Quote of the Day

The following quote appeared in James Taranto's daily column in the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com:

"Wouldn't it be weird if French President-elect Nicolas Sarkozy turns out to be more pro-American than all the Democrats running for U.S. president?"--Jim Seay of Henrico, Va., quoted in the Richmond Times Dispatch's "Your Two Cents" feature.

Unless something better comes along, Jim Seay gets credit for the Quote of the Day.

Global Warming Humor

Last night in the monologue, David Letterman announced that former President Bill Clinton made a speech in which he expressed great concern about global warming. Clinton was heard to say that the warming was getting so bad that a 2 lb. chunk of ice had fallen off his wife, Hillary.

Reparations for Guam?

James Taranto, writing in the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com, reports that the House of Representatives voted to pay reparations to residents of Guam who were mistreated by the Japanese during World War II. To be sure, Guam was occupied by the Japanese for 3 years or so. And yes, the Japanese did severely mistreat many of the Chamorros, as the natives of Guam are called. This much is history.

Typically, one pays compensation if one has injured someone. I am unable to figure out how the U.S. Government is responsible for the criminal acts of the soldiers of a country with which we were at war. Particularly when those criminal acts occurred sixty years ago. If anybody pays reparations to injured Chamorros, it should be the wealthy Japanese.

The other DrC and I lived and taught on Guam for a year, in the mid-1980s. The Chamorros are neat people, who certainly harbor no love for the Japanese. They are, however, very willing to harvest Japanese tourist yen at the resorts along Tumon Bay.

In my opinion, the statute of limitations has run out on Japanese attrocities. If the bill reaches the President's desk, I hope he vetoes it.

Steyn on the Roots of Radicalism

Mark Steyn is almost always worth reading. His weekly column in the Chicago Sun-Times is a look at homegrown, second and third generation Muslims becoming radicalized. He ties the whole thing to the troubles in Bosnia, of all places. It certainly is a different view of the problem, and worth considering.

Hillary's 'Nuanced' Position on Iraq

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, writing in the New York Post online, do a great job of clarifying Hillary Clinton's evolving position vis-a-vis Iraq. I won't try to summarize it for you, just go read it.

Hillary must have a very low opinion of our collective intelligence. I can almost guarantee you will shake your head in wonder and amazement, or maybe amusement.

Training for Today's Army

In The Atlantic online, Brian Mockenhaupt writes a very interesting article about today's all-volunteer Army. He talks about changed training standards and less rigorous, less abusive basic training. If you are interesting in the issues of turning today's Ipod, XBox, cell phone generation into soldiers, this thoughtful, balanced article is for you.

Mockenhaupt has been there and done that. He goes back to see how the new approach is affecting his old unit, the 10th Mountain Division in upstate New York.

Psychological Displacement in Foreign Policy

Following 9/11, the U.S. found itself in a different kind of war. Not a war with a nation state, but a war with the transnational religious/cultural/political movement that is now called radical Islam or "Islamofascism."

Largely unnoticed by most Americans, this new type of war had been going on since 1989, when the Soviets left Afghanistan. Earlier milestones in that war included bombings of the Khobar Towers, our embassies in Africa, the U.S.S. Cole, and the first (unsuccessful) World Trade Center attempt. Still, most Americans didn't pay attention until jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

At that point the question became, "What can we do?" Our military doctrine is designed to counter enemy nation states. We don't have a diplomatic or military doctrine to deal with a rogue social/political/religious movement that exists in maybe 40+ countries, including our own and those of our main allies.

Since we had no idea how to counter an often suicidally murderous ideology that neither controlled nor defended territory, we did what we knew how to do. We invaded the nation state where most terrorists were trained - Afghanistan. Next we invaded Iraq, an Arab state that, while hostile to the United States, was probably not much of a threat. Again, we did what we know how to do, which is conquer a nation state.

Psychologists call this type of behavior "displacement," that is diverting one's attention (or aggression) to a target with which one knows how to deal. We got mad at al Qaeda but attacked Iraq, because we knew how to attack Iraq and didn't really know how to attack al Qaeda.

To date nobody has come up with a feasible solution to the Islamofascist problem. Individuals 'infected' with this ideology can be citizens of countries for which they don't constitute a problem because their enmity is directed mostly at the U.S. Asking those countries to "do something" about such individuals is likely to be futile inasmuch as they have broken no obvious laws at home.

Ralph Peters' Baghdad Blues

Ralph Peters, writing in the New York Post online, takes a dim view of the current leadership of the U.S. military. He notes that the top generals have never led (as opposed to "commanded" from a distance) a unit in combat, under fire. Peters compares them to bobble-head dolls, nodding in foolish agreement with every politician's dream of winning without violence and on the cheap.

On the other hand, his prescription for victory sounds a lot like the bitter slogan of GIs in Vietnam, faced with a similar mixture of enemies and civilians, "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out." Current U.S. public opinion doesn't support draconian measures. After the next 9/11, it may.

"Winning Dirty" in Iraq

Mort Kondracke is Executive Editor of Roll Call and a frequent panelist on Brit Hume's Fox News show. He writes in the RealClearPolitics website about what he calls "winning dirty" in Iraq.

In Iraq the Shia outnumber the Sunni three to one and would, in a democratic Iraq, control the country. Today U.S. troops are in the middle of a Sunni-Shia civil war trying, but failing, to keep the two sides from killing each other. As he points out, civil wars eventually end when one side wins and the other side loses.

Kondracke wonders if maybe we should side with those Shia who are not in Iran's pocket, while protecting the Kurd minority in the north. The result would be ugly, involve ethnic cleansing, and result in Sunni refugee flows into neighboring Sunni-majority countries. It could, however, leave Iraq with a government that represents most of the people and is not an active enemy of the U.S.

This proposal is an example of the often cited maxim "don't let the best become the enemy of the good." Our current goals represent "the best" outcome, while winning dirty represents, in the minds of some, a "good" outcome. Kondracke makes an interesting argument, I do recommend it for your consideration.

Conservative Humor Alert

Go here to see a great piece of conservative humor, based on the Geico caveman ads.

Barone on Demographic Trends

Michael Barone, writing in the Wall Street Journal online, analyzes population trends within the U.S. These population movements have clear political implications, which he lays out in his normal clear fashion.

Barone finds that Americans are moving away from the biggest coastal cities and being replaced there by immigrants. The mobile Americans are relocating to non-coastal places with much less immigrant inflow.

Mass Psychosis Alert

Rasmussen Reports' polling finds that 35% of Democrats believe President Bush knew about the 9/11 terror attacks before they happened. Further, 22% of the total population believes he knew.

Dictionary.com says psychosis is "a mental disorder characterized by symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations, that indicate impaired contact with reality." Sounds to me like a whale of a lot of Americans are psychotic. Many clearly have an impaired contact with reality.

If W really were as evil as they believe him to be, his enemies would all be in internment camps or dead. For sure he wouldn't have allowed the Congress to move to Democratic control in 2006.

And to think that we let these sad, paranoid people vote. Fortunately for the country, most of them don't bother.

The Fred Thompson Manifesto

Go here to read Fred Thompson's prepared remarks for the Lincoln Club annual dinner in Orange County. This man just might be the next Republican presidential nominee.

Kristol on the 2008 Election

William Kristol, writing in Time online, sees two dynamics working in the 2008 presidential election: change and war. Pretty clearly change will be on the minds of the electorate, he believes. This gives Democrats reason for optimism.

At the same time, it is also a wartime election, giving reason for Republican optimism. Bill Kristol thinks "wartime" will trump "change." Take a look at his historical analysis here.

A Jaundiced Look at the Democrats' Debate

Ann Coulter fills the same role on the political right that Maureen Dowd fills on the left. Both are expert wielders of the satirical needle.

Here Coulter dips her poison pen in hydrochloric acid and writes an unflattering review of the recent Democratic presidential primary debate. If you enjoy conservative humor, it is good for a snicker or two.

Resistance to Change is Overstated

One of the most commonly held misconceptions is that people automatically resist change. Its more trendy formulation is that people resist being changed. I'd like to share with you another view, which is attributed to Professor Emeritus Jerry B. Harvey, of George Washington University.

Harvey observes that people don't resist change that is pleasant. If you won the lottery tomorrow it would surely change your life radically. If resistance to change were universal, you'd refuse to cash the ticket or give all your winnings to charity. In practice, hardly anyone does either.

What people do resist is pain. When change is painful, people resist it. Painful change takes many forms. It can arise from loss of income, loss of status, loss of skill, loss of friendship, or the need to start over.

If your employees are resisting change, it is because in some way they perceive the change as not in their best interests. Telling them it will be good for them in the long run often won't work. J. M. Keynes was right, "In the long run, we are all dead."

Paraphrasing Mary Poppins, you need a 'spoonful of sugar' to help the 'medicine' of change go down. People embrace change when they can see immediate personal benefits arising from that change. Seeing no major immediate personal losses doesn't hurt either.

Sen. Feinstein Conflict-of-Interest

I'm in California at the moment. Yesterday afternoon I was listening to award-winning talk show host, Tom Sullivan, on KFBK AM 1530 in Sacramento. He reported that California's senior Senator, Diane Feinstein served 6 years as the ranking Democrat on a Senate sub-committee that routed over a billion dollars in government contracts to firms with which her husband, Richard C. Blum, was either associated or controlled.

As evidence for these allegations, he cited this article by David Keene published in The Hill, a non-partisan newspaper focusing on the U.S. Congress. Keene reports that Feinstein did not recuse herself from legislation which directly benefited her husband. Maybe the most ironic fact Keene relates is that Feinstein now chairs the Senate Rules Committee which supervises senatorial ethics. Isn't that like having Bill Clinton teach a girls' Sunday school class or Ted Kennedy be a lifeguard?

My reaction: Can you say "Martha Stewart?" Are you surprised the 'unbiased' MSM have no interest in this story? Can you imagine DiFi doing the perp walk?

Unintended Consequence of Social Security

I love unintended consequences. This article in the Weekly Standard online is a great example. We all know that declining birth rates cause problems for Social Security. I'll bet most of us haven't figured out that Social Security can be a cause of declining birth rates.

First, let's review the facts. Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system. The payroll taxes you pay today are not saved for your retirement, they are used to pay the pension of someone who is now retired. The system's major problem is our aging population. The reasons for this aging are twofold: we live longer and have fewer children. As the ratio of younger workers to older retirees declines, fewer workers have to pay higher taxes to support more retirees.

Capretta's argument is that people in societies without retirement plans have more children in order to be sure to have care-givers in their declining years. People in societies with retirement plans have fewer children as they rely instead on government payments for old-age support. Much of the money they might have spent raising children gets paid into formal retirement plans instead. Thus, the existence of a retirement system removes one motivation for large families, and also reduces the earnings available to raise children.

I find this interesting because while I knew that a declining birth rate caused problems for Social Security, I hadn't spotted that Social Security helps cause a declining birth rate.

Why They Hate George W.

See Wes Pruden's light-hearted disquisition on the phenomenon of "Bush hating." He begins with a dissection of New York Times' bilious opinion columnist Frank Rich.

However, as Pruden points out, hating the President is nothing new. Lincoln was reviled as a baboon, Jackson as a hick, millions unfairly blamed Hoover for the depression, and GOP dislike of FDR was legendary. Who can forget our dismay at boorish Lyndon Johnson showing people his operation scar, or picking up his dog by the ears? And, Pruden reminds us, we didn't so much hate Bill Clinton as be embarrassed to have Bubba as our elected "groper-in-chief."

Recently, hating George W. has provided more-or-less innocent merriment (hat tip to Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado) to many on the left. These sad souls will need to find alternative entertainment after January, 2009.

Still More on Climate Change

See this article reporting research from Sweden regarding climate change in the North and South Atlantic basin. Using data from the last 10,000 years, they find that when the north is warm, the south is cold and vice versa.

Be clear, they aren't talking about the annual switch from summer in the north to summer in the south. Instead, for prolonged periods the North Atlantic area will be warm while the South Atlantic area will be cold, then north and south trade climates.

The Swedish researchers believe this variation is driven by changing ocean currents. These same currents influence the frequency and intensity of hurricanes.