Excerpts from the second Presidential debate: BUSH: “I remember sitting in the White House looking at those generals, saying, ‘Do you have what you need in this war? Do you have what it takes?’ I remember going down to the basement of the White House the day we committed our troops as last resort, looking at Tommy Franks and the generals on the ground, asking them, ‘Do we have the right plan with the right troop level?’ ...
Over the last several years, the question of the relevancy of past behavior — indeed, even current “private” behavior — for a person’s ability to fulfill the duties of public office has come up many times. Aside from Vietnam service and/or its lack in the current Presidential election, current reporting by The Oregonian about a U.S Representative’s past is probably the the most recent example of a big story concerning the relevancy of an act years in the past. ...
Back from one of those vacations I’m always afraid to announce online, since those warnings about robbers somehow finding out where you live and robbing you while you’re away have made me paranoid over losing our Precious, Precious Junk. :) Another lesson in the need for precision on the Web last night. During the John Edwards/Dick Cheney Vice-Presidential Debate, Cheney asked the folks at home to go to FactCheck.com, a nonpartisan UPenn site which he claimed would defend his tenure at Halliburton. Now, there’s one problem. It’s actually FactCheck.org. According to reports, FactCheck.com, during the debate, was apparently owned by one of those domain name resellers that only shows a page asking you to buy the domain name. Not long after the debate, suddenly it was redirecting people to GeorgeSoros.com, a site that is not very friendly to the current Administration. So, the first site many saw when heading to read Cheney’s defense was one encouraging folks to think of the dangers of re-electing Bush. ...
A recent Spiked article has some interesting things to say about modern terrorist movements and their globalist, as opposed to nationalist, backgrounds. I don’t agree with the main thesis — that Western humanitarian intervention weakened the concept of state sovereignty so much that terrorist movements no longer have nationalist aims — because I don’t think the weakness of the state is a new thing. Internationalism has eroded state sovereignty for quite a long time, but a large part of the weaknesses of the state system are the same ones that it has had all along. (A reliance on national identity for legitimacy, for instance, makes it very hard to fill the entire world with brand-new states, which was the one of the effects of decolonization. Former colony space simply could not remain “empty” of states when the powers of the world were states themselves. After all, with whom do you set trade rules?) ...
How contentious does an election have to be to make Garrison Keillor angry? I think we just found out. BTW, a wonderful example here of how Google AdSense can work in sublimely ridiculous ways. On each page of the In These Times site that I visited, there was an ad for “Republican Singles.” :)
If dissent is unpatriotic, then apparently Senator Kennedy dissented his way all the way on to the no-fly list. (Of course, my first thought was that past legal troubles…ahem…might have something to do with it, but that should only affect his voting status in Florida. Oh, wait, he’s white. Florida doesn’t care about revoking his right to vote.) Seriously, though, if the terrorist watch list includes possible terrorist aliases like “Edward Kennedy,” how do folks named John Smith ever manage to get on board a plane? ...
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” President George W. Bush August 5, 2004 Remarks by the President at the Signing of H.R. 4613, the Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2005
I realize we’re in the middle of fighting Evil, one medium-sized country at a time, but growing up in the 1970s and 80s, I still have a healthy respect for the nuclear weapons issue. (You know, the one that says we’re glad they haven’t been used in a while and we know the probability of their being used approaches 1 every time another country develops them.) From what I recall, as late as 1994 a primary concern of our government was making sure nuclear weapons capability wasn’t spreading around. We didn’t do a great job, but hey, it worked somewhat well for fifty years or so. ...
“Republicans Look to Harvest Amish Vote” - AP I can see U.S. 250 near Wooster, Ohio now, packed with buggies heading towards the polling places on Election Day. :)
If you are a member of Congress, and someone hands you a crown, put it down and leave. (After determining it isn’t meant for you, of course.) :) Courtesy of The New York Times (free registration required)