Could this be, could this be, could this be ...

our new VP?


Arthur Culvahouse has been interviewing and vetting potential candidates for vice president for John McCain. Now, there is a report that Culvahouse has been spotted in Juneau, Alaska. Why would he be there? The speculation is that he is there to interview the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.

Palin has been kicking some serious tail in Alaska, rooting out corruption and the good ol' boy network. I did a little digging on her when her name first surfaced -- ther eis even a "draft Sarah Palin for VP" site. Palin is tough on public corruption and government spending. She is big on gun rights and wants sane environmental policy -- she is an environmentalist but is suing to stop the feds' ridiculous designation of the polar bear as "threatened" due to global warming. She is an evangelical Christian but, like most evangelical Christians I know, does not appear disposed to imposing that view on everyone else, unlike like certain POTUS candidates (I'm looking at you, Mike Huckabee), which is really all anyone can ask. She also is energetic and charismatic.

Sarah Palin could be a shot in the arm for a party and a movement that desperately needs fresh faces and backbone.

I don't think she will be the VP candidate, however, simply because she has only been governor for two years, and won't bring in any electoral votes because Alaska will go Republican anyway. Most importantly, I do not believe she is interested in the VP slot right now. I could be wrong on that, but I recall hearing a disclaimer somewhere from her.

But she could be a great one. She could be a great POTUS.

Amidst this year of despair, dare we to dream?

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

The real issues

The primary season for POTUS is for all intents and purposes over, yet none of the presidential candidates have really expressed definite plans to combat what ails America. Whether it is John McCain on illegal immigration and global warming, or Barack Obama on ... anything, no one seems to understand what concerns Americans right now, let alone how to address it. So I will humbly appoint myself as representative of the American people and use my own concerns as a guide to ask the policy questions (no Jeremiah Wright, Michelle Obama or William Ayres/Bernadine Dohrn here) for which the American people want answers:

1. What are you going to do about high gas prices? Are you going to open up new supplies in the US that are currently blocked (like ANWR and oil shale) and streamline the permit process for new and expanded oil refineries? Or are you going to give us platitudes about global warming?

2. Would you at least let us individually bill the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace and pretty much the entire House and Senate Democrat caucuses for blocking domestic oil production for the increased cost of our gasoline?

3. Are you going to protect and improve our standard of living in the face of threats from radical environmentalists, militant Islam and Windows Vista? Or are you going to give us platitudes about global warming?

4.Will you please just shut up abut global warming? We're not warming and man isn't causing it. Ask Mars and Jupiter.

5. What are you going to do about strengthening the dollar, which would help stabilize and lower oil prices?

6. Why is it that every time we sign a "free trade" agreement with some other country, we end up with a bunch of our jobs moving to that other country where they then sell the products we once made back to us? Why is it that they sell more of those products to us than we sell of products to them? And what are you going to do about that?

7. By the way, just shut up about "free trade." Only economists and big businessmen want it and believe in it, because it works. For them. Only. The rest of us don't care. We just want to keep our jobs and don't want to lose them to a government-subsidized, slave-labor business in China.

8. What are you going to do to protect the domestic steel industry? We can't fight a war without steel.

9. We might be fighting radical Islam militarily, but we are not fighting philosophically. The Islamists are winning as a result. Are you willing to fight them philosophically, and explain to the world why Western civilization is better than the codified barbarity that is radical Islam?

10. And while we we are fighting radical Islam militarily, we are stretched too thin because of Donald Rumsfeld's idiotic refusal to increase the size of the military. Will you increase the size of the military to deal with the current war and emerging threats like Iran, Venezuela and China?

11. And will you actually fund the Navy, so that when we build something revolutionary like the "Littoral Combat Ship" we can build more than two of them?

12. And can we give our best, most powerful ships -- the aircraft carriers -- cool names again, like Lexington, Saratoga and Yorktown, instead of this Gerald R. Ford crap?

13. And while we're at it, can you build a new battleship Yamato? I mean, it's the most badass ship of all time (it took practically all the carrier aircraft of the Pacific Fleet to sink her and her sister Musashi -- separately) and it wasn't ours. Do you want that black mark to stand on your watch? Sure, she wasn't the Nimitz, but come on -- which one looked cooler? Can you just imagine those Iranian Pasdaran seeing the Yamato pass through the Strait of Hormuz? They would all soil themselves. It'd be like a gas attack without any actual delivery of munitions. We could have the most badass ship of all time in our arsenal and you're just continuing with this Gerald R. Ford crap.

14. What are you going to do about illegal immigration? Your response may not use the word "comprehensive."

15. Will you build a wall on the border to keep out illegal immigrants and smugglers? If not, why not? And how would you control our borders in the absence of said wall?

16. If you build that wall, would you consider constructing it of human bones? Preferably those of illegal immigrants? The intimidation actor would increase exponentially. See the movie 300 for details.

17. Are you going to end the "catch and release" method of handling illegal immigrants?

18. If not, will you at least modify it so that the "release" comes from a trebuchet as they are flung back across the Mexican border?

19. Do you support stem cell research and cloning?

20. Would you support cloning if it could help solve the problems expressed in Question 10, supra?

21. Would you at least ignore cloning if it could solve the problems expressed in Question 10, supra?

22. Do you support abortion?

23. If not, would you support it if abortion could only be used retroactively?

24. Will you appoint strict constructionists to the judiciary? Because strict constructionists are actually interested in protecting the public from criminals and don't go for this made-up Miranda or exclusionary rule crap.

25. Do you believe the death penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment?

26. Do you think Windows Vista constitutes cruel and unusual punishment?

27. Yes, I had two digs at Windows Vista in this list. We all hate it because it's slow, useless and has no backwards compatibility and Microsoft is ramming it down our throats.

28. Come to think of it, the PlayStation 3 is no better, but I tracked down a 60 gig model so I don't care as much anymore. But I digress ...

29. Does the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment mean that we can use cruel or unusual punishment? So we could have convicted felons flayed alive as long as it was done on a regular basis?

30. And, finally, will you let us keep our friggin' incandescent light bulbs or force this compact fluorescent, mercury-tainted garbage on us that threatens to turn every house into an EPA Superfund site?

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Let's have some fun

As a follow up to my review of Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45, by Max Hastings.


This is another picture of the US escort carrier Gambier Bay under heavy caliber shellfire during the Battle off Samar portion of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. This remarkable photograph, like my earlier one, shows shell splashes around the carrier as she makes smoke using her funnels in an attempt to hide herself. Escort carriers, being converted merchant ships, were slow to begin with, and the plight of Gambier Bay was made hopeless when one of her engines was knocked out. She could not outrun the Japanese ships, who caught up with the carrier and poured shell after shell into her until she sank.

Her antagonist appears much more clearly than in the previous photograph I showed. Off to the right is a somewhat strange looking ship, the latter half of which is flat. This is a Japanese Tone class heavy seaplane cruiser. The seaplane designation comes from her enhanced ability to carry seaplanes for reconnaissance. As a result, the cruiser has no aft turrets, but has a flat stern end after the mainmast so she can carry, launch and recover said seaplanes. It is not definite and probably never will be, but it is generally believed that the cruiser pictured here and in other photographs of this encounter is the Tone-class cruiser Chikuma. While the Tone herself actually took part in the sinking of the Gambier Bay, the Chikuma basically led the charge against the little carrier, with the Tone and several other ships behind her. As I said earlier, this is one of the few photographs that show US and enemy ships in the same picture together, and most of those few photographs are of this encounter between the Gambier Bay and the Chikuma.


In case you were wondering, the Chikuma got her lunch handed to her by attack planes from the escort carriers -- it started off with a torpedo blowing off her stern, as the picture above shows -- and was sunk later in the day.


Now this is a fun picture, one that I think symbolizes the confused, inept performance of Nihon Kaigun in this battle. In the foreground you see the battleship Yamato. Any photograph of Yamato or Musashi in action is to be prized, and this picture is no exception. Behind Yamato to the left you see a Kongo-class battleship. It is not clear which one, but if I was a betting man I would say the Haruna, since during most of the Battle off Samar the Yamato was towards the rear of the Japanese formation, such as it was, and the Kongo was more towards the front, actually engaging the screening US destroyers.

What makes this picture so symbolic? What suggests the confusion of the Japanese? Look closely at the Yamato and the Haruna, two main pieces of the Japanese battle line.

They are headed in opposite directions.

Malaise: The Sequel

Echoes of Jimmy Carter. Again:

Pitching his message to Oregon's environmentally-conscious voters, Obama called on the United States to "lead by example" on global warming, and develop new technologies at home which could be exported to developing countries.

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

All together now: YES WE CAN!!!

The duty of POTUS is to protect the interests of the citizens of the United States. Put another way, POTUS has a duty to protect our standard of living. Giving other countries veto power over our standard of living is the exact opposite of that duty.

And yet Obama is making this sound like his own policy.

Like I asked before: whose side is Barack Obama on?

(h/t: Hot Air; crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

A mediocre addition to my book rotation

Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45, by Max Hastings. Hastings is one of the best authors of our time, and I have thoroughly enjoyed his previous works. So I eagerly awaited this selection by the History Book Club, in part to see what was advertised as his defense of the use of firebombing and the atomic bombs, a rarity in academe these days, but a position with which I agree. When it did, as I typically do, I did not start at the beginning, but went to what should have been my favorite part of the book, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, to see what novel ideas and theories he has.

And Hastings does have some novel ideas and theories. See if you notice a pattern:

• Page 132: "[In October 1944] The Imperial Navy still disposed a force which, a few years past, had awed the world. Of ten battleships in commission at the start of the war, nine remained."
  
  At the start of the war, the Japanese had ten battleships. In October 1944, they had nine. That much is true. The problem is not all of those nine were in commission at the start of the war. Of those ten that were, three were sunk: Hiei and Kirishima were sunk during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, and the Mutsu sunk after she exploded under mysterious circumstances at Hashirajima anchorage. So seven of that original ten were still in service. Two more were completed after the start of the war: Yamato and Musashi.

• Starting on page 132: Hastings calls the Japanese operational plan at Leyte Gulf "Shogo" -- "Operation Victory." I have seen it referred to as "Sho Go," "Sho-Go," "Sho-I-Go" or Sho-Ichi-Go" ("ichi" meaning "one" -- the plan for Leyte Gulf was "Sho 1"). I have never seen it called "Shogo" before.

• Page 135: The submarine attack on Kurita's Center Force off Palawan by US submariens Darter and Dace. Hastings says, "This first American success was made possible by a tactical carelessness amounting to recklessness [...]" without giving elaboration. This amounts to a drive-by. In truth, the Darter ended up running aground on Bombay Shoal and had to be destroyed after the crew was taken off by the Dace.

• Page 138: Hastings claims that light cruiser Noshiro was sunk by US carrier aircraft during Kurita's transit through the Sibuyan Sea on October 24. During this enounter, the Musashi was sunk and the heavy cruiser Myoko so badly damaged she had to retire.
  
  Page 159: Hastings claims that the light cruiser Noshiro was sunk again on October 26 as Kurita retreated through the Sibuyan Sea. In truth, this was when the Noshiro was actually sunk. She was undamaged during the attacks on October 24.

• Page 144: Hastings touches on the entire "Fuso-Yamashiro thing" which I have discussed ad nauseum. Hastings claims that Jesse Coward's eastern destroyers launched torpedoes and at 3:08 am "heard a single explosion aboard a Japanese ship, probably Yamashiro." He later states that a torpedo from the Monssen of Coward's western destroyers left the Yamashiro "crippled," and continues:
  
  

  The next American destroyer attack, by Squadron 24, probablya chieved two hits. It is still disputed whether battleship gunfire or torpedoes were responsible, but what is certain is that the battleship Fuso, laid down in 1912, caught fire and broke in two after a huge explosion. Bewilderment persists about how readily such a hugh ship succumbed, but senility plaintly rendered it vulnerable.

  The Fuso-Yamashiro controversy involves whether or not the Fuso took a torpedo hit at about 3:09 am (Hastings says 3:08) from the destroyer Melvin of Coward's destroyer group. No one that I am aware of has alleged that Yamashiro took that torpedo hit at that time. Moreover, the account from the Melvin alleged "two large and separate explosions seen." it was Japanese heavy seaplane cruiser Mogami that saw only one explosion.
  
  There is indeed a dispute as to whether Fuso was sunk by torpedoes or gunfire, as Hastings claims, but the dispute concerns whether she took that torpedo and dropped out to explode and break in two, or if it was Yamashiro that dropped out to explode and break in two while Fuso continued onward to face the US battleline where she would receive concentrated gunfire from US battleships and cruisers.
  
  By Hastings' description, Fuso has taken no gunfire, and the tropedo hit that she is believed to have received Hastings instead says was received by the Yamashiro. By Hastings' timeline, Fuso has taken no definite damage. Hastiongs has garbled the controversy and, in the process, garblesd the account of the Battle of Surigao Strait.

• Pages 146 and 147: Hastings' timeline of Shima's torpedo atatck is also all wrong. Hastings has Shima launching a torpedo attack on radar contacts that turned out to be the Hibuson Islands (the humor of war), then seeing the two burning halves of theFuso, mistaking them for separate ships. At that point he turned his force around, during which time his flagship Nachi collided with the Mogami.
  
  What actually happened is that Shima saw the Fuso, mistaking the two halves to be burning ships, and the burning Mogami. Passing the Fuso, he saw the radar contacts and decided to launch a torpedo attack on them while hiding behind the glare of the Mogami. he mistook Mogami to be stationary when she was moving southward, and the Nachi then "skidded" into the Mogami. Aftwer receiving this damage, as well as the earlier torpedoing of the light cruiser Abukuma, and with no definite intelligence aside from the apparent annihilation of Nishimura's force, Shima withdrew.

• Page 156: Hastings continually gets the names of two of Taffy 3's escort carriers wrong. He calls the Kitkun Bay the "Kitgun Bay" and the Kalinin Bay the "Kallin Bay."

• Page 157: Hastings states the Japanese heavy seaplane cruiser Chikuma was sunk by bombs and aerial torpedoes. He goes on to describe the sinking by Japanese gunfire of the US escort carrier Gambier Bay. Except, well, let's get visual here:
  
  
  This is a picture of the Gambier Bay under heavy caliber shellfire during the Battle off Samar. You can see the little escort carrier in the center, with shell splashes around her as well as smoke. In the right center of the picture on the horizon, you can just see the Gambier Bay's main tormentor -- the Chikuma.
  
  Hastings has messed up the timeline again.

These are just the mistakes and omissions I found in one chapter. Basic things like events, timelines and ship names. Is this the result of poor editing or poor research?

What other factual errors are hidden in this book? Can I trust Hastings general writing, themes and opinions (usally very, very good) when there is so much erroneous with this thin slice?

Opposites Rule Part Deux

Oh, this would be so perfect:

President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday warned Colombia not to allow a U.S. military base on its border with Venezuela, saying he would consider such an act an "aggression."

Chavez said he would not permit Colombia's U.S.-backed government to establish an American military base in La Guajira, a region spanning northeastern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela.

The Venezuelan leader said if Colombia allows the base, his government will revive a decades-old territorial conflict and stake a claim to the entire region.

"We will not allow the Colombian government to give La Guajira to the empire," Chavez said, referring to the United States during a speech to a packed auditorium of uniformed soldiers. "Colombia is launching a threat of war at us."

He said Washington's top diplomat in Bogota, U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield, recently suggested that a U.S. military base in Ecuador could be moved to La Guajira.

Chavez urged his Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe, to "think it over well" before making such a decision because Venezuela will do "whatever it takes" to ensure that a U.S. military base is not built on the peninsula in the Caribbean Sea.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa — a close Chavez ally — has repeatedly said that he will not renew a 10-year lease on the base in the Pacific port of Manta when it expires next year.

Ed Morrissey has analysis:

The US does not want to end this program and surrender to the cartels, but Manta simply won’t be available. Ecuador’s Rafael Correa has refused to negotiate an extension, not surprisingly given his ties to Chavez, but it will be akin to cutting off his nose to spite his face. The US base pumps almost $7 million into the local economy and spent over $70 million refurbishing Eloy Alfaro Air Base. Correa offered a deal: he’d extend the lease if we allowed an Ecuadorian military base in Miami. Bush passed on that offer.

Afterwards, the Bush administration said the US would operate from already-established bases in Key West, El Salvador, and Curacao. However, a closer alliance with Colombia would make sense. First, the trafficking originates there, but strategically, strengthening Colombia and Uribe against Chavez would certainly help contain Venezuela’s nuttiness. Their exposure as a terrorist-supporting regime makes it even more important for the US to pressure Chavez into either retreating or cracking up, and a base near his border would do nicely.

Chavez may discover that he can’t dictate terms to Uribe, especially when he’s busily undermining him by funding FARC. Colombia can do what it likes with its territory, including leasing bases to the US, and particularly when Colombia keeps hearing threats from Caracas.

Opposites rule: whatever Hugo Chavez wants ...

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Required reading

Wizbang. General theme: We're screwed. General reason: oil. Prices are skyrocketing, and our government will not only do nothing to improve it, they will actually make it worse.

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Lebanon

is sinking into chaos, as Hezboallah, backed by its Syrian and Iranian sponsors, moves to take full control. Calls for the Lebanese Army to topple the government. (Why have they been staying out of the fight? Maybe this is why ...) Saudi Arabia warns Iran.

Like I said earlier, Iran, Syria and Hezboallah need a good bombing.

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Opposites rule

A good rule of thumb that I have regarding environmentalists (at least their modern incarnation) is that if you want good policy or god ideas, take whatever their position is and do the opposite.

But this rule applies to more than just enviro-nutjobs. It applies to Jimmy carter. And Marxist Latin American dictators:

On April 24th, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Gary Roughhead announced the re-establishment of the U.S. Fourth Fleet responsible for U.S. Navy ships, aircraft and submarines operating in the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

Former Navy SEAL, Rear Adm. Joseph D. Kernan, the current Commander of Naval Special Warfare, will be assigned as Commander, U.S. Fourth Fleet.

Kernan is the first Navy SEAL to command a numbered fleet.

U.S. Fourth Fleet will be dual-hatted with the existing commander, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command (NAVSO), currently located in Mayport, Fla.

U.S. Fourth Fleet has been re-established to address the increased role of maritime forces in the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) area of operations, and to demonstrate U.S. commitment to regional partners.

Effective July 1st, the Fourth Fleet will have operational responsibility for U.S. Navy assets assigned from east and west coast fleets to operate in the SOUTHCOM area.

Meanwhile, Cuba's Fidel Castro and Bolivia's Evo Morales have expressed concern.

The ailing Castro raised the question in a column published Monday in the Communist Party newspaper Granma, suggesting it signaled a return to gunboat diplomacy.

"The aircraft carriers and nuclear bombs that threaten our countries are used to sow terror and death, but not to combat terrorism and illegal activities," he wrote on Monday.

Evo Morales, president of landlocked Bolivia, called it "the Fourth Fleet of intervention" in an interview with Cuban television.

Heh. Mike Pechar opines:

Analysts, however, indicate that the re-establishment of the Fourth Fleet is administrative and symbolic. I believe it to be strategic. In any event, belligerent leaders in Latin and South America have taken note.

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Naughty Bits

Some little political things to mull over:

• "An electoral disaster in the making," or "From the HazMat suit to the Barf Bag": McCain-Huckabee. Don't get me started on McCain's global warming disaster.

• Hussein 57: Your future POTUS Barack Hussein Obama thinks the US has 57 states. Power Line offers a clarifying map.

• Interesting carrier deployments in the Persian Gulf region: Keep in mind the formula 6+2. Can we please bomb these guys soon? They've had it coming since 1979.

• Speaking of someone who deserves a good bombing, how 'bout Hugo Chavez? Threatening to send troops into Bolivia to prop up his unpopular pal Evo Morales against a budding insurgency in Santa Cruz and funding FARC narco rebels in Colombia.

• Another country that deserves military action: Burma. I'd be all for it, but our military is stretched too thin at the moment, for which I blame Donald Rumsfeld and his refusal to expand the military when he had the chance. Of course, we'd have the necessary troops if they had followed my plan to grow clone troopers, but the social cons killed it because they didn't like cloning. Some religious thing.

• Does anybody care that Hezboallah is taking over Lebanon by force? Not Obama, apparently. Of course, since his church is a big fan of Hezboallah ...

And, yes, I am a BIG Monty Python fan.

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Latest addiction

Assassin's Creed. This game has you play as (not surprisingly) an assassin, set in the Holy Land during the Crusades. From what I've played so far, the game appears to be mildly pro-Muslim, but it is apparent that the game's designers took great pains to try to give all sides in the Crusades a fair hearing. For this, they deserve credit. Nevertheless, while Assassin's Creed is a very good game, it is also very, very weird. For instance.

• The Knights Templar appear to operate only in singles, and are around even in Muslim-held Jerusalem and Damascus. They just sort of stand there in their flashy uniforms until they see you, then they attack you while shouting something in Japanese.

• When Muslim guards attack you, they will also shout something in Japanese, or occasionally German.

• The beggars in the cities of Jerusalem, Damascus and Acre are exponentially pushier than any you will see in any American city. The way they behave would not only be illegal in the US, but might even be felonious.

• You can hide from armed pursuers in a roof garden. Your pursuers will not think to look inside.

• You can also hide from armed pursuers by sitting on a park bench. CSI these guys are not.

• People carrying jars on their heads will drop them and curse you if you brush against them or even look at them, but if you push them aside, they will neither drop their jar nor even notice you.

• You can climb walls better than any spider, or even Lara Croft.

• Instead of, say, climbing up inside a tower or minaret to reach the top, you will use your forementioned spider climbing skills on the dangerous exterior.

• The only way to climb down from the forementioned towers or minarets is to perform a "leap of faith," a jump off the tower into a bale of hay on the ground.

• If you climb a scaffolding, people will look at you like you're crazy or a criminal (or both) but if you perform the forementioned "leap of faith" and climb out of the bale of hay afterwards, no one will notice.

Like I said, Assassin's Creed is a very, very weird game. But it is a lot of fun to go open-world exploring in Jerusalem (including the Temple Mount site), Damascus and Acre.

What we have here is a failure to excommunicate

No sooner do I say John McCain has a chance of dumping the albatross represented by social conservatism than I hear a radio talk show tonight relating a story.

I did not catch the beginning of it or the names of the guilty parties, but it apparently concerned a Republican political type giving a speech to a bunch of moderate voters. The speech dealt with how liberalism is bad and how it is hurting them and others like them across the country. These voters were listening and thinking. So far so good.

Then this speaker added to this list of evils government-funded abortion. The attitude of these voters, as far as the host could tell, went from interested to "whatever."

His point? The same point I suggested yesterday: in the grand scheme of things, voters don't care about abortion. Rightly or wrongly, people have other concerns on their minds at the moment and don't want to be distracted by abortion.

Which brings me to something that has been bugging me for a while: Rudy Giuliani, abortion and the Catholic Church. I'll let the Anchoress give the backstory:

For the uninitiated, there is a scandal of sorts brewing because former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani received Communion at the Yankee Stadium mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI. Note that Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy all took communion at the mass at National’s Stadium without all this brouhaha. The reason we’re hearing about Rudy is because Robert Novak, took NY’s Cardinal [Edward] Egan and DC’s Archbishop [Donald] Wuerl to task, publicly scolding them for the fact that these grown-up Catholics, Pelosi, Kerry, Kennedy and Giuliani, communed.

Immediately after the column appeared, Cardinal Egan - who can’t retire soon enough for my money - released a statement criticizing Giuliani, most particularly for Rudy’s not abiding by what was apparently a private agreement between the two men, that he would not commune at the mass.

Here's Novak:

Vatican sources say the pope has not retreated from his long-held position that pro-choice politicians should be deprived of Communion, but the decisions in Washington and New York were not his. The effect was to dull the pope's messages of faith, obligation and compassion. In his Yankee Stadium homily, he talked of "authority" and "obedience" -- acknowledging that "these are not easy words to speak nowadays." They surely are not for four former presidential candidates and two princes of the church, representing Catholics who defy their faith's doctrine on abortion.

Benedict's position was unequivocal when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Asked in 2004 whether Kerry, as the Democratic presidential nominee, should be allowed to take Communion, he replied, "The minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it."

Ratzinger's demeanor necessarily has changed with his elevation from doctrinal enforcer to global pastor, but he has not altered his position. When the pope arrived in Brazil a year ago, he declared: "The killing of an innocent human child is incompatible with going into Communion in the body of Christ."

Benedict did not reiterate that position in Washington and New York, because a pope traveling abroad is influenced by the stance of local church authorities. American bishops are divided. Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis leads those who believe pro-choice politicians cannot receive Communion. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Wuerl's predecessor as archbishop of Washington, took the opposite position. Blessed with charm and political finesse, McCarrick was not about to clash with his archdiocese's most famous parishioners.

Wuerl is considered less political than McCarrick, but he is hardly less averse to colliding with powerful laymen. He could have simply not invited the pro-choice politicians to a Mass where there was no room for the vast majority of Catholics who wanted to attend. The five pro-choice Catholics took Communion from the hand of Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the pope's representative to the United States as apostolic delegate.

In New York, Giuliani receiving Communion was even more remarkable. Unlike Pelosi and Kennedy, who attend Mass regularly, the former mayor says he goes to church only "occasionally," usually for holidays or funerals. Abortion aside, Giuliani's third marriage would make him ineligible for Communion because his second marriage was not annulled by the church. But Cardinal Egan is no more apt than Cardinal McCarrick was to offend the powerful, and Giuliani was invited to the Mass.

There are devout pro-life Catholics who oppose rejection of any worshiper at the Communion rail but believe bishops should publicly manifest disapproval of Catholic pro-choice politicians. The bishops of Washington and New York do not. During the Mass at which Wuerl was installed as archbishop of Washington in 2006, he shook hands with Kerry and Kennedy, seated side by side.

I watched this particular story with fascination and a great deal of concern. There had been stories like it before, but none of this magnitude.

For the uninitiated, I have to tell you that I am a proud Catholic. Not just a Catholic, but a ROMAN Catholic, baby!!! All the way back to the ROMAN EMPIRE!!! 2000 years!!! JULIUS CAESAR, baby!!! (Regular readers of my blog know the spiel I usually give here ...) I believe that the Eucharist, the center of the Catholic mass (whether it's ROMAN Catholic or one of those Eastern Catholic churches, as in the Greek Catholics, Byzantine Catholic, Ukrainian Catholics, Maronite Catholics, Chaldean Catholics, etc.) and is the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. I go to mass every week, in spite of my particular parish having an out-of-touch pastor and an obnoxious cantor who sounds and acts so much like a Bad Vegas Lounge Singer (tm) that I half expect him to have a tip jar on the piano every week. Even in spite of such ... challenges, I still find it worthwhile to go to mass every week. I also come from a very, very Catholic family (not just Catholic, but ROMAN Catholic!!! Yada yada yada ...)

You are not supposed to receive Communion if you have committed a mortal sin, unless you have gone through the sacrament of reconciliation. Excommunication is the greatest punishment the Church can impose.

All that said, we have always drawn a distinction between the Catholic faith, which is a source of inner strength and peace, and the Catholic Church as an institution, which has its human element and, like anything human, has its imperfections, many of which have manifested themselves in recent years. I was quite happy to have the priest at the church I went to in Cleveland this past weekend acknowledge the human element in the institutional Church and its recent failings. I have heard far too little of that acknowledgment in recent years.

I probably qualify as the dreaded "cafeteria Catholic," agreeing with some stances of the Church but not others. I'm probably the norm in not just the Catholic Church but in any church. No one agrees with every little thing their religion says.

The Catholic Church has always been different, though. We have always been seen as a "top down" organization, with Catholics supposedly taking orders from the Pope or Opus Dei or the Inquisition (we still have the Inquisition, too, except it's now called the "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." It just doesn't have that ring to it, though ... "NOBODY expects the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" just doesn't work for me ...) While the Church is indeed very hierarchical albeit not illogically so, the Church has never ordered us around or expected us to be blindly obedient to its statements. Free will is a concept recognized in the Catholic Church and in all of Christianity, for that matter. Disagreement is recognized in the Church, which is why we have those councils from Nicaea to Ephesus to Chalcedon to Trent to Vatican II. But many, many non-Catholics continue to think that we do act on orders from the Church. One of the facets of John F. Kennedy becoming POTUS was a fear that he would make the US subservient to the Pope.

Which is why Cardinal Egan's statements (not to mention Novak's statements) about Giuliani receiving Communion are so dangerous.

Let me state point-blank that I think Cardinal Egan is wrong, and to the extent that the otherwise brilliant Pope Benedict XVI agrees with him -- and whether he does or not seems to be in some dispute -- he is wrong, too.

For one thing, from what I understand Rudy Giuliani did not himself have an abortion; someone please correct me if I am mistaken on that account. He did not encourage anyone to have an abortion. He merely has consistently said that abortion should be legal. Now, there may be sufficient reasons to deny Communion to Giuliani -- his marital history, for example -- but abortion is not among them.

All of Christianity has recognized the separation of church and state, drawn in part from Jesus' "Render unto Caesar" statement but extending far beyond that. The separation of church and state is also part of Catholic doctrine, though the Church has not always necessarily practiced that doctrine. Google "Holy Roman Empire" for details.

The basic concept here is that the Church and the State have separate interests. The Church is a guide for the individual, the purpose of the individual, how the individual should behave, the relationship of the individual with God. The State is a completely different matter. As I opine at the top of my blog:

It is the purpose of government to protect its citizens in their life, liberty and property from the predations of others, both foreign and domestic, so that civilization may flourish.

The Church is not charged with protecting its adherents; the State is charged, legally and morally, with protecting its citizens. For that reason the State may do things that are inappropriate for an individual to do. The State may impose laws for the protection of its citizens and the orderly function of its economy. The State may take money to support its activities in service to its citizens. While an individual may not kill except in self-defense, the State may use deadly force to protect its citizens.

This last facet has been a bone of contention within the Catholic Church in recent times, but was always recognized until recent years. St. Augustine recognized the concept of the "Just War," which was somehow forgotten when it came time for America to respond after September 11. As for the death penalty, Justice Antonin Scalia had the best analysis:

The Vatican under Pope John Paul II has been strongly anti-death penalty, and the pope has personally appealed to leaders to commute death sentences. In 1999, he said capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide are part of a "culture of death."

Scalia told Georgetown students that the church has a much longer history of endorsing capital punishment.

"No authority that I know of denies the 2,000-year-old tradition of the church approving capital punishment," he said. "I don't see why there's been a change."

Technically, the Church has not changed its position on the death penalty. It just now says that it is no longer needed. But that is a legalistic distinction that is lost on American Catholics who now see their Church reversing a position with which most American Catholics agreed.

(And which, I would argue with the Pope or any Catholic official or death penalty opponent, is far more consistent with Jesus' statements in the Bible than the current anti-death penalty position.)

And when Catholics like me see these long held beliefs of the Church change for no apparent reason, like Justice Scalia, we wonder why. We wonder if the motivation for this change is religious -- or if it is more a reflection of the political leanings of the Vatican Curiae, most of which is comprised of leftist Europeans. When we see Rudy Giuliani subject to criticism from Church officials, but not Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, or Ted Kennedy, the last of whom has far more reason to be excommunicated than any abortion rights supporter, it looks more political than principled.

Abortion is not the death penalty. The Church has been principled and consistent in its opposition to abortion -- too much so, as I for one cannot see a moral justification for not allowing abortion in cases of rape or incest or where the mother's life is in danger. But the position is not a political one.

Which brings me back to Rudy, his abortion stance and communion. I am not sure of all the nuances (ever a bad word; thank you, John Kerry) of Rudy's abortion position, so I am making an assumption here that Rudy's stance on abortion is similar to mine, which in all honesty has gone through 360 degrees of change.

To put it succinctly, and without wanting to start a debate on abortion itself, I believe abortion is wrong except in cases of rape or incest or where the mother's life is ind anger. I am generally opposed to abortion, unless it's made retroactive< (and, yes, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I'm looking at you). I do not believe abortion is a constitutional right. But I also believe that abortion should be kept legal. My reasons are strictly utilitarian and related solely to government -- a government of limited resources has better things to be doing with those resources than proscribing abortion, which falls outside my definition of the purpose of government.

If Rudy holds a position similar to mine -- again, I do not know -- then I, too, face being excommunicated. The issue I have is that my reasons for doing so are strictly governmental, and Cardinal Egan's statements on the matter represent an impermissible intrusion of the Church into the State realm.

Why is it impermissible, you ask? Because the Church is imposing its priorities on a State entity that by the Church's own admission must have a different set of priorities. The Church is free to lobby the government for its position all it wants, and I would encourage it to do so. But by threatening Rudy Giuliani and other Catholics with excommunication if they do not turn Church policy into state policy, the Church forces Catholics like me to choose between their Church and the State, to which they may owe fiduciary duties, as in protecting the public and its monies.

Just because something is immoral does not mean that its should be illegal. I have argued that many social conservatives do not understand this concept, but it seems my own Roman Catholic Church must fall into this category. Should we ban adultery? How much money do you think enforcement of that law would cost? Should we ban divorce? Would that not put more people at risk by forcing them to stay in abusive marriages? And what if the United States was attacked and the Church opposes a response, as it seems to oppose every single use of force in the world today, no matter how justified. Would we have Jimmy Carter redux?

How can a government official carry out his duties to the State -- or be trusted to do so -- when he can be ordered to override those duties by the threat of punishment from his Church? The fears about John Kennedy would be realized, Catholics would be marginalized, both individually and as a group, and the Church would only have itself to blame.

Because, I would argue, it went against its own teachings.

Cardinal Egan and the Catholic Church (ROMAN Catholic Church ...) really, really need to rethink using the types of tactics they are using on Rudy Giuliani to dictate government policy. Their current path can only hurt everyone involved.

(corssposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

The albatross could now be on the other neck

With last night's results in North Carolina and Indiana, only the most stalwart Hillary supporters can think anything but that Barack Obama will be the Democrat nominee for POTUS. A more accurate analysis of the fall general election race can finally begin. For both parties, their nominees are at best a mixed bag.

Obama has a ton of money (about $274 million) through a very successful small donor campaign. He is also an extremely powerful orator. He is running in an election with a very shaky economy, record gas prices, a war and an unpopular incumbent of the opposite party. Not a bad set of pluses in Obama's column.

On the minus side, though, Obama has positions that are far, far to the left of the American mainstream and a terrifying set of political associates, led by Michelle Obama, William Ayers and the repudiated Jeremiah Wright, with a distinct hostility to the very country and very people Obama would be charged with protecting. The power of these negatives should not be underestimated.

For John McCain, his negatives are considerable. He is short of cash and would have to rely on public financing to even bring him to the $84 million mark -- and Obama can block even that, as the FEC cannot release those funds without a quorum and Obama is blocking a GOP nominee to the FEC that would produce that quorum. McCain is 71, and while he is a good speaker, he is not Obama. McCain is a Republican, like the unpopular incumbent, and has always been a strong supporter of the war that has not gone the way any of its supporters had planned. His most noted accomplishment has been driving his own party to intense anger against him with positions inconsistent with the GOP base, and an apparent willingness to turn his considerable rhetorical guns against his own party at least as much as he is against the Dems. His message does not seem to be inspiring, not the least of all to the base, which may hinder GOTV efforts.

On the plus side, that distance from the GOP mainstream enables McCain to distance himself from the unpopular incumbent. McCain is a war hero; his survival in a North Vietnamese prison (where he endured physical torture that caused permanent injuries) suggests he is as personally tough as they come. The Keating Five notwithstanding (for which he has expressed remorse), he is seen as an honest public servant who tells you what he thinks. His general political positions, while at odds with the GOP base at times, are far more consistent with the American mainstream than Obama. This last point deserves some elaboration.

Victor Davis Hanson explains how the GOP and McCain can win this fall:

What the Republicans need is not an abandonment of conservative principles, but a smarter, more articulate defense of even more conservatism, not less.

E.g., Gas Prices? More nuclear power, hydro-, refineries, clean coal, drilling off coasts and in ANWR. And why? As a necessary bridge to next-generation cleaner and non-petroleum energy so that in the time lag, we don't empower our enemies, demand that others abroad who are less environmentally sound produce the oil we consume, and watch our hard-won way of life decline.

Taxes? Not hikes, since revenues went up, not down with past cuts, but more fiscal discipline to end the deficits. The problem was not tax-cutting, but wild-eyed spending that ran up debt and discredited tax cuts.

The border? Close it, not out nativism or racism, but out of respect for the rule of law, the tradition of national sovereignty, the need to promote integration and assimilation, the need to be more concerned with American entry-level low-paid workers, and a desire to help Mexico wean itself off remittances and make the tough-love decisions to modernize its archaic government and economy.

Judges? We need constitutionalists, because they alone follow the rules of the legislative branch and what is written in the Constitution, do not turn rarified, laboratory theory into the law that millions must suffer under, and bring respect to the judiciary sorely damaged by aristocratic elitists on the bench.

National Security? Not more U.N.ism, but careful explanations that both Iraq and Afghanistan have hurt jihadism, taken out odious regimes, and with patience will make the region safer.We need more reasoned and inspired explanation of just how the U.S. military allows the present globalized system of commerce and communications to survive, rather than asleep at the wheel reaction to cheap attacks on our foreign policy.

Ethics? Republicans by consensus in Washington need to be less tolerant of sleeze than Democrats, since conservatism and traditionalism are moral precepts. When they engage in tawdry sex, bribery, and influence peddling, they suffer the double wage of hypocrisy — in the manner supposedly men-of-the-people liberals like Kerry, Gore, Edwards, and the Clintons talk one way and live like 18th-century French kings.

[...]

To the degree McCain can articulate the above, he will win; to the degree that he either cannot or believes the latest gurus that he must abandon them, he will lose. Moving toward a lite version of the Obamian/European "bipartisan"and socialist view of government and calling it a new conservatism is a prescription for utter disaster.

While McCain has voted with the Republican Senate caucus 88% of the time, McCain has angered a lot of rank-in-file Republicans. Their issues with him are fairly well-known:

McCain-Feingold
the Gang of 14
illegal immigration amnesty
global warming
opposition to drilling in ANWR
a socially moderate-to-liberal agenda, such as it is.

If you compare the two lists, you will find that there is not a lot of overlap. There is overlap -- illegal immigration and ANWR, to be precise -- but largely there is very little. This is an agenda that McCain mostly supports already.

But with respect to the second list -- the one that angers Republicans -- the sad truth they must face is that only two of those issues has any chance to enter the minds of the great middle this November: illegal immigration and ANWR. The former because voters actually care about that issue and want border enforcement (by about a four-to-one margin, according to most polls), and the latter simply because of high gas prices, otherwise it would not enter voters' minds.

As for the rest? McCain-Feingold is seen as affecting the political class, not the average voter. No one even knows about or understands the Gang of 14. The public does not care about global warming as a political issue so long as it does not inconvenience them through something hideous like Kyoto.

Which brings me to the final issue, McCain's position as a social moderate.

Full disclosure: I am a security conservative, not an economic or a social conservative. I care more about security -- defense, foreign policy and law enforcement -- than any other issue. I am like most people in the respect that I am "conservative" on some issues and "liberal" on others, social issues to be precise. That probably makes me a "moderate." So understand where I'm coming from.

I mention this particular aspect because McCain's social policy may be easily seen as a plus, not a minus, in the coming election, much as it angers the Republican base.

It is probably no accident that the Republicans who are the most popular at the national level (not the GOP primary) are McCain and Rudy Giuliani, neither of whom are social conservatives, by which I mean they are ambivalent or even supportive of gay mariage or abortion rights and largely do not care about "family values" issues.

As much as in may pain social conservatives, their agenda has largely been repudiated by the general public. While a particular issue here and there may win -- a ban on gay marriage in Ohio, for example -- the public does not want anyone telling them how to live their lives, conservatives or liberals.

The GOP understands that aspect, but misplaces their remedy, trying to capitalize on that feeling through attacks on federal regulation. The public largely does not deal with federal regulation, so this argument has no meaning for them. A Bible-thumping preacher telling them that the Constitution needs to be brought in line with God's law does -- yes, I'm looking at you, Mike Huckabee. And they do not like it. Which is one reason why, outside of Huckabee's evangelical circles, most Republicans were horrified by his rise in the primary and went to McCain instead.

The general rule is that there is a reason why the town in Footloose was seen as an unhappy place, run by the bad guys. People don't want to live in the town in Footloose, but the image that social conservatives project by their stated desire to impose a social agenda is that they seek to do just that. It is not a vote getter, except for the other side.

Now, this year you have John McCain, who the public sees has having repudiated just those aspects of the GOP that the public dislikes most. Not a bad thing.

On the other side, you have Barack Obama. How would his wife Michelle explain him? Let's go back to her February speech at UCLA:

"In 2008, we are still a nation that is too divided. We live in isolation, and because of that isolation we fear one another. We don't know our neighbors. We don't talk. We believe that our pain is our own. We don't realize that the struggles and challenges of all us are the same. We are too isolated. And we are still a nation that is still too cynical. We look at it as 'them' and 'they' as opposed to us. We don't engage because we are still too cynical.

"Americans are in debt not because they live frivolously, but because someone got sick. And even with insurance, the deductibles and premiums are so high that people are still putting medication treatments on credit cards. And they can't get out from under. I could go on and on and on, but this is how we're living, people, in 2008. And things have gotten progressively worse. Throughout my lifetime, through Democratic and Republican administrations, it hasn't gotten better for regular folks.

"We have lost the understanding that in a democracy we have a mutual obligation to one another. That we cannot measure our greatness in this society by the strongest and richest of us. But we have to measure our greatness by the least of these. That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here. Because Barack Obama is the only person in this race who understands that. That before we can work on the problems we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.

[...]

"Because we say we're ready for change, we say we're ready for change but see change is hard. Change will always be hard. And it doesn't happen from the top down. We do not get universal health care, we do not get better schools, because somebody else in the White House. We get change because folks from the grass roots up decide they are sick and tired of other people telling them how their lives will be. When they decide to roll up their sleeves and work. And Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your division. That you come out of your isolation. That you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual; uninvolved, uninformed.

(Emphasis mine.)

As Mr. Mackey would say, "Mmmmmmmm-kay?" Now who is trying to tell us how to live our lives? Now who is morally preening? It is not the GOP, not in the form of John McCain.

Ed Morrissey:

[I]t's the notion that only Barack Obama can save our souls that is the most offensive part of the speech, by far. Government doesn't exist to save souls; it exists to ensure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense. If I feel my soul needs saving, the very last place I'd look (in the US) for a savior would be Washington DC or Capitol Hill. I'll trust God and Jesus Christ with my soul, and I'm not going to mistake Barack Obama for either one.

This, though, is the religion of statism distilled to its essence. Only a government can rescue people from the consequences of their own decisions. Only government programs can provide for your every need, and only government can use your money wisely enough to ensure that your needs get covered. Individuals cannot possibly manage to help their neighbors through their churches or community organizations, let alone encourage people to do for themselves.

Sister Toldjah:

This is, in a nutshell, the radicalized, stripped-bare-of-the-platitudes version of any speech you’ll hear her husband make. America sucks, we’re not “sacrificing” enough for each other, our souls need be “healed,” and the only man who can do it is … Barack Obama. He is the “only man” in the race who has dealt with the toughness of the “streets” as a “community organizer.”

Syd And Vaughn:

We wish to offend no one with the opinion that this speech is going to damage her husband's political future. It was not how she said it. It was what was said. You can read it for yourselves, and follow the link above to hear the audio. There is no mistaking what her intention is. It is clear to us [...] that this smacks of fascism.

[...]

But the speech above lacks the warm fuzziness of such socialism. It literally reeks of fascism. Empowered youth, with nary a clue about their government; how it works, how they can help make it work, or how to clean it up. Listening to the crowds cheer her is reminiscent of a Nazi rally, especially the end of it. Anyone who espouses that government can fix your soul is either extremely narcissistic, painfully naive, or simply unintelligent. There is but one who can fix a man's soul, and He is not of this Earth. (Yes, that is a philisophical belief we share. We are Catholic, and happily so.) But when goverment, or those who will be mouthpieces in a prospective administration, begin "preaching" that they can fix souls, it causes common sense people to become concerned.

[...]

If this is what Senator Barack Obama truly believes, if this is the message he has for America, then it is something we are not interested in. Nor is the majority of the nation. She is not talking about a democracy. She is literally giving us a vision of a "socialist utopia" that would make President Franklin Roosevelt jealous. She is not speaking of a respect for human life, freedom, and the rule of law. She is talking about a future where the government is king, and can fix any problem that arises. In such societies of the past, fixing "problems" has become bloody very quickly; be it direct violence, or later, being rounded up as a social agitator.

The American people have a right to speak up and decide their lives for themselves. It is not the government's job to do this. What she speaks of is not America. It would be her husband's twisted vision of America, and we will have no part of it.

John McCain represents a repudiation of the idea of telling everyone how to live. If Michelle Obama's speech is any indication, Barack Obama is quite happy to fill the void. And the GOP should be happy to let him fill it.

Because the people are just as likely to repudiate Obama's social engineering as they have social conservatism.

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Not just anti-death penalty but anti-prison?

There seem to have been a few pieces lately decrying America's large prison population, or, more precisely, suggesting that America's large prison population is suggestive that its prison sentences are far too punitive. The latest is from Adam Liptak of the New York Times. Patterico, himself a Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney (California's equivalent of a deputy prosecutor in Indiana), takes Liptak to school. Money grafs:

Liptak continues:

Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.

Guess what, Adam Liptak? I’m “mystified and appalled” by the number and length of European prison sentences — specifically, the mystifying and appallingly short sentences that too often result in cases of clear, premeditated murder.

For example, in Germany, activists bombed an American military base and killed a U.S. soldier, and received a “life” sentence. By August of last year, two had been paroled after serving only 21 years. In the Netherlands, Volkert Van der Graaf confessed to assassinating politician Pim Fortuyn and was sentenced to all of 18 years.

And I could go on.

I believe many Americans are also “mystified and appalled” by the leniency of these European sentences for premeditated murder. But somehow, Adam Liptak gives no prominence to their views.

Read the whole thing.

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

I KNEW IT!!!

I often joke with people that I am a "meatatarian" because, "I do not believe it eating anything that can not run away or defend itself or even scream."

A joke, you say? Not to these people:

You just knew it was coming: At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the "dignity" of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called "plant rights" is being seriously debated.

A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," is enough to short circuit the brain.

A "clear majority" of the panel adopted what it called a "biocentric" moral view, meaning that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim "absolute ownership" over plants and, moreover, that "individual plants have an inherent worth." This means that "we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily."

The committee offered this illustration: A farmer mows his field (apparently an acceptable action, perhaps because the hay is intended to feed the farmer's herd--the report doesn't say). But then, while walking home, he casually "decapitates" some wildflowers with his scythe. The panel decries this act as immoral, though its members can't agree why. The report states, opaquely:

At this point it remains unclear whether this action is condemned because it expresses a particular moral stance of the farmer toward other organisms or because something bad is being done to the flowers themselves.

What is clear, however, is that Switzerland's enshrining of "plant dignity" is a symptom of a cultural disease that has infected Western civilization, causing us to lose the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous ethical concerns. It also reflects the triumph of a radical anthropomorphism that views elements of the natural world as morally equivalent to people.

OK, who did not see this coming?

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Why did Eight Belles have to be euthanized?

A story in Slate.

(No, the story is not the reason Eight Belles had to be euthanized. Rather, the story explains why Eight Belles had to be euthanized. Somebody has been watching way too much Police Squad.)

It's a shame that the tragedy of Eight Belles takes away from a convincing win in the Kentucky Derby for Big Brown. It was a sad day for sports that Eight Belles had to be euthanized. She had run a strong race. At least she went out doing something she loved; it's instinctive for horses to race among themselves.

Whose side is Barack Obama on?

While some people believe Jimmy Carter has been a foolish but good-hearted naif during both his term as POTUS and his post-presidency career, I have always wondered if something far darker and more malevolent was at work.

Carter's term as POTUS was monumentally bad, by any definition -- so bad that it drove me to become a Reaganite Republican at the tender age of nine. What I would notice watching TV att hat young and impressionable age was how many foreign policy crises we had, carter's apparent inability to deal with them, and his uncanny ability to choose the course of action that would benefit the US the least. Whether it was standing by as the Sandinistas took over Nicaragua, standing by as the Iranian mullahs toppled a friendly government and took our diplomats hostage, supporting Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe or giving away the strategically-important Panama Canal for nothing in return, Carter always chose the worst option. For the US.

I have wondered if that was actually by design.

Carter's post-POTUS career has been spent jetting around the world and helping people who do not like the US, such as Kim Jong Il in North Korea, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, the forementioned Mugabe, Hamas. Some of his activities have been catastrophic for US policy. His intervention with North Korea in 1994 (against the explicit wishes of Bill Clinton) gave Kim the cover he needed to develop nuclear weapons, about which now we can do nothing. His declaration that Chavez' election victory in Venezuela was clean and without fraud or coercion -- against all independent evidence -- undercut US efforts to built a multinational coalition to remove Chavez from power. Literally every single one of Carter's high profile international activities in the past 15 years has been at the expense of the US.

As I interpret it, Carter's post-POTUS career evinces a belief that America is evil and needs to be stopped, which makes me wonder if Carter held this belief when he was POTUS. If this is why he gutted our national defense, gave away the Panama Canal for nothing, and stood idly by while Marxism spread throughout he globe and threatened America's interests. If he indeed did, and I suspect that he did, then our biggest enemy was running our country and doing his best to destroy it.

I'd call him Chancellor Palpatine, but that would be an insult to Palpatine.

Which brings me to the current election.

Say what you will about Hillary Clinton -- and there is much to be said about her, not all of which or even most of which would be complimentary -- but her utter selfishness would probably be to the benefit of the US were she to be elected to POTUS. maybe this is wishful thinking, but my guess is that Hillary would not want to be personally embarrassed by the US appearing to be weak or vulnerable on her watch.

Barack Obama may be another matter.

From what I have seen of Obama, he is indeed an eloquent and powerful orator. By all accounts, though he is undoubtedly a far-leftist/borderline Socialist, he is a nice, well-meaning guy who is liked by colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

But look at the people closest to him, with whom Obama has chosen to surround himself:

Michelle Obama -- Barack's wife, a millionaire with degrees from Princeton and Harvard law who considers herself a "victim" and wears it on her sleeve, back, chest, etc. Was never proud of America before Obama's candidacy and considers America "downright mean."

William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn -- Barack Obama's political career began in the home of this couple. I'll let Stephen Chapman explain:

Would Obama be friendly with someone who actually bombed abortion clinics and defends that conduct? Not likely. But he is friendly with William Ayers, a leader of the radical Weather Underground, which in the 1970s carried out numerous bombings, including one inside the U.S. Capitol.[...]

Obama minimized his relationship by acknowledging only that he knows Ayers. But they have quite a bit more of a connection than that. He's appeared on panels with Ayers, served on a foundation board with him and held a 1995 campaign event at the home of Ayers and his wife, fellow former terrorist Bernardine Dohrn. Ayers even gave money to one of his campaigns.

It's not as though Ayers and Dohrn have denied or repudiated their crimes. After emerging from years in hiding, they escaped federal prosecution because of government misconduct in gathering evidence, but they don't pretend they were innocent. In 2001, Ayers said, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."

Dohrn has likewise rationalized the explosions, claiming that "our acts of resistance were tiny and symbolic." She even went to prison for refusing to testify about an armored-car robbery involving her confederates. That crime was not tiny or symbolic to the two police officers or the security guard who were shot to death in the process.

All this is public record, and Barack Obama would have to be in a coma not to know it. Yet he showed no qualms about consorting with Ayers and Dohrn.

Ayers and Dohrn, who escaped prosecution for their crimes because of misconduct by, of all people, Deep Throat, are completely unrepentant. They believe the US government and capitalism should be abolished, by force if necessary.

(They are also on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern. Another proud accomplishment for the academy.)

Jeremiah Wright -- Do I even need to say anything more about this guy? Obama's pastor and "spiritual mentor." Obama and his family attended his church for 20 years, where they heard wright say things like "God damn America," "US of KKKA" and other assorted niceties about whites and the US. As a result of Wright's most recent explosion, Obama denounced him. I'll take him at his word, but the point may be moot.

What is the common theme here? Andy McCarthy:

There is a common thread that runs through Wright/Ayers/Dohrn/Michelle/Khalidi, and it's not race although it's clothed in racial exploitation rhetoric. Obama's problem is that these connections are all iterations of an activist, leftwing, America sucks, burn-down-the-house worldview, simmering under the smiley-face of "social justice."

Byron York:

Obama needs to tell us more about his relationship with Ayers. It’s important because voters might well wonder whether that relationship, coupled with Obama’s longtime relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is the beginning of a pattern, a pattern in which Obama seems quite comfortable with people who really, really, really don’t like the United States of America.

It is a fair question.

Obama has been around these people for a very long time. Even if Obama does not agree with what they say -- and he says he does not -- what influence would these confidants of Obama have on an Obama White House? What influence have they already had on Obama himself?

And, to rephrase York's question, why is Obama surrounded by people who really, really, really don’t like the United States of America?

If my suspicion is true, Jimmy Carter ascended to the presidency with the intent to diminish and hurt the US, in direct contravention of his legal and moral duty as POTUS.

Obama has chosen to surround himself with people who also seek to diminish and hurt the US.

Does Obama?

(crossposted at Circle City Pundit)

Start Drilling

That's the title of Robert Samuelson's column in the Washington Post:

What to do about oil? First it went from $60 to $80 a barrel, then from $80 to $100 and now to $120. Perhaps we can persuade OPEC to raise production, as some senators suggest; but this seems unlikely. The truth is that we're almost powerless to influence today's prices. We are because we didn't take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two. The first thing to do: Start drilling.

It may surprise Americans to discover that the United States is the third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. We could be producing more, but Congress has put large areas of potential supply off-limits. These include the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico. By government estimates, these areas may contain 25 billion to 30 billion barrels of oil (against about 30 billion barrels of proven U.S. reserves today) and 80 trillion cubic feet or more of natural gas (compared with about 200 tcf of proven reserves).

What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity. Americans favor both "energy independence" and cheap fuel. They deplore imports -- who wants to pay foreigners? -- but oppose more production in the United States. Got it? The result is a "no-pain energy agenda that sounds appealing but has no basis in reality," writes Robert Bryce in "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence.' "

Unsurprisingly, all three major presidential candidates tout "energy independence." This reflects either ignorance (unlikely) or pandering (probable). The United States imports about 60 percent of its oil, up from 42 percent in 1990. We'll import lots more for the foreseeable future. The world uses 86 million barrels of oil a day, up from 67 mbd in 1990. The basic cause of exploding prices is that advancing demand has virtually exhausted the world's surplus production capacity, says analyst Douglas MacIntyre of the Energy Information Administration. Combined with a stingy OPEC, the result is predictable: Any unexpected rise in demand or threat to supply triggers higher prices.

Read the whole thing. It sounds like a simple concept -- you want to lower the price of something, you make more of it. Somehow our elected leaders manage to miss this truth.

I could help but think of this with Hillary Clinton's visit to an Indiana gas station today. If her husband had not vetoed legislation ten years ago that would have allowed drilling in ANWR, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. But back then, the procupine caribou -- otherwise known as "rats with antlers" -- were more important to the Clintons and their supporters than protecting the American people from this economic catastrophe. However, given that during her visit Hillary seemed perplexed by how the gas pump worked, I suspect the Clintons' opinion on this issue has not changed.

So, are your elected representatives in Congress trying to increase the supply of oil? Nope. Just the opposite:

In an interesting tussle, a virtually unnoticed clause was added almost at the least moment to a US energy bill that bars the government, in particular the Department of Defense, from using Alberta crude because it is deemed unconventional and too dirty. A provision in the US Carbon Neutral Government Act incorporated into the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 act effectively bars the US government from buying fuels that have greater life-cycle emissions than fuels produced from conventional petroleum sources. The United States has defined Alberta oilsands as unconventional because the bitumen mined from the ground requires upgrading and refining as opposed to the traditional crude pumped from oil wells. California Democrat Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Republican Tom Davis added the clause.

Now, why would they do this? One possible explanation:

Some analysts, however, are claiming that the clause was added after some political maneuvering by Saudi Arabia as it is “increasingly threatened” by Canada’s growing market share of oil production.Strategic resource analyst Paul Michael Wihbey recalling the November OPEC summit, said it was then that for the first time Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi “took a swipe at the oilsands.” He claimed the minister then said “Canada is one of the world’s costliest oil producers and requires high prices to remain viable.” Al-Naimi had suggested the Saudi product was a better value for investors, claiming, it costs $40 to $60 a barrel to produce the oilsands crude from the massive reserves. Wihbey underlines Saudi Arabia and Canada were direct competitors for the biggest customer: the US. David Kirsch, head of Oil Markets PFC Energy, says that “In the US mid-continent, the penetration of oilsands crude is deep, they are increasingly competing with the long haul crude from the Middle East. Until recently we saw a Saudi domination, but now it is becoming a Canadian affair.” And that’s why the Saudis are starting to play hardball, claimed Wihbey. “They’re playing hardball ... then all of a sudden this legislation pops in, literally a month after these statements were made in November,” noted Wihbey.

Sound bad? The alternative explanation is worse:

All that said, the real problem — and the reason Pelosi really does deserve blame — is that Democrats’ political goal of reducing carbon emissions continues to trump their populist rhetoric on gasoline prices. The two stances are impossible to reconcile. Try as they might to blame oil companies for the pain Americans feel at the pump, the Democrats want higher prices for gasoline — and for all forms of energy that emit carbon. Economic barriers against CO2 emissions are a requirement for environmental progress in the Democrats’ view, and this is the entire purpose of the carbon cap-and-trade system they will put before the House this summer — to create economic disincentives for emitting CO2.

(Emphasis in original.)
And sure enough, as I suspected they would, after we find all this oil available in the oil sands of the northern US and Canada, the environazis are trying to block that as well. Canada seems to be having success at countering their efforts, however.

(It's amazing and sad how a noble endeavor as protecting the environment has become so corrupted and so, for want of a better term, evil. The story of human history has been the drive to improve the human condition. Today's environmentalists want to worsen the human condition.)

Just remember how we got here, and who is responsible for it. Gateway Pundit as a roundup of everything that has been done to limit or even reduce the energy available in the US, driving costs ever higher.

Personally, I'm wondering if we should compute how much more we are spending on gasoline as a result of these unreasonable restrictions -- and send bills out to the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and every representative and senator who has had a hand in this.

(crossposted at Circle City Pundit)

This is interesting, if not exactly comforting

According to Amir Taheri, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants Russian troops in Iran:

Why is the leadership in Tehran anxious to give Russia the right to land troops in Iran?

The question is not fanciful. The Islamic Republic is conducting a devious campaign to prepare public opinion for that eventuality.

The message is relayed through deliberately vague terms that diplomats understand immediately while the general public does not.

The device is to revive two treaties that most students of Iranian history thought were dead and buried long ago.

Taheri goes on to explain the machinations involving those two treaties. His conclusion:

Why is an administration that pretends it has a mission from the “Hidden Imam” to liberate the whole world keen to give Russia a licence to land troops in Iran?

Obviously, only Ahmadinejad and his associates know the full answer. However, one could speculate that the Khomeinist president has decided that a war with the United States is inevitable. In such a war, the Americans may well seize Iran’s oilfields, an easy target for a surprise attack and a difficult asset for defenders to protect. Once that happens Russia could land troops in northern Iran and then go to the United Nations to ask for a generalised ceasefire and the fixing of a timetable for the withdrawal of “all foreign troops from all Iranian territory.” The US would come under global pressure to cooperate with Russia in ending the conflict and paving the way for the departure of foreign troops and the restoration of Iranian sovereignty.

If that is how Ahmadinejad thinks, he has just returned to 1921 and Sayyed Ziauddin Tabatabai in an Iran as weak and as vulnerable. And that, for a man whose ambition is to lead mankind on a new path away from that fixed by “American Arrogance,” is not something to be proud of.

Read the whole thing. I'm not sure I agree with Taheri's conclusion. Taheri believes that Iran is preparing for a US attack (one that is long overdue, in my opinion, but 29 years to be precise) and has the Russian troop scenario in mind to force a withdrawal. Another scenario, more likely in my opinion, is that Ahmadinejad wants to use the prospect of Russian troops as a shield to prevent a US attack in the first place. You want to fight us, you'll have to fight Russians, too, is his message.

I wonder if this is indicative of a weakening of support for Ahmadinejad and/or the mullahs in the Iranian security forces. While the Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran) has been busy killing Iraqis and Americans, there has been some speculation that the Pasdaran itself in Iran is no longer entirely committed to the regime.

(h/t: Jawa Report; crossposted at Circle City Pundit)