Now I used to be a big George Allen fan, but after meeting him once, and seeing this campaign unfold, I am really lukewarm on him. Granted that Webb seems to be the perfect person to run against Allen, but this races accomplishes what the Dems want, which is to make a GOP's '08 prospect look weak. The seem to be accomplishing this, however, by making it one of the more weird and downright shamefull races this cycle.

The always excellent La Shawn Barber has more, specifically on how racial issues have come into the race:

The Washington Post says Allen’s and Webb’s use of racial epithets matters. So let’s imagine this: both men called black people “niggers” on occasion back in the day. Bad boys. Both are running for the same Senate seat. The Post calls Allen’s record on race “mixed” because he opposed an MLK holiday and supported Confederate History Month but sent taxpayers’ money to black colleges to “apologize” for slavery.

Whatever.

What are black Virginians supposed to do with this information? Refuse to vote for either one?

Posted by Ryan S. at 7:10 PM | Permalink | |

I am a coffee/caffiene addict, and William of Newarking has an interesting post on all the Java-sources here on Main Street. Brew Ha Ha is my favorite hands down, though I also frequent Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts. Didn't like Central Perk when they opened, but on his recommendation, I may have to revisit.

Posted by Ryan S. at 3:58 PM | Permalink | |

My hero this week is Indiana Senator James Inhofe.

He has repeatedly stood for truth on the issue of Global Warming, the truth being that we don't know all the facts. An excerpt on his speech about the media's reaction to one he gave on Monday:

Over the last century, the media has flip-flopped between global cooling and warming scares. At the turn of the 20th century, the media peddled an upcoming ice age -- and they said the world was coming to an end. Then in the 1930s, the alarm was raised about disaster from global warming -- and they said the world was coming to an end. Then in the 70’s, an alarm for another ice age was raised -- and they said the world was coming to an end. And now, today we are back to fears of catastrophic global warming -- and again they are saying the world is coming to an end.

Read the whole thing. He's really on the ball on this issue.

My hack this week is once again Al Gore. The man is incessant.

Now cigarettes are causing global warming. That is probably one of the more ludicrous things I have ever heard.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore warned hundreds of U.N. diplomats and staff on Thursday evening about the perils of climate change, claiming: Cigarette smoking is a "significant contributor to global warming!"

Gore, who was introduced by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said the world faces a "full-scale climate emergency that threatens the future of civilization on earth."

Gore showed computer-generated projections of ocean water rushing in to submerge the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, parts of China, India and other nations, should ice shelves in Antarctica or Greenland melt and slip into the sea.

And may I remind you, as already established in Senator Inhofe's speech, Antartica is getting colder, and the ice is growing.

UPDATE: Jeff the Baptist has some pretty cool analysis of computer modeling in a post about Senator Inhofe's speech.

Posted by Ryan S. at 11:57 AM | Permalink | |

Well after two years of blue, I decided to overhaul the look of JttR. I'll be playing around with the details of it, but I like this new template a lot. Feedback is encouraged!

Posted by Ryan S. at 11:00 PM | Permalink | |

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Posted by Ryan S. at 10:42 PM | Permalink | |

7-11 stores are dropping Citgo gas!

Citgo is a Houston-based subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, and the foreign parent became a public-relations issue for 7- Eleven because of comments by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Chavez has called President George W. Bush the devil and an alcoholic. The U.S. government has warned that Chavez is a destabilizing force in Latin America.

7-Eleven spokesman Margaret Chabris said that, "Regardless of politics, we sympathize with many Americans' concern over derogatory comments about our country and its leadership recently made by Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez."

I'm going to get a Slurpee by the end of the day.

Posted by Ryan S. at 1:07 PM | Permalink | |

Delaware's own Intercollegiate Studies Institute is featued in a Newsweek article about college education:

Does going to college make students better-educated citizens? A new study of more than 14,000 randomly selected college students from across the country concludes that the answer is often no. Not only did many respondents at the 50 participating colleges fail to answer half of the basic civics questions correctly, but at such elite schools as Cornell, Berkeley and Johns Hopkins, the college freshmen scored higher than the college seniors. Josiah Bunting, III, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), the nonprofit that funded the study, decried “the students’ dismal scores” as providing “high-quality evidence of… nothing less than a coming crisis in American citizenship.”

Very interesting, and something I've definately noticed. Read the whole thing.

MSBC.com also has a civics quiz. I got them all right (but they weren't as easy as I expected them to be). There are eight questions, and right now only two questions have over half of people who have taken the quiz getting them right. The average score seems to be a 44%. See how well you do. Good luck!

Posted by Ryan S. at 12:27 PM | Permalink | |

Ryan Mc took the test over at LiberalDelight and came out NeoLiberal.

Paleo-Conservative You scored 40% Personal Liberty and 65% Economic Liberty!

A paleo-conservative believes in moderate government intervention on personal matters and little to moderate government intervention on economic matters. They support capitalism as an economic system and therefore are opposed to what they consider to be a welfare state. They believe in property rights or homestead. Some paleo-conservatives tend to have an "isolationist" bent to them, and therefore are more likely to be opposed to foreign interventions then most rightists. Paleo-conservatives are reminiscent of the "old right" of the 30's, 40's and 50's. Strong Paleo-Conservatives border on Libertarianism.

Link: The Politics Test written by brainpolice on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

_______________________
Not sure that the red area there is quite accurate...but the description seems to be fairly on.

UPDATE (10:48AM): Fixed the spacing. Also, I would love to see other DCBA members (and Delaware bloggers in general) take this!

Posted by Ryan S. at 11:59 PM | Permalink | |

Thanks, Anna!

Hube, Paul Smith, Jr., Miss AO, and Jeff the Baptist have taken it too. All of them, except for the latter, are lightweights.

Pushes up glasses

Posted by Ryan S. at 12:24 PM | Permalink | |

My ideal legislative conservative (little-"c") is Edmund Burke. Burke was the only voice for tradition in his time, supporting the Amerivan Revolution, but opposing the French Revolution. He is often pictured by conservatives I know as the lone "voice in the dark," and is widely recognized as the father of Anglo-American conservatism. Burke was the minority in his party, and certainly in Parliament. This model of the Burkian conservative legislator, the minority of minorities, works because he is in the minority to begin with, and because of the structure of England's governmental system.

Currently in America, there are conservatives in Congress. Most (if not all) of them are in the Republican Party, which was, in 1980, 1984, and 1994, at least, the 'party for conservatives.' However, Congress has strayed from the path, and under some guidence from the Bush Administration, voted for massive spending increases and has not protected our homeland.

This has led to many conservatives eagerly anticipating the widely predicted shift of the House to Democratic control (I have my doubts it will happen, but that doesn't matter right now). They think that having at least one branch of Congress in opposition control will allow for more gridlock, and the Republicans not having to compromise. I predict this would have the opposite effect than they hope for.

One, even though the House Republicans could refuse to compromise, having a Democratic majority means that they have the ability to pass bills by themselves. Two, there are enough moderates in the House on the GOP side that would work hand-in-hand with the Democrats. Three, the Senate would then compromise with the House version of the bill. Considering those in the Senate feel that the House immigration reform bill is bad because it does not offer "citizenship oppurtunity," also known as amnesty, the prospects for holding a conservative Senate are zero.

Three, I have my doubts Bush would veto all that many bills, epescially those that pass the House and Senate, under control of two different parties, and therefore constituting 'bipartisanship' on everything that gets to his desk. This explains his assertion that if the Democrats win, they will raise taxes.

Fourth, losing in 2006 will only make the RNC more liberal. Because the RNC sees itself as conservative, and by being conservative, loses elections, and therefore needs to be less conservative. Ths is combined with the Spector/Chafee Effect, in which the national organization supports liberal Republicans for the sake of seat count:

With that fear to motivate them, national Republican Party groups are spending $1 million (€780,000) or more to save the notoriously independent-minded Chaffee from defeat in Tuesday's primary.

They are attacking his conservative challenger, former investment banker and broker Steve Laffey, now the mayor of the town of Cranston, with a gusto usually reserved for Democrats.

I'd rather run a principled conservative than lose than have Spector or Chaffee win another election. Keeping the House will not make the Republican Party more conservative, but it will keep it from swinging farther left.

Posted by Ryan S. at 10:07 AM | Permalink | |

Frank Warner:

Yesterday, we found out that American support for U.S. participation in the Iraq war is rising.

One poll last week (Sept. 12-13) found that 51 percent of Americans back “the U.S. war in Iraq.” That’s the first majority for the war since October 2003. A slightly newer (Sept. 15-17) poll showed that, for the first time since last December, less than a majority of Americans believe the Iraq war was a mistake.

In other words, our role in the Iraq war is increasingly popular.

And it seems doubtful this is a statisitcal anomaly:

Note this: News stories written between Aug. 20 and Sept. 12 are demonstrably wrong if they used the “increasingly unpopular war” phrase. An Aug. 18-20 poll showed American support for the war at 35 percent. By Sept. 12-13, support rose a stunning 16 percent! In case the math ain’t clear, even with the margin of error, that’s increasing popularity.

Posted by Ryan S. at 9:01 AM | Permalink | |

Mathew Spalding, director of Heritage Foundation's B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies, will lecture on “George Washington as the Model of American Statesmanship” at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 20, in 103 Gore Hall.

Spalding is the author and editor of many works on America's founding, including Patriot Sage: George Washington and the American Political Tradition, and serves on the board of academic advisers at the Mount Vernon estate.

This is event is sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and co-sponsored by the College Republicans at UD. There will be a book signing immediately after the lecture.

For more information, call (302) 652-4600 or e-mail [kennethcribb@isi.org]

News-Journal article here.

I'll be introducing Dr. Spalding, and all of you bloggers and blog-readers are cordially invited.

Posted by Ryan S. at 8:12 AM | Permalink | |

Perhaps I should establish my liberal bone fides at the outset. I'd like to see taxes raised on the wealthy, drugs decriminalized and homosexuals free to marry. I also think that the Bush administration deserves most of the criticism it has received in the last six years — especially with respect to its waging of the war in Iraq, its scuttling of science and its fiscal irresponsibility.

But my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.

On questions of national security, I am now as wary of my fellow liberals as I am of the religious demagogues on the Christian right.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by Ryan S. at 10:06 PM | Permalink | |

Friday morning I wake up a little more congested than usual. Saturday is worse, as it is accompanied by sinus pressure. So after the heartbreaking UD football game, I was at ACME and wanted to purchase Advil Cold & Sinus.

Nothing wrong with that, right? I have a cold, and Advil Cold & Sinus has been effective in the past. However, I could not buy any because the pharmacy was closed. It seems that Advil Cold & Sinus has pseudoephedrine, and as such, can be used to make methamphetamines.

If this was always the case, and I used to be able to buy Advil Cold & Sinus like any other OTC drug, why the change?

The answer is the USA PATRIOT Act. As part of the reinstatement last February, I was now unable to purchase drugs that could help my body fight this annoying cold off.

Thanks, elected leaders!

Posted by Ryan S. at 10:10 AM | Permalink | |

Instapundit has a good Pope roundup here.

My favorite excerpts:

John Hinderaker: "The Pope can perhaps be excused for thinking that Islam can be associated with violence. He probably took it personally when an Islamic terrorist group plotted to assassinate his predecessor. If the Vatican ever starts assassinating imams, then they'll really have something to protest."

Ed Morrissey sees an imbalance: "People use words to criticize Islam; Muslims use stones, fire, and eventually bombs to protest back. When was the last time Christians threw firebombs at a mosque to protest Muslim imams characterizing Christianity as polytheistic? When have we seen Jews firebomb mosques for Muslim leaders calling them the descendants of pigs and monkeys, a common insult from both religious and secular Muslims in the Middle East? Muslims have proven Benedict prophetic, and don't think for a moment that this wave of violence has peaked."

My thoughts here (Previous post)

Posted by Ryan S. at 4:11 PM | Permalink | |

This week's hero/hack deals with the clash of civilization between the West and Islam.

First, my hero for the second week in a row (a hero/hack first), is Pope Benedict XVI.
Earlier this week, the Pope visited his home in Bravaria, and while speaking at a university, spoke on the clash between Christianity and Islam. The BBC:

In his speech at Regensburg University, the German-born pontiff explored the historical and philosophical differences between Islam and Christianity and the relationship between violence and faith.

Stressing that they were not his own words, he quoted Emperor Manual II Paleologos of the Byzantine Empire, the Orthodox Christian empire which had its capital in what is now the Turkish city of Istanbul.

The emperors words were, he said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Now obviously, for whatever reason, the Supreme Pontiff used a quote to illustrate his point. How did the "Arab Street" react? Not well:

"He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world," Kapusuz blurted out in comments made to the state-owned Anatolia news agency. "It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades."

Really, it is the Muslim world that is trapped in a Middle Ages mentality, ever since the fatwa that basically stopped all intellectual progress was issued around the year 1500. The 'mentality of the Crusades' was one of the West being threatened by a growing, and violent Islam. That sound familiar? Here's the real money quote, from the Pakistan Foreign Ministry:

"Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.

Read that quote carefully. What was just defended was the right to a violent reaction to criticisms of intolernace. Well I guess that adage is true. The proof is in the pudding.

On the other side of the coin, my hack this week is US Senator Russ Feingold (WI-D), who criticized Bush's use of the phrase 'Islamic Fascists:'

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold called on President Bush to refrain from using the phrase "Islamic fascists," saying it was offensive to Muslims and has nothing to do with global terrorists fighting the United States.

"We must avoid using misleading and offensive terms that link Islam with those who subvert this great religion or who distort its teachings to justify terrorist activities," Feingold said Tuesday in a speech to the Arab American Institute on Capitol Hill.

Bush uses the term 'Islamic Fascists' to differentiate between those 'moderate' Muslims and the ones supporting violence in the name of the 'religion of peace.' To my knowledge, no domestic Muslim groups have asked him not to use it, which puzzles me why Senator Feingold would really care all that much.

Next week, he will probably ask Bush to use "Cute-eyed puppies" to refer to Islamic Fascists. According to the Senator, that will solve the Middle East crisis.

Posted by Ryan S. at 9:11 AM | Permalink | |

Ah, Pat Buchanan. I just finished reading the excellent Death of the West, and went right into State of Emergency. This new book is an intellectual continuation of Death of the West, as it makes many similar arguments with augmented focus on immigration today as well as more recent examples.

In this book, Buchanan outlines first why illegal immigration is a problem today, and cites Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy, among others. The reason those presidential quotes and ones by others looked upon as favorable by the general public and liberals alike (Booker T. Washington called for industrialists of his day to not ignore black labor in favor of cheaper foreign labor) stand out so much is because if any of those people said similar things today they would be tried and executed in the press as right-wing extremists.

Strongly favoring immigration control is a rational argument that has been tainted by the 'accept all but the whites' multiculturalist crowd. It is one that traces back to our very identification of who we are. Access rights should be fully in control of the state (and more specifically, in the hands of the people within a state), and the breakdown of national barriers by open migration is just irrational. Of course, Buchanan lays down chapters of statisitics to back up his claim, and paints a very imposing picture of a future America fractured by race. State of Emergency also talks about Eurabia, and how exaclty that has the potential to play out in the future.

Buchanan, in the final chapter, outlines a plan for dealing with the immigration problem here:
1. A "Time-Out" on all Immigration, for the purpose of assimilating those already here
2. No Amnesty for Illegals
3. The Border Fence
4. Outlawing "Anchor Babies"
5. Ending Chain Migration and Dual Citizenship
6. Ending the Welfare State "magnets"
7. Remigration - making it undesirable, through many factors, for immigrants to want to remain in the United States

Posted by Ryan S. at 9:00 PM | Permalink | |

I need to preface this that I watched as little TV and surfed as little of the MSM web as I could, because 9/11 is just too emotional for me to handle the dearth of coverage the MSM was provided. The images of 9/11 are etched upon my brain in such a way that I can recall most of the events, the sights, the emotions, all of it, in a moments thought. I carried it around all day, never far from my mind. There was some sobbing at Mass today, and my professors acknowledged the day appropriately. There was no official celebration by the University, something which I now pledged to have rectified by next year.

Going in, there were some danger signs that the intellectual left would try to push its agenda, for instance this example from a News-Journal article on how teachers were going to handle the anniversary:

Michelle Conway, a seventh-grade English teacher at Everett Meredith Middle School in Middletown, planned a lesson in tolerance to mark the anniversary.

She read a magazine article to her class Friday called "My Name Is Osama." It's the story of an Iraqi immigrant child in the United States treated badly at his school after 9/11.

"The objective of the lesson is, No. 1, to teach the children that we fear what we don't understand," she said. "And, No. 2, we really have to be careful how we define what is an American."

Now there is nothing wrong with objective No. 1, but Miss Conway seriously needs a lesson on how Muslims in America define themselves.

I think the typical left reaction is summed up in Jason's post. He tries vainly to hide behind his outlandish statements, but all the "Inside Job" sentiment is there, including a promotional video for "The New Pearl Harbor," a 9/11 conspiracy book.

Even the venerated Instapundit had me a little down this evening, as he seems to miss the scope of this conflict of which 9/11 is only the beginning of another chapter:

Yes. To read some blogs today, you'd think that this was the 9th century, with camel-riding Jihadis ready to descend on helpless American towns, swinging unstoppable scimitars. It's not that way; it's more like the Ghost Dance or similar movements borne of frustration at losing, movements that do their damage all right, but that are doomed to fail. I don't mean to understate the threat, which is real enough. But it's not on the order of the Cold War, you know, and we won that one.

Where he goes wrong is that in fact, if you live in Europe, Islamic terror is not akin to the Ghost Dance, which was a last-breath-of-air for a dying culture, and didn't outright kill anybody (its role in the Wounded Knee Massacre is disputed at best). Europe is slowly being invaded by Islamic immigrants, and will be conquered by demographics. America could not be far behind (see above link on "Muslims in America").

While the United States may see this current conflict as beginning on 9/11 five years ago (the really far-sighted might trace it back to the 1993 WTC bombing), the Islamicists see it as a continuation of the Muslim expansion since the death of Muhammad. A jihad that began well before the Crusades (though they claim that as a catalyst), and continued with only a few centuries of setback (The Battle of Tours, Vienna, The First Crusade, La Reconquista in 1492, etc.). This is the conflict they are fighting. It is a long-term and demographically enhanced fighting strategy, one which US policy makers don’t seem to recognize. This actually makes this current conflict more dangerous than the Cold War, because if we cannot hold the enemy, they will merely outbreed us.

The blog "Shining Plate and a Good Broadsword" has a great post on the state of the post-9/11 world as he sees it, which refutes Reynold's points:

We no longer fight wars as if we were on a battlefield, but as if we were in a courtroom with nice legalities and formalities to be observed so that everything comes out fair and balanced. The West has become a nation of lawyers and professors who try to give the barbarians at the gates an even chance.

Five years on, and the enemy is within our midst and becoming bolder. A year ago, Paris burned. Six months ago, the West was terrified of publishing simple cartoons of Mohammed. Even those who currently direct the Israeli army somehow quake before the opinion of the world. It should be the other way around, but it isn’t. It should be they who quake out of fear, but they are not. Five years on, and we are the ones who shiver at the thought of being labeled a “racist” for saying these things - even though Islam is not a race. We are terrified of pronouncing judgement on an ideology, as if Islam can somehow be placed above any other ideology or practice, such as Communism or Nazism.

Another post I found today which details the breadth of the conflict is from Op For, a Milblog. It is an excellent post dealing with the events of September 11, 1565, where the Knights of the Order of St. John defended Malta from the Turkish invasion, defending (and quite possibly saving) Western Civilization. It was 441 years ago today, but it it as relevant as it was when it happened.

Posted by Ryan S. at 1:08 AM | Permalink | |

2,996 is a tribute to the victims of 9/11.

On September 11, 2006, 2,996 volunteer bloggers
will join together for a tribute to the victims of 9/11.
Each person will pay tribute to a single victim.

We will honor them by remembering their lives,
and not by remembering their murderers.

Today I remember Michael Allen Davidson of Westfield, NJ. Michael was an equity trader in the World Trade Center, and was 27 at the time of the attacks. When he went to work that morning, Michael, like the rest of us, did not know what would await our nation that day.

Here is Michael's profile at it appeared in the New York Times on September 16, 2001:

"He is going to get married in July," Jeff Davidson was saying Friday about his brother Michael, a 27-year-old equity options sales trader for Cantor Fitzgerald. "Her name is Dominique DeNardo. They met in college, at Rutgers. He just saw her from a distance, fell in love with her and wanted her. So he beat up her boyfriend and took her. Caveman-like, pretty much. And they've lived happily ever after. They got engaged on Sept. 21, 2000. On her 25th birthday, he took her to Cancun to propose. He lied to her by saying he won a trip on one of the Web sites just for the weekend. About midway through, he finally popped the question. He waited until sunset on the first night.

"He's a big mush ball. He cries at commercials. But you better not put that in because he thinks he's a tough guy. He's kind of a big kid — 5 foot 10, 215 pounds. But he's as sensitive as they come. We have a grandma down in Florida. So every chance we get, we try to get Grandma to fly up. Grandma's like, 'I don't have the money right now.' My brother's like, 'Don't worry.' He pays for it, or we all pitch in, whatever. We get her up here somehow. He cares."

Bryan Rogers commented on Michael's page on the list of the 9-11 victims saying

"After seeing 'Michael Davidson from Westfield, NJ' on the victims list of 9/11, I had a chill run down my spine. Could this be the same Mike Davidson that I knew from grade school and high school? Unfortunately this picture confirms that it is.

For me, this realization further aggravates an already distressing event. I hope that his family and friends are coping well with what must be a devastating loss."

There are many other kind words on Michael's page, and I suggest you read through them to get an idea of how this singular event that took so many lives affected those most immediate to the attacks. I had originally planned to do a deep reflection for the fifth anniversary of 9-11, but when I heard about the 2,996 project, I felt it most appropriate. I still may have a post up this week discussing the ramifications of the attacks, but today I do not wish to memorialize the attackers.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him. Through the mercy of God, may his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.

As for my plans, I will spend the day mostly as a normal weekday, though I will surely have a much somber mood than normal. I also plan to spend a good part of the day in prayer and quiet contemplation.


9/11/2004 post
9/11/2005 post
United 93 review (I link it because it contains reflections on 9-11 itself as well as the movie)

Posted by Ryan S. at 8:46 AM | Permalink | |

I only watched part of the "docudrama," because I am familiar with most of the details, and I am trying to watch as little coverage as possible.

However, I noticed that I had been getting some hits from people serching for relevant material to the airing.

Here is the post from the Peter Bergen (reporter and one of the few Westerners to have interviewed bin Laden) and Lee Hamilton (Vice Chair of the 9/11 Commission) joint lecture that I attended in fall of 2004.

Here is the post from the Louis Freeh lecture I attended last fall, and he discusses a lot of what The Path to 9-11 covers, including the 1993 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, which Freeh called "possibly the only opportunity to prevent 9/11."

Posted by Ryan S. at 10:44 PM | Permalink | |

Pope Benedict XVI is my hero for this week.

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Pope Benedict hit out Friday at Canada for allowing same sex marriage and abortion, saying they result from Catholic politicians ignoring the values of their religion.

"In the name of tolerance your country has had to endure the folly of the redefinition of spouse, and in the name of freedom of choice it is confronted with the daily destruction of unborn children," the Pope told a group of bishops from Ontario.

Such laws, he said, are the result of "the exclusion of God from the public sphere."

This is a Pope who truely understands what is at stake.

My hack this week is Richard Armitage, the cause of Plamegate:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — Expressing regret for his actions and apologies to his administration colleagues, Richard L. Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, confirmed today that he was the source who first told a columnist about the intelligence officer at the center of the C.I.A. leak case.

However, I feel that the bigger hacks in this case are those who endlessly accused Bush, Cheney, and Rove of any wrong doing in this matter.

Posted by Ryan S. at 11:51 AM | Permalink | |

Now I am sure at least some of you are scratching your heads at that title. The 17th Amendment isn't one that most people know off the top of their heads. It isn't as prominent as the First, Second, Fifth, or any part of the Bill of Rights, yet it is very important when states rights are concerned. If you have Googled it before reading this far, you know that it mandated the direct election of Senators, which used to be appointed by the state legislatures.

First, let me give you some Constitutional background on the rights of states. The big one is the Tenth Amendment. It says:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

This severely limits the Federal Government as to what powers it actually has, and though the “necessary and proper” clause of Article One was used by statists from Henry Clay to Lincoln to enact things like the American System of “public works projects.”

Then a war was fought over state’s rights, the War for Southern Secession. This severely the power the states had, and the balance of federalism was tipped in the federal government’s favor with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. Ratified in 1869, the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed “equal rights to all persons under the law.” This allowed the judiciary carte blanche (pardon the cliché) in deciding cases, being used as a primary rationale for Plessy v. Ferguson (segregation), Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (desegregation), and Roe v. Wade.

Although the Supreme Court did not use this Amendment to approve the New Deal under pressure from FDR (they used the Commerce Clause), the Fourteenth Amendment is a major cause in the deterioration of state’s rights under the rule of activist judges.

The final blow for Constitutional state’s rights came in 1913 during the “Progressive Movement.” The change to a directly elected Senate may not sound like much, and those of you who are little “d’-democrats would probably agree. I am not against this in principle, but the ramifications in terms of federalism are really quite astounding.

The Senate was designed as the state government’s representatives to the federal government, analogous to the House of Lords in Parliament. Once the representatives of the state governments are removed, and the Senate put in the hands of the people, the Senate becomes a smaller version of the House of Representatives, which is how we get radicals like Barbara Boxer and Ted Kennedy as well as ‘national senators,’ ones who serve not their state but seemingly the country at-large, like John McCain and Joe Lieberman.

This is why I would like to call for the repealing of the Seventeenth Amendment. Constitution.org lists the Amendment as being “possibly unconstitutional.” Now I am not sure if that is technically possible, but they reference Article V, Clause 3, which states:

"no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."

Ten states (including Delaware) have still not ratified the Amendment, and I think there is an argument to be made that at least those ten states have not consented to their deprival of their “equal suffrage.” Repealing this Amendment would be a step in returning to true federalism and a reduction in the size and power of the federal government. Fmr. Senator Zell Miller introduced an act to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment in 2004.

Full text of the Bill of Rights and Amendments 11-27.

Posted by Ryan S. at 1:38 AM | Permalink | |

(Al Gore tries to eat the sun)

OSLO (Reuters) - Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore predicted Tuesday that President George W. Bush would shift to do more to fight global warming, under Republican pressure from California to New York.

"I think there is a better than 50-50 chance that President Bush will change his policy in the next two years," Gore told an audience in Oslo after showing his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" about global warming during a tour of Europe."

Climate is one of the policy areas that Bush is 100% right on. I hope he doesn't give in to enviro-pressure groups like Schwarzenegger has, as it would be a mistake the country cannot afford. Global warming is junk science, and it is fearmongers like Gore who keep trying to scare people in conforming to their "green" agenda, which will not only cost the American people billions of dollars, but will cause more harm than good to the enviroment.

Posted by Ryan S. at 1:25 AM | Permalink | |

Tod Lindburg, writing in The Washington Times, on how "normalized" things have become since immediately post-9/11:

In any event, if you had told me then that the anthrax scare would go away, that the triggermen to come would prove to be standard-issue American psychos, and that five years would go by without a follow-up attack on American soil, I and I think most everyone else would have thought you had your head stuck so far in the sand you could see Jimmy Carter.

We were all fearing the worst, an open Intifada on American soil. However, that has not happened, and the threat that we face has become almost benign bacground noise to the media. There were 8 years between attacks on the World Trade Center. I fear our enemy is just biding their time.

Posted by Ryan S. at 9:07 AM | Permalink | |

A fascinating debate on Abraham Lincoln (link) featuring Thomas DiLorenzo, author of The Real Lincoln, and the upcoming Lincoln Unmasked. He calls Lincoln a tyrant:

Now why are these scholars all calling Lincoln a dictator? Well, he launched a military invasion without consent of Congress. He suspended habeas corpus, which ended up with at least 13,000 Northern citizens imprisoned without a warrant being issued. (There was a prison in New York Harbor that became known as the American Bastille—Fort Lafayette.)

He censored all telegraph communication, nationalized railroads, and ordered federal troops to interfere at Northern elections. David Donald writes that the Republic Party won New York State by 7,000 votes in 1864, “under the protection of Federal bayonets.”

Lincoln deported Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham for disagreeing with him. He confiscated firearms. Ministers in the South were imprisoned for not praying for Abraham Lincoln. Secretary of State William Seward set up a secret police force, and he famously boasted to Lord Lyons, the British Ambassador, that he could ring a bell and have any man in America arrested.

Even if you are a die-hard Lincolnista, DiLorenzo is still worth giving a listen to.

Hat Tip: Paul Smith, Jr.

Posted by Ryan S. at 9:25 PM | Permalink | |

Walid Phares has thoughts on the latest Al Qaeda tape (and the says this is the short version!):

However, when one would listen carefully to the taped video, you’d find a treasure of knowledge and indicators for the current state of thinking of al Qaeda and its ideologues. In short it is a sample of what is on the mind of Salafi Jihadists for the United States and the West. Following are few of the issues I noted:

1) The hand behind the message

In short, Azzam’s videotaped message is indeed “American.” Experts have heard it in US and Canadian cities and internet is flowing with it. Whether Gadahn was reading from a prompter or not –and I believe he was with great skills- I tend to believe that such a speech –rather than being dismissed as mere propaganda- is a message coming to us from what’s already inserted inside America, which leads me to the second point

2) Who is it destined to?

It is basically addressed to those who will carry a “Jihad in America,” possibly asserting Adam Gahdan as their leader. Also, this is a very intelligent move to pierce the linguistic shield of America’s media and reach US citizens directly, as a way to spread confusion at least among those who have a hazy understanding of the Jihadists.

3) The ideological platform

In short, the “Azzam” video reconfirms clearly, in an English language that academic translators won’t be able to distort, that al Qaeda’s movement worldwide and in the United States is seeking total annihilation or conversion of the enemy: American and other democracies.

4) Argumentation tactics:

The “speech writer,” emulating many commentators on al Jazeera or al Manar, hopes to rally many among those who “hate Bush and Blair” but stops short of stating that Jihadism will hate all future US Presidents and British Prime Ministers “if they do not convert.” He reminds us of the Crusades, Inquisition, Hiroshima, and killings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obviously, the “writer” skips the Genocides of Sudan, and the massacres of Algeria, the Kurds, Shiites perpetrated by Salafists or Baathists.

5) The enemies of Jihad in America

Sensationally but not unexpectedly, he “name” a number of intellectual-enemies in this country: Daniel Pipes, Steven Emerson, Robert Spencer and Michael Spencer. Rarely Jihadi Terrorists at this high level media exposure named symbols of their enemy’s intelligentsia. And in addition to “experts” named in the tape, Gadahn goes on a ferocious attack against American “Tele-Evangelists” and their media, showing the other type of foes al Qaeda is very upset with.

6) The “friends” of al Qaeda?

“Azzam” names “sympathetic” personalities for whom he has messages for action; He asks journalist Seymour Hirsh to “reveal more” than what was published in a New Yorker article on the War: Obviously an open call by al Qaeda to M Hirsch to resume the attack against the US War on Terror. Then “Azzam” turn to two British journalists and thank them for their “admiration and respect for Islam” encourage them to do the final step: Convert. He names British MP George Galloway and journalist Robert Fisk. But more troubling in Gadahn’s tape was his direct call to Jihadists within the US Armed forces to work patiently till the time comes and they should continue to aggregate while escaping the surveillance of their military authorities. This theme, which I covered briefly in Future Jihad, is of great concern to US national security. The “Azzam” speech brings further concerns as to the credibility of this threat.

7) The Al Qaeda offer: Conversion or fire

“Azzam”’s mission in this tape was to deliver a message. His bottom line is this: We –the Jihadists- have you cornered everywhere and you are not going to win this war. His central message is typically Jihadic: “Surrender, convert or the fire:” Meaning war on Earth, all of it, and Hell fire after death.

Jihad is coming back to America, this time home grown. The question is, "Are we ready to fight?"

Onward Christian soldiers, marching off to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before:
Christ the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle, see his banners go (link)

Posted by Ryan S. at 2:04 AM | Permalink | |

After a summer hiatus, Hero/Hack is back, jack!

This week's hero is the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military shot down a target ballistic missile over the Pacific on Friday in the widest test of its emerging antimissile shield in 18 months, the Defense Department announced.

The Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said it had successfully completed an important exercise involving the launch of an improved ground-based interceptor missile designed to protect the United States against a limited long-range ballistic missile attack.

This is good against state actors, but not against terrorism. Still, another part of the Reagan legacy that was doubted when first announced, but has since come true.

This week's hacks are Sens. Ted Stevens (AK) and Robert Byrd (WV).

They are the 'Phantom Menaces' behind the hold on the porkbustng bill:

To the right of the masthead at the Web site porkbusters.org is a quote attributed to former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott: "I'll just say this about the so-called porkbusters. I'm getting damn tired of hearing from them."

Sens. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) are probably damn tired of hearing from them too, but taxpayers ought to listen up--and applaud. The porkbusters led a pack of bloggers who outed the two senators for bottling up a bill meant to help the public track how its tax dollars are spent.

Sponsored by Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the measure would create a searchable online database of federal grants and contracts.

An unnamed senator (or senators, as it turned out) was blocking that bill from coming to the floor. Under an arcane Senate rule, any member who has concerns about a bill can block it--anonymously. Party leaders know the blocker's identity but don't have to tell anyone, even the bill's sponsor.

When the porkbusters learned about the so-called "secret hold," they issued a call for bloggers to contact their own senators and demand to know: Are you the anonymous blocker? Readers at TPMmuckraker.com and GOPprogress.com joined in, and within days they had denials from 97 senators.

Posted by Ryan S. at 2:18 PM | Permalink | |