Heritage Quote

"I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to John Adams, 12 September 1821)

Heritage Quote

"The pyramid of government-and a republican government may well receive that beautiful and solid form-should be raised to a dignified altitude: but its foundations must, of consequence, be broad, and strong, and deep. The authority, the interests, and the affections of the people at large are the only foundation, on which a superstructure proposed to be at once durable and magnificent, can be rationally erected."

-- James Wilson

Hardliners hardwired?

The Washington Times has an interesting article about a study that found political opinions are based on emotion, not reason.

And we needed a study to tell us that?

[Hat tip to Betsy Newmark.]

Heritage Quote

"The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or represenative constitution, is a change of men."

-- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 21, 1787)

Heritage Quote

"The true test is, whether the object be of a local character, and local use; or, whether it be of general benefit to the states. If it be purely local, congress cannot constitutionally appropriate money for the object. But, if the benefit be general, it matters not, whether in point of locality it be in one state, or several; whether it be of large, or of small extent."

-- Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833)

Heritage Quote

"I have often expressed my sentiments, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience."

-- George Washington (letter to the General Committee of the United Baptist Churches in Virginia, May 1789)

We must never forget

Today is the 61st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Heritage Quote

"The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Edward Coles, 25 August 1814)

Quotables

"The Founding Fathers did not foresee a permanent political class, out of touch with the people and in touch only with their careers and self-interests."

—Cal Thomas

"The current scandals in Washington should remind us just how far we have strayed from the vision of limited government the Founders handed down to us."

—John Fund

Heritage Quote

"No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity."

-- James Madison (Federalist No. 10, 23 November 1787)

Heritage Quote

"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Edward Rutledge, 1788)

Light blogging this week

I am very busy at work this week so, in all probability, I will not be able to put much time into blogging. Next week may be light, as well.

Don't give up on me, though, because blogging is in my blood now . . .

And I do appreciate you visiting my site . . .

Heritage Quote

[T]he Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution. But this doctrine is not deducible from any circumstance peculiar to the plan of convention, but from the general theory of a limited Constitution.

-- Alexander Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 81 1788)

Noonan on taking stock

Peggy Noonan has a thoughtful article about why we should assess our current political situation. But it's more than that.

It's in the extended entry . . .

Not a Bad Time to Take Stock
Thoughts on the decline of the liberal media monopoly and the future of the GOP.

Friday, January 20, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

I don't think Democrats understand that the Alito hearings were, for them, not a defeat but an actual disaster. The snarly tone the senators took with a man most Americans could look at and think, "He's like me," and the charges they made--You oppose women and minorities, you only like corporations and not the little guy--went nowhere. Once those charges would have taken flight, would have launched, found their target and knocked down any incoming Republican. Not any more. It's over.

Eleven years ago the Democrats lost control of Congress. Then they lost the presidency. But just as important, maybe more enduringly important, they lost their monopoly on the means of information in America. They lost control of the pipeline. Or rather there are now many pipelines, and many ways to use the information they carry. The other day, Dana Milbank, an important reporter for the Washington Post, the most important newspaper in the capital, wrote a piece deriding Judge Alito. Once such a piece would have been important. Men in the White House would have fretted over its implications. But within hours of filing, Mr. Milbank found his thinking analyzed and dismissed on the Internet; National Review Online called him a "policy bimbo."

Could Democratic senators today torture Clarence Thomas with tales of Coke cans and porn films? Not likely. Could Ted Kennedy have gotten away with his "Robert Bork's America" speech unanswered? No.

And the end of the monopoly of course isn't only in the news, it's in all media. The other night George Clooney, that beautiful airhead, made a Golden Globe speech in which he made an off-color reference to Jack Abramoff. The audience seemed confused, as people apparently often are when George Clooney speaks. Once, his remark would have been news. Once, Marlon Brando stopped the country in its tracks when he sent Sacheen Littlefeather to make his speech at the Academy Awards. Once, Vanessa Redgrave did the same when she gave a speech about Palestinians, receiving in turn a rebuke from Frank Sinatra, who didn't want some British broad telling us how to do our thing. Now, actors make their comments and it's just another airhead involved in an oral helium release. "You don't like it, change the channel," network executives used to say. But that, as they knew, meant nothing: There were only three channels. Now there are 500. And more coming.

---

You know who else experienced, up close and personal, the end of the information monopoly this week? Walter Cronkite. Once, he said America should leave Vietnam and the president of the United States said if we've lost him we've lost middle America. Now, Walter calls for withdrawal from Iraq and it occasions only one thing: stories about how once such a thing mattered. I saw Mr. Cronkite the other night. Frail, distinguished--big white eyebrows; soft, folded pink face--he looked like Dean Acheson grown very old. It was at a New York screening he hosted for a documentary called "Why We Fight," a piece of antiwar propaganda that will likely soon be followed by a piece of pro-war propaganda. It was like ducking a Propaganda Punch that will be answered by another Propaganda Punch you'll have to duck. Featured in the documentary is a former voice of God, Dan Rather, there to lend support to the enterprise.

What was sad about the documentary is that it did not explore what it asserted, that a military-industrial complex within the United States has more power and influence than is helpful or good. A lot of sophisticated Americans worry about this. "The military-industrial complex" is something we were warned of almost half a century ago by Dwight Eisenhower, a man who knew a few things about war and weaponry. We want our makers of weapons to be the best in the world; we do not want them to own congressmen who have an electoral stake in the pieces of weapons made in their districts. When every congressman has a piece of a project, we should worry. War should not be the health of the state.

We are in a time when the very diminution of the importance of network news leaves some old news hands to drop their guard and announce what they are: liberal Democrats. Nothing wrong with that, but they might have told us when they were in power. The very existence of conservative media--of Rush Limbaugh, of Fox, of the Internet sites--has become an excuse by previously "I call 'em as I see 'em/I try to be impartial" journalists to advance their biases. Actually, it's more Fox than anything. The existence of a respected cable network that is nonliberal and non-Democratic (or that is conservative, or Republican, or neoconservative--people on the right have polite disagreements about this) is more and more freeing news outlets, encouraging them actually, as a potential business model, to be more and more what they are. Is this good? Well, it's clearer. Then again Time magazine this week illustrated a story about Republicans in Congress with a drawing of a merry circus elephant surrounded by the Republican leadership. They were covered, I'm not kidding, in the elephant's fecal matter. (It's on page 23. Time will no doubt call it chocolate.)

---

But where does this leave us? With our mass media busy with reluctant reformation . . . with the old network monopoly over and done . . . with something new, we know not what, about to take its place . . . with the Democratic Party adjusting to the loss of its megaphone . . . Where does that leave us? I think it leaves us knowing that, more than ever, the Republican Party--the party ultimately helped by the end of the old monopoly and the reformation of news media--must be a good party, a decent one, and help our country.

That it regain a sense of its historic mission. That it stop seeming the friend of the wired and return to being the great friend of Main Street, for Main Street still, in its own way, exists. That it return to basic principles on spending, regulation and state authority. That it question a foreign policy that often seems at once dreamy and aggressive, and question, too, an overreaching on immigration policy that seems composed in equal parts of naiveté and cynicism. That its representatives admit that lunching with lobbyists is not the problem; failing to oppose the growth of government--so huge that no one, really no one, knows what is in its budget--is. That they reduce the size and power of government. That they help our country.

Is that a sissy thing to say? Sorry. But today is the 25th anniversary of the coming to Washington of modern conservatism, and the rise to power of a Main Street romantic who was also a skeptic and an appreciator of human nature. Not a bad time to take stock.

Republicans in Washington struggle with scandal and speak of reform, and reformation. They would better think of words like regain, refresh, rebuild. If they don't, if Republicans don't choose to lead well, and seriously, and with principle, they should ask themselves: Who will? Seriously: Who will?

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father," (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Sir Winston -- randomly

"One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. "

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

"I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents."

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last."

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."

"A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril."

"All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope."

-- Sir Winston Churchill, British statesman, 1874 - 1965.

Heritage Quote

"And as to the Cares, they are chiefly what attend the bringing up of Children; and I would ask any Man who has experienced it, if they are not the most delightful Cares in the World; and if from that Particular alone, he does not find the Bliss of a double State much greater, instead of being less than he expected."

-- Benjamin Franklin (Reply to a Piece of Advice)

Back in the USA

Major K is back home, God bless him! Thank you, soldier. You have my heartfelt gratitude!

Heritage Quote

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

-- John Adams (Address to the Military, 11 October 1798)

Saddam's WMDs?

An article describing evidence of the existence of Saddam's WMDs.

New evidence out of Iraq suggests that the U.S. effort to track down Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is having better success than is being reported. Key assertions by the intelligence community that were widely judged in the media and by critics of President George W. Bush as having been false are turning out to have been true after all.

Note that the article's date is April 2004. Have any of you heard about this information?

Holocaust memories

Back in August, the Houston Chronicle ran an article about Riva Kremer, a survivor of the holocaust in Nazi Germany.

I know Mrs. Kremer through my in-laws who knew her daughter and son-in-law, Linda and Morris Penn. I can't help but think that Linda's death from kidney failure was due, in part, from the treatment she received as a child in the Nazi concentration camps. The Penn's were reticent when asked about their separate (Morris escaped from a concentration camp and was a part of the partisan forces that fought a guerilla war against the German conquerors, while Linda was emprisoned in several different concentration camps throughout the war. They did not meet until after the war was over.) experiences during WWII, but they did, over the years, tell my wife and I enough for us to get some idea of the evil visited upon them and many others by the Nazis. And about the strength and courage that they had to have in order to survive.

Despite some revisionists out there, the holocaust did indeed happen. And it was worse than we can imagine. Much, much worse. We, as a species, must never forget what evil we are capable of doing. And we must fight it. Within ourselves, and within others.

I strongly recommend you read the article.

Heritage Quote

"A Man may, if he know not how to save, keep his Nose to the Grindstone, and die not wirth a Groat at last."

-- Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard's Almanack, 1742)

Why are some people so scared of Intelligent Design?

Juliana Barbassa has an article up at TownHall about a school district in California that was forced to drop an elective course on 'Intelligent Design' from their curriculum.

A group of parents had sued the El Tejon school system last week, accusing it of violating the constitutional separation of church and state with "Philosophy of Design," a high school course taught by a minister's wife that advanced the notion that life is so complex it must have been created by some kind of higher intelligence.

Who are the ones being close-minded about things now?

Embed Margaret Friedenauer

Margaret Friedenauer is a reporter for the Daily News-Miner out of Fairbanks, Alaska. She is currently embedded with the 172nd Stryker Brigade in Iraq. Her blog is Reporting from Iraq, and has some interesting entries.

We were just sitting there, waiting for the explosive guys to come check out and dispose of what the soldiers figured was an IED when the darn thing just blew up.

It's one of my daily reads. I recommend you make it one of yours, as well.

Heritage Quote

"The plain import of the clause is, that congress shall have all the incidental and instrumental powers, necessary and proper to carry into execution all the express powers. It neither enlarges any power specifically granted; nor is it a grant of any new power to congress. But it is merely a declaration for the removal of all uncertainty, that the means of carrying into execution those, otherwise granted, are included in the grant."

-- Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833)

A political gesture

I happen to concur with this "Appeal from Center-Right Bloggers".

Wholeheartedly.

We are bloggers with boatloads of opinions, and none of us come close to agreeing with any other one of us all of the time. But we do agree on this: The new leadership in the House of Representatives needs to be thoroughly and transparently free of the taint of the Jack Abramoff scandals, and beyond that, of undue influence of K Street.

We are not naive about lobbying, and we know it can and has in fact advanced crucial issues and has often served to inform rather than simply influence Members.

But we are certain that the public is disgusted with excess and with privilege. We hope the Hastert-Dreier effort leads to sweeping reforms including the end of subsidized travel and other obvious influence operations. Just as importantly, we call for major changes to increase openness, transparency and accountability in Congressional operations and in the appropriations process.

As for the Republican leadership elections, we hope to see more candidates who will support these goals, and we therefore welcome the entry of Congressman John Shadegg to the race for Majority Leader. We hope every Congressman who is committed to ethical and transparent conduct supports a reform agenda and a reform candidate. And we hope all would-be members of the leadership make themselves available to new media to answer questions now and on a regular basis in the future.

Change Congress' approach

Jack Kemp has a very intriguing article about the need for ideas-based congressional leadership. And he provides some good ideas of his own about a few crucial issues that Congress seems to be ignoring. Here is how he starts:

The Wall Street Journal recently leveled a devastatingly accurate assessment of congressional Republicans: "House Republicans have become more passionate about retaining power than in using that power to change or limit the federal government ... a strategy (that) has maintained a narrow majority, but at the cost of doing anything substantial." The Journal was exactly right that Republican leaders "have become ever more preoccupied with process, money and incumbency," a frame of mind in which ideas are an afterthought when not actually an inconvenience.

I am very disappointed in the transformation of the Republican Party from the "Party of Change" into the "Party of Consolidation". Unfortunately, that means that we now have no political party that is concerned with making this country better. And neither party seems to have any real ideas. And when someone (like, for example, President Bush) comes up with unique and viable ideas for making this country better, the political hacks on both sides of the isle just start heaping ridicule and invective on the idea until it is exterminated.

What a proud heritage for this great nation.[/sarcasm]

I'll bet our founding fathers are greatly disappointed in how the political system in this country has degenerated into the disgrace it is today.[/cynicism]

Sorry . . . I just had to rant a bit. I do recommend Mr. Kemp's article, though.

Fire and Ice

The first-rate blog of an official Marine Corps artist: Fire and Ice

Heritage Quote

"Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established."

-- Thomas Jefferson (Letter to James Monroe, 1791)

Pictures of New York City

Gerard Van der Leun has an interesting photo essay of New York City in the 12-13 months following 9/11. He has entitled it New York Life: 1,000 Pictures of New York City , and he has almost half of the pictures posted at this time.

It's well worth browsing.

It takes a lot of bandwidth, though, so I don't recommend it if you're on a dial-up connection.

Humor on uniform

This is really quite humorous -- in a dark sort of way. Check out the black patch under the US flag . . .

The flags below the black patch are (top to bottom): Russia, Germany, France.

[Hat tip to my father-in-law and his email buddy.]

Heritage Quote

I have been happy... in believing that... whatever follies we may be led into as to foreign nations, we shall never give up our Union, the last anchor of our hope, and that alone which is to prevent this heavenly country from becoming an arena of gladiators.

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Elbridge Gerry, 13 May 1797)

Heritage Quote

"The state governments have a full superintendence and control over the immense mass of local interests of their respective states, which connect themselves with the feelings, the affections, the municipal institutions, and the internal arrangements of the whole population. They possess, too, the immediate administration of justice in all cases, civil and criminal, which concern the property, personal rights, and peaceful pursuits of their own citizens."

-- Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833)

An Iraqi helping Iraqis (with a little help from some friends)

Photo by Polli Barnes Keller – Gulf Region Division – US Army Corps of Engineers

The story is about Lana Aziz, the US Army Corps of Engineers, businesses and a school in America, and Iraqi school children. I've reprinted it in the extended entry.

Special deliveries made to special groups

By Polli Barnes Keller
Gulf Region North
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Mosul Iraq - After years of tyranny and war, the children of Iraq have almost nothing and are very grateful for each gift they receive. Lana Aziz, an Iraqi citizen and junior engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), coordinates the collection and distribution of shoes and school supplies for Iraqi children. With each gift she gives to a needy child, she also gives joy and hope to their lives.

Through her childhood, Aziz watched as American organizations sent clothing and items to local churches in her community. She watched as the goods were distributed and noticed some didn’t make it to the families that needed it the most. Dismayed at the lack of support for American generosity and the misdirection of goods, Aziz decided if she could, she would do something about it.

While on assignment in the local villages, she noticed the children lacked proper shoes for the cold environment. This gave her the idea to collect shoes for the needy and make sure they were distributed to those who truly needed them.

In July 2005, Aziz put the word out through co-workers, friends and family that she was collecting shoes. Word spread quickly and before she knew it, shoes came rolling in. Church groups from the States, Aziz’s family, and friends of friends rose to the challenge and collected approximately 150 pairs of shoes, which Aziz distributed in Dohuk, Erbil, and Sulaymaniyah. The collection effort was a huge success and well received by those in need.

Now, almost seven months later, packages again began arriving addressed to Aziz. She opened the boxes and was happily surprised to find not only shoes for the children, but school supplies and toys, as well. Aziz’s response to the unexpected generosity was, “If they send it, I will deliver it!”

Word travels fast when there is good news to spread and the story of Aziz delivering goods to schools last year made it all the way to Texas and Utah. Donations came not only from Aziz’s family members, but also from friends’ families, friends of friends, churches, schools and large corporations. Contributors included Southwest Airlines' Maintenance and Engineering Department in Dallas, Texas; Hewlett Packard in Richardson, Texas; and the second grade class from the William Penn Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah. Aziz received toys, school supplies, candy and shoes.

Early in January, she and Lt. Col. Greg Gunter, USACE Gulf Region North Deputy Commander, traveled to two schools located in Dohuk and delivered the goods.

“It was an honor to take part in such a noble and worthwhile effort initiated by Ms. Aziz. It was heartwarming to see that the generous gifts sent from within Iraq, as well as the United States, found their way to the children at these two schools,” said Gunter.

The second grade class in Utah received photographs of their delivered donated goods.

The second grade teacher commented, “My students and I were ecstatic when we put your photos on the big screen and saw our red Christmas houses! Seriously ... we went crazy!”

She added, “What a joy it was to actually see our school supplies and cards in the hands of those beautiful Iraqi children!”

In one year of employment with USACE, Aziz moved up within the ranks from interpreter to junior engineer. She graduated from Mosul University in 2004, with a degree in Computer Engineering and worked part time for the U.S. Embassy on Forward Operating Base Courage.

"Saddam's Documents"

OpinionJournal has an interesting op-ed up about the exploitation of the captured Saddam regime records and documents.

Or the lack of such exploitation. I've been following this for a while now. There are over 2 million documents, hard drives, files, etc. that were captured during, and after, our invasion of Iraq. We've only translated and analyzed around 50,000 -- in the 30 months that we've had them.

I've reprinted the entire article in the extended entry.

I recommend you read it. And read the Stephan Hayes article in the Weekly Standard that this one refers to.

Saddam's Documents
What they tell us could save American lives today.

Friday, January 13, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

It is almost an article of religious faith among opponents of the Iraq War that Iraq became a terrorist destination only after the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein. But what if that's false, and documents from Saddam's own regime show that his government trained thousands of Islamic terrorists at camps inside Iraq before the war?

Sounds like news to us, and that's exactly what is reported this week by Stephen Hayes in The Weekly Standard magazine. Yet the rest of the press has ignored the story, and for that matter the Bush Administration has also been dumb. The explanation for the latter may be that Mr. Hayes also scores the Administration for failing to do more to translate and analyze the trove of documents it's collected from the Saddam era.

---

Mr. Hayes reports that, from 1999 through 2002, "elite Iraqi military units" trained roughly 8,000 terrorists at three different camps--in Samarra and Ramadi in the Sunni Triangle, as well as at Salman Pak, where American forces in 2003 found the fuselage of an aircraft that might have been used for training. Many of the trainees were drawn from North African terror groups with close ties to al Qaeda, including Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Mr. Hayes writes that he had no fewer than 11 corroborating sources, and yesterday he told us he'd added several more since publication.

All of this is of more than historical interest, since Americans are still dying in Iraq at the hands of an enemy it behooves us to understand. If Saddam did train terrorists in Iraq before the war, then many of them must still be fighting there and the current "insurgency" can hardly be called a popular uprising rooted in Sunni nationalism. Instead, it is a revanchist operation led by Saddam's apparat and those they trained to use terror to achieve their political goals.

This means in turn that much of the Sunni population might be willing to participate in Free Iraq's politics but is intimidated from doing so by these Saddamists. The recent spurt of suicide bombings, aimed at Iraqi civilians and police trainees, looks like an attempt to revive such intimidation after the successful election. These Saddamists can't be coaxed into surrender by political blandishments because their goal isn't to share power but is to dominate Iraq once again. Or if they do play in the political process, it will only be in the Sinn Fein sense of doing so as cover for their real terror strategy.

In any case, it is passing strange that the Bush Administration has been so uninterested in translating, and assessing, the information in the two million documents, audio and videotapes and computer hard drives it has collected in Iraq. Mr. Hayes reports that only 50,000 of these "exploitable items" have been examined so far, and those by a skeleton crew with few resources. Does anyone think, had there been a Nazi insurgency after Hitler fell, that the U.S. wouldn't have scoured everything found in Berlin? Why the dereliction this time?

A benign explanation is that the first Bush priority was searching Saddam's files for WMD, not terror ties. But the WMD work has been done since the Duelfer report was substantially wrapped up well over a year ago. The current threat to U.S. soldiers in Iraq is from terror attacks, not WMD. Anything the U.S. can discover about whether and how Saddam and his coterie planned a guerrilla war before the invasion could be invaluable in defeating this enemy.

In his new memoir about his year in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer reports that in July of 2003 he was told about a captured document from Saddam's intelligence service (dated January 2003) outlining a "strategy of organized resistance" if the regime fell. About the same time, pamphlets began circulating in Baghdad describing the "Party of Return," with vows to kill Iraqis who worked with the Coalition. We also know that documents discovered with Saddam in his rabbit hole in late 2003 included a claim that the insurgents would know they had won when a U.S. Presidential candidate called for withdrawing American troops from Iraq. These are signs of a disciplined political party, not some broad Algerian-like nationalism.

---

A less benign explanation for the Bush Administration's lethargy is that its officials don't want to challenge the prewar CIA orthodoxy that the "secular" Saddam would never cavort with "religious" al Qaeda. They've seen what happened to others--"Scooter" Libby, Douglas Feith, John Bolton--who dared to question CIA analyses. Mr. Hayes reports that the Pentagon intelligence chief, Stephen Cambone, has been a particular obstacle to energetic document inspection.

But if we've learned nothing else about U.S. intelligence in the last four years, it is that its "consensus" views are often wrong. The 9/11 Commission has confirmed extensive communication between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda over the years, including sanctuary for the current insurgent leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. We have also learned that in the years leading up to his ouster Saddam had implemented a "faith campaign" to use fundamentalist Islam as a tool of internal control. Especially if U.S. troops are going to remain to help the new Iraq government defeat the terrorists, we should want to know everything we can about them.

And the American people should know too. For three years now, opponents of the war in Congress and the bureaucracy have cherry-picked intelligence details and leaked them to influence public opinion. The Bush Administration until recently has been remarkably reluctant to fight back. Telling truths about Saddam that are revealed by his own documents is part of that fight.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Heritage Quote

"It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness."

-- James Wilson (Lectures on Law, 1791)

Three ring circus

I submit the following New York Times article without comment:

But Enough About You, Judge; Let's Hear What I Have to Say

Yes, I really want to comment, but I will resist that almost undeniable urge . . . because these esteemed senators really require no additional commentary.

They've removed all doubt.

Baby Noor update

Here is an update to the Baby Noor story. And here is my initial blog entry about Baby Noor.

Heritage Quote

"His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder"

-- Thomas Jefferson (on George Washington in a letter to Dr. Walter Jones, 2 January 1814)

The Liberty Limited

My father-in-law forwarded an email to me with this article on it about a Philadelphia couple who put together a train to transport wounded GIs to the Army-Navy game last fall. There was very little publicity -- just this article from the Philadelphia Daily News. Here's how it starts:

AND NOW, in time for the holidays, I bring you the best Christmas story you never heard.

It started last Christmas, when Bennett and Vivian Levin were overwhelmed by sadness while listening to radio reports of injured American troops.

"We have to let them know we care," Vivian told Bennett.

So they organized a trip to bring soldiers from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Hospital to the annual Army-Navy football game in Philly, on Dec. 3.

The cool part is, they created their own train line to do it.

Go read the rest . . . it's a good 'un.

Imminent Ice Age?

The India Daily has an article up speculating that we are at the beginning of an ice age. Here's how it starts:

Ice ages come every 11,000 years. A mega ice age comes every 105,000 years. Both are due between now and 2012. The 11,000 year cycle happens because of increase and decrease of cyclical underwater volcanic eruption. The 105,000 mega ice age happens because of the changing shape of the orbit of the earth around the sun – circular to elliptical and then back to circular every 105,000 years.

Both the cycles are overdue. They have actually started. Europe right now is in deep freeze. Japan and South Korea are experiencing the worst snowfall ever. Even New Delhi is experiencing the worst ever fog and cold weather. Do not get surprised to see New Delhi experiencing the weather of Moscow, Miami experiencing the weather of Chicago.

There are no sources cited beyond "some geologists, astrophysicists, and scientists" so you can color me a bit sceptical on this one.

On the other hand, I am not a proponent of "consensual science", either. Too many times when scientists come to a consensus on something it is more because of political or social reasons -- rather than purely scientific ones. Thus, I am not convinced that the world is undergoing "global warming" due to Mankind. (This is in spite of the fact that northeast Texas -- where I live -- is in the midst of a record warm, dry winter.)

More food for thought can be found here.

Also temperatures in India have been at a 70-year low this year. [Hat tip to Jack Kelly at Irish Pennants]

Heritage Quote

"The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period."

-- George Washington (Circular to the States, 8 June 1783)

Pirates

W. Thomas Smith, Jr. has an interesting article up at TownHall about modern-day piracy on the high seas. He starts out with this:

They no longer sail in captured English frigates nor do they fly the dreaded skull-and-crossbones, but seagoing pirates in the 21st century are just as terrifying and every bit as dangerous as the sword-wielding dandies who prowled the Spanish Main in the 17th and 18th centuries. And like their forebears of the Golden Age of Piracy (1692-1725), pirates today have the ability to impact national economies negatively, plus – in the modern world – they potentially are adding another dimension in which terrorist networks might freely move and operate. What’s worse, pirate attacks are increasing in terms of frequency and overt boldness.

You should read the rest . . .

Treason

Ralph Peters, a former officer in military intelligence, has a good op-ed about how revealing classified information can endanger us all. And doing that is considered an act of treason. Here's an excerpt:

. . . We need to get serious about treason and the destructive culture of leaks -- on both sides of the aisle. Let's face it: Both political parties have served our country badly with their use of leaks for partisan purposes.

Compromising classified information, for any purpose and at any level, is a serious crime. Those who betray their trust and harm our national defense need to go to jail -- for life. If we were truly serious, we'd treat treason as a capital offense again.

The guy knows what he's talking about. Recommended.

Heritage Quote

"The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now. They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty."

-- John Adams (letter to Zabdiel Adams, 21 June 1776)

Earmarks

John Fund, over at OpinionJournal, has an op-ed up about earmarks, a corrupted appropriations process, and Congress. Here's an excerpt:

Nothing better illustrates the meltdown in spending restraint than earmarking, the process by which members secure special pork projects such as Alaska's infamous $223 million "bridge to nowhere." Pork is an inevitable product of political compromise, but earmarks are a particularly corrupt form. They are often last-minute additions to conference reports that were never considered in the original bills passed by either the House or Senate. They can thus avoid competitive bidding, performance standards or even disclosure of the direct recipient.

I copied the entire article into the extended entry.

Marks for Sharks
The Abramoff scandal may sink congressional Republicans if they don't get serious about spending reforms.

Monday, January 9, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

It's fitting that Rep. Tom DeLay is returning to his seat on the Appropriations Committee now that he is gone for good as House majority leader. It was his years serving in that "favor factory" that gradually turned him into a purveyor of pork who last fall claimed there was no more budget fat to cut. His departure gives Republicans a chance to return to first principles. If they don't, they may face a political drubbing.

Many Republicans have forgotten that as government grows, its increased power to grant favors or inflict pain attracts more people who would abuse the system. Sen. John McCain once told me that "the best long-term answer to corruption is a smaller government." Indeed, disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff observed a decade ago, "More money available from government is blood in the water for sharks." He proved to be one hungry shark.

If the GOP response to the Abramoff scandal is merely to enact "lobbying reforms," the party will skirt the problem that underlies the corruption: runaway spending. "The 2001-2005 period marks the transformation of the Republican party from its traditional role as a win-or-lose guardian of limited government to that of a majority government party just as comfortable with big government as the Democrats, only with different spending priorities," says Chris DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute.

That's dangerous ground, given that the GOP base still believes in smaller government. Mr. Abramoff steered campaign cash to and hired staffers from members of both parties. But in 1994, after 350 members of both parties had been tarred by the House bank scandal, it was Republicans who were able to exploit it because Democrats controlled Congress.

---

Nothing better illustrates the meltdown in spending restraint than earmarking, the process by which members secure special pork projects such as Alaska's infamous $223 million "bridge to nowhere." Pork is an inevitable product of political compromise, but earmarks are a particularly corrupt form. They are often last-minute additions to conference reports that were never considered in the original bills passed by either the House or Senate. They can thus avoid competitive bidding, performance standards or even disclosure of the direct recipient.

In 1998, Congress approved 1,850 earmarks just for transportation projects. Last year's transportation bill contained 6,371. Earmarks have become the corrupt currency by which bills like the ruinously expensive prescription drug entitlement are bought vote by vote. They inevitably result in some lower-priority projects being funded first, with potentially disastrous results. In Louisiana, the Army Corps of Engineers spent $1.9 billion between 2000 and 2005, more than 80% of which was earmarked. Less than 4% of the total was spent on protecting levees, while over a third of the money went to building a new lock on an underused canal. Then along came Hurricane Katrina.

Earmarks have created their own parasitic specialized lobbying industry. "They go client hunting, telling cities or counties they can virtually guarantee an earmark," says Ron Utt, a former federal budget official now at the Heritage Foundation. In 2004, 3,521 companies or local governments hired lobbyists to pursue earmarks, up from just 1,865 four years earlier. A top White House aide told me that "there's need for lubrication of the legislative process, but it's gotten out of control."

Earmarks are at the heart of the scandals surrounding Mr. Abramoff and Duke Cunningham, the former GOP congressman who admitted to taking $2.4 million in bribes in exchange for earmarks. Military contractor Brian Wilkes not only lavished gifts on Mr. Cunningham but spent $1.1 million on lobbying others. The payoff: at least $95 million in government contracts. The Copley News Service reported that "Wilkes made no bones about where his money was coming from. His jet-black Hummer bore a license plate reading MIPR ME--a reference to Military Interdepartmental Purchase Requests," the means by which his firm got paid.

For his part, Mr. Abramoff bragged that appropriations committees were "earmark favor factories." His associate Tony Rudy e-mailed him asking if an Indian tribe client could pay for a hunting trip for Congressional staffers as a "thank you . . . for the approps we got." Other lobbyists have bosom-buddy relationships with key appropriators. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that House Appropriations chairman Jerry Lewis has steered hundreds of millions in federal funds to clients of lobbyist Bill Lowery, a former congressman who is so close to Mr. Lewis that they have exchanged two key staff members, "making their offices so intermingled that they seem to be extensions of each other."

---

Many congressional relatives earn a lucrative living as lobbyists for earmarks, including the brother of Rep. Jack Murtha (D., Pa.), the brother-in-law of Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Ted Stevens (R., Alaska) and the son of David Obey of Wisconsin, the ranking Democrat on House Appropriations.

Democrats vie with Republicans in priming the pork barrel, but some now see reform trumping pork politically. Several want to make sure that copies of bills are available 24 hours before a vote and limit endless roll-call votes so promises of earmarks can't as easily be used to bribe members.

Republicans face being outflanked if they don't get ahead of the earmark scandal. Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona wants all earmarks to be subject to debate and amendment. Others want a limit on how much local governments can use taxpayer dollars to lobby for still more federal dollars. Appropriations committee leaders could be required to stay within overall spending ceilings or forfeit their posts.

Sens. Tom Coburn and John McCain now plan to challenge every hidden earmark. "If we aren't told who is asking for it, who benefits and its justification, we'll move to strike it," Mr. Coburn told me. He expects many earmarks to be quietly withdrawn rather than face such scrutiny.

Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a Pennsylvania Democrat, once defended earmarks by saying bureaucrats can "prostitute the language" of the bills Congress writes so that "the normal process doesn't work." But now that earmarks are normal in Congress, they are prostituting the entire institution. Post-Abramoff, the local political benefits of bringing home pork will shrink in the harsh national spotlight that is about to shine on earmarks.

The federal government is now 250 times as big in real terms as it was a century ago. If Republicans don't use Mr. DeLay's departure to restore their limited-government credentials, they will see their own voters rebel.

[Used with permission from OpinionJournal.com, a web site from Dow Jones & Company, Inc.]

Saddam's training camps

Stephan F. Hayes has an interesting article about Saddam's terror training camps. He begins with this:

THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.

It's well worth reading. Personally, I'm intrigued by the possible release to the public of many of the documents captured from the Taliban and Saddam's Iraq.

Heritage Quote

"The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth."

-- Thomas Paine (Common Sense, 1776)

NSA "wiretapping"

Though this op-ed tends to concentrate on slamming the New York Times (not necessarily a bad thing in this case), it does a good job of summarizing the actual communication surveillance that is taking place. And why that is not a bad thing.

2005 & 2006, economically speaking

Irwin M. Stelzer, director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute, has an op-ed about America's economy in 2005 (great) and 2006 (?). Here's a snippet:

Economic forecasters were invented to make weather forecasters look good. Skilled analysts have trouble interpreting what has already happened, much less predicting what will happen. Consider this: on the day after the Federal Reserve Board's monetary policy committee met and raised interest rates last month, the Wall Street Journal headlined its story, "U.S. Fed raises rates, indicates more to come." The equally respected Financial Times captioned its report, "Fed signals end to rate tightening era."

So take the following with the appropriate pinches of salt.

Recommended.

A difference of perception

Sarah, over at trying to grok, has posted about an episode of the TV show Over There wherein she was presented with an extremely negative view of our troops in Iraq:

The other night my husband and I caught an episode of that show Over There. The plot in a nutshell was that the Americans had captured an insurgent who knew information about where stolen missles were. At the end of the episode, the insurgent agrees to tell the Special Forces officer where the missles are (on a farm) as long as the Americans promise not to kill the farmer and his family. Long dramatic pause as the officer promises...cut to the next scene of the farmer feeding his goats and his farm getting blown to bits from an air strike.

Naturally, I got wrapped up in the moral dilemma of the issue. Why would the director of this show have the officer promise and then just blow up the farm? What was the underlying agenda behind this move? I turned to my husband and asked him, "Would that really happen?", meaning would someone be able to so easily renege on a promise like that and just blow up a family of civilians. The answer I got was not what I expected...

Go read the rest for an inside look at reality from an Army officer who has actually served in Iraq.

Heritage Quote

"This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still."

-- Thomas Paine (Common Sense, 1776)

Heritage Quote

"In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. ... Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob."

-- Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (Federalist No. 55, 15 February 1788)

American competence

Michael Barone, on his blog at U.S. News and World Report, has a very interesting post about the competence of Americans at ages 18 and 30 as compared to the rest of the world.

. . . American 18-year-olds are incompetent or far less competent than 18-year-olds in other advanced countries, while American 30-year-olds are the most competent 30-year-olds in the world.

He goes on to postulate why this is so, and how the push toward more rigorous and standardized testing for our 6-18 year-olds may have some negatives.

Recommended.

A concise analysis

Barry Casselman has an op-ed up at the Washington Times about how the Democrat party is spiraling downward. Here's how he starts:

The Democratic Party today reminds me of the hunter who carefully laid a trap for a bear, and when he came back the next day he forgot where he put it, stepped wrong and got caught in it, and then was himself eaten by the bear.

The game trophies of this year's midterm elections and the 2008 presidential elections, both now appearing to favor the Democrats, could end up in the jaws of Democratic defeat.

The rest is well worth reading . . .

The truth of his assertions troubles me, because this country needs relative equality between the Democrats and Republicans in order for American democracy to work most efficiently -- and most beneficially for the health of the nation and it's citizens. [/soapbox]

Heritage Quote

"Happy, thrice happy shall they be pronounced hereafter, who have contributed any thing, who have performed the meanest office in erecting this stupendous fabrick of Freedom and Empire on the broad basis of Independency; who have assisted in protecting the rights of humane nature and establishing an Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions."

-- George Washington (General Orders, 18 April 1783)

Democracy is growing

US CENTCOM has a short article about the Iraqi elections last month and how the Iraqi people pretty much ran the show.

"Nationalism is defined by the actions of the people," said Maj. Ross Coffman, 4th Brigade Combat Team executive officer. "It only takes a moment to see their faces as they vote, to see their pride, not only because they are voting but because they are part of something bigger. That is promising; not only for the efforts we've made, but also for the future of the country."

Read the rest . . .

History Quote

"Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."

—Mark Twain

Hallelujah!

I'm an uncle (again)! He was born at 9:30 last night. 8 lbs. and something. By C-section. I'm sure his mommy and daddy are exhausted.

Welcome to Earth, little Nick! Bravo Zulu to his mom and dad!

We love you three . . .

Nephew report

No news yet. That lad is definitely not in a hurry to be born . . .

As of 2:30 this afternoon his momma was in labor, but we've had no word since then. Please say a prayer for my sis-in-law and the baby there in Georgia. You might also include a prayer for my brother -- he's probably beside himself . . .

Heritage Quote

"Men, to act with vigour and effect, must have time to mature measures, and judgment and experience, as to the best method of applying them. They must not be hurried on to their conclusions by the passions, or the fears of the multitude. They must deliberate, as well as resolve."

-- Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 6 January 1833)

Bravo Zulu Georgia Nat'l Guard

The Georgia National Guard is well-represented in Iraq by soldiers who prefer saving lives to taking them.

Mars rovers like the Energizer bunny

Death-Defying Mars Rovers Keep Surprising Scientists

Updated 8:14 PM ET January 3, 2006

Just getting the Spirit rover to Mars was an accomplishment for NASA to celebrate.

Two years ago today, the little robot landed on Mars wrapped in a pyramid of air bags. And three weeks later, the rover Opportunity landed the same way, intact and ready to go to work. The two rovers were supposed to last for 90 days each.

At the time, scientists believed, if they were lucky, the rovers would go for 120 Martian days, which are 40 hours longer than Earth days. But then the rovers lasted for 180 days, then 360, then 500. No one quite knows when these days will end.

"Every day is like a brand new mission to us, because the rovers move," said John Callas, science manager for the project. "And so we are in different locations, there is different terrain, there is different geology, there is something new to explore. We're like Lewis and Clark going upriver and every day there's new phenomena to see."

Spirit and Opportunity still send back valuable information about Mars to Earth. "Some of our most significant discoveries came well after the initial 90-day prime mission," Callas said.

The rovers have discovered there was once water on Mars, as their cameras captured ripple-like marks left by water flowing over rocks. They also found simple salt, which is a residue of water.

The rovers have had their problems; bad wheels, failed motors, worn parts and Martian dust that covered their solar collectors. Spirit wore out its diamond drill bit. Opportunity had a bad shoulder joint and last spring spent a month trapped in sand.

They have also had some good luck. Unexpected Martian winds have repeatedly dusted off the solar collectors, giving both rovers more power and longer life.

These amazing little machines survive in a harsh climate. Temperatures can swing in one day from the melting point of ice to 150 degrees below zero.

Callas said there is no way for scientists to know exactly how long the rovers will last. "Something could just break and that will be it for the rover. There could be one day when the rover has a massive stroke and it will be over."

Talk about geeky goodness! A success story that NASA needs to keep trumpeting. This is what NASA is best at -- low (relatively) budget unmanned exploration missions.

Was there a case for war?

The Chicago Tribune does a pretty balanced job of judging the case for war in Iraq.

They take the nine arguments in favor of war that were advanced by the Bush administration in late 2002/early 2003, and examine them using what is known now about the situation.

This link is a summary of nine editorials the Trib published in November and December of 2005.

I recommend it. It is one of the least biased evaluations of the reasons for the Iraq war that I have ever seen in the mainstream media.

Leakage

Spook86 has a good post about the leaky intelligence agencies we have in America.

He also alludes to the serious consequences of security leaks -- something that I can corroborate.

A final note: during my spook days, I saw a classified analysis of the impact of media leaks over the past ten years. The impact of these disclosures--in terms of blown sources and lost intel information--was absolutely staggering. The senior official who prepared the report is now retiring. I hope he will publish his unclassified version of the study in the near future. The public needs to know the real impact when classified information finds its way into print or broadcast, with no regard for the security consequences.

Spook86 has some very interesting things to say. Highly recommended.

Incoming new nephew

Just wanted to let you know that my brother and his wife are in the hospital right now preparing to have a baby boy.

My sister-in-law was induced this morning, but the baby refused to leave his nice warm womb, so his mom and dad get to have a break this evening with the festivities planned to resume early tomorrow morning.

Please pray for a safe delivery tomorrow. We certainly are!

Love you, bro'! And your lovely wife! And your soon-to-be-aborning son!

God speed!

Heritage Quote

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Samuel Kercheval, 7/12/1816)

Notable people of 2005

Spook86 has posted a list of people who really mattered in 2005.

Spook86's list is much more firmly anchored in reality than, say, Time Magazine's list, but who am I to say?

Heritage Quote

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."

-- Thomas Paine (The American Crisis, No. 1, 19 December 1776)

Heritage Quote

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.

Tenth Amendment to the Constitution (Bill of Rights), 15 December 1791