The House of Rapp

Damn Foreigner is back, and it’s good to see him among the living (posting?).

His most recent entry was on a topic that is near and dear to his heart: immigration.  He’s a smart guy and makes some salient points.

However, I was left wondering what solution he might offer to fix this thorny problem.  Should we allow anyone into the U.S. without any regard for who they are, why they’re here, or what our needs might be?

I don’t think that’s what he proposes.  But there are some who feel that way.

As a Southern California native, I’ve noticed some things about this area.  To put it bluntly, the quality of life is falling due to overpopulation.  This is a long term trend that I’ve been watching over a period of decades.

When I fly over Southern California, the city extends as far as the eye can see.  From Santa Barbara to the Mexican border, and from Oxnard to Palm Springs.  It’s a solid mass of densely populated metropolis that covers 10,000 square miles.

Our resources are limited.  The land can only hold so many homes.  The roads can only hold so many cars.  The schools only so many kids, the land only support so many people.  The hospitals, the social infrastructure, they are also limited.

From what I can see, we reached those limits a long time ago.  And for better or worse, a significant percentage of Socal’s growing population are illegal immigrants.  They are not the only source of population growth, but according to the INS, for every three legal immigrants that enter the U.S., one enters illegally.  We take in about 900,000 legal immigrants and another 300,000 illegal ones every year.

This is why I feel that strong border control is necessary.

I am not anti-immigration.  I have always said that America’s strength derives from the freedom and diversity of her people.  However, for the reasons I stated above (not to mention national security — a porous border is an obvious asset to those who would harm us), we need to control the rate at which immigration takes place.

I also believe that, as a soverign nation, controlling immigration is our right.  It does not make us racists, despite what many would have you believe.

It’s ironic that when other countries control their borders tightly, they are not accused of jingoism.  To wit, a good friend of mine recently moved to Vancouver to work as an actor.  He’s a law abiding citizen with a clean record, but Canada decided he was not necessary for their work force.  He was compelled to return to the United States, and he did.

I don’t blame Mexicans with a third world standard of living for seeking out a better life.  To be honest with you, if I were in their shoes, I might well be doing the same thing:  trying to sneak across the border.  On the other hand, I couldn’t honestly fault the United States for trying to keep me from entering the country illegally.

DF noted that some who wish to come to the U.S. don’t have a “line” to stand in.  Are we sure this is the reason they cross into the U.S. illegally?  As he said, the process of legal entry takes time.  There is a certain ease to simply crossing the border rather than dealing with paperwork and delays.

Illegal immigration isn’t just bad for the United States.  It can be disastrous for the immigrant.  As DF noted, illegals are ripe for exploitation since employers know they cannot seek the legal protections and remedies that the rest of us enjoy, lest they risk detection and deportation.

U.S. immigration law allows for entry into the U.S. via four basic methods:  family sponsorship, employment, diversity, and political asylum.  There are myriad ways to get into this country legally, but it’s entirely possible that some people simply don’t have a legitimate claim for entry into this country.

For example, Mexico might well be given a low priority on the “diversity” list since so many Mexicans have recently immigrated to the U.S.  So many, in fact, that according to the Southern California Association of Governments, Hispanics are no longer a minority group:

The Hispanic population now represents the largest ethnic group (40.57%) in Southern California, followed by White (38.85%), Asian (10.19%) and African American (7.30%).

The bottom line?  We cannot take everyone who wants to come here.  The demand exceeds our ability to supply, especially here in California where, according to the last census, we took in more aliens than New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey combined.

Last Friday, former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham was sentenced to eight years and four months in federal prison for what has been described as the worst case of corruption in the history of Congress.

I had a theatre professor in college who once said that when you make a choice on stage, don’t be timid – commit to it.  His parlance was, “sin boldly”.  That’s what I thought of when reading the laundry list of Cunningham’s offenses.  He sinned… boldly.  Bribery.  Tax evasion.  Conspiracy.  Lying to government investigators.  The list is long, and the dollar amounts are big.

Was the sentence just?  If anyone was cheated by his actions, it was Duke’s own constituents.  You may want to read their comments.  Some pro… but mostly con (no pun intended).

Political malfeasance isn’t surprising.  What irritates me about Cunningham is that he’s given aviators and the U.S. Navy a black eye, reinforcing every macho “Top Gun” stereotype imaginable.  Okay, that’s not illegal.  But I wish it was.  Organizations like AOPA spend years educating the public about how conscientious aviators are.  I’ve expended a lot of energy on that topic myself, and it all gets wasted when a high profile individual like Cunningham goes off the deep end.

Duke has to repay his ill-gotten gains — at the rate of $1,000 per month.  Since his congressional and military pensions are still in full effect (they can only be stripped in cases of treason), he won’t exactly be left destitute.

The average pension for a former congressman is $55,788 per year, and based on his time in office, he should be getting more than that.  I’d estimate closer to $85,000, based on examples in the CRS Report.  I don’t know what his Navy pension will be, but I assume it would push his income well into the six figure range even while he sits in prison.  I don’t know what you do for a living, dear reader, but to this flight instructor that seems like a lot of dough.

I’m glad the judge gave consideration to Duke’s military service.  Wartime service is honorable and worthy of rememberance.  But I can’t help but feel he’s getting off lighter than a no-name offender would.

Iraq is now creeping away from murderous authoritarianism to face the more normal messes of a creaky Third World nation: corruption, poverty, health problems, miserable public services. And that is vastly preferable to what came before. 

American Enterprise editor-in-chief Karl Zinsmeister just got back from Iraq, and he looks at the war’s progress from short and long-term historical perspectives.

His conclusion:  perhaps the sky isn’t falling after all.

If you want to read the Arthur Cherenkoff media analysis Zinsmeister refers to, it’s available here.

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia written and maintained by the millions of people who use it.  Anyone can edit Wikipedia, and its contents are free and open.

Open communities of this type have a sordid history on the internet.  Without rigorous moderation, these things devolve into a repositories for conspiracy theorists, morons, flame wars, and really twisted stuff like spam.  Usenet is the ultimate example.  It’s 99% noise, 1% content.

Wikipedia has managed to sidestep these landmines.  It’s not perfect, but it does represent the largest and most up-to-date encyclopedia on the planet.  For a free, user-operated web site to be that useful is quite an achievement.

Alas, the grubby Mr. Smiths in Washington are spoiling the party.  Surprise, surprise.  They’re using Wikipedia to airbrush the truth, trash their political opponents, and generally run the joint like it was one of their advertising campaings.  Normally they’d get away with it, but on the internet, IP addresses allow these things to be traced.

It’s reached the point where an RFC (request for comment) has gone out to the Wikipedia community proposing that the U.S. Congress have their IP addresses blocked permanently.

If only the voters could block these clowns that easily…

CNet summarized the situation nicely:

We already know, of course, that politicians live primarily for re-election and typically view the truth as an impediment to the higher purpose of unfettered self-aggrandizement.

Still, we can be excused for feeling mildly nauseated when fresh confirmation of this distasteful aspect of modern politicking surfaces.

The latest episode appeared last week in the form of a report that aides to Rep. Marty Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat, deleted references to his broken term-limits pledge and massive campaign war chest on Wikipedia.

Then the trusty editors at Wikipedia got together and compiled a list of over 1,000 edits made by Internet addresses allocated to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The IP address subsequently was blocked and unblocked.

An extensive analysis reveals how juvenile official Washington secretly is, behind the mind-numbingly serious talk of public policy.

One edit listed White House press secretary Scott McClellan under the entry for “douche.” Another said of Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma) that: “Coburn was voted the most annoying Senator by his peers in Congress. This was due to Senator Coburn being a huge douche-bag.”

(Keep in mind these are the same holier-than-thou political climbers tasked with writing laws telling the rest of the country how to behave. Or else.)

This juvenalia is, of course, thoroughly bipartisan. Another change to the Iraq invasion entry shows that the anonymous congressional editor played up the dubious connections between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

It’s true, of course, that the cretins who are behind the Wikipedia alterations can (and probably will) do this from their home computers in the future. But the difficulty in policing the political class shouldn’t make us any less alarmed at the most recent evidence of its misdeeds.

They say that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. All I could think of when listening to the news this morning was that whoever’s behind this has quite obviously never cracked open a textbook.

Think about it. The IRA had no success in forcing England’s hand even after two solid decades of this sort of thing. Hitler took over the whole of Europe and most of north Africa, yet the British went about their business, stepping around the rubble of London to do their daily shopping between bombing raids by the Luftwaffe.

It’s the ‘stiff upper lip’, and the English have it in spades. It’s one of the most admirable qualities, and one I wish we had more of here in America.

Lesley’s mother grew up in London during the Battle of Britain, so I’ve heard the stories of those years when flour was black, the only meat was Spam, and they proudly ate beans on toast because that’s all there was. Even today the British still eat that stuff, each bite a small testimony to the strength they gained from That Which Did Not Kill Them.

If the terrorists had studied their history, they’d know that while England may have slowly relinquished her empire over the course of last couple of centuries, on the home front they never gave an inch.

Does anyone actually think the Brits will capitulate? Back off? Cower in fear?

Please.

Fifty bucks says they’ve got more troops headed to Iraq and Afghanistan within days. Even the terrorists have got to know that. Yet they strike out in anger like a child throwing a tantrum in a restaurant, pissed off at the world and wanting everyone to suffer. Well go ahead and cry, little baby. There’s a hard lesson coming your way, and Union Jack will be doing the teaching.

The British would never use the phrase “bring it on”, of course. It’s just not their style. But the sentiment is clearly there.

So I’ll be eating beans on toast tonight. And enjoying every bite.

Few things make me truly angry, but this one comes close.

In the wake of the rising death toll from the Asian tsunami (currently 60,000 80,000 dead and still counting), United Nations emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland has implied that the United States is cheap because our initial federal aid package is only $35 million.

With all due respect to the United Nations — and I’m not sure much respect is warranted at this point — that is pure bullshit. And it’s made so much worse by Mr. Egeland’s own employment history. He was the head of the Norwegian Red Cross, and therefore must know that his implications are false because the Red Cross gets most of it’s contributions from individuals.

I hardly know where to start in refuting this insanity.

Let’s begin with the fact that the U.S. provides official foreign aid assistance through a government organization called the U.S. Agency for International Development. USAID, like every other part of the government, has a budget. They cannot spend money they don’t have. That is illegal. They had only $35 million of uncommitted funds left for the fiscal year, so that’s where the $35 million came from. To increase the funding, USAID will have to receive an appropriation from Congress.

Then let’s look at Secretary of State Powell’s statement that by the time all is said and done, the United States will provide “billions” in assistance. Even if we wrote a check for $1 billion right now, what good would it do? Who can spend a billion dollars that quickly? They can’t even locate all the bodies yet, let alone count them, bury them, and triage the needs of those still living.

Egeland knows this. But he doesn’t care, because this is not about helping the people who are suffering. It’s about making the United States suffer a political embarrassment.

That’s why he and his ilk enjoy pointing to the OECD figures on foreign aid development that are based on gross domestic product percentages. If you look at it that way, Norway donates the most (0.92% of GDP) and the United States is dead last (0.14%). We must really suck, huh?

On the other hand, perhaps we ought to consider the fact that the U.S. has dispatched an entire naval battle group to the region, along with C-130s hauling supplies, and more volunteers than you can shake a stick at. These things are not included in the OECD numbers.

Neither is private giving. Coming from a country so highly socialized that the concept of private giving must be astonishing, Mr. Egeland chooses to turn a deaf ear to the notion that anything significant can be accomplished unless it is done by a large government agency. But if you want facts, how about this one:

Americans last year gave an estimated $241 billion to charitable causes — domestic and foreign — according to a study by Giving USA Foundation. That’s up from $234 billion in 2002.

At a total GDP of $10.9 trillion, that means we’re spending 2.3% of GDP on charitable giving, or $870 per person for every man, woman, and child in the nation.

A quick look at Amazon.com’s site would show that in less than 24 hours, nearly $1,000,000 $2,000,000 has been donated by private individuals toward helping victims of the tsunami. I just donated $1,000.

Churches, synagogues, and other religious groups are raising money all across the country.

Worldvision U.S. has a message on its web site indicating that “due to overwhelming response to the devastation in Asia, you may experience delays making a donation online”. So many people are donating that it’s slowing down computers. Yet Egeland (and I’m sure much of the U.N. agrees) would call us stingy.

When you consider the true per capita charitable contributions of the American populace, I guarantee we will be at the top of the list. By a mile.

What really burns me up about this Egeland thing is that the guy spends a lot of time in New York City, where the United Nations has its headquarters. How anyone in the Big Apple could be under the impression that Americans are stingy after 9/11 is beyond me. Not only did we open our hearts and pocketbooks to those in need, but it’s the first thing we remember when tragedy befalls others around the globe.

You’d think the United States might be worthy of the benefit of the doubt.

MSNBC is reporting that Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign had $45 million left going into the final days before the election, plus another $7 million in a legal and accounting complaince fund, much of which was never spent.

If Kerry really thought he had a chance to win — and regardless of party affiliation, who didn’t? — why would his campaign sit on millions of dollars that could be spent in places like Ohio and Florida? When it’s a tight race, campaigns are known to spend themselves into considerable debt trying to reach every last voter.

While it’s a sure bet that the full $52 million did not go unspent, I’d wager that a solid $20 million remains in the campaign’s bank account. That could have financed some serious ad buys in the battleground states.

Perhaps Kerry was in the dark about this. I can’t think of many other explanations. He campaigned hard up to the last minute. Kerry even went so far as to remember children who had given their piggy banks to him in his concession speech. In retrospect, it’s like rubbing salt in the wound.

If I’d given my hard-earned money to the Kerry campaign only to learn that it had gone unspent, I would not be happy, especially since there’s no chance of gettin that money back. If I’d seen my son or daughter give up their allowance, I’d been even more upset. They gave to the campaign, and now that money will be used for another candidate or issue, perhaps one the donors don’t even support.

I can only think of one explanation for the unspent money: if Kerry knew he was going to lose and was sure to run again in 2008. Is it possible the campaign’s polling data was much worse than they let on?

Senator Harry Reid has been selected as the next minority leader in the U.S. Senate, succeeding South Dakota’s Tom Daschle after his reelection loss to John Thune.

It was a smart choice. I met Sen. Reid on a couple of occasions when I lived in Las Vegas, and he nominated me to the U.S. Naval Academy (I also received a nomination to Colorado Springs from then Congressman James Bilbray). I’ve been watching his career since he was southern Nevada’s sole congressman in the mid 80s.

I predict he’ll be an effective leader for his party in the Senate. Unlike House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, Reid is a usually moderate, never shrill, and has shown a willingness to make reasonable compromises when necessary.

Reid has his own mind and does not blindly tow the party line. He is a big supporter of the mining industry, which puts him at odds with the environmental lobby. He opposed third trimester abortion and even garnered the approval of the NRA on his gun control. A true westerner at heart (a cowboy?), he is his own man. And like many of those folks, he’s soft spoken guy with a level head who does not seek the spotlight. In many ways, Reid is the antithesis of a Bill Clinton or John Kerry.

He’s also “old school” in the sense that he made a slow climb up the ladder over many years rather than rising out of political obscurity to buy his Senate seat with a self-funded $100 million campaign as so many seem to do today. He’s also extremely dedicated to the people of Nevada, having been a lifelong resident of the state. That puts him head and shoulders above Sen. Hillary Clinton, who moved to New York specifically to run for that state’s senate seat.

It’s also worth noting that Sen. Reid knows how to take a hit for the team. Literally. In 1981, Reid chaired of the Nevada Gaming Commission and was fighting organized crime’s control over gambling in Las Vegas. The mob attempted to kill him by wiring his car to explode. The plot failed, but Reid never backed down.

Who knows, maybe one day he’ll even climb the final rung and run for president. Were he to capture the nomination, I predict he’d do a lot better than John Kerry.

The verdict is in: I’m a genius. My election prediction came true. I correctly called both Florida and Ohio for President Bush, predicting those two would push him to victory. And so they did.

I was a bit off on the popular vote, thinking Kerry would do better. My rationale was that the hard core blue states of New York and California — which have a combined 56 million residents, nearly 1/5 of the total U.S. population — would land strongly in Senator Kerry’s column and thereby impact the national popular vote total. However, the President did comparatively well in both states.

In California, Bush received 4.3 million votes, a 44% share. Kerry came away with 55% and 5.3 million votes. I was expecting the split to be more along the lines of 70/30 in Kerry’s favor. But in looking at CNN’s county-by-county breakdown, the Republican party is strong in most parts of the state. It’s the coastal areas, specifically San Francisco and the Los Angeles basin, that hold they keys to Democratic strength in the state. Most of the rest of California goes Republican. The eastern two thirds of the state are pure red.

New York is about the same. Any way you slice it, President Bush did pretty well.

There were a few surprises. For example, my former home state of Alaska has re-elected Lisa Murkowski to the Senate in a race I expected challenger Tony Knowles to win. Her appointment to the Senate by her father — while no worse than Jean Carnahan taking over Mel Carnahan’s seat after his death — was widely expected to result in a backlash from voters in the 49th state.

As of now, it looks like the GOP managed to:

• retain the presidency
• gain four seats in the Senate
• gain at least four seats in the House
• gain one governorship (Washington)
• defeat the highest ranking Democrat in the Senate

Not bad for a day’s work. Well ok, it was more like a couple of years worth of work. But it represents the largest shift away from the Democratic party since 1980.

The defeat of South Dakota’s Sen. Tom Daschle was especially significant, because it represents the first time a Senate party leader has lost re-election in 52 years. It’s easy to understand why. A powerful senator can route tremendous Federal resources to his state, and an electorate is loathe to exchange that for a freshman who’ll be lucky to land on a fisheries subcommittee. I’m a bit sad to see old Tom go, because he’s an avid pilot and strong supporter of general aviation. He’s opposed user fees, ATC privatization, and other cockamamie things.

Though it has been a big night for the GOP, it’s not all flowers and sunshine. This election will consolidate power, making the GOP a larger (and more legitmate) target for both the opposition and the voters in ’06 if Republicans don’t deliver the goods. Of course, this would only happen on a case by case basis. My impression of Congressional elections is that the electorate never looks at them as national referendums. Those races are won or lost on local issues. Few people vote for a representative based on how he or she will affect the partisan balance of the House.

I’m glad the presidential popular vote margin was large. Whoever won, I was hoping it would be by a sizeable margin. Bush won by more than 3.5 million votes, which means the lawyers have less opportunity to stage an encore of their Y2K performance in court.

As the 2004 election’s loose ends are tied up, it’s time to turn our attention toward healing, coming together, and moving forward. The problem is, I’m not sure how we do that. Is the GOP suppsed to abandon the platform it ran on in order to accomodate those whose candidates were rejected by the voters?

It’s been sad to see the way some Democrats are stuck on the “what’s wrong with 50% of the country?” mantra. There is nothing wrong with 50% of the country. If you really think 150 million Americans are crazy, then perhaps moving to Canada is not such a bad idea.

When the GOP wins election after election and claims ever larger majorities in House, Senate, and governorship seats, perhaps the proper question to ask would be, “Why don’t more voters pick our candidates?”. The country hasn’t changed, it’s the Democratic party that’s different. Maybe Zell Miller, Ron Silver, Ed Koch are on to something. Perhaps Sen. Richard Shelby, Sen. Ben Campbell, Sen. Bob Smith, and others who switched to the Republican party did so for a valid reason.

The President and the GOP are far from perfect. But until the Democrats reinvent themselves and the way they play the game, this red state trend will not change. I’m hopeful this election will inspire the Dems to do that soul searching, because a well balanced two party system keeps everyone on the up and up.

Election Day is here!

Yeah, you bet I’m excited.

I had my doubts, friends, that the day would ever come. The campaign seemed to go on and on like a mad cross between the Simpson trial and Groundhog Day. The closer we got to November 2nd the slower time seemed to go, until the hands on the clock were actually moving backward as if Ralph Nader was holding them there by sheer force of conviction that yes, he could still win this race.

I’m not one for making predictions — at least, not ones that pan out. But in this case I’ll make an exception since I’ve got a 50/50 shot at it. The popular vote will essentiall be a tie, but Bush will win the electoral vote by claiming both Florida and Ohio.

To be honest, I’m not that concerned about who wins the presidency. It looks as though the balance in the House will remain about the same and the Republicans will pick up two seats in the Senate, so even if Senator Kerry becomes President Kerry, nothing is going to get rubber stamped into law. And as others have observed, there is something to be said for letting the other party’s guy be the punching bag for a few years. If Kerry were to do well, it would be good for the country. If he were to make a mess of it, it would only cement him as a single-term president and damage the left’s hold on power.

What little concern I do have over the presidency comes from the fact that the Supreme Court may have several vacancies during the next four years, and the impact of SCOTUS nominations will be felt across the land long after the 44th president is gone. I think Bush would be more likely to select justices who interpret the Constitution strictly, whereas Kerry might favor activists and make his choice based on one or two issue litmus test. Kerry is not a man of political conviction, and that would not serve him well when the special interests started coming out of the woodwork to clamor for or against a potential Supreme Court nominee.

My primary concern, as I wrote at Damn Foreigner, is that faith in the American system remains firm. It takes a lot of character to be so close to becoming the most powerful man in the world and yet take the high ground when you lose by a hair. Despite the way Nixon’s presidency went to hell when he finally was elected, Tricky Dick certainly put the nation before himself in choosing not to dispute his razor thin 1960 loss to John F. Kennedy.

So even above my hope that President Bush wins reelection today is my fervent prayer that whoever loses does so with grace and puts the country before themselves by telling the lawyers to lay off.

Wishful thinking, I know.

One of the most interesting election scenarios would be a 269-269 tie in the electoral college. In that instance, the Senate would pick the vice-president and the House would, via state delegations, select the president. So we could end up with Bush and Edwards in office. It’s also theoretically possible that John Edwards could end up as both President AND Vice-President at the same time.

Anyway you slice it, it’s going to be an interesting day. I’ve got a staging rehearsal for Turandot at OCPAC later on. Thank God for opera! I’ll be doing something productive rather than self-immolating in front of the television.

Tony Snow reported last night that his contacts within the Kerry campaign indicated that they are conceeding Florida and will transfer resources to other battleground states.

This is surprising. Both candidates have practically lived in Florida over the past few months, and the overall polling data still shows a tight race. Kerry’s internal polling must reflect the CNN/USA Today/Time numbers which give Bush an eight point lead. I can’t think of any other reason for them to back out at this late date.

Indeed, Florida is not being spoken of much at all right now, as if the state somehow end up in Bush’s column without any fanfare. When CNN lists ‘battleground states’, they’re now omitting Florida. Fox is doing the same, though it still shows up in their graphical breakdown of the hotly contested states.

If Florida’s 27 electoral votes go to Bush, the President will be left with a 261-228 advantage, only nine electoral votes shy of the 270 needed for reelection. Senator Kerry will absolutely have to win Ohio plus three out of the four remaining toss-up states (Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Wisconson) to pull off an electoral college victory. And even then, the one remaining state that Bush claims has to be either New Hampshire or New Mexico. If Bush wins Wisconson or Minnesota in addition to Florida, it’s all over.

Disclaimer: this assumes there are no other surprises on election day. And that there are no ‘faithless electors’ in the EC. And that any legal challenges are successfully navigated by the winner. Void where prohibited. Yadda yadda yadda.

As if the legion of aspiring rap ‘artists’ who come upon the House of Rapp and conclude that I must be able to help them with their careers isn’t enough, here’s new evidence that rap causes brain rot: (via VodkaPundit)

If Osama bin Laden ever buys a rap album, he’ll probably start with a CD by KRS-One.

The hip-hop anarchist has declared his solidarity with al-Qaida by asserting that he and other African-Americans “cheered when 9-11 happened,” reports the New York Daily News.

The rapper, real name Kris Parker, defiled the memory of those who died in the terrorist attacks as he spouted off at a recent New Yorker Festival panel discussion.

“I say that proudly,” the Boogie Down Productions founder went on, insisting that, before the attack, security guards kept Blacks out of the World Trade Center “because of the way we talk and dress.

“So when the planes hit the building, we were like, ‘Mmmm – justice.’ ”

The atrocity of 9-11 “doesn’t affect us the hip-hop community,” he said. “9-11 happened to them, not us,” he added, explaining that by “them” he meant “the rich … those who are oppressing us. RCA or BMG, Universal, the radio stations.”

Parker also sneered at efforts by other rappers to get young people to vote.

“Voting in a corrupt society adds more corruption,” he added. “America has to commit suicide if the world is to be a better place.”

In related news, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer is “a little put off” by the comments. But hey, they love his music, so no harm no foul. Right?

I suppose a few comments on the third and final presidential debate would be in order, since I did force myself to sit down and watch the whole thi-Zzzzzz..wmmmfmw….zzzzz….

Okayokay, I’m awake. I wasn’t sleeping, just resting my eyes.

After ninety minutes of talking points, one begins to think the Zucker brothers were watching a presidential debate when they wrote Airplane!. “I haven’t felt this bad since we saw that Ronald Reagan film…”

Why punish myself? I already voted via absentee ballot. More importantly, why punish you? I have no beef with you. You’re nice. And besides, we all go way back and uh, I owe you for the thing with the guy in the place.

Instead of noodling over which of the two suits had the fish for dinner, I elected to play around with CafePress a bit. I’m the last person on the internet without an online store of some kind. Even Bubb Rubb has one for Pete’s sake.

Of course, “dat’s only in da mornin”.

Anyway, have a look at what I came up with. I think the mousepad is especially cool.

I managed to catch the Bush-Kerry debate this evening, and I have to say it felt like Sen. Kerry came out on top.

My expectations for President Bush were high, despite his reputation as a poor public speaker. The thing about Bush is, he’s improved a lot as a speechmaker in the years since the last election, and although the campaign and pundits downplayed expectations, I really thought he would come out swinging on foreign policy since that’s seen as his big advantage, not to mention the area where he’s placed most of his focus during the past four years. Instead, he seemed flustered and stammered for the first hour, whereas Kerry was quite composed, spoke clearly, and was obviously well rehearsed.

Content-wise, the debate was more of a draw. Kerry didn’t blow it, but neither did Bush hit back when the Senator played fast and loose with the truth. For example: early on in the debate, Kerry said the Bush administration had spent $200 billion in Iraq, when in fact nowhere near that much has been spent. Plus, the $200 billion figure is the appropriation number approved by Congress. Of that amount, 40% is earmarked for Afghanistan and 60% for Iraq. Since Kerry does not quibble with the President on Afghanistan, we’re really talking about a much smaller number.

When Kerry rehashed the tired old line about opening fire stations in Iraq while they close in the U.S., I wanted Bush to remind him of the $8 billion earmarked by the administration for first responders. But as with many of Kerry’s attacks, Bush never got around to responding to them.

Kerry was wrong about the subways closing down in New York during the convention — they remained open. A small issue.

He was also wrong about the U.S. going it alone in Iraq. Not such a small issue.

There are about 30 nations involved, compared with something like 34 nations during the first Gulf War. To be sure, the contingent is getting smaller, but that’s to be expected. Major combat is (on paper at least) over with, and control of the country has been handed back to the Iraqi people. As the Iraqis bring more and more of their freshly trained troops online, the allies will draw down their own contingents. But England, Australia, Bulgaria, Poland, New Zealand, Thailand, the Netherlands, Moldova, Singapore, El Salvador, Lithuania, South Korea, Georgia, Italy, Albania, and others still have troops there.

I don’t understand why the President didn’t hit Kerry with these and other facts. Kerry came out with a lot of specific numbers, names, places, and dates. The President seemed to to have a hard time with these things.

The debate felt like a win for Kerry not because the facts were on his side, but because like all debates, the winner is determined more by style and poise than anything else. The televised 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate is a good example. Were the viewpoints espoused by Kennedy superior to those of Nixon, or did Tricky Dick’s five o’clock shadow and perspiration-soaked upper lip give Kennedy the edge in that very close election?

Swing voters probably got a better impression of Kerry than they did of the President in this debate. For that reason, I’ll put this one in John Kerry’s column.

Andrew Sullivan received an email that has a familiar ring to it.

I am a 33 year old wife and a mom of a 15 month old boy living in a wealthy liberal enclave of Los Angeles called Hancock Park where people go to the farmers market on Sunday, discuss the “plight of the poor” as their nannies stroll their young ones in Bugaboo Frog ($800) strollers on the magnolia tree shaded sidewalks on Fridays, and bash Bush, well, everyday.

This is a very common scene in the wealthier parts of Orange County, a famous ‘Republican stronghold’. Personally, I think this description is a huge misnomer. I’ve been here since 1989, and while everyone loves to talk about how conservative Orange County is, the reality is quite different. And why shouldn’t it be? The moneymakers in Hollywood are largely Democrats. Billionaires like George Soros are definitely supporting the Kerry-Edwards team. Senator Kerry would like you to believe that he’s being propelled by the support of his middle- and lower-class base, but it ain’t necessarily so.

Last Saturday, Lesley and I were returning from an enjoyable ‘two martini lunch’ at the Salt Creek Grill and decided to drive through the inland portions of Laguna Beach. We wound our way past hundreds of homes, but not a single one was worth less than a million dollars. Most are probably in the $5 million range. We’re talking rich with a capital ‘R’. There were Kerry-Edwards signs on many of the lawns, but I didn’t see a single Bush-Cheney.

Lesley thought it was probably due to the fact that Laguna Beach is an art colony, but I’m not sure that’s the answer. Laguna Beach is home to several famous art festivals and galleries, and its heritage is certainly that of an artists colony. But the folks with $5 million homes and matching Mercedes 500 series convertibles aren’t artists, they’re corporate types and business owners with high paying jobs. I don’t mean to dog on Laguna Beach. It’s one of my favorite places. But the disparity in political advertising was curious.

Laguna Beach is even home to a sizeable Kerry campaign operation right on Pacific Coast Highway near the famous Pottery Shack (which recently went out of business, unfortunately). Here in Irvine, where the median home price is nearly a million bucks, I see the same pattern: lots of Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers, not a single one for the Bush campaign. The only place Bush paraphernalia has been in evidence is in the older sections of north Orange County. Fullerton. Santa Ana. Garden Grove. But these are much less affluent areas.

Could the answer be something as simple as a climate of fear among conservatives? I don’t think so. The most famous blogger from Orange County is Kevin Drum, a staunch Democrat. We’ve elected several Democrats to Congress, including two Senators. Village Voice Media felt strongly enough about O.C. that they publish a newspaper here. Not a very good one, mind you. But it’s the thought that counts. I would even go so far as to say that most of my friends are registered Democrats.

If you want numbers, UC Irvine 2000 Annual Study found that Orange County is much less conservative than is generally believed:

Often stereotyped as a bastion of conservatism, Orange County does not fit the profile when it comes to social issues, according to UC Irvine’s 2000 Orange County Annual Survey. Though most county residents describe themselves as moderate (31 percent) to conservative (43 percent) politically, many hold liberal views on social issues.

The study found that residents of O.C. favored abortion access, gun control, gays serving openly in military, strict environmental laws, and held some non-conservative views on the issue of income taxes.

So what’s going on here? Just a holdover from the time when ‘wealthy’ was associated with ‘conservative’? If that’s the case, Kerry must be the bizzaro candidate because he would hold the distinction of being the wealthiest occupant of the White House in American history. No one else even comes close. The Los Angeles Times reports that the Kerry household has a net worth of $1 billion.

If you live in O.C., I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on how conservative the county is.

Dan Rather and CBS News have jumped the shark.

Or should I say, started to jump it and then thought it would be better to land directly in the shark’s mouth.

As if it’s not bad enough that they put this story on the air when it was clearly forged, Rather just made an appearance on CNN where he expressed total confidence in the documents and said he has personal knowledge that they are valid.

In addition, Powerline has a statement from CBS News stating that there will be no internal investigation. They may as well start kicking bloggers and asking them “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”, because the longer they postpost the inevitable retraction, the more they look and sound like William Tager.

Many in this presidential campaign have taken to using the word “extremist” to describe anyone with an opposing political view. In print, on the web, in casual conversation, the word pops up all the time. It’s getting old. Fast.

For example:

• Pro life? Then Kerry’s an extremist who’s killed millions of people.
• Didn’t vote for Bush? The he’s an extremist who seized the White House in a coup and single-handedly destroyed democracy.

Please. If anything’s extreme here, it’s this sort of elevated rhetoric. Perhaps the problem here isn’t Bush or Kerry. If either of the above sound like something you’ve said lately, then maybe the problem is you. Throwing the word around like it was a McDonald’s drive-thru order only devalues it until nothing is conveyed except a mealy-mouthed political disagreement. It convinces no one. Does nothing to foster thoughful discussion. It says “this is the way it is”. It’s the political version of “Welcome to the O.C., bitch.”

Hell, I once had a guy call me an extremist. He said I was (and this is a direct quote) “worse than the terrorists”. This was only weeks after 9/11. My crime? I supposedly cut him off in the traffic pattern when I was flying my plane. That’s one pilot talking to another pilot. To this day, I still wonder what the hell was wrong with that guy.

“Extremist” should be reserved for things that are truly extreme. Like this group of lovely people in London who are throwing a convention to celebrating the 9/11 attacks:

Bakri called 9-11 “a cry of Jihad against unbelief and oppression” and said the aim of remembering it is to “revive the commandment of Jihad among the youth of the [Muslim] nation.”

Bakri said the convention also will feature a lecture about the Islamic religious roots of “slaughtering the infidels,” referring in part to the beheading of foreigners in Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

It will include films by al-Qaida, the Tawhid and Jihad organization and the Brigades of the Two Holy Places in the Arabian Peninsula.

Also, the conference will feature a film on the most recent operations in Chechnya, he said. He added that one of the speeches, by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida’s military commander in Iraq, will be translated.

Another lecture, he said, will be dedicated to the memory of three al-Qaida commanders: Abd Al-’Aziz Al-Muqren, killed in June 2004 by Saudi security forces; his predecessor Yousef Al-Ayyiri, killed in June 2003 in a clash with Saudi security forces; and Abu Hafs Al-Masri, a top al-Qaida military officer, killed in the U.S. attack on Kandahar in late 2001.

According to Bakri, the anticipated criticism of Al-Muhajiroun for the organization’s insistence on memorializing 9-11 will be “a simple sacrifice in comparison with what we must actually do — that is, support the Jihad led by bin Laden.”

If that doesn’t fit your definition of “extreme”, did I mention that children are fair game for terrorist attacks? (via Wizbang)

An extremist Islamic cleric based in Britain said yesterday that he would support hostage-taking at British schools if carried out by terrorists with a just cause.

Omar Bakri Mohammed, the spiritual leader of the extremist sect al-Muhajiroun, said that holding women and children hostage would be a reasonable course of action for a Muslim who has suffered under British rule.

All this so they can take control of England and turn it into a Taliban paradise.

Como se dice, “Why are these people not in jail?” It would be nice to think that if al-Muhajiroun were in the United States, they’d be put behind bars for treason. According to Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution, “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” Oran’s Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as: “…[a]…citizen’s actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation].” I’m all for free speech, but when you’re publicly advocating collaboration with those we’ve declared war on, it’s time to turn around and see where that line is.

Next time we’re tempted to describe an American politican or judge as an extremist, it might be worthwhile to consider what’s really extreme in this world.

I was saddened to hear yesterday that President Clinton will be undergoing heart bypass surgery. It’s amazing that Ford and Carter are still going strong while the relatively young Clinton is suffering from advanced heart disease. President Ford is nearly 92 years old, whereas Clinton just turned 58!

Someone should do a study comparing time in office and post-White House lifespan. It seems the longer one serves as president, the shorter their lifespan after they retire. Ford only had a portion of one term, so perhaps that’s the secret of his success. If stress kills, this theory would make sense. Hell, all you have to do is compare photos of them on inauguration day and when leaving office to see what that job does to a person.
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I was impressed with President Bush’s acceptance speech this evening.

I’d never describe the guy as a master Toastmaster (probably because that sounds really gay), but his delivery has improved tremendously since the 2000 campaign. I didn’t even notice that the he spoke for more than an hour. President Bush is still no Bill Clinton when it comes to speechifying, but that’s fine. There is such a thing as too polished. Too slick. In an odd way, what was once Bush’s primary failing as a politician — his speaking skills — have evolved into an asset.
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CNN is reporting that top donors, strategists, and Democratic party leaders are describing the Kerry campaign as “adrift” and urging a staff shakeup before Labor Day.

If not, said one party strategist, “it could be too late.” Sources say major changes could come at the campaign’s highest level.

The concern, according to these sources, is that Kerry has failed to effectively respond to attacks from Republicans and criticism of his military service in Vietnam, particular ads from a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

These ‘sources’ are deluding themselves. The problem isn’t the Swift Boat group, it’s that the campaign’s keystone has turned out to be made of tissue paper.
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I was reading an excellent essay from David Warren on the murder of an Italian freelance journalist in Iraq when one of David’s parentheticals caught my eye.

Canada, which bans the U.S. Fox News network, has recently permitted Al Jazeera to broadcast nationally through cable

Like the Canada Dry slogan says, those kooky folks at the CRTC are “Just north of everyday”.
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So the country lost it’s second state governor in as many months today, this time a Democrat from New Jersey.

Dropping a political bombshell, New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey announced his resignation Thursday after revealing that he is gay and that he had an adulterous affair with a man. McGreevey’s surprise announcement came as a former aide readied a sexual harassment lawsuit against the governor, two Democratic sources told CNN.

Perhaps I’m just a bit jaded by the past decade of political bomb throwing, but I don’t see McGreevey leaving politics; I see him trying to a) disarm the plaintiff, b) play for sympathy, and c) set up for the next political race. If there’s anyone to feel sorry for, it’s McGreevey’s family.

Oh, and the people of New Jersey.
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Perhaps it was David Brooks who summarized Michael Moore best. In a June 26th op-ed column for the New York Times, he wrote:

Like Hemingway, Moore does his boldest thinking while abroad. For example, it was during an interview with the British paper The Mirror that Moore unfurled what is perhaps the central insight of his oeuvre, that Americans are kind of crappy.

“They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet . . . in thrall to conniving, thieving smug [pieces of the human anatomy],” Moore intoned. “We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don’t know about anything that’s happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing.”

That’s quite a worldview, Mike. I hope you’ll forgive “dumb, conniving, thieving smug [piece of the human anatomy]” for trying to improve ourselves, but in a quest for enlightenment the likes of which only you possess, perhaps we can look with a critical eye at your latest opus.
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It must feel great spending ten thousand dollars to attend a fundraiser only to be told that you aren’t paying enough.

Hillary Clinton told several hundred supporters — some of whom had ponied up as much as $10,000 to attend — to expect to lose some of the tax cuts passed by President Bush if Democrats win the White House and control of Congress.

I’ll give her credit for being honest and direct, two rare things for a high-profile politician. If only that were reason enough to vote for someone.

“Many of you are well enough off that … the tax cuts may have helped you,” Sen. Clinton said. “We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

The common good. That sounds familiar… now where have I heard that before? Oh, right–the Kremlin. “From each according to his gifts, to each according to his need”. Too bad she didn’t explain how raising taxes on job creators and redistributing wealth to those who don’t have jobs at all (or at the very least are not contributing to the tax base) is going to ‘get America back on track’, whatever that means.

If the ‘track’ she’s referring to is job creation, why not make it possible for more jobs to be created? Or am I being too radical here? If she wants to get the budget back on track, perhaps she could vie for the spending cuts that are so desperately needed instead of asking for our collective wallets. Spending cuts are something she will never agree to, though. The reason? Look at this chart on Federal spending from the House Policy Committee:

Social spending comprises nearly 3/5ths of the budget. There’s no way to make significant spending cuts without looking at where the majority of the money goes. For a die-hard like Senator Clinton, that means there is but one way to close the gap: raise taxes.

I don’t know how you reason with a person like that. But since politics is art of compromise, if I were in the Senate I’d make her a deal: for each dollar that’s cut from the budget, you can reduce the tax cuts by a dollar until it’s balanced. After that, any tax incrases are matched by a dollar-for-dollar decrease in Congressional salaries and office budgets.

If you want us to open our wallets any wider, Senator, you’d better be ready to open yours.

One of the upcoming California ballot initiatives asks whether Indian casinos should be required to pay taxes. Thus far, this extremely profitable $6 billion industry (and that’s just here in California) has operated tax-free.

I’ve come to the conclusion that native American casinos should pay taxes.

Those who argue the other side of the issue usually do so because of the treatment native Americans received by the United States in the past. This leaves me wondering what one has to do with the other.

Someone at Tenth Muse brought up the fact that the current generation of native Americans was not the victim of smallpox or wars against the U.S. It’s a critical point. As a Jewish person, I don’t hold any post-war Germans responsible for WWII atrocities. By the same token, I don’t want to be treated punitively for slavery. If today’s generation is punished for the sins of previous ones, where does it end?
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For anyone who owes money to Uncle Sam, April 15th is not a day you look forward to. Even if you’re getting money back, Tax Day can cause a migraine by virtue of the sheer volume of paperwork required to comply with federal and state tax laws.

What’s even worse, though, is hearing people like Kevin Drum claim that a flat tax would be unfair:

It is dishonest to pretend that flattening tax rates has any connection to simplifying the tax code. It is dishonest to pretend that a flat income tax is “fair” while conveniently forgetting to suggest the same for Social Security taxes. It is dishonest to pretend that “income” is the same for everyone while failing to even mention capital gains, tax shelters, corporate perks, deferred compensation, pension contributions, stock options, or the thousand other options the wealthy have for making money that doesn’t quite count as “income.” It is dishonest not to mention that simple arithmetic guarantees that any flat income tax proposal would raise taxes for practically every middle class family in the country.

No, Kevin, a flat tax would be the very definition of honest. Flat means FLAT. Everyone pays the same rate. The problem is you fly off the handle with assumptions about how those at the higher end of the income scale will maintain every bit of legal income deduction they now enjoy.
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Mention the word ‘genocide’ or make reference to the systematic murder of millions and most people in the Western world will immediately think of the Holocaust. But that dark period represents only one of three such events to occur in the last century.

During World War I, the forces of nationalism within the faltering Ottoman Empire lead to the 20th century’s first large scale genocide. Between 1915 and 1916, the Turks used the war as a pretense for “removing” all Armenians from Turkey. More than 1.5 million were murdered.

The world must have collectively learned very little from this bloody bit of history, because just two decades later the Germans were crafting their “Final Solution”. Add six million to the tally there.
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So this is how it’s done now?

Several hundred people stormed the small yard of President Bush’s chief political strategist, Karl Rove, yesterday afternoon, pounding on his windows, shoving signs at others and challenging Rove to talk to them about a bill that deals with educational opportunities for immigrants.

The first bit of education those people need is a lesson in civil discourse. It’s one thing to hold a protest — that’s a right guaranteed by the Constitution. But invading a private home unannounced and making demands while physically assaulting the building is un-American.

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In the aftermath of Israel’s assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, many people have made reference to Hamas’ “extensive social network” and all the wonderful things it does for the Palestinian people. Manish over at Damn Foreigner (whose civilized style and thoughtful viewpoints I greatly respect) notes:

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, 90% of Hamas’ approximately $70 million budget goes to “an extensive social services network, which includes schools, orphanages, mosques, health care clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues.” Hamas has two divisions, a political and a militant. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was the head of the political division. He definitely had blood on his hands, there is no doubt, but he had little involvement in planning terrorist strikes. His charitable work made him extremely popular in the Occupied Territories. In fact, the US and other countries didn’t put Hamas on terrorist organization lists until after Sept. 11.

Maybe I’m just crazy, but I see this as a non-sequitur. Even if Hamas gave billions to charity and cured cancer, it wouldn’t counteract the violent deaths of innocent civilian women and children specifically targeted by their terrorist operatives.

In fact, the social network can be viewed as nothing but a way of building political support for their terrorist activities. Quite a brilliant idea, really. Provide food and medical care to Palestinians with one hand while blowing up people with the other.

Does it really matter how directly involved Yassin was in planning terrorist attacks? I think not. He was the longstanding leader of an organization whose primary mission is the obliteration of Israel. They specifically rule out any kind of peace, negotiation, discussion, or compromise. They want one thing: to see as many dead Israelis as possible.

Israel was as justified in removing Yassin as the United States will be in getting bin Laden.

Richard Clarke is testifying before the 9/11 commission right now. I’m listening to the audio feed via CNN and wondering how can we be expected to take him seriously until we know how he went from American Bandstand host to counter-terrorism guru.

On the one hand, he’s got a book out that claims the Bush administration ignored his warnings that al Qaeda was a threat. On the other hand, he’s also said things that directly contradict this. His motivation escapes me. I’m sure there were many behind-the-scenes machinations that we in the blogosphere are not privy to, but it’s not helping his credibility at the moment.
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I doubt there is a single voter the nation’s electorate who hasn’t at one time been told that “if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain”.

And it makes sense, doesn’t it? The last presidential election only reinforced the importance of voter participation. Those that don’t take the time to cast their ballot have little credibility when it comes to debating the merits of the issues or people contained on it.

Should our elected leaders be held to a lesser standard? I don’t think so. That would by hypocrisy. That’s why a CNN article on today’s Senate budget vote is so distressing. It notes the following:
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Hold on to your absentee ballots kids. He’s back!

Ralph Nader is once again officially pursuing the presidency of our modest little country. And I say God bless him.

He has no chance of winning, of course. You don’t have to be John Zogby to figure that one out.

We could start with the fact that this nation will never elevate a guy named Ralph to the title of ‘world’s most powerful man’. No, Ralph is a name more suited to Simpsons characters who say things like “I bent my wookie”, “My cat’s breath smells like cat food”, and the ever popular “Me fail English? Unpossible!”.
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No matter who wins the presidency this coming November, one legacy of the 2004 election is likely to be the shrewd and effective internet-based campaign techniques used by the Dean camp. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, it’s tough to argue with the way they’ve taken the digital domain by the horns.

Now the Dean campaign has a new kid on the block: BushTax.com. Many Dean supporters refer to it as gospel on how the Bush administration has covertly taxed every “working family” so some vaguely defined uber-wealthy jet-setter can snidely crush them under the wheels of the obligatory gold-plated Hummer.

I find it interesting that a Google search for links to BushTax.com turns up no rebuttal to this web site yet. So perhaps it’s time to take a look at it with a skeptical eye. BushTax.com starts out with a sweeping overview of the problem:

Rather than take responsibility for our common future, Bush has shifted costs to states and communities, who then pass them on to you.

Shifted costs from where? If these costs were previously borne by the Federal government, they weren’t paid for by the tooth fairy. They were paid for by the taxpayers. What does it matter whether they are funded via Federal or state government? And if you have to pay $1,000 in tax, wouldn’t it be better to pay it to your state or city instead of the IRS? At least that way, you’d know taxes are being spent where they are collected.
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Well, I’ve tried to warm up to Vermont Governor Howard Dean.

I’ve waited, watched, and read just about everything posted on his campaign web site and official blog. I’ve tried mightily to reach the conclusion that he’s an exciting new player with fresh perspective ready to fight for the right things.

But I just can’t.

The truth of the matter is that Governor Dean is the polar opposite–an unstable, angry candidate who lacks the consistency, diplomatic skill and relevancy to avoid joining the ranks of Mondale and Dukakis. Barring some completely unforseen turn of events, I just cannot support his candidacy.

In fact, I’m not even sure of its validity anymore. Everything coming from the Dean campaign has been straight outta Compton. One minute he’s accusing his fellow Democrats of being no different than Republicans. The next minute it’s:

He says he belongs to the tradition of “Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and the first President Bush.” (Source: Slate.com)

In the beginning, it was forgivable. Governor Dean was new to the national political scene, and it’s a big move–even for a state governor.

Remember his June appearance on “Meet the Press”? He was ill prepared, unable to speak intelligently on the Medicare bill, couldn’t make up his mind on a balanced budged amendment, wasn’t sure if he was for or against the death penalty, didn’t know how many troops we had in the Middle East, and concluded by suggesting that fellow Democrats “needed a backbone transplant”.
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I just love that name. It brings to mind images of the Founding Fathers. Or perhaps Mel Gibson defending his home against the British during the Revolutionary War.

The very title casts doubt upon the patriotism of anyone who would dare question it. Maybe that’s why this thing has been under my skin since the day it was announced. Maybe it was the fact that it was rammed through Congress with virtually no debate. Maybe it was the proximity to September 11th. Who knows.

But as I browsed the web this morning, I read something on a political web site claiming that most people who criticize the Patriot Act have never read it. No scientific evidence of this fact was presented. But it rang true.

And I’m embarrased to admit that I’m one of those people.
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Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill today putting a $15 billion bond measure on the March ballot.

I’ll be voting a big fat NO on that proposition. And if you live in California, I strongly encourage you to do the same.

Why? It’s quite simple.

1. I’ve been voting in California elections since 1989, and every single year there are tens of billions in bond issues on the ballot. This state now has:

• $65 billion of general obligation and lease-revenue bond debt
• $17.7 billion in energy bond debt
• $4.6 billion in tobacco bond debt
• $12.5 billion in short-term Revenue Anticipation Notes
• $11 billion in short-term Registered Reimbursement Warrants (RAWs)

That’s a grand total of $110.8 billion. Now they want to add $15 billion more? I don’t think so.

2. California’s bond rating is abysmal. Moody’s downgraded the state to Baa1. That’s three steps above “junk” level. It’s the lowest rating of any state in the union. That means bonds must be offered with higher interest rates. Guess who pays the high interest rates? You do. And if the bond rating ever reaches junk level, you’ll really see a disaster. At “junk” level, institutional investors can no longer buy them and most individual investors won’t want to.

3. State spending has been completely irresponsible. The budget for 2002-2003 is $100 billion. That’s a 44% increase in just four years. According to the Public Policy Institute of California:

California’s budget has grown by 44 percent since FY 1997-98 due largely to increasing income tax revenues (specifically, receipts from stock options and capital gains). Revenues from stock options and capital gains peaked in FY 2000-01 at $17.6 billion and accounted for 25 percent of general fund revenues. The following year, half as much revenue was raised from these sources, with the state receiving an estimated $8.6 billion in revenues. These revenues are not expected to return to peak levels in the foreseeable future.

A pretty good case so far, eh? But I haven’t even touched on the real problem yet. The primary reason spending doesn’t get cut is that all the big ticket items are sacred cows. No one in Sacramento has the cajones to even suggest touching them. On a Federal level the budget buster is social spending–Medicare and Social Security. Here in California, it’s education.

No one will ever entertain the idea of cutting education because it’s so ripe for political exploitation as “selling our kids down the river”. Please. With all due respect, $126 billion in debt is financial slavery. And that’s exactly what the next generation will be saddled with. At a minimum.

Let’s look at education spending. The California Budget Project has a concise Excel spreadsheet that shows 44% of the budget is spent on K-12 education and another 14% goes toward the UC and Cal State systems. That’s a grand total of 58% of the state budget spent on education!

The overall long term trend, both on a total dollar basis, per-student dollar basis, and percentage of the state budget basis, has been toward greater spending on education. So next time some one tells you we don’t spend enough on the schools, tell them that.

But enough with the numbers. I went to a college that turns out a lot of K-12 teachers. I sing with an educational outreach ensemble from the Pacific Chorale in schools all the time. Many of my friends are teachers. And I ask them all the same question: is the problem with public schools rooted in a lack of money?

They all answer the same way: no.

So what is the problem? Everyone tells me the same thing. First, teachers are too restricted in the classroom. Second, students are passed on to higher grades regardless of performance. That only puts them further behind and cements their failure. And finally, lack of parental involvement.

I am not anti-education. I attended California public school through the sixth grade and my grade school teachers were outstanding. There are infrastructure needs and the student population is growing. But education cuts should not be off-limits.

I don’t know what Schwarzenegger is thinking, but all cuts that have been proposed are in the wrong areas. For example, the governor has proposed cutting all new highway construction projects state-wide. Of all the things to cut! California sees 1,300 cars added to its highways every single day. The gridlock on the roads is already hurting the economy. The Santa Cruz Sentinel summarized it best:

The worst-case scenario laid out at Thursday’s commission meeting was that any new project could be delayed until the 2009-2010 budget year.

No new road construction in California for six years? This is the kind of thing that happens when 58% of the state budget is “off the table” when cuts need to be made.

The bottom line is that the state spends way too much and Sacramento is asking you to take out a high interest rate cash advance from a new credit card because the old ones are all maxed out.

Enough is enough. It’s time to say “no”.

I’ve held off publishing this for a while because I’ve been angry about some things I’ve witnessed. But a few weeks have passed, and despite the fact that the picketers have moved on to another store, I realize I’m not going to feel any better about it.

I have never been terribly supportive of the union in this pathetic grocery strike. But as this thing enters its sixth week, I find myself hoping that the strikers never get their jobs back.

It has nothing to do with the issues they’re striking over. It has everything to do with the conduct of the picketers. It’s been pathetic. No–more than that, it’s been criminal.

I’ve seen pregnant women heckled as they entered the Ralph’s near my house.

I’ve seen rocks thrown at cars.

And one day as I was passing by this Ralph’s, I heard one of the strikers extorting food from a local pizza joint. He called the restaurant on his cell phone and said that if the picketers weren’t provided with several pizzas gratis, “we’ll remember you” and there would be “hell to pay” when the strike was over.

So screw ‘em. I’m not anti-union–heck, I belong to a union myself–but I’ve had it with stuff like that. Or this. Or this. Or this.

The selection at my local Ralph’s is poor, the quality of produce mediocre, and the store hours limited. But I’ll live on Top Ramen for the rest of my life before I give people like that a single iota of support.

I’m also happy to report that the store runs just fine without them. Whoever Ralph’s got to fill in for the baggers and checkers is doing a perfectly acceptable job. The problems with the quality and selection of food are caused by truckers who refuse to cross the picket line. It has nothing to do with the replacement workers.

I almost wish the picketers would heckle me. It would give me a chance to ask them what they expect families to do. The strike is affecting every grocery store in my area except for Gelson’s (which is prohibitively expensive) and Stater Brothers (which is 20 minutes away and now jam-packed with people all day long). Eating is not an option.

It may seem unfair to judge tens of thousands of union members based on the actions of a few miscreants. But that’s the way the cookie crumbles. Every time a pilot does or says something stupid, it affects my whole industry–that’s why pilots know they have to police themselves. Should I hold an unskilled part-time grocery clerk to a lesser standard?

I don’t think so.

Congratulations, Governor-elect Schwarzenegger.

I’ve never been a fan of Gray Davis, but I have to admit he gave a very graceful concession speech. Not that there were many options open to him. The results were so lopsided that it would have been tough to blame the loss on hanging chads or voter disenfranchisement. Nice to see that he’s smart enough to know when to fold ‘em.

Since some have already started making noises about recalling Schwarzenegger, I’ve been thinking about a rematch. Next time there’s a recall election, I’d like to see Tony Danza (“Who’s the Boss?”) run against Bruce Springsteen (just “The Boss”). If we’re going to have entertainers running for office, let’s at least have some fun with it.

What other pairings could we come up with? Hmmm… how about Kermit the Frog vs. Peter Camejo. An epic battle fought under the title “It’s Not Easy Being Green”.

Or perhaps Dustin Hoffman running against Michael Richards? We could call that one “Kramer vs. Kramer”.

Only a few more hours until the polls open for voters here in California.

Thankfully, the House of Rapp has been under construction for most of the recall campaign period. This has spared you and 300 million of your fellow Americans my thoughts on people like Gray, Cruz, and Arnold.

But since the Age of Web Site Construction is over, indulge me for just a moment, if you will.

Now I know some people feel that this recall is: (choose one)

a) a right wing conspiracy
b) undemocratic
c) unconstitutional
d) turning California into a laughingstock
e) all of the above
f) none of the above
g) Monty Brewster for mayor
h) An augmented sixth chord built upon the flat second degree of the tonic key

… however, I would have to disagree with item “d”.

First of all, who cares what anyone else thinks? I don’t expect the residents of Rhode Island to consider my opinion on their island state before going to the polls, so why should Californians care what someone from Vermont or Iowa thinks? Do we really need them loving this state so much that they rent one of those U-Hauls with the massive watercolor murals of the Rocky Montains painted on it and move here?

More importantly, if I was a resident of (insert any state with a budget deficit of less than $40 billion), I’m fairly certain I would be envious of California’s ability to finally stand up and say “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna to take it anymore.” I certainly wouldn’t be laughing at a state that saw a $10 billion surplus magically turn into a $40 billion deficit the day the last gubernatorial election ended.

Still, a wee bit of circus every now and then isn’t always a bad thing. With something like 135 candidates on the ballot, you just know there are going to be some gems in there. Yeah, there’s the chick with the big rack. The golf pro. The aspiring comedian. A fellow pilot, Jim Weir, is also on the ballot. There’s even a Green Party candidate.

If it’s sheer whacked out insanity you crave, however, I think I’ve found your man. I found this ad on page A11 of the front section of the Los Angeles Times:

I think it’s very magnanamous of Mr. Busch to offer to share power equally with “great statesman Gray Davis” and “exceptional human being Arnold Schwarzenegger”, especially when one ponders the fact that this guy isn’t even one of the 135 candidates on the ballot.

He’s also the only candidate I’m aware of that’s taken it upon himself to work out a settlement agreement with Osama bin Laden.

In the words of Kenny Banya: it’s gold, Jerry… GOLD!

For months now, I’ve been having the best time watching Jesse Ventura butt heads with the blue suit/red tie political establishment in Minnesota and around the country.

There’s a lot to like about the guy. He’s colorful, unorthodox, and refreshingly bold–and I figure anything that gets the apathetic American public involved in the political process is a step in the right direction. And if his victory in the northeast serves to shake up the Democrats and Republicans, so much the better.

That was then.

Now? Well, perhaps all the talk of him as the next President of the United States has gone to his head, I don’t know. Whatever the reason, he’s devolved into more of a sideshow than a political hero. There was a time when I wondered if California would ever have someone that engaging in Sacramento; nowadays it’s all I can do keep the self-loathing at bay for having ever harbored such a thought in the first place.

I’m starting to feel sorry for the people of Minnesota–at least, the 63% of them that cast their vote for another candidate. Which brings to mind one of the problems with the Reform Party (or any substantial third party, for that matter): it dilutes the power of the victor. This has it’s good points, but in the case of Ventura in ’98 or Clinton in ’92, it leaves the winner to govern an electorate that by and large didn’t want that candidate in office in the first place. You can see this in the extreme in places like Japan and Israel, where political power is split among so many parties that governments cannot exist except in the form of uneasy coalitions which shatter like safety glass at the first sign of strain.

Wasn’t Ross Perot enough of a poster child for bad behavior on the campaign trail? Was anyone able to keep count of exactly how many times he left and re-entered the race for President in 1992? Say what you will about the two major parties, but at least give them credit for always staying in the campaign, no matter how badly they were about to be beaten. Sadly, Governor Ventura shares a penchant for the same style of condescension toward voters and the media that Perot has exhibited for years.

And what’s with the Playboy interview? Move over, Howard! There’s a new shock-jock in town. Ventura’s recent rant that “organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers” reminds one that his tenure in St. Paul has thus far consisted of a never ending lecture on His Majesty’s opinions and beliefs, no matter how far removed from relativity. Honesty may be the best policy, but even that axiom has its limits and he’s rolling right over them. I suppose it wouldn’t rub me the wrong way if I could see some relationship between the comments on religion and breast size to his job as governor.

There’s no denying that the antics of Perot, Trump, Ventura, and Buchanan make for entertaining politics. But I, for one, prefer to get my laughs at the circus, not the capitol. Sorry Jesse, you’re just not ready for prime time.

People are so funny. We rant and rave about how things should be different. Then, when they change, we’re even less happy than before.

Occasionally I’ll hear some person or other comment on how they never watch the news anymore, because it’s always negative and depressing. To me, that seems like sticking your head in the sand. Just don’t look at it and poof! It’s gone.

I always want to ask those people exactly when it was that the news used to be all sunshine and baby’s breath. During Vietnam? World War II? Personally, I’m a news junkie. I always have the television on, and it’s usually tuned to a news channel. CNN, Headline News, CNBC, MSNBC, you name it. Mind you, I rarely sit in front of the TV and watch it. But my house is small enough that I can always hear it.

Yesterday I happened to catch something on ABC which was interesting enough to make me stop what I was doing, go into the living room, and sit down to watch it without even trying to fool myself into thinking I would only watch “for a second”. The show was called Is America #1? The Success and Failure of Societies (you can read the full transcript of the program) I only caught the last half of it, but basically it came to the conclusion that the United States really is the best place to live. That we have more freedom, wealth, opportunity, resources, and diversity than any other country in the world. It was downright surreal to see a show which took issue with the standard nightly news mantra about how the rich were getting richer while the poor and middle classes were rapidly being crushed into oblivion under the heel of Bill Gates.

After doing a bit of research, I realized that I’m apparently the last remaining person on earth who has never heard of John Stossel, the guy who wrote the story. He’s received 19 Emmy Awards and a Peabody Award, among others.

The thing I really loved about the program was that it took the idea of poverty and put it into a worldwide perspective. How do the people we consider poor compare with those in other societies? Stossel and company went to the South Bronx, the poorest Congressional district in the United States, and everyone they interviewed living below the poverty line said they:

• live in an air conditioned building

• own a color television
• own a microwave oven
• own a VCR
• receive cable television service
• own a modern, frost-free refrigerator
• receive at least some government financial assistance

This isn’t to say that there aren’t homeless, mentally ill, outcast, and other highly needy people out there. Every February I see them en mass when I’m in San Francisco, huddled in the doorways of Union Square’s most affluent stores. But it was amazing to see some of the things I’ve been saying all along broadcast on a major news network, principally that socialism doesn’t work. I’ve been to Russia, China, France, Germany, Italy, England, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Mexico–I’ve seen it first-hand.

Watching Stossel interview Hashin Halim, a political leader in Calcutta, was theatre of the absurd at its best. Calcutta is infamous as one of the world’s poorest, most destitute cities. Halim claimed that Calcutta was only poor because of immigration, and that his city was an example of socialism’s superiority from which America should learn. He actually said it was “a hundred times better”. Unbelievable. How is it that the thing which has made America so strong has reduced Calcutta to it’s current state?

In the end, which society really is best? How do you even measure something like that? Is it completely subjective? Aren’t all countries best in their own way? Perhaps. But Stossel interviewed someone who said the most objective way to determine how well a country was working was to look at how many people wanted to go there. And by that standard, America is king of the hill.

In the olden days, when I was a little snot-nosed punk, I used to love to play tag. I could run fast, so whoever was “it” would usually get one whiff of my superhuman speed and go after one of the other kids. I almost went on to become a teen-aged comic book hero, but the name Flash and skin tight red uniform were already taken, so I had to settle for a pair of khakis and the name Ron.

Anyway, some people appear to have retained a strong love for this game, especially in Southern California, because every time I turn on the television (which really isn’t that often) it seems I’m watching the same show. I call it “Tag! You’re It!”. This show is broadcast live from a helicopter, and it involves some sort of late model vehicle traveling at high speed in front of a pack of Highway Patrol cars.

That’s right, it’s the high speed chase. But it’s usually not that high speed. In fact, it’s often zero speed. Last week during a chase some guy sat on the freeway for hours in his car, and the police couldn’t approach him because there was no cover, and they didn’t know if he was armed. I think their solution to that one was to send a robot with a telephone out to him so they could talk.

This whole chase thing is on my mind because there was yet another one last night, only this time the guy on the run was driving a motor home. A motor home. If you’re not familiar with these chases, the standard procedure is to simply follow the guy around until he runs out of gas or ends up in some alley where he can’t get away. The cops don’t really make a huge effort to cut him off, because they don’t want to provoke the driver into doing something which will injure police or bystanders. Often the driver will come to a cul-de-sac and make a U-turn. In this motor home, the guy would probably take about three minutes to turn the thing around.

“Yeah, he may be crazy–but boy, those were some nice three-point turns! Back to you in the studio, Paul…”

It really drives home the question (no pun intended) that everyone asks: do these people really think they’re going to get away? Has anyone EVER gotten away, or even lost the cops for one second? Of course not. Hmmm… perhaps a better emphasis on basic math and physics would cure this problem. A car will not outrun a helicopter. Wake up people.

So why do they do it? Are they seeking a longer prison sentence? Because if you really want to go to the slammer, you could at least find a creative way of getting there. What about breaking INTO prison? I bet no one’s ever tried that.

Like those who walk into schools and start shooting, these people are obviously unbalanced in some way. And there are crazy people everywhere. But this high speed chase phenomenon seems confined mainly to Southern California. I mean, when was the last time you heard of a chase through the streets of Chicago or Portland? Come to think of it, you’d probably have better luck in one of those other cities where the police aren’t so drilled and experienced in dealing with chases. Perhaps the smog causes an inordinately high number of bad acid trips out here.

Hey, it could happen.

I have a feeling the incessant media coverage has something to do with it. Typically, almost every local station will cut away from whatever they’re doing and follow the action, which often lasts for hours on end. As my father used to say, “monkey see, monkey do”. My favorite is KNBC, channel 4 in Los Angeles. Paul Moyer always lends insightful, seasoned commentary to the proceedings. Here’s a small sample:

“It appears he’s not stopping.”
“Eventually he’ll run out of gas.”
“Those are police cars behind him.”
“This is not the first chase on the L.A. freeway system.”

Nothing phases me anymore. Since I came back to Southern California in 1989, I’ve seen recession, fires, floods, earthquakes, and riots. High speed automobile chases across the freeway system are chump change. But I’ll bet it’s only a matter of time until someone gets the bright idea of driving a bus, 18 wheeler, or dump truck around like a maniac. And then some bloated assemblyman or congressman will use the situation for some political mileage, probably introducing a bill to make film studios liable when they produce a movie with a car chase in it.

God forbid someone should actually take responsibility for their actions without having someone or something else to blame it on.

This whole Littleton, CO high school shooting incident is spawning some ugly things after the fact. It’s not enough that something terrible happened, we have to pollute the healing process too. Or maybe it’s me. Perhaps the things that help other people just sit wrong with me.

Today I was visiting someone’s web site. It wasn’t a very good one, but it contained one item which caught my eye: a banner for another web site, http://www.prayforcolumbine.com. I have no problem with someone creating a site for something like that, but I found some inquiries on the site from the webmaster about weather or not people would be offended if they were to sell t-shirts and CDs to help offset the cost of the site.

Please.

The House of Rapp has every account feature known to man, and it costs me about $20 per month. Are you going to tell me that kind of expense needs offsetting? And that no internet service provider would come forward to donate web space after such a highly publicized tragedy? Some people are selling copies of memorial services, poems, and music. There’s even a “Columbine High School Tragedy Web Ring”. I know they’re not all out there to make a dollar, but there have been some noises in that direction, and it bothers me. One person has even started a movement to get a special Columbine Beanie Baby created.

The thing that really irritates me is the gun control bill that President Clinton is sending to Congress. Why must one person’s loss be another person’s opportunity for political gain? Bill Clinton is smart enough to know that gun control laws are not responsible for the shooting, but this is a chance to push an agenda, to play the political games he’s always squinting into the camera and wagging his finger against. It’s very hypocritical. It’s also very Clinton.

Guns are like cars. They are both necessary, yet can kill so easily. And if someone wants to get one bad enough, there is no law you can pass which will stop them. You could install a Lojack, Club, car alarm, kill switch, and a half dozen other theft-prevention items on your car, and if a thief wants your vehicle badly enough he will get it every single time. Guns are the same way. Pass all the laws you want, but if a twisted kid wants to kill his classmates he will find a way. Even without the guns, Harris and Klebold had homemade bombs, grenades, and other weaponry made from common household items. They spent twelve months planning this attack. Do you really think tighter gun laws would have prevented this or discouraged them?

One might argue I’m creating a false analogy, that guns are not the necessary, useful items in modern society that automobiles are. Tell that to NATO troops in Europe, or to a World War II veteran. Or to someone whose home was robbed. Or to a woman who was raped.

I do agree that automatic, and even semi-automatic, weapons have no place in the hands of the general public. They’re not necessary for sport hunting or self defense, as any single action weapon will kill whatever it hits. So ban those. Oh wait–they already are banned.

But that doesn’t matter to Clinton. He can improve his legacy by taking advantage of public emotion following a murderous rampage. Will we also restrict freedom of speech on the internet? Never mind the fact that anyone who publishes bomb making instructions is already criminally liable of conspiracy, solicitation, and aiding and abetting the perpetrators–it’s all about what the camera sees, what the sound bite will be, and how we can advance Our Great Agenda. Even after something like Columbine, that just doesn’t change, does it?

Am I wrong about Clinton? Does he really think that if a couple of laws were passed that this would not have happened? I’ve considered the possibility, but I just don’t think he’s that genuine. Sorry, Charlie.

When it comes to political figures, it’s been quite a while since anything has come down the pike to make me say “Well isn’t that special?”. But my Church Lady attitude may be changing, because it appears Elizabeth Dole may make a run for the Republican nomination for President in 2000.

I hope she takes the plunge. I think it’s about time we had a female Chief Executive. I would never vote for a candidate based on their sex, but Dole seems to generate a hundred times more interest than her husband ever did. In fact, there are a number of interesting potential Republican candidates right now, but Dole excites me the most.

It’s very early in the 2000 election process; she hasn’t declared herself a candidate, and her positions on most issues have not been officially stated. Which is fine at this point. But when I think of the qualities of a good President, she seems to fit the bill. Substance and charm. Intelligent, articulate, humorous, and gracious. I’ve admired her for years. She’s been a member of five Presidential administrations, served as Secretary of Transportation and Secretary of Labor, and has led the American Red Cross to a record $562 million in fund-raising while leading 30,700 paid and 1.3 volunteer members of the organization. Degrees from Duke and Harvard Law (with honors). She’s established scholarship funds, programs for at-risk children, and is purportedly one of the world’s ten most admired women. It’s rare to find a candidate with a long and varied history of high-level government service without also finding a career politician, but she has managed to walk that rather thin line.

It would be ironic if the first female to ever appear as a presidential candidate for a major political party was a Republican. Contemporary political wisdom has just assumed it would be a Democrat. Perhaps there hasn’t been a Democrat because of 1984. No, not the book–the election, silly. I’ve run into a lot of people who think that Mondale lost in ’84 because he had Ferraro on the ticket with him. But as far as I can tell, Mondale lost because people didn’t want Mondale in the Oval Office. I don’t think a running mate has ever been responsible for sinking a ticket. Hell, if V.P.s were that important, Bush would have never been elected in ’88. But what do I know?

Anyway, though I’m certainly getting way ahead of things here, I hope Dole runs. You know, Christine Todd Whitman (governor of New Jersey) would be another excellent female candidate. Also Republican, for what it’s worth. Shocking.

All this talk of polls is driving me batty. The polls say this, the polls say that. Why does it matter? The argument that the American people don’t want Clinton impeached is bogus and irrelevant. For one thing, the polls can be made to support any point of view. For example, a CNN/Time poll now shows that more people want Clinton removed from office than actually voted for him to become President of the United States. So to the pundits who quote polls and then go on to say impeachment would be “overturning the will of the people” are talking out of both sides of their mouths. A poll vs. an election. Evening news vs. the Constitution. The election no one is talking about is the one that put all these people in Congress. You know, the one that takes place in about a month? That is the poll that counts.

And as I said, it’s all irrelevant anyway. The Constitution provides for no polls to determine weather or not the president is impeached or removed from office. It doesn’t matter what you or I or anyone else wants. Ours is a government of laws, not of men–it’s what makes our system of government the great equalizer. No one is above the law. In fact, if anyone should be held to a higher standard it should be the President. The Congress makes the laws, the Supreme Court interprets the laws, and the executive branch–headed by the president–is charged with enforcing the law.

There are many other reasons why the President should be held to a higher standard. I feel that greater privilege, responsibility, and power demand a person of a higher caliber than your average shmoe. Bill Clinton is certainly not that person. I’m not asking for much, really. But when We, the People elect a Chief Executive, he instantly becomes the most powerful, well-known human on earth. His name is placed along those of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Truman. He lives at the White House, a building of indescribable history, beauty, convenience, and luxury. He travels aboard Air Force One, a $200 million flying mansion (actually, there are two 747s at the President’s disposal). He receives Secret Service protection, limousine service, the finest staffing, meals, etc., and instant media coverage whenever he demands it. He also is followed around by a military aide carrying codes to enable our nuclear weapons. He single-handedly can order Americans into battle. Of course, the cost of this, every stinkin’ penny, is borne by the American public.

In exchange for all this fame, power, and responsibility, I would like to have a respectable, honorable person fulfilling these duties and representing me to the rest of the world. Someone who accepts responsibility for his actions rather than hide behind the definition of the word “is”. Someone who doesn’t send his colleagues onto television to defend him when he knows he is guilty. Or at the very least, someone who won’t be having sex with someone his daughters age while his daughter and wife are at the White House.

Even so, from a legal perspective the sex is meaningless. As it concerns impeachment I don’t care about the sex. He can legally have sex with everyone at the White House. On the other hand, lying to a Grand Jury is a serious offense, whatever the subject matter. I realize Clinton is a lawyer, but I would hope that as President he would, for once, stop hiding behind the sly tricks and loopholes of your average personal injury attorney.

What the president doesn’t realize is that the legal pothole which allows him to squeeze out of a perjury charge on a technicality was more than adequately filled by the framers of the Constitution when they intentionally left the impeachment clause open to some interpretation by Congress. It’s all part of the system of checks and balances that nailed Nixon twenty-five years ago. That much has remained the same. It’s only the media savvy spin that has intensified, a spin which relies on polls rather than laws to conduct the country’s business.

Tomorrow is the fifty-third anniversary of the dropping of an atomic bomb on Nagasaki by an American B-29 bomber.

Today I was browsing CNN.com as I often do, and I came upon a story about an annual remembrance service which is held in Nagasaki’s Peace Park. First off, I have to say CNN is one of the best web sites on the net. I have probably learned more from reading articles on their site and following links from CNN.com than I did during four years of college. That may be a testament to how great CNN is, or how bad my alma mater is. Perhaps both.

Anyway, I followed one of the “Related Links” from that article to a site built in 1995-96 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the bombing. It’s simply called “Remembering Nagasaki”, and I must have spent two hours looking at it. Almost everyone who survived Nagasaki has since died or is suffering greatly from residual effects of the nuclear blast (or, if nothing else, the fact that they are aging), so it’s hard to get a first hand living account from a survivor.

Enter “Remembering Nagasaki”. The day after the blast happened, a Japanese Army photographer named Yosuke Yamahata started taking pictures of what was left. His photographs can be found on this site, and are no less powerful than the words of a Holocaust survivor I heard at the Museum of Tolerance.

Today we tend to be a bit desensitized to violence, especially on-screen violence. But these were real people, not actors. Speaking of actors, the site contains a lot of feedback from internet users from 1995-96 about the bombing, and I was surprised to see the recurring references to the TV movie The Day After and how it opened their eyes to the devastating potential of The Bomb.

I remember seeing The Day After, a film about a U.S.-Soviet nuclear war and the aftermath, the first time it aired on television. I must have been about thirteen years old. I was home alone that night, and it scared the heck out of me. Remember, this was 1984 or so–the absolute pinnacle of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was still up, glasnost and peristroika were nyet, and thousands of nuclear ballistic missiles were pointed at the U.S. and U.S.S.R.

Today there is no way to add your own thoughts to the “Remembering Nagasaki” site. It has been frozen in the state it was in on the 50th anniversary of the bombing. So I decided to add my thought on the subject here.

I found the most acrimonious debate to be over the actual decision to use the bomb. Many people thought it needn’t have been. The war was over, they say. There wasn’t going to be any invasion of Japan. The Japanese were just looking for an excuse to surrender. And the U.S. is nothing but evil anyway. Here is a quote from one person who decried “viewing the decision to drop the bomb through the distorted racist rhetoric”:

“I am not proud to be part of the “America” that unnecessarily dropped two atomic bombs on an already defeated nation, that put Japanese Americans in concentration camps, that denied entry visas to a hundred thousand Jews, effectively killing them all, the country that tried and still tries to turn men into slaves, my country that segregated even the army’s blood plasma during the war so that if an African American soldier was bleeding to death, he would die as “white blood” stood ten feet away from him. I am not proud to be the America that will not admit to its faults, I am not proud of America the lie, America the distorted history textbook, America the damned. I grew up in this country singing “My country tis of thee…sweet land of liberty…of thee I sing.” But my heart was broken when I found that this country is a lie. The bomb was unnecessary. The wonderful Roosevelt put my aunties and uncles in concentration camps because of their race. How could I be happy about that? Only the blind could be proud of this America. Only the blind are glad about the bomb. May I find compassion for the blind.”

There is factual truth to what he writes. The U.S. did deny entry visas to Jews. There were segregated camps where Japanese-Americans were forced to live during the war. It’s easy to sit here fifty years later and Monday-morning-quarterback things. In my own opinion, dropping the bomb was the best way to end the war quickly. That doesn’t mean I think it was anything less than an unspeakable horror. But what about World War II wasn’t?

If one wishes to accuse Truman of placing more value on the lives of Americans that those of the Japanese when making the decision, I would agree. But that was his job. I often wonder, if the Japanese were so badly beaten, why did they not surrender after the first bomb was dropped? I don’t believe Nagasaki was bombed because anyone thought it would be fun. And it’s important to note that much of what we now know about radiation and the long term effects of exposure to atomic energy was not known in 1945. Atomic weapons were still being detonated above ground domestically.

Also, comparing the camps Asian Americans were forced to live in to concentration camps is a non-sequitor. I don’t recall millions of Asian Americans being worked to death or losing their lives to Zyklon gas, starvation, disease, random execution, and inhuman medical experiments within a few short years.

Contrary to the person quoted above, I believe America does admit most of it’s faults. No, not all of them, and not always in the timely fashion I would hope for in Leibnitz’s ‘best of all possible worlds’. But it does happen. I do not believe America “still tries to turn men into slaves”. Men do that to themselves far more often today.

And as for what happened in 1945? I recall the words of General Douglas MacArthur, who, speaking to a joint session of Congress on April 19, 1951, concluded fifty one years of military service with the following words:

“I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes…. but once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war there is no substitute for victory.”