Rumsfeld had said that “we are not in Iraq to engage in nation-building…” Ben’s use of the quote is slightly misleading. The complete statement was, “We are not in Iraq to engage in nation-building — our mission is to help Iraqis … Read more
The following is taken from the online Santa Cruz County, CA Ballot (as provided by SmartVoter.Org: US Representative United States Representative; District 17 Sam Farr, Democratic Anthony R. De Maio, Republican Please notice that the Republican candidate, Mr. De Maio, has no links. Mr. De Maio has submitted nothing to any of the online voting … Read more
This article by Frank Gaffney makes very clear the eventual outcome of efforts to cut & run in Iraq. As I’ve said many times in this blog, it does not matter what you think about how we got into the war we are currently fighting, we have to finish it. Nixon’s exit from Vietnam was … Read more
“The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq” (Kenneth M. Pollack) Kenneth Pollack’s article in The Atlantic Monthly addresses the ‘errors’ in his book “The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq” (Kenneth M. Pollack). In my opinion, The Threatening Storm is still one of the best resources available for understanding the situation in Iraq. … Read more
So, I think this is interesting. The current administration is one of the first to call North Korea on its creative methods of procuring monetary aid. In the past, at least as far back as Reagan, North Korea would rattle its saber, making noises of hostile action. They would insist on direct negotiations with the … Read more
Congress is debating the Iraq War again. The article points out that Democrats appear to be divided into three ‘camps’; leave Iraq this year, object to setting any kind of timetable, begin redeploying forces (that means bring them home) by year’s end but don’t set a date when all troops should be out. Setting a … Read more