Centerfield

This is a Man

One of the most hateful arguments that the extreme left has used against those who voted and supported the war is that they themselves or their sons or daughters should be shipped to Iraq. Some have went so far to suggest that Barbara and Jenna should be forced to go. Ironically, those who use this ridiculous argument mostly oppose the draft.

There is one politician that is no longer subject to such harmful and divisive rhetoric, and I bet most of you can guess which one.

May God protect Jimmy and Jack McCain and all of our men and women in uniform.

More On Lebanon - Why Regime Change in Syria

Bush was right when he said at the Russia summit, albeit to a mic he (thought?) was off,

"What they need to do is get Syria to get Hizbullah to stop doing this shit, and it's over."

Without Syrian support, Hezbollah'd be alot weaker. Hezbollah is Syria's and Iran's catspaw; Lebanese moderates must not be forced to pay for a thing forced on their nation during its oppression, or Lebanese and other Islamic moderates will join the terrorists' column, having been given little choice. Here's some moderate radicalization in action.

Finding somebody to guard and occupy Southern Lebanon indefinitely, especially if its against Lebanese will isn't such a great plan. A long-term component is needed, but occupying Southern Lebanon is a hard (sucker?) job, and a better choice is available. That better choice would be (threatening?) Syrian regime change, or otherwise pressuring Syria to drop support for Hezbollah.

So what kind of operations do I suggest? I'm for attacking Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, with care, and weakening them; I don't feel Hezbollah should be allowed to drop artillery on Israeli towns and attack Israel with impunity. Furthermore, reading Lebanese and Totten's blogs suggests to me that most of the southernmost bit of Lebanon probably DID support Hezbollah (unlike the rest). BUT, I'd also make it clear that this was temporary, and that I held the paymasters and trainers to blame. I'd pressure Syria, at least partially at gunpoint, to drop Hezbollah support, and if I couldn't get a settlement, it'd be time for regime change.

Israel could do that with a good plan, since they have modern tactics and equipment, and troops that care. Syria has a big military, but on a per man basis it's probably about as effective as the Iraqi Army was in '91. IMHO, they wouldn't even need US help, but I'm sure that'd be forthcoming for a good plan.

Once again, you may find the map helpful.

It's true that Iran is also a Hezbollah sponsor, but Syria is the next-door neighbor, and, I'm guessing from reading Lebanese blogs, more of a controller of its activities. There'd be many more limits on Hezbollah activity without Syria's help. Getting men and materiel, not to say money, to Hezbollah, would get alot harder and slower. And knocking out the Syrian govt would add a consequential bonus in mapping and getting at the Hezbollah financial structure.

Why not Iran, too? Well, I can't see Israel getting permission to send its army through Iraq (sovereign nation, remember) or Turkey (and it'd have to be AFTER gitting Syria - look at the map). And, as Hitler used to say about annexing countries, one thing at a time, bwahaha.... We could potentially engage Iran, but only, per the conversation on the earlier post, if we can get enough help to handle the occupation, or wait until Iraq stabilizes enough to spare enough US troops.

For this to do any good, long-term, Israel must try to install a democratic government in Syria, or it'll just be just another long, oppressive, impossible occupation.

That would, of course, mean spreading misery and death to Syria as well. But I believe that's the plan that's likeliest to yield the fewest long-term deaths with respect to Hezbollah.

GOP centrism

Don't call me moderate, I'm a centrist

Still, while the organization counts anti-abortion rights lawmakers such as Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) as one of its members, there are also many others who are considered liberal on social issues. And these members vote that way, much to the heartburn of some Republicans.

"Their whole purpose is to present a more moderate view of Republicanism," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. "And to the extent that they disagree with the party leaders or the top leader, the President of the United States, they run the risk of being perceived by party regulars of being disloyal."

.....Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of Main Street, contends the Club is being dishonest in saying it only targets people it disagrees with on economic matters. In fact, she claims it specifically goes after lawmakers it doesn't consider conservative enough on social issues.

"The facts speak for themselves," she said. "Of all the Members of Congress and open seat candidates the Club for Growth supported, they only supported one pro choice candidate. To articulate an example, they attacked (Sherwood) Boehlert (R-New York) two years ago and he voted 127 times for tax cuts. He never voted to raise taxes. However, he is pro-choice."

Gee, it all sounds so familiar, doesn't it?

Check out the Republican Main Street Partnership here.

Republican Minimum Wage Plan

Outgoing centrist Republican Congressman Sherry Boehlert believes that the House leadership will offer a plan that ties a hike in the minimum wage to association health plans (AHP). If this is true, I say bully for House Republican leaders.

My support for a minimum wage hike is somewhat selfish. The truth is that raising the mandated Federal wage floor is good for states like the one I live in whose minimum wage is higher than what Congress requires. This will also be a good thing for the business climate of those local municipalties that mandate "living wages."

AHP's or small business health plans are one of those ideas that make a lot of sense, but don't get anywhere because of insurance lobby opposition. The idea is simple: get rid of certain loopholes and allow small businesses to pool together and purchase health plans the same way that large corporations and labor unions do on a regular basis. The benefit is that with more buying power small business can provide health care to their workers at a lower cost.

This legislation has the potential to kill two birds with one stone for the GOP by blunting Democrat attack ads on health care and the minimum wage. It also ends the effective but obvious political stunt pushed by Teddy Kennedy of opposing Congressional pay raises without an increase in the minimum wage.

The Ever-Renewing Open Thread

You know the drill!

Living Wage Mandatory only for Big Bad Companies

This does not strike me as an especially good idea:

Chicago requires big-box stores to pay 'living wage'

Brushing aside warnings from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., City Council approved an ordinance Wednesday that makes Chicago the biggest city in the nation to require big-box retailers to pay a "living wage."

"It's trying to get the largest companies in America to pay decent wages," said council member Toni Preckwinkle.

The ordinance passed, 35-14, after three hours of impassioned debate.

The measure requires retailers with more than $1 billion in annual sales and stores of at least 90,000 square feet to pay workers at least $10 an hour in wages plus $3 an hour in fringe benefits by mid-2010. The current minimum wage in Illinois is $6.50 an hour and the federal minimum is $5.15.

Mayor Richard M. Daley and others warned the living wage proposal would drive jobs and desperately needed development from some of the city's poorest neighborhoods and lead giants like Wal-Mart to abandon the city.

Now on the basis of allowing state-by-state and city-by-city laboratories, I'm willing to tolerate seeing what happens. Maybe for some of the bigger companies they are close enough that it won't be a huge deal. Home Depot pays substantially more than Walmart in labor costs, for example. But be ready for each company to crunch the numbers, and bail on any store where they don't add up.

The bottom line question is this: will this fiat make things better for Chicagoans? Will more blue-collar Chicagoans earn better wages while consumer options are sustained, or will some jobs go away and consumers end up with fewer shopping options and higher prices? If you are Walmart, would you consider closing any inner city stores and starting up Walmart buses to bring low-income customers to lower suburban prices? That might even be an entrepreneurial opportunity. Maybe you could turn a profit if you could get 20 people to pay $10 round trip for thrice daily 20 mile van trips from Chicago to the nearest open Walmart.

Or maybe you try harder to build walmarts on suburban public transit spokes.

Why Civ Is A Better Game Than Chess, (especially for free societies)

After playing lots and lots of Civ on my Istanbul trip, I've decided it's a better strategy game than chess, period, especially for democracies. Chess was at its height in the medieval era, and is still by far most reflective of unfree societies; I speculated on my trip that that's why chess was so much more popular in the USSR.

Chess pieces start in their position and basically stay that way; the only promotion rule is very limited in scope.

Chess reflects a medieval sense of economy - it's strictly a zero-sum game. We now understand that life is a positive-sum game, especially in democracies, where every day people gain place or position without somebody else losing a place.

Chess' strategy is a fairly artificial composition of different piece abilities to achieve the simulation of the advantages of having as many different pieces in coordinated play in a court.

Civ pieces are always getting better. Individual military units gain experience and become more powerful with increasing technology, workers get faster, etc..

Civ is deeply positive-sum. You get more cities, more people, more money, more knowledge, etc, as the game goes on, just like real life. The game is largely about growing faster in some way than your opponents.

Civ takes advantage of modern simulation to effect much more realistic results of player moves. It includes resources, budgets, trade, economics, war, diplomacy, human growth patterns, etc..

Interestingly, Tolkien's Middle-Earth is an example of chess-style thinking. A few years ago, I was trying to create a Civ Middle-Earth scenario, and gave up. Middle-Earth started with all the pieces, and got weaker and worse as they died. Any time you created anything of consequence (Ring, Feanorian jewels), the maker had to put in an equal sacrifice, so no Ring factories. People were mostly born into place; Frodo seems very like a queen promotion to me (pawn reaches end of board in critical place).

Because of all these things, playing Civ is a serious education in why things happen in free societies, and their strategies, not just how to play Civ. By contrast, I abandoned chess long ago because I felt the hours more went into learning chess.

Posted by Jon Kay at 11:59 PM | Comments (7)

The New Bull Moose Party

Some of you wrote-in Lieberman-McCain in 2004. I thought you would find this interesting, coming from the Moose:

The truth is that both parties are failing the American people. The Republicans put the donor class before the national interest. For the GOP, the elimination of the estate tax is more important than expanding the military. In the pursuit of power through pork, the Republicans have betrayed their small government principles.

And the Democrats are more focused on their rage against the President than forging a politics of national unity. Few Democrats have the courage, gumption or fortitude to stand up to the left wing nutroots and activists who are attempting to marginalize the party on national security.

That is why the Moose belongs to the McCain-Lieberman Faction (Bull Moose). Unlike most other politicians, both of these men are statesmen who are willing to challenge the foolish orthodoxies of petty partisans...

As far as the Moose is concerned, we profoundly need a politics of national unity. Given the structure of our political system, it is highly unlikely that there will be a serious third party in the foreseeable future. That is why the Moose will pick and choose stalwart national greatness politicians regardless of their party affiliation.

The Moose is convinced that the next President will be an individual who can unite the country and offer proposals that transcend the partisan divide. It is high time that cowering and pandering politicians wise up to that fact.

Oversimplification

Link.

One thing that would really improve political discourse, and maybe even lead to some better results, would be for all of us to stop oversimplifying issues. Our culture has fallen into a bad habit of trying to turn nearly every subject into a simple duality, with two opposite positions and no gray areas, no third or fourth or fifth possibilities, no troubling ambiguities. It makes life easier in the short run. We don’t have to think, all we have to do is try to yell louder than the obviously evil or crazy people on the other side. But it doesn’t work most of the time. There aren’t many issues that are really that simple, because if they were, they wouldn’t be issues. The only way either liberals or conservatives can turn them into such exercises in obviousness is to omit big parts of the picture, and that guarantees that we’re not seeing it accurately.

What a moonbat wanker this guy is.

More Kos Hypocrisy

I know, alot of posts on Kos this week, but I can't help myself. Take a look at nutroot central this morning.

The post at 8:57 AM is on the Connecticut senate race, you know the one where Kos is supporting a primary opponent to the incumbent U.S. Senator because he enables the Republican agenda by hugging the President, defending his policies (90% of which he votes against), and dares to work with Republicans.

The post at 8:47 is in support of Harold Ford, Jr. Who according to the July/August 2006 issue of the Atlantic is the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate who is campaigning across his state and telling voters he loves his President, supports privatizing social security, is bias toward homosexuals, proudly brags about working with Republicans, and believes the Bush doctrine is too liberal.

Don't get me wrong, I am as big of a supporter of Harold Ford as anyone, even if I don't always agree with him. There is no candidate for the U.S. Senate that I would rather see win; however, I feel this way because of his willingness to speak out against his own party when it tends to ignore the values of the average American.

Kos will tell you that it is okay that Ford be who he is because he is from a Republican state, but Lieberman cannot be independent because he is from a blue state... A blue state where the Governor's mansion and three out of the five congressional seats belong to Republicans.

Your money or your life

If known for anything, the American Health System is know for its innovation. But of course that comes at a price. In the past year we've seen a small explosion in expensive but "small benefit drugs". Here's the latest

Elaprase is the first-ever treatment for Hunter syndrome, an inherited and potentially fatal disorder in children that causes bulging features, growth problems, swollen organs, and eventual breakdown of the lungs. Only 500 patients in the United States are believed to have the disease, which affects mostly boys and can cause mental retardation

Believe me Hunter's disease is a devasting disease.

the more severe form, clinical manifestations become evident late in infancy, with the subsequent slow and systematic somatic and neurologic progression that ultimately leads to death by adolescence. The cause of death frequently is cardiorespiratory failure secondary to upper airway obstruction

A picture is worth a 1,000 words

Among the other new expensive "wonder" drugs: Erbitux Over $150,000 for three extra months? Herceptin$40,000 per year

The tough question, when we can't pay for our present system (that doesn't covers many millions) can we afford this. Tough questions for sure.

Kos is Just Another Special Interest

Other than calling Barbara Boxer a liar, which I can't help but snicker at, Kos articulates why it is that that he is not telling voters from another state how to mark their ballot:

We're supporting the efforts of local activists. That's what we're doing. I have no influence whatsoever on who locals vote for. But I can help generate the activism and money that's necessary for Ned Lamont to make his case to the people of his state. See the distinction? The insurance and pharmaceutical industries aren't telling the people of Connecticut who to vote for, they're sending millions Lieberman's way to protect their investment. That's the role us national bloggers play -- moral, activist, and financial support for our foot soldiers in the frontlines of the people-powered movement.

This goes to the center of my problem with the whole leftist netroot movement. If I got it right, and I leave open the possibility that I don't, they are arguing that Republicans take money from out of state big business, and that is wrong, but to win elections Democrats should also take money from out of staters and justify it by saying their cause is moral. Give me a break.

Kos says in another post regarding Bill Clinton's visit:

Connecticut voters don't need outsiders to tell them how to think about their senators.

What! So out of state bloggers okay, ex-Presidents not okay...

The truth is Kos is no better than Exxon or Phillip Morris executives who spend millions in other states to elect like minded individuals, or anyone else outside of Connecticut that cares about the implications of this race. Democratic politicians will in some part consider what a blogger from San Francisco thinks just as much or more than their own constituents. He can tell himself whatever it takes to sleep at night, but let's not kid ourselves, what Kos wants is the power to elect candidates that hold his views regardless of what the residents of that state want. That is no different than any corporate CEO in America.

My opposition to this wing of the Democratic Party isn't because of the issues they believe in, some of which I agree with them on, or that they are telling people who live in a different state how to vote - after all, that is what we are doing here by supporting Lieberman. My issue, rather, is that the foundation of their movement isn't principled. It's purely about politics, winning elections, not ideas, as Cavalier pointed out in the comment section of my previous post. This is why Kos can talk about burning moderate Democrats at the stake and then with a straight face stand hand in hand with Governor Mark Warner, who in some parts of the country would be considered a moderate Republican. This is why he can support a billionaire who has done a 180 on many issues such as trade, in order to run from the left against Lieberman, and refuses to disclose his finances, a tactic that Kos bashes Republican for on a regular basis.

The kind of politics that is peddled at the Daily Kos is no different than the Karl Rove, win no matter what, extreme partisanship that has further divided us apart and become a road block to sound public policy.

Moose has an excellent post today about what a Lamont victory means for the Democratic Party:

Fairly or unfairly, in many parts of the country, the national Democrats are perceived as ultra-liberal, secular and hostile to religious folks and weak on defense. And the Hollywood set and chattering nutroots don't help matters, at all.

What will have a disastrous impact on the national Democrat brand is the defeat of its former Vice-Presidential standard bearer and one of its most visible leaders on social and national security issues. The Republicans will long-exploit a lefty triumph as an example of the Democrats saying "no" to traditionalist, hawkish Americans.

I couldn't have said it better.

Wildcat open thread

Because it has been too darn quiet around here.

Kos Hearts Rasmussen, Bubba Campaigns for Joe

Every time Ramussen reports shows a Republican in the lead, the Kossacks almost in unison, label them partisan Republican pollsters. Now that Rasmussen shows Lamont crushing Lieberman in the primary, their tune has changed.

They actually have the audacity to lecture a former President of the United States, who is backing Joe and making a campaign swing on his behalf:

Mr. President, you obviously recognize the importance of keeping this seat in Connecticut in Democratic control. I hope that your commitment will bring you back to Connecticut following the primary and you will continue to work to keep this seat by campaigning again for the Democratic candidate, no matter whom it might be. Know that if the Democratic voters of Connecticut choose Joe Lieberman as their nominee, we as Democrats will follow your lead and support him.

Not likely, since one of Clinton's first political experiences was working for Joe Lieberman's campaign for State Senate in 1970. I just don't see the Godfather of DLC-centrism working on behalf of Ned Lamont in the general election. Political advice from the folks at Daily Kos, Bill Clinton doesn't need.

This is a debate I would like to see over the future of the Democratic Party: Bill Clinton vs. Markos Moulitsas, just to watch Bubba crush him like the flash in the pan twit he is.

Democratic primary voters woke up and smelled the rest of the country laughing at them over Howard Dean, something tells me they will do so in Connecticut.

BTW, our buddy Kos is going to be featured on Nightline this Monday night. Tune in to watch just how big his head gets.

UPDATE:

Apparently, I am wrong.

I still don't see a Clinton enthusiastic campaign swing for Ned Lamont in the general election, but I guess we shall see.

Open thread

TGIF.

Lamont surges

Link.

Anti-war Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Ned Lamont has surged to a razor-thin 51 - 47 percent lead over incumbent Sen. Joseph Lieberman among likely Democratic primary voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

This compares to a 55 - 40 percent lead for Sen. Lieberman among likely Democratic primary voters in a June 8 poll by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University.

In possible general election matchups:

• Lieberman defeats Republican challenger Alan Schlesinger 68 - 15 percent;
• Lamont beats Schlesinger 45 - 22 percent, with 24 percent undecided;
• Running as an independent, Lieberman gets 51 percent, to 27 percent for Lamont and 9 percent for Schlesinger.

I haven't looked yet, but I imagine that the lefty blogosphere is buzzing this morning.

Thank-you for Not Smoking...OR Else

CBS reports thatin many states you can be fired for smoking or just about anything else.

This is what happened to two Michigan women, Anita Epolito and Cara Stiffler.

Anita and Cara were considered model employees at Weyco, an insurance consulting firm outside of Lansing, Mich., both having worked at the company for years. The women sat side-by-side, sharing workloads – and after work – sharing the occasional cigarette.

But at a company benefits meeting two years ago, the company president announced, "As of January 1st, 2005, anyone that has nicotine in their body will be fired," Anita remembers.

...

Lewis Maltby, head of the National Workrights Institute in Princeton, N.J., calls Weyco's smoking ban a form of "lifestyle discrimination."

Maltby says it is perfectly legal in 20 states and in most of America a worker has virtually no rights at all. "Under the law in all but five states in America, your boss can fire you for any reason under the sun. Including who you associate with after work. Whether you're smoking or drinking in your own home. Or a bumper sticker on your car. And you have no legal recourse."

...

"There was a gentleman last fall in West Virginia who was fired because he asked an embarrassing question of a candidate at a political rally. There was a woman in Alabama who was fired for having a ‘Kerry For President’ bumper sticker on her car. They all called their lawyers. They all called the ACLU. All got the same answer. 'You have no legal rights.'"

There's legal, and there's right. Confuse them at your own peril. No big deal?Just wail 'til you get a health insurance premium increase along with a notice in the mail scolding you for that 5th donut of the month that put you over your allowance. Big brother? Big brother is the authoritarians of BOTH wings, hands joined together. And many of the rest of us will invite him in with open arms on the promise of $7 monthly saved on an insurance policy.

They came for the drug "abusers" and no one blinked. They came for the smokers and many said amen. They'll come more and more for the drinkers and many will say hallleluliah. When they start in on the fat people with renewed vigor, silence will mostly ensue. When the exercise police begin carting people off for treadmill prison, it will be too late. Next will be those too sedentary and the consumers of unhealthy entertainment. When they kick in your front door, how you gonna go?

Which do you believe?

Jim Kolbe has re-introdcued his bill to kill the penny. I'd like to hear rousing "godd riddances" all round, but CNN says not so fast.

Here's the disconnect part. CNN quotes a Gallup/USA today poll suggesting that 76% of poll respondents would pick up a penny if they saw one on the ground. This sounds WAY off to me. Meanwhile, the unscientific unreliable unsound CNN insta-click poll favors dumping the penny by almost 2 to 1.

'Zup with that? Is that the digital divide, or did 3 out of 4 people decide to have some fun at Gallup's expense? Or what? My personal experince suggests that almost no one would bother to pick up a stray penny. I think I'm going to start leaving them around in high traffic areas, just for fun.

Is the city/county divide that strong? Do people in the heartland and in flyover country cherish each cent? What's going on here.

Wildcat Tuesday Open Thread

Just because....because I have a question about something fun I saw on the net. See the comments. Everything else is ok to, because we're OPEN for biz.

Update; my raison d'etre for wildcat open threading mentioned in the thread below, the blog thatgirlemily, has been exposed as marketing.

Military Proselytization

A number of people have suggested that the Bush Administration is more moderate than normally portrayed and that it is, indeed, not in thrall to the Religious Right. I take the opposite view--that even though the Administration does not publically support all of the Religious Right agenda, it has established a zeitgest in which the Religious Right knows it can push the envelope without any fear of resistance. This is most apparent in the flap over Christian proselytizing at the military academies. Finally, as this Washinton Post article shows, someone is fighting back.

I'm sure that people will criticize Weinstein for "granstanding" or being a self-promoter. Maybe he is. But this seems like a real problem. My point about the administration is that it's hard to envision this proselytizing movement advancing this far in a Gore or Kerry Administration. The military has always been a fairly insular institution and, certainly, it has never been particularly welcoming to non-Christians. (In Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" he describes how, in the 50s military, there were distintions even within Christianity in terms of which denominations were more socially acceptable and tended to have people in the higher ranks.) And, of course, there have never traditionally been a lot of non-Christians in the military. Still, the idea that conservative Christian chaplains see it as their right to push their religion in an institution that, to my mind, should be absolutely neutral about religion, shows something about the in-roads that the Religious Right has made during this administration. No, Bush doesn't push the Right's agenda in public, but he sure doesn't prevent it from flourishing.

More Care = Better Care?

In a recent NYT op-ed Dr. David Goodman discussed the physician supply and its effects on elder care.

Many studies have demonstrated that quality of care does not rise along with the number of doctors. Compare Miami and Minneapolis, for example. Miami has 40 percent more doctors per capita than Minneapolis has, and 50 percent more specialists...The elderly in Miami are subjected to more medical interventions — more echocardiograms and mechanical ventilation in their last six months of life, for example — than elderly patients in Minneapolis are. This also means more hospitalizations, more days in intensive care units, more visits to specialists and more diagnostic tests for the elderly in Miami. It certainly leads to many more doctors employed in Florida. But does this expensive additional medical activity benefit patients? Apparently not. The elderly in places like Miami do not live longer than those in cities like Minneapolis. According to the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, which polls some 12,000 elderly Americans about their health care three times a year, residents of regions with relatively large numbers of doctors are no more satisfied with their care than the elderly who live in places with fewer doctors.

Dr. Goodman is part of an ongoing research project , The Dartmouth Atlas Project. The Project's focus has been on the relationship between health care utilization/spending and outcomes. The results tend to be very disconcerting for the Health Care system. For example, the conclusions of another recent study demonstrated

that, for these chronically ill Americans, receiving more services does not result in improved outcomes, and since most Americans say they prefer to avoid a very "high-tech" death, the report concludes that Medicare spending for the care of the chronically ill could be reduced by as much as 30% - while improving quality, patient satisfaction, and outcomes

Because I'm "inside" the system I hear this news loudly. I'm not sure how much press it gets in the "real world" but I beleive these finding will have profound and long-term efforts on how policy makers and health plans view the American Health Care (i.e. "Less for More)

Deterence and disengagement in the Middle East

When surfing for info regarding the recent quasi-war between Israel and Lebanon I found this eerily predictive op-ed from the Jerusalem Post. (NOTE:, this op-ed was 1 week before the soldier kidnappings and attacks in northern Israel.) First the opinion/question regarding the withdrawal from then re-engagement with Gaza

What has happened confirms the prediction of disengagement opponents that evacuating settlements and the IDF would reduce our military capabilities and facilitate attacks against us. As retired general Ya'acov Amidror pointed out this week, Israel was able to find the killers of Eliahu Asheri almost immediately because they were in the West Bank, where our intelligence and operational capabilities remain strong, while we seem not to be able to find or rescue kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit in Gaza, despite Herculean efforts... TO ANSWER our original question, disengagement and its sequel are dead if the Palestinians can continue to attack Israel from Gaza, not only without sufficiently significant international condemnation, but with the distinct possibility that Israel might be condemned for fighting back. Why would Israel withdraw from more territory once it is proven that we receive no recognition and attacks only increase from where we have already withdrawn?

.

Then the prescient statement

SO WHY is Lebanon relatively quiet while Gaza is not? Not because of any lack of Hizbullah capability to hit Israel. The Kassam rocket that hit Ashkelon this week is nothing compared to what Hizbullah could rain on Haifa, our third largest city, if it wished.

Sderot, and now Ashkelon, are under missile attack while northern Israel isn't because we have established that Lebanon and Syria will be punished in the latter case, while we have not created a similar form of deterrence against the Palestinian leadership. ..Once the UN recognized that Israel had left every inch of Lebanese territory, Hizbullah had no justification for its attacks and Israel had the right to punish Lebanon and its Syrian masters for any aggression.

So withdraw from territory and get attacked. Respond "strongly" to the attacks and become the "bad guy".

The Weasels Are Running

So, come to find out, the weasels are running. Here in Boston, we have a head of the turnpike authority trying to elude a Mitt Romney death blow in the wake of Big Dig tunnel collapse. And the Red Sox have a rookie pitcher, John Lester, who I am proposing Sox fans give the nom-de-guerre Johnny Weasel. He lets on all these baserunners, but they seldom score. His numbers so far:

5 IP, 5H, 5BoB, 1 ER
6 IP, 6H, 3BoB, 2 ER
5 IP, 7H, 3BoB, 2 ER
5 IP, 4H, 5BoB, 2 ER
6 IP, 3H, 2BoB, 1 ER
6 IP, 5H, 3BoB, 1 ER
4.1 IPH, 5, 4BoB, 3 ER

For the sabermetricians, he's sporting a 2.45 ERA despite a WHIP of 1.61. That's unheard of. Of course, this may not last. Maybe he's just lucky and doesn't have a special weasel gene.

But that's OK, because another weasel is back. Newt Gingrich... with a freshly parsed position on social issues. Running for prez in 2008? Hat tip Simon over at stubborn facts for pointing out this excerpt from a recent Newsweek interview:

You haven't talked about a lot of social issues. What role should gay marriage and abortion play?

I think they're part of the fabric of life. But I don't think you can wave them off the table. I am conservative and I favor defending traditional marriage between man and wife, which has been for 2,000 years the primary relationship—3,000 years if you count the Jewish experience. I am pro-life. And I think those issues do matter and they are significant.

I guess it depends on the measing of the word "fabric," eh Newt? I don't despise Newt Gingrich, but he speaks with forked tongue here. Tell us how you feel Newt. Is it acceptable or not? Many of the socons who might vote for you have only one question...fer or agin?

Too bad Gingrich is so unelectable he may not get ANY traction. He's a thoughtful guy at base.

Who's In Charge Here?

In Triumph of the Authoritarians, John Dean attacks the authoritarians he claims have taken over the Republican Party.

For more than 40 years I have considered myself a ``Goldwater conservative," and am thoroughly familiar with the movement's canon. But I can find nothing conservative about the Bush/Cheney White House, which has created a Nixon ``imperial presidency" on steroids, while acting as if being tutored by the best and brightest of the Cosa Nostra.

What true conservative calls for packing the courts to politicize the federal judiciary to the degree that it is now possible to determine the outcome of cases by looking at the prior politics of judges? Where is the conservative precedent for the monocratic leadership style that conservative Republicans imposed on the US House when they took control in 1994, a style that seeks primarily to perfect fund-raising skills while outsourcing the writing of legislation to special interests and freezing Democrats out of the legislative process?

Seems the former Nixon White House Counsel is not in a mood to pull his punches.

Authoritarian conservatives are, as a researcher told me, ``enemies of freedom, antidemocratic, antiequality, highly prejudiced, mean-spirited, power hungry, Machiavellian and amoral." And that's not just his view. To the contrary, this is how these people have consistently described themselves when being anonymously tested, by the tens of thousands over the past several decades.

Again, no punches being pulled. In a sense I think it's a shame that the rhetoric here is SO over the top and plays so closely into the words that some liberal democrats use to stereotype conservatives. But psychogically speaking ( I have a psych undergrad degree) it's spot on to suggest that social conservatives have a serious authoritarian streak.

Of course saying that tends to lead to comparative political demonology (CPD). I'll cheerfully concede that such authoritarianism tends to crop up the further you head towards either wing. The existence of would-be nannies seeking power over everyday folk is a problem regardless of the wing you're talking about.

The rub though is that the right wing is running things these days.

It's An Open Thread!

Who would ever have expected it?

All's Fair In Love and War?

In case you didn't know, it appears that Valerie Plame has filed a lawsuit against Dick Cheney, for the whole CIA leak fiasco. There's been a thought stuck in my head for a while now, and recent events have forced me to finally share my thoughts on it. The general consensus amongst the pro-Bush camp on this is a justification of the leak, that fluctuates between the idea that either Plame wasn't really covert, and the idea that even if she was, her outing was necessary, in order to counter the falsehoods of her husband, Ambadassor Joe Wilson. I'm a supporter of the war (a fact well-established amongst these quarters), but I'm wondering whether attacking the husband, by going after the wife, is just, circumstances nothwithstanding.

I get the idea that Joe Wilson's assertions about Iraq and uranium needed to be countered, at the very least, subjected to scrutiny. There is a legitimate amount of convincing evidence that Wilson is at the very least suspect, and at worst, an unscrupulous fraud. I get the idea that his asertions needed to be countered, but assuming his wife was indeed covert (and it seems clear to me that she most likely was), was it necessary to leak his wife's identity, in order to legitimately discredit him? It seems to me that it would have been entirely possible to counter his assertions, without potentially endangering his wife. Was Wilson so capable of doing fatal violence to the war plan for Iraq, that all attempts to undermine him and his credentials are somehow justified? I just find it hard to climb aboard that train.

Israel Says It's War

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared the attack as an “act of war” and not terror. During a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi Wednesday afternoon, he called it an unprovoked assault by a sovereign nation and held Lebanon, where Hizbullah has a minister in the government, fully responsible. “Israel’s response will be restrained but very, very, very painful,” Olmert added.

Good starting points here and here.

So far, Israel seems to be restricting itself to hurting Hezbollah, which sounds good to me. BUT, though an incursion into Lebanon is unavoidable for that purpose, as a Lebanese blogger points out, he's holding the wrong nation responsible. I find his idea that Bashar Assad is the major culprit pretty persuasive, though I think his idea of Israeli vs. Syrian force correlation (much less vs US) is a little off. No, I think Olmert just hasn't thought this through. If Olmert tries to reoccupy a Lebanon that's elected a goverment, I think it'll go way worse than the last occupation, or like Vietnam. The Profesora called this the "hundred years' war" for its sheer likely endlessness.

Huh?

The Times reports that Hillary, once the devil incarnate to the healthcare industry, now is living off the fat of the land

As she runs for re-election to the Senate from New York this year and lays the groundwork for a possible presidential bid in 2008, Mrs. Clinton is receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from doctors, hospitals, drug manufacturers and insurers. Nationwide, she is the No. 2 recipient of donations from the industry, trailing only Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a member of the Republican leadership.

Mrs. Clinton explains

“We tried to do too much too fast 12 years ago, and I still have the scars to show for it,” she said in an address in March before the annual conference of the Federation of American Hospitals.

Money has a wonderful "clarifying" effect.

Americanization vs. Dutchification

Over at the Gruntled Center, Gruntled has posted a neat little essay on how the Dutch have and will adapt to their immigrants.. Here's a taste

by mid-century, had organized everyone into one religious/ideological pillar or another. The Dutch "nation" was the sum of these pillars. Their national identity was composed of mutually tolerant minorities

But then the immigrants came

True believers in Europe are trying to forge a strong European identity, and it is possible that the residents of the Low Country will become strong Europeans in the future. So far, though, there is not enough to "Europe" to make a real identity, and the Dutch have proven skeptical of the European Union anyway.
The Dutch future is a negative space waiting to be filled by a positive identity

And in contrast to this Dutch experiment

The United States has a muscular tradition of assimilating immigrants through Americanization. Some of the more relativist elites in this country now shrink from anything so forceful, but most Americans, and most immigrants, do strongly identify with the American dream and the American Project. We still do make Americans out of all the world's people, just as we do with each new generation born here.

That's what excites me about all of this immigrant debate. I know its a part of 200+ year tradition of assimilating (often with great difficulty) and re-inventing what an "American" is. And (I know this sounds sappy) it has nothing to do with "race, creed or national origin". I love it!

Train Bombing in Bombay

Here is one report that says 20 are dead. MSNBC is reporting up to 60.

If it suits you, pray.

Update:

Now MSNBC says that seven blasts killed over 100 people.

Promise Made, Promise Kept?

Looks as if the doom and gloom projections about the budget deficit were way off.

Bush promise: Cut the deficit in half during his second term.

White House public goal: $260 billion by 2009.

Old projection: $423 billion.

Current projection for this year: $296 billion (-$127 billion), two years before the end of the second term.

Although some very smart people are telling us to hold off on popping the corks, and probably rightly so, this is good news for an administration that obviously needs some. Those Republicans in Congress who predicted this would happen after the passage of the Bush tax cuts have got to be smiling. Whether or not the tax cuts are truly the reason for the welcomed news, perception is power, and this could take another issue away from the Democrats in 2006.

With Francince Busby's loss in California, the obvious divisions of the Democratic Party being made painfully obvious due to coverage of the Connecticut Senate race, the death of Al-Zarkawi, the return of Karl Rove, the sound defeat of the deadline amendments in Congress, and now this, it seems the talk of a Democratic takeover has fizzled away for the time being.

Isn't it time to talk with North Korea?

Isn't this getting out of hand?

On Meet the Press former UN Ambassador, Energy Secretary, and current New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, suggested that the six party talks between the United States, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and North Korea were failing to produce any measurable result and it was time for the Bush administration to sit down unilaterally with King Jong-Il. I am not an expert in foreign diplomacy at all, but Richardson made a lot of sense to me.

I have no problem with the concept of the six party talks, but I do have a problem with relying on other nations such as China and Russia to further diplomacy aimed at protecting American lives. China's interests appear to be China's interests.

Japan is threatening a preemptive strike that they apparently aren't capable of carrying out, which makes one wonder if they will rely on their closest ally in the world to do their dirty work for them. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich has all but suggested it is time for the use of military force, but I don't see a scenario where this doesn't result in at least the temporary fall of South Korea. Regardless, isn't it time to do something other than stay the course? The Bush administration seems to believe that the six party talks will eventually be successful, but aren't providing much in the way of benchmarks and timelines.

The wing nuts on the right love to post pictures of Richardson and Madeline Albright with Jong-Il, but the fact of the matter is that under the watch of the previous administration, progress was made in regards to North Korea, or at least that is the current perception. Let’s not forget that the same right wing elements of the Republican Party once accused Ronald Reagan of compromising with communists over his talks with Gorbachev. I don't see where this administration has done anything but set us back on this issue. I don’t understand what is currently being done to fix this problem. I'm all for missile defense, but am not confident regarding its readiness.

Gandelman On Joe

The Moderate Voice's Joe Gandelman has been on tour with his dummy, but he's set aside time to write about Joe Lieberman's predicament. One comment on the post notes that other Senator's are receiving primary challenges. The reason the Lieberman challenge has a bit more resonance is that, unusually, the challenger has received national support.

While the goal, to enforce party discipline, has a certain logic, the message that centrists may hear may be similar to what pro-life Democrats heard when Bob Casey was frozen out at the 1992 Democratic Convention--that a certain type of centrist Democrat is not welcome in the party. Ironically, Democrats have gotten behind Bob Casey, Jr. in his race for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania.

The trend in the Democratic Party has been toward the left lately, with even DLC Democrats like Mark Warner catering to the YearlyKos crowd. I don't think this will hurt them in 2006, which will be more a referendum on Bush's 2nd term. But in 2008, they won't have Bush to rally against, and centrist independents who are dissatisfied with the current administration may find the next Republican nominee more friendly to them.

A Review of The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, by Ray Kurzweil, and Accelerando, by Charlie Stross

Both books are about pretty much the same thing: the imminence of the point where old-fashioned neurons are a minority of computation power, both in in terms of artificial AIs and within our own brains. That will have a number of interesting implications. AIs beyond "unaided-human" intelligence level will grow common. We will grow smart along with them, and become able to easily do things that are very hard now. Accurate uploading of humans into computers and backups of human consciousness will be both possible, and regular parts of society. Longevity will also continue to be on the increase.

Kurzweil's book is long, well-written, thorough nonfiction. Stross' is fun, even better-written, moderate-length SF. I strongly recommend both, but I doubt you'll be shocked to read that you're likelier to make it through Stross. If long, engineering-related nonfiction isn't your thing, just get Stross.

There's just one thing that bugs me about these books: despite having been an ardent Vernor Vinge fan since age 17, I've never bought into of a notion of a Singularity. It's never modelled past progress well, and I see the same kind of exponentially accelerating growth continuing into the future. The absolutely huge changes that Vinge, Kurzweil, and and Stross discuss will come upon society just as incrementally as before, and exponentially go from nothing to society-wide use, just like the Internet did, though the changes are of increasing importance. Kurzweil and Stross are calling the spot where artificially produced intelligence outweighs good ol' grey cells the Singularity, but I don't see what non-exponential things will be going on there.

There is some interesting SF that's been out awhile now on relevant topics. Almost anything by Vinge, of course, but also a series of good novels by Iain Banks, set in a future called the Culture. Banks probably correctly noted that communism would be entirely feasible in an age with virtually unlimited computing power. Many Culture citizens do upload, but also many humans and drones voluntarily stay at standard-human level, and effectively are happy pets of those that do the work. Personally, I believe that capitalist societies will also continue to also exist indefinitely alongside the new communism. and also continue to outperform it until either quantum computing or (and without quantum, this'll take awhile) there's enough computing power to truly model our societies very accurately.

Value Voters

As a follow up to Simon's post and "vigorous" discussion on Pro-life Democrats, here's an article from the St Louis Post Dispatch regarding the Democratic and Republican party's positioning for the fall elections.

Last week, House Republican leaders unveiled an election-year "values agenda" that included a gay marriage ban, abortion restrictions and legislation preserving the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, among other items

And as has been true for some time now, the Democratic Party continues to struggle with how to appeal to the "value voters". And the latest combatant in this epic struggle, Barak Obama

"At best we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone or claiming that ... constitutional principles tie our hands," Obama said in a speech to Call to Renewal, a liberal Christian group focused on eliminating poverty.

"At worst," Obama said, "there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant ... (with some) thinking that the word 'Christian' describes one's opponents, not people of faith."

As a "value voter" (and I hope we're all value voters; in other words, using our values to inform our votes) I'm getting tired of the political pandering. Poverty programs AND marriage laws are both "values" issues. But please don't "qualify" my values based on the party of the candidate I vote for.

These "values" issues seem particluarly prickly for centrists. Is it a discomfort with religious or quasi-religious talk? Is it discomfort with politicizing private issues? Is it a reaction to code words meant to stir the right wing base?

Based on the recent elections, wooing "value voters" won't go away. So how do centrists speak to "value voters?

Friday Open Thread

Yeah, it was a short week, wasn't it?

Wikia

Wikipedia founder wonders what wikis can do for politics:

Campaigns have been more about getting the television messaging right, the image, the soundbite, than about engaging ordinary people in understanding and caring how political issues really affect their lives ... Blog and wiki authors are now inventing a new era of media, and it is my belief that this new media is going to invent a new era of politics. If broadcast media brought us broadcast politics, then participatory media will bring us participatory politics.

Thoughts?

Lieberman/Lamont Tonight

For those of you who are interested in politics not just because you care about your country, but you also love the drama, Lieberman and Lamont are slugging it out in a nationally televised debate that will air on Hardball with Chris Matthews at 4PM EST. For those of us on the West Coast, Matthews also comes on at 4 PM our time.

I have watched this primary with great interest. I think Redstate contributor Mark Kilmer wraps it up the best, when he writes:

Lieberman is pro-abort, pro-human embryonic stem cell experiments, pro-drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, and anti-ANWR exploration. He believes that America specifically is responsible for global warming. He supported McCain-Feingold. He voted against the nomination of Justice Alito. Lieberman's ADA rating – the higher, the more liberal – is in the 80s. (For comparison, Arlen Specter's is only about 50.)

Joe Lieberman faces an August 8 Democrat primary in Connecticut against a rich guy named Ned. Ned Lamont. I know Ned Lamont as that fire-breathing orator dazzling an audience while seated on his expensive sofa when a group of weirdoes peers into his windows and breaks into his home, distracting the candidate and shouting over his message. (There were breath mints in there somewhere, I think.)

Ned Lamont is, by his account, a liberal. He has two things going for him with the disgruntled (think: postal workers) Dem base: piles of cash and he's not Joe Lieberman. By all accounts, Lamont has Ned-mentum. (I know it doesn't work, but none of this makes much sense.)

This to me represents why even after they clearly don't want my kind anymore, I still vote for Republicans more than Democrats. Here is Joe Lieberman, who by most accounts is an elder statesman, a liberal, a sensible progressive whose only break with his party is that he had the audacity to even suggest that Bill Clinton's actions weren't Presidential, oh, and he supports a war that most other Democrats in the U.S. Senate voted for. Lieberman is radically pro-gay, pro-environment, pro-union and pro-government. He actually suggested as a Presidential candidate that we should create a government department which would solely be responsible for wiping out cancer. None of this means a lick to the nutroots who have no patience for a man who would dare work with the President from another party, yet nobody is running against Ted Kennedy in the primary over "No Child Left Behind."

Kos is taking names and has turned against Barbara Boxer for campaigning on Lieberman's behalf. That is right, Barbara Boxer, quite possibly the most liberal of U.S. Senators. He has praised those like Barack Obama, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and DLC-chair Tom Vilsack, for stating they would support the Democratic nominee in what can only be classified as a pander to their base. What he doesn't tell you is that Obama is specifically responsible for a big chunk of Lieberman's war chest, and although Vilsack and Clinton are on his good sides today they are often the target of Kos's daily rants against Democrats who understand politics is about building coalitions. It seems you are only Kos's friend depending on which day of the week it is, or if you serve his narrow self purpose. This is even more evidence that the man is out for number one more than any cause or principle.

Needless to say, it is all in good fun. I expect an entertaining debate; the statesman versus the well spoken progressive loud mouth. I'll give Lamont credit for having the guts to debate the likes of Joe Lieberman on national television. My prediction is that the Senator hands his ass to him.

BTW, the Moose has been tearing it up on this issue here, here, here, and here.

You've Got to Let This Go

It's time to call it a day. The people have spoken. Man, you just know how this is going to be spun.

Penn 13th

We've received an email from a Centrist who is supporting Raj for Congress. You may remember Raj from his being a candidate on The Apprentice, Donald Trump's reality show, a while back. Raj says

I am not your typical Republican. As an environmentalist, I intend to grow a greener Republican Party, which grows our national park system and works to clean our air and make our communities more livable.

And there is the Raj Blog.

The incumbent, Democrat Allyson Schwartz, is a member of the House New Democrat Coaltion, a group of Centrist Democrats, and emphasizes bipartisanship in her bio.

The Centrist Coalition takes no position on this race between two moderate candidates. Readers are invited to compare and contrast.

Pro life dems

Some thoughts from pro-life Dem blogger The Gadfly of Thought:

[B]elieve it or not, there are many Democrats who don't favor abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy right up until the moment that the baby is born. Some of us have enough intelligence to know that there is no significant difference other than mere location between a third trimester fetus and a born baby ... I doubt I will ever be able to bring myself to vote Republican [but] I do hold out hope that Justice John Paul Stevens will retire while a Republican President is in office. That will either confirm my belief that the Republicans don't really want abortion to end, if they fail to nominate and confirm a pro-life replacement; or it will overturn Roe v. Wade. I'd be happy with either outcome, and much happier with the latter.

(Hat tip: Confirm Them).

In many ways it really shouldn't come as any surprise that there are pro-life Democrats, any more than there are pro-choice Republicans. It seems to me that, depending on your beliefs about when life begins and how competing interests should be balanced, there is ample support in the theoretical underpinnings of both conservatism and liberalism to reach either conclusion. That is, to some extent, it seems vaguely illogical that abortion should have come to be seen as a partisan issue; one's party affiliation is less determinative of one's position on abortion than is one's views on when life begins, a question that neither Hayek nor Keynes has much to say about.

We have talked about this many times here as a side-issue (for example, in terms of the legitimacy, or lack thereof, of Roe, which as I've pointed out many times is a very different question), but I don't think we've ever confronted it head-on. What do you view as a centrist position on abortion, and how would you distinguish it from what you percieve to be the positions of the two sides?

Major scientific breakthrough

One day, scientists may be able to say with precision exactly how much it cost each New Jersey voter to elect Jon Corzine:

The closure, which could cost gaming operators more than $10 million a day in wagers and the state millions in taxes, comes after Gov. Jon Corzine shut down non-essential state services on July 1 and a New Jersey appellate court rejected a plea by casinos to stay open.

The practical upshot of all this is that "[i]f the casinos shut down, the state would lose an estimated $2 million in tax revenue each day they stayed closed," "more than 60,000 people are out of work until legislators can agree on a budget ... [and] [t]he state also will lose another $2 million a day by closing the lottery system."

Of course, the really intriguing thing about this is that New Jersey is having their budget crisis in a purely non-partisan fashion. Technically, they have to: New Jersey has a Democratic governor and Democratic majorities in both chambers of its legislature, 48 to 32 and 22 to 18 respectively. So remember, New Joisians: when you go to the polls this fall to vote for your assemblymen, remember what your governor has said ("Corzine accus[ed] legislators of putting politics above good government") and remember who he's talking about. All in all - with friends like this, who needs a GOP marketing budget?

Better yet, there was already a firm feeling that although New Jersey leans Democratic, if the GOP were going to pull off an upset anywhere this fall, it would be to beat Conzine's handpicked successor Bob Menendez. It's not readily apparent if their could be any more stunningly timely event to suggest to the New Jersey electorate that maybe they want to look at the other side of the ticket this fall,at Tom Kean.

July 4th

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Leiberman Makes It Official

If the activists drive him under in the primary (still a very unlikely scenario) he'll run as an independent.

Lieberman Will Petition

"I've been a proud, loyal and progressive Democrat since John F. Kennedy inspired my generation of Americans into public service and I will stay a Democrat, whether I am the Democraitic party's nominee or a petitioning Democratic candidate on the November ballot," Lieberman said. He added that he would, even if re-elected as a petitioning candidate, remain a member of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Leiberman is showing considerably more loyalty to his party than his party is showing to him. Good for him.

Isn't The Hot War Over?

This is a movement of my assertion from the NY Times Did The Right Thing thread to here, so we can argue over it separately.

There was alot of controversy over my statement that I feel the hot war is over. Well, there's two parts to what remains. I see Iraq and Afghanistan as into occupation. That's long, hard, and tricky - we could easily still be there in decades - but our position at this time is militarily unthreatened. How is it war?

The other part is the key, the terrorists themselves. They're deglobalized. Their last, er, big strike, heh, on London, caused only 54 deaths and virtually no infrastructural damage. It's nothing compared to 9/11 or the attack on Spain that brought a change of goverment. It's even wimpy compared to Bali, some years ago. Since they lack the ability to cause serious damage, haven't we won?

What I'm looking for is less of an atmosphere of, we have keep it all on or there might be another 9/11 or worse, and more of a, what ongoing, long-term, thoroughly Constitutional measures will help? Note, I think the Administration deserves kudos for this reality of low danger. But isn't it time to start being more skeptical about things like the extension of wiretapping / financial data collection to friends of suspects that the Patriot Act allows, TSA arrangements, and warrantless wiretapping and financial data collection?

Supporting the Troops

We hear a lot of lip service about "supporting the troops."

But talk is cheap. Some folks do more than just talk, and deserve your help in supporting the troops in one of the most basic ways there is--by supporting their families right here at home.

OPERATION HOMEFRONT concentrates on helping the families of deployed service members in the lower pay grades, E-1 to E-6, by soliciting and distributing donations to military families in need, helping them cope with the day to day crises of living without their deployed loved ones. They organize and coordinate free and discounted services, volunteer efforts, media outreach, emergency financial assistance, and much, much more.

Give 'em a look, give 'em a few bucks, give 'em a few hours, or register your business for donated services and discounts.

[Cross-posted at Stubborn Facts]