The Rant

Posted by Bob Clasen Was not Bush's Inaugural Address a noble summary of excellent ideals for American foreign policy? _________________ If you did not hear or read Bush's Inaugural Address, I post some excerpts below for your consideration. _________________ Why cannot Democrats and Republicans unite behind such a vision, even if they differ on the details of its implementation? Is there such a fundamental difference in vision between Democrats and Republicans that this speech evokes admiration in one but not the other? I listened to one self-described Democrat arguing on talk radio that all ideals are mere foolishness and a cover for the harsh reality of truth: the fight for power. He argued that there is no fundamental difference between America and any other country: they all are merely seeking power. We moved into Iraq for one reason: to grab power (and he was not critical of such a motive). What he was critical of was the hypocrisy of those who claimed t...

posted by Bob Clasen http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=49730 America backs democracy, and the world improves By JONAH GOLDBERG AMID THE media din about the tsunami, Dan Rather’s implosion, and the usual grim news from Iraq, an amazing story has been unfolding — but has received scant appreciation from the chattering classes. Democracy is on the march. The Ukraine election reversal is the most significant victory for democracy in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Palestinians have held the first legitimate nationwide (so to speak) election in their history (Arafat’s previous “election” was a sham). And while the new Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, leaves much to be desired, his fair victory is significant and momentous in its own right. Meanwhile, Iraq is preparing for its first fair elections since before Saddam Hussein came to power. Those elections won’t be perfect. Heck, they may even be a disaster (though I doubt they will). ...

Bob, Are you ready for another war? Draft time is coming, as new recruitment for your failed experiment won't get us out of Iraq. What do you think about a preemptive attack on Iran filled with mushroom clouds of WMD to institute a universal draft? Two down, North Korea to go. The real question is, how many UN speeches from Colin Powell will convince you it’s a good idea to bomb Tehran next? If your watching the news, it looks like it’s coming. Steve

by Bob Clasen To be covered by the Geneva Conventions, a combatant has to have (a) a commander who is responsible for his subordinates; (b) formal recognizable military insignia; (c) weapons that are carried openly, and (d) an adherence to the laws and customs of warfare. Terrorists have none of these. As I understand the Geneva Conventions, they are treaties that civilized countries at war with one another enter into to try to insure the mutual fair treatment of their prisoners of war. If two countries are signatories to this treaty, then their prisoners will be extended these special privileges. Terrorists do not have a country, do not carry weapons openly, and only promise to torture and behead the captured enemy. So far they have carried out these promises. Why in God's name would we extend the protection of the Geneva Convention to captured terrorists? Please explain this to me if you disagree. If we unilaterally extend the privileges of the Genev...

posted by Bob Clasen ______________________ German brothel donates money for tsunami relief 12 January 2005 BERLIN: A German brothel owner has been so moved by the plight of survivors from Asia's tsunami disaster that she is donating part of her takings from clients. "It's not every day you can make a charitable gesture by going to a brothel," said Mercedes Mueller, who is giving 5 euros ($NZ9.57) of the 39-euro entrance charge clients pay. "It's so terrible what happened there and I wanted to do something," said Mueller, who owns the Happy FKK Club in the western city of Dortmund. Mueller said clients, prostitutes and the public had all responded with great enthusiasm to her gesture, and that about 1300 euros had been raised so far. "We have as much of a right to raise money as any other business," she said. "We all have a heart too. I hope it will serve as an example to others." ______________________...

by Bob Clasen __________________ Two former White House national security advisers, Republican Brent Scowcroft and Democrat Zbigniew Brzezinski are leading the nay sayers in arguing that Iraq is now hopeless and that we need to cut our losses and withdraw, inviting Europe or the UN to come in and take our place (a very unlikely happening). Realistically, such a withdrawal would abandon Iraq to the forces of chaos and fascism. These same advisors argue that we should essentially abandon Israel and go back to "dealing" with the terrorists, entering into treaties at the expense of Israeli security by forcing Israel to tear down the security fence, withdraw from the West Bank, etc. I prefer an idealistic foreign policy that stands up for the values we as a country stand for: freedoma and democracy. We need to stand with the people of Iraq through their first election so long as they are willing to fight with us. We need to stand with our historic ally, democratic Isra...

posted by Bob Clasn (slow news day) Long hair 'steals the brain's energy' From correspondents in Seoul STALINIST North Korea has stepped up its campaign against long hair and untidy attire which its media says represents a "corrupt capitalist" lifestyle, reports said. North Korean state television, radio and newspapers have led the grooming drive, urging people to cut their hair short and to dress tidily, the BBC said in a dispatch citing broadcasts from Pyongyang. Men were asked to have crew cuts with hair growing up to five centimetres in a twice-a-month visit to the barber, it said. Not only health and hygiene but also intelligence was cited by the North Korean media as reasons for the crackdown on appearance. Pyongyang television noted long hair "consumes a great deal of nutrition" and could thus rob the brain of energy, according to the BBC. But another serious reason came from state radio which said tidy attire "is impor...

posted by Bob Clasen __________________________ The Disenchanted American Are we growing world-weary? by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online There is a new strange mood of acceptance among Americans about the world beyond our shores. Of course, we are not becoming naïve isolationists of 1930s vintage, who believe that we are safe by ourselves inside fortress America — not after September 11. Nor do citizens deny that America has military and moral obligations to stay engaged abroad — at least for a while yet. Certainly the United States is not mired in a Vietnam-era depression and stagflation and thus ready to wallow in Carteresque malaise. Indeed, if anything Americans remain muscular and are more defiant than ever. Instead, there is a new sort of resignation rising in the country, as the United States sheds its naiveté that grew up in the aftermath of the Cold War. Clintonism may have assumed that terrorism was but a police matter, that the military could be sla...

Here a couple Islamic Theories of the cause of the Tsunami: posted by Bob Clasen: _________________________________ Saudi Professor Sheikh Fawzan Al-Fawzan: Allah Punishes for Homosexuality and Fornication at Christmas The following are excerpts from an interview on Saudi/UAE's Al-Majd TV with Sheikh Fawzan Al-Fawzan, a professor at the Al-Imam University, which was recorded and translated by the MEMRI TV Monitor Project: "These great tragedies and collective punishments that are wiping out villages, towns, cities, and even entire countries, are Allah's punishments of the people of these countries, even if they are Muslims. "Some of our forefathers said that if there is usury and fornication in a certain village, Allah permits its destruction. We know that at these resorts, which unfortunately exist in Islamic and other countries in South Asia, and especially at Christmas, fornication and sexual perversion of all kinds are rampant. The fact that it...

posted by Bob Clasen Islam is trying hard to protect its members from themselves. No drinking. No music. No representational art. And Now the latest pronouncement from the mullahs: No Internet. from the no-blog-for-you dept. Dan Brickley writes "It appears that Iranian ISPs have been ordered to block a large number of popular Web sites, including weblogging, community, chat and email services. Web (particularly weblog) use has been increasing rapidly in Iran, with 64000+ weblogs published by Iranians via various sites. As of today, if the news is correct, the majority of these may be inaccessible to their authors, as will the email (eg. Yahoo) services they use to communicate with friends, colleagues and family worldwide. See stop.censoring.us and hoder.com for more details. The newly expanded blocks include PersianBlog, Blogger and the Google-hosted Orkut 'social networking' site, where Iranians come third after Brazil and USA, representing 7% of all us...

posted by Bob Clasen J.D. thinks that Charles Krauthammer is a "NeoCon" which I guess is a dismissive term for Jewish conservative. But aside from sneering at him or dismissing what he has to say, why is he wrong? How can you make peace with a people that has no desire or will to make peace with you? Peace is a two way process. The only peace that the Palestinians want for Israel is the peace of the grave. ______________________________________ by Charles Krauthammer from the Seattle Times http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002143509_krauthammer07.html On Sept. 13, 1993, I was on the White House lawn watching the signing of the Oslo accords. I also watched the intellectual collapse of the entire Middle East intelligentsia — journalists, politicians, "experts" — as they swooned at the famous handshake between Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin and refused, that day and for years to come, to recognize what was obvious: that Arafat was embarking n...

Do not accept as gospel what is said about social security reform. Have some one run the numbers for your age when the proposals become more clear. AP made unsupported claim about expected benefits under Bush Social Security proposal In a January 5 Associated Press article , AP writer Leigh Strope made the unsupported claim that, under the Bush administration proposal to reduce promised Social Security benefits and supplement the system with private investment accounts, the combined retirement income of the two "would be expected" to equal or exceed benefits promised to retirees under the current system. Strope wrote: For example, a person retiring in 2012 with an annual income of $35,277 is promised $1,194 in monthly benefits, in 2001 dollars. If the formula is changed, the monthly benefit would be reduced by 0.9 percent to about $1,183 per month. The younger the worker, the more dramatic the cuts. For a person retiring in 2075, the monthly promised benefit of $2,0...

posted by Bob Clasen from Little Green Footballs blog http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/ ___________________________ We Stingy Americans Private U.S. Aid for Tsunami Tops $200M. UPDATE at 1/5/05 8:26:15 am: An email from Naomi Ragen points out that last year, Saudi Arabia raised more than $150 million for the families of suicide bombers. To help their Muslim brothers and their devastated families in Southeast Asia, the oil-rich country is contributing $10 million. UPDATE at 1/5/05 8:44:14 am: The Saudis have been embarrassed into raising their disaster relief contribution to $30 million. UPDATE at 1/5/05 11:56:41 am: Chuck Simmins reports that the total of private US donations is now over $350 million. by Charles at 08:12 AM PST | 318 comments | link last comment: PDM 2:48:40 pm 1/5/05

Posted by Bob Clasen _______________________ Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle Presidential Campaigns Draw Differing Conclusions From Report By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A04 Since 2001, President Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office has found, a conclusion likely to roil the presidential election campaign. The CBO study, due to be released today, found that the wealthiest 20 percent, whose incomes averaged $182,700 in 2001, saw their share of federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total tax payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year. The top 1 percent, earning $1.1 million, saw their share fall to 20.1 percent of the total, from 22.2 percent. Over that same period, taxpayers with incomes from around $51,500 to around $75,600 saw their share of federal tax payments increase. Households earning around...

posted by Bob Clasen ________________________ Ignorance shrouds capitalism's profound impact on reducing poverty Jim Klauder Sunday, January 2, 2005 It should come as heartening news that 2004 was one of the most prosperous years in history. Not because the U.S. economy grew by a solid 4.3 percent, but because developing countries experienced an explosive 6.1 percent economic growth. According to a recent study by the World Bank, 2004's growth reflected "an expansion without precedent over the past 30 years." Equally encouraging, the report notes that "the rapid growth of developing economies ... has produced a spectacular, if not historic, fall in poverty." Amazingly, the World Bank report did not get much coverage in our mainstream media. It seems the press was more interested in covering the evils of globalization than in taking notice of how world trade -- which grew by an astounding 10.2 percent this year -- is driving economic gr...

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,...