My Hero of the Year is Pope Benedict XVI.

He has done wonderful things this year, and has certainly worked beyond the expectations of most people. He has stood strong defending the Faith from both secular European values and the threat of growing Muslim influence in the world. He is a strong and passionate leader.

In July, he was received by huge crowds in Spain when preaching traditional family values in opposition to the Socialist government.

He did the same in Canada in early September, saying that Catholic politicians should vote their values.

The following week, he gave his now-infamous speech in Germany about historical religious violence. In the aftermath that followed, he was accused of being intolerant towards Islam. (More here)

In October, there were reports that he was going to revive the Latin Mass.

In November, he visited Turkey, and defused any tensions with that NATO member, prayed in a mosque, and met with the Patriarch of the Eastern Church.

Pope Benedict has acted heroically all year.

Honorable Mentions:
Men and Women of our Armed Forces
UN Ambassador John Bolton
Canadian PM Stephen Harper
Australian PM John Howard
U2 Lead Singer Bono
Milton Friedman

My Hack of the Year for 2006 is President Bush.


Bush has been soft on immigration, hard on the budget, weak on Iraq, and may be flip-flopping on global warming. For this and the continual squandering of his second term leave me to say that President Bush has earned the Hack of the Year title. This also sums it up well:

Thank you for nothing, Mr. Bush. Thank you for squandering your political capital on issues that went nowhere (Social Security), nominations that were mainly laughed at (Harriet Miers), anti-conservative big government programs (Medicare Part D), and allowing the Democrats to shape the debate on Iraq. You must realize that this has cost you credibility on both the left and the right, and allowed you to squander anything meaningful out of your second term (besides John Roberts, and the later reversal of Miers to Alito).

(Dis)Honorable Mentions:
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Kofi Annan
Mike Nifong
Bob Woodward, who in G Rex's words,

"can only write scurrilous things about conservatives (Bob Casey, Jerry Ford) after they’re dead and can no longer defend themselves. Yes, in this case we’ve got a scratchy tape recording that may indeed be Ford disagreeing with Bush about his justification for the Iraq War, but after his deathbed “confession” from Casey, you have to question anything he puts out."

Keith Olbermann
My Election Day Predictions
Mark Foley
Republican Congressional Leadership

Posted by Ryan S. at 12:21 PM | Permalink | |

Hilarious column. One of the highlights:

Vladimir Putin prepared for his eventual retirement in 2008 by forcing the Russian Parliament to create a position called "Czar," which he described as "purely ceremonial." Critics of his imperial ambitions and corrupt, gangster-style government were not reassured by the theft of Lenin's body, which turned up on eBay, was then stolen from the winning bidder and was finally discovered in a London alley. Poisoned.

Posted by Ryan S. at 8:32 PM | Permalink | |

This is one of the best current events-type books I've read, if only because it is so well-written. Steyn clearly makes his points, and makes this a truly fun read with his excellent sense of humor and conversational writing style. This helps because Steyn's topic is very much dark.

The book is divided up into three parts, detailing the current state of the world, Europe's decline into a coming demographic mess, and where America fits (or doesn't). The overarching theme of the book is demographics. Europe's birthrates are disastrously low, and immigration by Muslims is very high. This will cause strain when "post-Christian rationalism" values of gay marriage, robust secularism, and neofeminist values clash with 7th century values in Islam, and the results could be extremely bad, and civil wars across Europe are not a far-fetched idea. This leaves America to fight the War on Terror by itself.

I can't recommend this book more, especially as the opposite side of globalization that Friedman's The World Is Flat paints. Globalization has an underbelly, and it ain't pretty. The West made the planes, ATM cards, internet, and boxcutters that made 9-11 possible, and the terrorists used them to their 7th century values.

Posted by Ryan S. at 2:57 PM | Permalink | |

So I had jury today, meaning it was the second day in a row that I was up pre-dawn, though yesterday was to snag some sweet Boxing Day bargains. As was explained to me earlier today, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's law dictate that when you get jury duty you serve for one day or one trial, meaning I was in at 8 and out at 11. I didn't mind it too much, because I had postponed it twice already. and had selected this week to go.

I was in the first group of people called-- for a criminal case-- and off I went, now (prospective) juror number 10. The judge said that the trial would probably go into next week, and so when I was called for my interview-type part, I explained to the judge and the attorneys that I'd be back at school in Delaware and in class, and was promptly dismissed. I was sent back to the 'Juror Selection Room' (ironically Room 101), which is really just a holding tank with some decent chairs and some sweet taxpayer-paid-for Dell LCD TVs.

I got a couple things out of today:
1. A better appreciation for DC's Metro when compared to SEPTA

and

2. I'm almost done Mark Steyn's book, America Alone, and will have a review up later tonight or sometime tomorrow.

Hero/Hack of the Year will be up Friday, so e-mail me your suggestions ASAP!

Posted by Ryan S. at 3:50 PM | Permalink | |

My heroes this week are moderate Muslims around the world.

I've been lamenting that there is no moderate Muslim voice, just organizations like CAIR. Well, first elections in Iran posted losses for Ahmadinejad's faction, and while these officials have no national policy making power (and Iran is really run by the final word of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), it still shows that Iranians wish for more reformist leaders like Khatami. And I think this could be a good sign:

Local Muslim leaders lit candles yesterday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate Jewish suffering under the Nazis, in a ceremony held just days after Iran had a conference denying the genocide.

American Muslims "believe we have to learn the lessons of history and commit ourselves: Never again," said Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, standing before the eternal flame flickering from a black marble base that holds dirt from Nazi concentration camps.

. . .

"The issue here is: There might be somebody from X and Y country, a Muslim, saying the same thing," Magid said. If anyone wants to make Holocaust denial an Islamic cause, he said, "we want to say to them: You cannot use our name."

My hack this week is TIME magazine for their 'Person of the Year.' While I'm glad to have won, and will promptly be adding it to my resumé, this dumb gimmick is just too...well, gimmicky to work. If they wanted to single out content generators, why not Instapundit, Ze Frank, or other well-known internet types? It just seems like they couldn't be bothered, and it just screams laziness. From an interview with Stephen Koepp, TIME's deputy editing manager:

It came down to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran and in this issue we have an exclusive interview with him. But we felt and ultimately decided the way the news is being reported these days, the culminations of citizen journalism and its relationship to digital democracy, was the important issue of the day.

Look at that last sentence: "citizen journalism," "digital democracy." Hooray for corporate buzzwords that don't mean anything!

Remember, I am still taking submissions for Hero and Hack of the Year! And I guarantee it will be better than TIME's Person of the Year!

Posted by Ryan S. at 10:45 AM | Permalink | |

Bono was "seeking to close a 'commitment gap' between what President Bush has requested for anti-poverty efforts and what Congress has agreed to spend in the past." However, he got no commitment from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

The Captain:

Frustrated, Bono lashed out, saying that the million families that would not get mosquito netting to protect them from malaria didn't give a damn which party had control of Congress; all they would know would be that the Americans didn't make good on their promises. Later, he softened that statement, but his anger clearly shone through.

. . .

d rather that Bono focused on the long-term solutions for poverty and suffering in Africa, which is the political structures and dynamics that perpetuate it. Africa for the most part should produce agriculture in such abundance as to be net exporters to the world, and while tariffs do bar some of that from the market (which Bono also fights, to his credit), mostly they don't produce because warlords ravage the land. Under those circumstances, where the West clings to political correctness and bogus environmentalism, avoids the hint of colonialism, and allows the bullies to abuse the weak, aid will make no long-term difference except to make those situations even worse than they are now.

Now I totally understand where the Captain is coming from, but I think Bono does (mostly) good work, and legitimately wants to help poor people in Africa. I wish he's jump on the DDT wagon too, but the Democrats didn't cite the reasons the Captain gave as why they didn't commit, they did the only thing they know how...they claimed the Republicans would block it. Now, we'll never know.

Posted by Ryan S. at 10:50 PM | Permalink | |

So I've just finished the Iraq Study Group Report, and I'd like to share my thoughts.

First, the makeup of the Study Group is interesting. First, there are no generals on the commission, though they consulted with many. I wonder if they asked Schwartzkopf or Colin Powell and they declined. I think it is also important to note that (with the departure of Rudy Giuliani) there are no 2008 contenders in the Group, as well as there not being anyone who is usually identified as a neocon (no one from the Wolfowitz/Rumsfeld/Cheney cadre).

At this point in the occupation, I am completely ready for a new direction in Iraq. In 2004 and even into 2005, "Stay the course" made sense as a policy. Elections were being held, and it looked as though Iraq was on the up-and-up. Something has drastically changed. The country has high levels of sectarian violence between Shi'ia and Sunni, and has been teetering on the edge of open civil war for several months. As with many situations like this, it matters little who got you into this mess, only how you ended up there and what you can do to get out. This is certainly the focus maintained by the Group.

Mistakes were made by the Administration post-invasion, that much is certain. Newt Gingrich was on Meet the Press last Sunday (transcript), and talked about some of these mistakes. The several I see were:
1. No Iraqi face on the Coalition Provisional Authority
2. No pressuring of the Iraqis to do something with al-Sadr, who's militias are a primary cause of violence in Baghdad.
3. The escalation of De-Baathification by Ahmed Chalabi, forcing most of the Iraqi technocrats out of government or the country
4. A lack of understanding by the US as to why 1, 2, and 3 are serious problems.
5. The fudging of training numbers with the Iraqi Army and Policy by the Pentagon.

The main topic of the Group's report is what to do now, and the central issue it touches on is the delicate balance between outright leading the Iraqis and taking a "sink or swim" mentality. Sending more troops in would tilt the balance towards a continued occupation, and a complete withdraw will leave Iraq in complete shambles, which could result (very easily) in an Iran-backed Shi'ia dictatorship. The middle point in that spectrum is to guide the Iraqis along in finding their own destiny, much like the Marshall Plan did with European countries after WWII.

The Report is enumerated throughout with 79 Recommendations, many of which are obvious. The "plan" that the Report offers is basically to push Iraq toward complete self-governance, and to diplomatically engage allies and enemies to do so. I have no problem with this concept, and involving non-Coalition members in Iraq at this point seems like a very good idea.

However, here is where I think the Report runs astray. They strongly advocate engaging Iran and Syria, both neighbors to Iraq. The Group seems to assume that it is in Iran and Syira's best interests to see a stable, democratic Iraq. I find fault with this assumption that two of the most autocratic regimes (one a dictatorship, the other a theocracy) in the world would want a free, democratic, Muslim nation right in their own backyard. If this didn't seem to be such a crux of the Report, I think the entire thing would come across better.

One thing point that the Group makes that I find compelling is that there "is no military solution" in Iraq. They cite that US forces will go in, clear an area, and as soon as they leave, it will become "hot" again. You cannot fight a hydra like that. Cleaning up Iraq's ministries as well as reforming the US State department will go much further in understanding and eradicating the Sunni insurgency and the Shi'ia militias.

We need a complete overhaul on Iraq policy, and more importantly, attitude, and we need it soon.

You can read the Iraq Study Group Report free online here, or you can purchase a hard copy from the Amazon link above. I think it is worth serious consideration, but is not a full solution on its own.

Posted by Ryan S. at 11:47 AM | Permalink | |

I've just been tired and strung out over finals, which has left me no time or energy to blog. I'm taking the weekend off, finishing my reading of the Iraq Study Group Report, and should have a post up about that on Monday.


Also, I'd like submissions for Hero/Hack of the Year. I need a name, some bullet points or a paragraph, and a link to at least one news story.

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

Jeff Stein of CQ interviews some people on Capitol Hill. The results are less than impressive.
The incoming Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Reyes (D):

The dialogue went like this:

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

That’s because the extremist Sunnis who make up a l Qaeda consider all Shiites to be heretics.

Al Qaeda’s Sunni roots account for its very existence. Osama bin Laden and his followers believe the Saudi Royal family besmirched the true faith through their corruption and alliance with the United States, particularly allowing U.S. troops on Saudi soil.

Incoming Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R):

“Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion?” wondered Lott, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after a meeting with Bush.

“Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference?

“They all look the same to me,” Lott said.

Lord have mercy on us all. This is absolutely inexcusable. All they have to do is pick up one of the many widely available (and highly accessible) books recently written about the Middle East, Islam and al-Qaeda. (All of those links, eleven in all, were found via a rudimentary Amazon search. Anything by Bernard Lewis, and Holy War Inc, by Peter Bergen come highly recommended from me.)

Posted by Ryan S. at 3:08 PM | Permalink | |

My heroes (albeit with a qualifier) this week are Congressional Democrats. They are trying to block a Congressional pay raise, which I totally agree with. Most of these people are independently wealthy, and they don't need any more taxpayer dollars. I say qualified though, because they are doing it either to protest the lack of raise in minimum wage, or so they can spend it on other useless things, depending on which Democrat you talk to.



My hack this week is everyone who supports the ban on DDT. The rampant spread of malaria in HIV areas (and vice verse), is raising some eyebrows. And the DDT ban it just dumb at the end of the day. NPR has more.

Posted by Ryan S. at 3:04 PM | Permalink | |

An excellent Pearl Harbor remembrance post here. Simple, and effective.

Posted by Ryan S. at 3:22 PM | Permalink | |

Two very interesting Op-Eds I found today:

This one is from the Christian Science Monitor and how the Republicans should look more towards Eisenhower (whom I consider the second-best post-FDR President). I'm not sure I agree with all (or even most) of it, but it is interesting nonetheless, and something I don't think I've heard before. Excerpt:

Yet Mr. Eisenhower was also characterized by virtues that have been completely forgotten by the Bush administration. He was tough when necessary, but also extremely prudent.

He successfully opposed calls for preventive war against the Soviet Union and China. As he told a press conference, he had personally experienced "the job of writing letters by the hundreds, by the thousands, to bereaved mothers and wives. This is a very sobering experience."

This one is from the WSJ, and details how Senators Rockefeller and Snowe are using gag techniques on Exxon-Mobil over global warming:

This is amazing stuff. On the one hand, the Senators say that everyone agrees on the facts and consequences of climate change. But at the same time they are so afraid of debate that they want Exxon to stop financing a doughty band of dissenters who can barely get their name in the paper. We respect the folks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, but we didn't know until reading the Rockefeller-Snowe letter that they ran U.S. climate policy and led the mainstream media around by the nose, too. Congratulations.

Posted by Ryan S. at 7:57 PM | Permalink | |

Thank you for nothing, Mr. Bush. Thank you for squandering your political capital on issues that went nowhere (Social Security), nominations that were mainly laughed at (Harriet Miers), anti-conservative big government programs (Medicare Part D), and allowing the Democrats to shape the debate on Iraq. You must realize that this has cost you credibility on both the left and the right, and allowed you to squander anything meaningful out of your second term (besides John Roberts, and the later reversal of Miers to Alito).

All of this while one of the best members of your administration is forced to resign because you have no capital left to support him in Congress. That's right, UN Ambassador John Bolton is resigning because you let scum like Lincoln Chafee block him. Bolton has proven himself a worthy UN Ambassador, and one of the few voices of reform at the corrupt-as-all-hell-yes-even-more-than-Philadelphia-city-government United Nations.

If there was any one person in the administration whose job I would save, it would be Bolton. I believe he has proved himself capable and the best person for the job. But now that Joe "Dunkin Delhi" Biden will be the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he feels that there is “no point in considering Mr. Bolton’s nomination again.” (link). If I get the chance, I will call Biden's DC office to ask why. Here is Biden's office contact info:

201 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Phone: 202-224-5042
Fax: 202-224-0139

See also: My post regarding John Bolton's lecture at UD in April, and the video/podcast of that lecture.

Posted by Ryan S. at 10:29 AM | Permalink | |

I have been against the continued manufacture of the penny for a while because I believe that the cost of production outweighs the benefits of more exact change. Divisive.info has more:

A growing number of experts are concluding the penny is too picayune to bother with. “The purpose of the monetary system is to facilitate exchange, but the penny no longer serves that purpose,” says Harvard professor Gregory Mankiw, a former chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. “When people start leaving a monetary unit at the cash register for the next customer, the unit is too small to be useful.

When the half-cent was abolished in 1857 it was worth more than eight cents in today’s currency. People afterward had no problem living and conducting business, even though the new smallest unit of currency — the penny — was worth more than our dime is today. No major problems with transactions were reported at a time that predated the many cashless means of electronic transaction we enjoy today and which, even after penny abolition, can preserve prices to the exact cent if people so choose.

Let's hope it truly is a growing consensus.

Posted by Ryan S. at 11:30 AM | Permalink | |

I've been really busy, and when real life intervenes, my blogging suffers (grades are more important right now). Also, I'm just sort of irksome at American politics right now (probably more on that at one time or another).

Anyway, this week's hero is Tory leader David Cameron.

I'm really I fan, and I suspect he's not really all that conservative, but every once in a while, he gets it right:

Both violent crime generally, and violent crimes involving knives specifically, have doubled over the last ten years. These horrific acts are simply the worst expression of a phenomenon we see all around us: a growing culture of disrespect, ‘attitude’, and straightforward delinquency. This is the consequence of an erosion of what used to be called the moral fabric of society – the sense that your status in the eyes of others depended on living up to positive social expectations. In many of our inner cities today, as we learn from reading about boys like Carty and Brown, a completely different set of social expectations prevails. There is only so much that Government can do to repair our society’s moral fabric. We can – and should – ensure that schools have more power to discipline pupils who misbehave. We can – and should – remove financial penalties against marriage in the tax and benefits system. But ultimately it is society, not the state, which transmits moral messages to young people. Most of all, it is families which are primarily responsible for whether a child does well – like Mr ap Rhys Pryce – or goes wrong, like Carty and Brown. And it will surprise no-one to learn that both Carty and Brown grew up in homes without fathers. I hope the men who left those boys’ mothers to bring them up alone are reflecting on their own responsibility this week."

I agree with him both on the violent crime in Britain (illegal guns = more knife crime, not less murders), and the lacking of paternal responsibility. Well done, Tories.

My hack this week is Carl Levin, a Michigan Senator opposing Star Wars:

The incoming chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee is Carl Levin. Levin, a Michigan Democrat, has long been a foe of missile defense. In 1980s, he worried that President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative — which aimed to develop technology to destroy Soviet missiles during all phases of flight — was “destabilizing.”

Today Sen. Levin sings the same tune in a different key. “They’ve not done the operational testing yet that is convincing,” said Senator Levin during a post-election press conference. He was referring to the Ground based Missile Defense [GMD] system being installed in Alaska and California, to defend against North Korean missiles. He added that he favors stalling purchases of interceptor missiles - vital for missile defense — until after testing is complete.

In short, Sen. Levin and other longtime opponents of missile defense plan to use “testing” - set to an unrealistically high level - to stop missile defense.

Missile defense is crucial, and allows the United States to protect ourselves from China, and gives us more leverage in dealing with Iran and North Korea.

Posted by Ryan S. at 1:23 PM | Permalink | |