The Rant

thanks to Joe Clasen for pointing this item out ______________________________________________ 2004: The Good News Thursday, December 30, 2004 By Radley Balko http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142872,00.html Every year as we approach the end of December, major media outlets compile lists of the year’s top stories. Television news stations compile poignant montages of the past 12 months. Inevitably, these images are tragic—images of war, crime and natural disaster set to pensive music, only occasionally interrupted by shots of the team that won the Super Bowl, the World Series, or every four years, pictures from the Olympics. That’s to be expected, of course. No news, as they say, is good news. Good news also tends to happen gradually, which makes it less conspicuous. Bad news happens in clumps. It makes itself known. In just a few hours, a hurricane or an earthquake can wipe out thousands of homes and businesses. The prosperity, wealth and rise in standard...

posted by Bob Clasen _______________________ BY COLLIN LEVEY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- December 30, 2004 -- WITH Southeast Asia battling one of the worst natural disasters in modern history, Western politicians took the opportunity to create a perfect storm of petty recriminations. As the world scrambled to send money to help, U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland huffed that rich nations are "stingy" with foreign aid. Trying to talk his way out of the ensuing flap, he explained Tuesday that he didn't mean stingy so much now in the current relief effort but more, well, stingy all the time: Our governments don't give enough cash to the Third World. What he doesn't get (natch, he's a U.N. bureaucrat) is this: The countries that prosper are those that want investment, not giveaways. When this crisis passes, that will be more obvious than ever. In the wake of the tsunami, the Unite...

From the New Times ASHINGTON, Dec. 25 - The Bush administration is talking to Iraqi leaders about guaranteeing Sunni Arabs a certain number of ministries or high-level jobs in the future Iraqi government if, as is widely predicted, Sunni candidates fail to do well in Iraq's elections. An even more radical step, one that a Western diplomat said was raised already with an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, is the possibility of adding some of the top vote-getters among the Sunni candidates to the 275-member legislature, even if they lose to non-Sunni candidates. The diplomat said even some Shiite politicians who were followers of Ayatollah Sistani were concerned that a Pyrrhic victory by Shiites, effectively shutting Sunni Arabs out of power, could alienate Sunnis and lead to more internal strife. Shiites make up about 60 percent of Iraqis and were generally denied power under Saddam Hussein.

posted by Bob Clasen ___________________________ No Thanks for the Memories Dispatches from a year that was lower than a snake By Dave Barry Sunday, December 26, 2004; Page W14 LOOKING BACK ON 2004, we have to conclude that it could have been worse. "How??" you ask, spitting out your coffee. Well, okay, a giant asteroid could have smashed into the Earth and destroyed all human life except Paris Hilton and William Hung. Or Florida could have been hit by 20 hurricanes, instead of just 17. Or the Yankees could have won the World Series. But, no question, 2004 was bad. Consider: -- We somehow managed to hold a presidential election campaign that for several months was devoted almost entirely to the burning issue of: Vietnam. -- Our Iraq policy, which was discussed, debated and agreed upon right up to the very highest levels of the White House, did not always seem to be wildly popular over there in Iraq. -- Osama bin Laden remained ...

_________________ by Bob Clasen If belief in moral values is a leap of faith, then our choice of what to value is our primary freedom. It is interesting that many people give up this freedom by becoming disciples of some prophet, church, party or guru. Such a person uses his freedom once, to pledge allegiance to some organized value system such as a church or political party, and thereafter only obeys. The responsibility of deciding what is right and wrong is thus avoided. Why do people give up their freedom so easily? Perhaps people do not feel confident enough as individuals to face the responsibility of choosing what to believe. Such decisions can be difficult. Becoming a True Disciple is one way of avoiding making difficult decisions. The alternative is a freely chosen personal religion. If I have a personal religion I face each difficult situation as an individual, choosing what seems to be best. I can listen to others express their opinions about what is best,...

___________________ by Bob Clasen At this Christmas season, it seemed like a good time to raise the issue of Faith v. Reason. Some secular types vigilantly fight for a “separation” between Church and State and seem to believe that they are superior to silly Christians and other religious types who live by faith. This feeling of superiority is based upon a failure to understand their own motivations. It is based upon the delusion that human beings can live without faith. In reality, nearly all humans live by faith. The only difference is what they put their faith in. The reason we live by faith is that decisions of what is valuable or not valuable, what is right or wrong, are not questions for reason, but for faith. Do you believe that people are valuable and ought to be treated with respect or even love? There is no rational proof for such a belief. Some believe that animals, insects or even trees have as much, or more value than human beings. This also is a ...

Apparently there has been infighting between conservative factions as to who will replace Greenspan. As those of you who read my comments, or who read the Paul O'Neill book know, Alan Greenspan and O'Niell were both concerned about the deficeit and Bush's tax cuts. Well, Bush only hires trustworthy people (Bush can Trust). See commentary before Harvard Professor Martin Feldstein got the nod. This potentially is like appointing a judge. His views, which apparently coincide with Bush and Cheney, make him a likely candidate. Reuters 12-6-04 By Tim Ahmann WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative supply-side economists, many boasting White House ties, have thrown their support behind former Bush adviser Glenn Hubbard to succeed Alan Greenspan at the Federal Reserve. But analysts are divided on whether their blessing gives Hubbard an edge in what is often described as a two-man race to take over from Greenspan, who must step down by early 2006. "There are lots o...

posted by Bob Clasen by Michael Crichton Why Speculate? A speech to the International Leadership Forum La Jolla, California April 26, 2002 My topic for today is the prevalence of speculation in media. What does it mean? Why has it become so ubiquitous? Should we do something about it? If so, what should we do? And why? Should we care at all? Isn't speculation valuable? Isn't it natural? I will join this speculative bandwagon and speculate about why there is so much speculation. In keeping with the trend, I will try express my views without any factual support, simply providing you with a series of bald assertions. This is not my natural style, and it's going to be a challenge for me, but I will do my best. I have written out my talk which is already a contradiction of principle. To keep within the spirit of our time, it should really be off the top of my head. Before we begin, I'd like to clarify a definition. By media I mean movies televisio...

posted by Bob Clasen ______________________ The rise of reactionary liberalism Rich Lowry _______________________________   "Please, don't change anything." That bids fair to become the liberal slogan for the early 21st century. Who knew government programs circa 2004 would have achieved an equipoise of perfection such that disturbing them in the slightest way would represent liberal heresy? And who would have guessed that "progressives" would become opponents of change so thoroughgoing that they would make Edmund Burke blush?      Reactionary liberalism will be the order of the day in President Bush's second term. Take Social Security. The program was started in the 1930s. Back then, there were 41 workers for every retiree. Now, there are three workers for every retiree. Back then, life expectancy was significantly shorter than its current 78 years. In other words, in 70 years the world has changed, but the structure of Social Security hasn'...

posted by Bob Clasen Here's my plan to end the red-blue rift I thought that in today's column I would heal the nation. The nation suffered a wound during the recent presidential election as a result of the rift between the red states - defined as "states where 'foreign cuisine' pretty much means Pizza Hut" - and the blue states, defined as "states that believe they are smarter than the red states, despite the fact it takes the average blue-state resident 15 minutes to order a single cup of coffee." Some blue-state residents are so upset about the election that they are talking about moving to Canada, which is technically a foreign nation. In my view, this would be a mistake. Canada is not the paradise it is often made out to be. FACT: Every year, 43% of all Canadians - a total of eight Canadians - are eaten by polar bears. Besides, running away is never the answer, unless you are a teenage boy who has just blown up a mailbox. We need to ...

__________________________ post by Bob Clasen A quotation from Theodore Roosevelt: "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." "Citizenship in a Republic," Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910 ____________________________ I note that the current crop of Democrats always seem ...

From Jeff Abouaf: What's New in the Legal World? A Growing Campaign to Undo the New Deal By ADAM COHEN Published: December 14, 2004 The New Deal made an unexpected appearance at the Supreme Court recently - in the form of a 1942 case about wheat. Some prominent states' rights conservatives were asking the court to overturn Wickard v. Filburn, a landmark ruling that laid out an expansive view of Congress's power to legislate in the public interest. Supporters of states' rights have always blamed Wickard, and a few other cases of the same era, for paving the way for strong federal action on workplace safety, civil rights and the environment. Although they are unlikely to reverse Wickard soon, states' rights conservatives are making progress in their drive to restore the narrow view of federal power that predated the New Deal - and render Congress too weak to protect Americans on many fronts. We take for granted today the idea that Congress can a...

posted by Bob Clasen ________________________ Google to Scan Books From Big Libraries By Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google Inc. is trying to establish an online reading room for five major libraries by scanning stacks of hard-to-find books into its widely used Internet search engine. The ambitious initiative announced late Monday gives Mountain View, Calif.-based Google the right to index material from the New York public library as well as libraries at four universities — Harvard, Stanford, Michigan and Oxford in England. The Michigan and Stanford libraries are the only two so far to agree to submit all their material to Google's scanners. The New York library is allowing Google to include a small portion of its books no longer covered by copyright while Harvard is confining its participation to 40,000 volumes so it can gauge how well the process works. Oxford wants Google to scan all its books originally published before 1901. Scanning book...