Asian Center for Downtown Des Moines

Downtown Des Moines is getting a new signature architectural feature, an Asian cultural center.

Here's the best part:

Money to pay for the garden was raised privately. Former Principal Financial Group chief executive David Hurd, for example, contributed $240,000. Businesses and other private donors paid the rest.

Private funds. See, a city can get interesting and unique features without having the government building them.

I'm In The Corner

That's right, Jonah posted an email I sent him in The Corner today. This is one of the proudest moments of my life.

W. and Young Folk

Power Line is reporting that the internals on the most recent Washington Post/ABC poll are simply "brutal" to John Kerry. Most interesting is the contention that young people, age 18-30, are the strongest supporters of Bush. Young people trust Bush over Kerry by an eye-popping 60 to 33. On the question of who will make the country safer, its 60-31 for Bush. On the question of being a "strong leader" its a crushing forty point difference in favor of Bush, 65-25.

That's harsh.

Power Line speculates that these numbers are the result of young people not caring for Kerry's defeatism. By nature, young people are confident and forward-looking and they think Bush is as well.

I think that Hindrocket's speculation that young people are flocking to Bush because he represents their desires for a strong, forward-looking, confident leader are correct, but I think there is more to it than that. There are several interests of the young that are being woven together here.

1) Personal Interest: Young people have a lot of friends over there. I'm just beyond the upper limit of "young" (I've been 31 for just a few weeks), and it'd take fingers from both of my hands to count the number of guys that I know that have been in Iraq. I suspect I'm not that uncommon, at least not in the midwest and south. I think that a lot of young people probably want a President who will give those guys and gals every last thing that they need to survive, whether thats armour, food, USO entertainment, a swift kick to the U.N., a bad-assed attitude of support, or rules of engagement that allow them to fight back without putting in a call to the West Wing for approval.

The perception is that John Kerry won't do the same. He's consistently been a dove in the Senate, opposing just about every weapons system now in use. He bad-mouthed his fellow servicemen when he got back from Viet Nam. He met with the leaders of the enemy in Paris. He's changed his position on Operation Iraqi Freedom a dozen times. He seems more concerned with making Europeans happy than with getting the job done with a minimum of U.S. casualties.

When you've got friends and siblings over there, you don't want John Kerry's nuance. You want George Bush's forthrightness.

2. No Viet Nam Hang-Ups: Young people have no recollection of Viet Nam. People that are thirty were born in the waning days of Viet Nam. People at the lower end of the voting age spectrum, say 18 to 24, were born in the Reagan years. They have very few memories that pre-date the fall of the Berlin Wall. America's military to them is the one shining example of a government agency that gets things done and gets them done right. The spectre of Viet Nam is just that, a ghost back from the dead. Heck, if you were born in 1986 to a nineteen or twenty-year old, it wasn't your parents that were worried about getting sent to a rice paddy, it was your grandparents. The strains in society caused by Viet Nam are totally irrelevant to the "young." They don't have Viet Nam baggage, neither shame nor nostalgia. John Kerry's focus on his Viet Nam service is just plain ancient history, and boring, to this age group.

3. Rebellion: To the extent that Viet Nam is relevant to young people, for many it's something that they are tired of hearing about. We are tired of hearing about baby boomers this and baby boomers that. For the young, deflating boomer pretentiousness is a form of rebellion. It's a way to cut your own path and identity in the world.

None of these is driving Bush's support amongst young people exclusively. But I think elements like this are all undercurrents in the general conservative/libertarian trend amongst the younger set. The "Greatest Generation" that brought us through the Great Depression and World War II is fading away, and disappearing along with them is the not terribly leftist, but reflexively Democratic voter. What's left is a rump Democrat party consisting primarily of intellectual leftists unhappy that the U.S.S.R. fell, aging hippies who've never gotten over the fact that the Age of Aquarius really wasn't at hand, and surly, disaffected individuals who make up the bulk of the victomhood lobby. These groups don't present an attractive package for young people.

When you don't present a good package and young people have their own reasons (like I've written above) for supporting Bush, it's not so surprising that Bush would be doing well among people age 18 to 30.

Ha!

Okay, I may not be able to beat 29 to the punch in getting posts up, but I aced the Register's sample citizenship test. One-hundred questions asked; one hundred questions answered correctly. Whoo-hoo! I still got my mojo.

Dammit....

I was going to write about Rob Borselino's hilarious column in today's Register. And I was going to write about J.Janeczko Jacobs bemoaning the fact that there is, gasp, political commentary on television (also in today's Register). I mean, the posts you'd want to write in response to these almost write themselves. But, Royce and 29 got to them ahead of me. Heck, 29 got to both articles. Geez, Royce didn't even leave me with the chance to go after Rekha from yesterday. Don't you gentlemen have jobs? Goodness, leave some of the good ones for the rest of us.

I'm gonna have to start getting up at much to early an hour to beat these guys to the punch.

Getting It Right on the Rising Cost of College

Linked up at NRO is a nice summary of what's causing the exhorbinant rise in the price of a college education. Although it's just a snippet of a longer article appearing in the print version of National Review, Richard Vedder puts his finger right onto the heart of the problem in just the fourth paragraph.

The real reason for soaring college costs is higher demand for colleges, largely resulting from well-intended but dubious governmental policies. When demand rises relative to supply, prices (in this case, tuition fees) go up. Demand is rising partly for non-governmental reasons, such as higher incomes and a growing earnings differential between high-school and college graduates. But it is also rising rapidly because of the huge growth in government loan and grant programs as well as tuition tax credits. Pell grants, Stafford and Perkins loans, tax-sheltered college-saving schemes ("529 plans"), work-study programs, etc.: All serve to increase the number of students wanting a college education at any given price. Kids without money for college simply borrow it.

Yep, that's it in a nutshell. This is not unlike the results most any time the government steps in to cure a perceived problem. By guaranteeing funding, you raise demand for the service.

Then, the whole thing becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. The more you loan money you provide, the faster tuition rises. The more tuition rises, the more money the government has to loan out. Anyone who ever says, "Hey, we need to reevaluate this," is branded as insensitive to the needs of kids who have the brain and maturity to handle college, even though there is a mountain--a MOUNTAIN--of private financial aid out there that goes unclaimed every year because it is so much easier to fill out some forms for the Dept. of Education and then sign a promissory note.

Eventually, we are going to have to come to grips with this situation and make some hard choices.

More on the Partisan Press

Over at the Power Line, Hindrocket has a nice review of the Kerry campaign/DNC/Mainstream Media's efforts on behalf of John Kerry this week. I'm especially fond of this question an unbiased, non-ideologically alligned, centrist, even-handed reporter asked John Kerry.

Prime Minister Allawi told Congress today that democracy was taking hold in Iraq and that the terrorists there were on the defensive. Is he living in the same fantasyland as the president?

You gotta be kidding me. "Is he living in the same fantasy land as the president?" Yep, no bias there. You know if this reporter was writing for an official DNC publication, I guess there really wouldn't be anything wrong with that question. It's not the bias, it's the pious platitudes about "professionalism" the press hands out like candy at a parade that are sure to come just after that question.

The Partisan Press

State 29 has an untypical view on the potential ties between CBS News and the Kerry campaign.

I think Don may disagree with me, but like 29, I've never much minded the idea of the partisan press. Now, don't get me wrong, if we could have a truly non-partisan press that would be great. The problem is that everyone believes things. We all have our biases and our experiences that shape both how we see the world and how we would describe what we had seen to others. That's a simple fact. Like 29, I'd have to say that the ethical problem with CBS (caugh) allegedly helping the Kerry campaign would be fairly slim if they were up front about the ties. But they aren't, and its destroying their credibility.

NEA asks for Great Public Schools

The National Education Association is launching a new campaign called "Great Public Schools." Of course, their idea for greatness has little to do with demanding better results, but rather amounts to demands for more governmental spending.

David Hogberg takes a look at the NEA's proposals and provides commentary on each.

Amazing Detective Story

Iowa Hawk has crafted the CBS Memogate story in the form of a 1930's era detective story. The opening paragraphs say it all.

It was a slow September night in Manhattan. The kind of sweaty summer night where the mean streets of Gotham run wild with the shadowy scum of the Republican National Convention. The kind of night where mysteries are born. The kind of night I live for.

My name is Rather. And I’m a dick.

The portrayal of the exchange between Dan Rather and Howard Kurtz is, I suspect, particularly accurate.

If I were an aspiring reporter. . . .

I'd search the Harris county Texas voter registration database for Lucy Ramirez (the supposed source of the document Bill Burkett foisted on an entirely innocent and well intentioned Dan Rather). Like here. Then I'd go to a reverse phone number look up page like this one and start running the numbers back in or visiting their houses until I found the right one.

But that's just me.

Then maybe I'd go through the business licensing and property records to find any other Lucy Ramirez's that might reside in or around Houston. I know we pajamahadeen have to help the MSM do their job to the extent we can.

Why Didn't The White House Deny It

From the bits and pieces of information that have leaked out of CBS, it appears that one of reasons CBS ran with the story on Bush's Guard service was because the White House didn't vehemently deny that the documents were real. The fact that the White House just said, "No comment," seems to have thoroughly befuddled them.

So, why didn't the White House clearly state from day one that the documents weren't real?

Well, I think that you have to look at it from the Administration's point of view. They receive documents. They only have a couple-three hours to review them. They are told that they came from the private files of Lt.Col. Killian. That's pretty much the extent of their knowledge. If you are sitting in the White House Communications office when that fax comes in, the first thing you do is get ahold of the President or someone close enough to him to have good knowledge of Bush's Guard years. The response probably comes back, "That doesn't sound legit, but we can't be certain of anything if they came from someone's private files."

That would mean you could: A) Say they are false. But if they can be authenticated, then you look very defensive and like you are trying to hide something. B) Say that they are true. Whoa! That's not good. You don't think they are legit, why give up that chip? Even if they are proved to be fakes, if you admit that they could be true, you've cut yourself off at the knees with regards to any future debate.

So, I think you put it out there that there is no comment. This has many advantages. It buys you time to dig into the issue and work up your own knowledge base. It avoids the pitfalls of falling into either situation A or B above. And, to use the common poker analogy, it has the added advantage of allowing for the potential that if your instincts are correct and the documents are false, you just got your opponent to bet all of its chips on a losing hand.

Really, for being something that thoroughly confused CBS, I think that the "No comment" response was pure genious.

Pork Forest Update

I just left a post up at the Iowa Pork Forest Blog.

Our Senator

You know, I always knew that Tom Harkin was abominable, but jeez...

Internal CBS Memos?

Homercles has posted the contents of a memo his sources at CBS assure him are "accurate" if not entirely "authentic."

The More, the Merrier

I'm updating the blogs from Iowa. Former Governor (and I mean way former) Robert Lucas is blogging from the Great Beyond.

The Torricelli Option

The last few weeks have not been kind to the John Kerry campaign. The Swift Vets put Kerry on the defensive and the Republican National Convention put Bush on the offensive. Now, the forged document flap at CBS is perhaps threatening to drag the Kerry campaign down. (Especially if it turns out that someone related to the Kerry campaign had a hand in delivering the forged documents to CBS.)

Accordingly, some talk has turned to whether or not the Democrats will pull a "Torricelli” and attempt to replace Kerry on the ticket. Some speculate that they would just have the more or less untainted John Edwards slide up into the top spot. Others believe this is how Hillary Clinton will take this opportunity to jump into the race without having to go through a twelve or fourteen month campaign process.

It’s all quite entertaining to contemplate, but I’ve pretty much convinced myself that it is an impossibility at this point. There are simply too many hurdles to overcome. (I’m not going to talk about the political plusses and minuses. This is purely a legal argument.)

The first hurdle is the little realized fact that the U.S. does not have a national election for President. We have a national election day—the first Tuesday in November. But, that is not the same as a national election. We actually have fifty separate state elections to select which slate of Electoral College members will actually vote for President from each of the fifty states (plus three from the District of Columbia).

This is all quite explicitly spelled out in Article II of the Constitution. The Constitution grants the states’ legislatures the exclusive power to determine how the means and methods of how that state will select its Electors. We even saw this come into play in the 2000 election. It isn’t spoken about all that often, but the first suit that went to the Supreme Court was when the Florida Supreme Court attempted to delay the date on which the Florida Secretary of State would certify the election results. The SCUSA reversed SCFLA 9-0 on the grounds that the U.S. Constitution didn’t allow the supreme court of a state to set presidential election law; that power is granted only to the state legislature.

This exclusive grant to the states’ legislatures creates two hurdles for anyone attempting the national Toricelli. First, you can’t have the federal courts declare that Kerry is out and someone else is in. You have to get Kerry replaced in each of the individual states. Second, if the deadline for getting your name on the ballot is already passed in a state, based upon Supreme Court precedent, I don’t think you can utilize any state supreme court to push back that deadline.

You might ask, “Well how then did the New Jersey courts pull Torricelli off the ballot when the deadline for doing so had already passed?” Well, the Constitution does not set out that the state legislature has exclusive power to set the rules for creating rules for U.S. Senate elections. Presidential elections are unique.

I just don’t see this as a possibility.

The more interesting question, in my mind, is whether or not you need to go through the motions of getting someone new on the ballot. Would it be possible to leave Kerry on the ballot and still elect someone different, say Hillary? While highly unlikely, it might not be impossible.

The trick is to think about the Electoral College. Under the Constitution, there is nothing to stop the Electors in a particular state from voting for someone else. In theory, the DNC could get Kerry to fall on his sword and then put out a memo saying, “When you go to vote, you’ll actually be voting for Hillary. Kerry’s name will be on the ballot, but when the Electors meet in December, since Kerry dropped out, we’ll have them vote for Hillary/Edwards.”

On its face, there is nothing to really prevent that. Constitutionally, I don’t believe that there is anything that prevents Electors from freelancing in any manner they like. So, what stops this from happening?

Typically, Electors are hard-core party people. They were chosen as Electors because of their fidelity to the party and its candidate. But, in the situation I outlined above, they would have reason to vote for Hillary out of party loyalty. But, there is still one more hurdle to clear.

Many states have laws which require the electors to vote for the person to whom they were pledged. It is my guess that the person to whom they are pledged is the person on the ballot. In this case, if Kerry is on the ballot, then they would be pledged to vote for him. Such pledging laws were upheld as Constitutional by the Supreme Court in the 1952 case of Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214 (1952).

Here are the states in which the Electors are bound to their candidate:

Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Included in that list are the absolutely critical states of California, Florida, Michigan, and Ohio. Even if the electors from New York, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, and other blue/toss-up states were to have their electors free-lance to Hillary, there is simply no way for a Democrat to win without California, and at least one or two from the group of Ohio, Michigan, and Florida. (I haven’t added up the Electoral College votes present in non-pledging states, and that’s why I’m not saying this is a completely impossible theory.)

The Constitution created a structure in which the Electoral College actually elects the President. The Constitution further requires that the states’ legislatures have the exclusive ability to set the parameters for how those Electors are chosen. Supreme Court precedent indicates to me that neither a federal court nor a state court can usurp this authority. So, you likely can’t get Kerry replaced on fifty state ballots. Further, because of pledging laws and the fact that some states simply won’t vote for any Democrat (and some won’t vote for any Republican) in this election cycle, I don’t think you can successfully use the Electoral College vote in December to elect someone other than the person on the ballot.

I just can’t conceive of a way for the Torricelli option to successfully happen. If someone can show me I’m wrong, I open to hearing arguments. But I just don’t think it’s possible.

Re: Canadian Healthcare System

My dental hygienist, an unrepentant liberal, is a long-time friend from back in our high school days. At an appointment some time ago, she mentioned that her Canadian-resident sister had needed some medical procedure for which there is a two to three-month waiting list, “but since she works for the government, she was able to move herself to the front of the line.”

Since I have this rule against saying nasty things to anyone who has sharp tools in my mouth, I chose not to respond to any of the things I found wrong with this.

Should We Really Pine For Canada's Health Care

Iowa Geek takes a look at Canada's much vaunted health care network and finds it wanting.

Doctors won't work in small towns and in the cities, the waiting lists for simple procedures is simply astounding.

I simply don't understand why people constantly refer to Canada as a system to emulate.

I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day -

where he has to continually relive the same day over and over. An apparently endless succession of Democrat flacks have again started showing up on TV claiming that George W. Bush didn’t fulfill his National Guard commitment in 1973. These guys are ignoring the questionable status of the Sixty Minutes documents and are trying to say invented evidence is just as valid as the real thing. Juan Williams, on Fox News Special Report, appeared to excoriate the administration for its failure to produce documents that probably didn’t even exist until recently.

To hitchhike on an excellent line from my colleague Jeff, a few postings below this one, the media has gone beyond beating a dead horse; they’ve drawn, quartered, skinned and anally violated it. The circumstance of the President’s National Guard service thirty-some years ago has been repeatedly asked and answered, but that doesn’t prevent them from raising the question again.

Clearly, the Kerry campaign knows it has to cast doubt on one of Dubya’s biggest assets, the faith much of the country has in his honesty and integrity. If they can’t shake public confidence in Bush’s trustworthiness, they are fighting an uphill battle to replace him. And that’s why the Democrats and their wholly-owned subsidiaries in the broadly discredited national media endlessly reiterate their meaningless charges.

I asked a friend of mine who was an Air Force pilot as the Viet Nam war was winding down how he concluded his AF career. He e-mailed me this reply:

"On the Guard and AF. In early '72 the AF determined the war would not support the number of pilots graduating, anymore. So, they came up with a program called Palace Chase. I had my choice of 5 years active duty or if I could find a Reserve (or I think Guard) unit that needed a pilot, 6 years of reserve duty. I went to Columbus.

"Many of my peers were also just out of pilot training and a few had come back from Viet Nam. They were looking for jobs as pilots (flying anything, anywhere) there were no jobs. There were pilots coming out of the service by the hundreds (thousands?) and the market was
saturated.

"I don't know why GW doesn't just say, "I didn't want to be in the war, I found the way to "do my duty" with as little disruption to my life as I could. (That is what I did and I feel proud that I served - rightly or wrongly)."

I don’t necessarily agree with his characterization of the thoughts Dubya may have had, but I will say, as a contemporary, that we all made the best deal we could, under our individual circumstances. Some of us got deferments, some went to Canada, some of us picked the best branch or type of service we could and at least one of us went to England and Moscow to demonstrate against the war, somehow not destroying his ability to serve as President, while another went to fight in the war for a minimum amount of time to enhance his political viability. It was a long time ago, and why should voters really care now?

The point of my friend’s message is that in 1972, with the war winding down, pilots were superfluous. It’s obvious that the military needed to cut the numbers of their very expensive pilots (have you ever considered how much it costs to maintain a pilot on flying status – think about it the next time some leftybot is yammering about Bush letting his active flying duty status lapse) and were very willing to accommodate any who had other opportunities. Bush appears to have more than met his duty requirements, and if a few corners were cut in meeting the technical requirements, nobody cared. [Jeff, Chad, is there a legal term for when both parties to a contract want to let it drop?]

The bottom line is that the recurrent surfacing of this silly “Bush was AWOL” nonsense is that it is nothing but a desperate attempt to raise doubt about his credibility among the portion of the electorate that pays minimal attention. If these latest documents are forged, (and based on the preponderance of the evidence, I put the probability well above 90 percent that they are) the real import is what it does to the credibility of CBS and Dan Rather (and maybe Ben Barnes).

Thank G*d we no longer have to depend exclusively on the Lamestream Media, as State 29 calls it, for our news.

My Wife’s Reasons Kerry is a Jerk, part one

“Have you noticed those shirts he wears? When he’s giving a speech and he takes off his jacket to show the crowd he’s 'just regular folks'? Look at the cuffs on his sleeves. They have three buttons and they’re longer than my husb…. ah, scratch that. I mean, you can’t find shirts like that at Penney’s. They have to be some weird European cut that he has special ordered from an exclusive tailor in Brussels or Paris. Why can’t he buy shirts wrapped in cellophane packaging, made in Taiwan with an American name on the label like normal people? At least that way some American will make a buck from the sale, or the design, or something. Or is that what he’s trying to avoid?”

…part two
“The ridiculous ‘bowing’ has to stop.”

…part three
“He needs to learn to ‘pump his fist’ in the air like he means it.”

…part four
“A guy who can’t throw a strike should stay off the pitcher’s mound.”

And let me add, if you’re going to forge 1973 documents, use a 1973 typewriter. Sheesh. Good help must be hard to find over at DNC HQ.

The Tide Turns

Yesterday, my surliness level began to ratchet up. The media had finally decided to demand more answers regarding Viet Nam era military service from a presidential candidate. Stunningly, they were demanding more records from George Bush. Some big-time Democrat donor was scheduled to appear on "60 Minutes II" along with supposed "newly discovered" documents that raised questions about Bush's service in the National Guard. And I'm thinking, "You gotta be mother effin kidding me. This was covered, in detail, four years ago. This was covered, in excruciating detail, six months ago. We are somewhere beyond beating the dead horse. We are dismembering the dead horse."

But then, I looked at the Power Line this morning and a glimmer of hope arrived. Powerline had printed an email they got from a reader saying that there was no way the "newly discovered" documents could be real. They had to be forgeries because the typeface was proportional. That is, the letter 'l' takes up less space than the letter 'w'. Typewriters in 1973 couldn't do that. Moreover, the documents had a superscript 'th' that was in a reduced size font. No typewriter could do that, either.

At first, I thought that it was simply too good to be true. But as time goes on, it is becoming more and more likely that these documents are forgeries. One big piece of evidence is that the memo can be almost perfectly reproduced using Times New Roman font, and all of the default tab, spacing, and kerning settings, in MS Word. This was demonstrated with amazing effectiveness at Little Green Footballs.

Then, people started writing in to all of these blogs with notes about how these supposed documents didn't adhere to military paper size standards, didn't adhere to proper formating standards for dates and use of ranks, and didn't use fonts that were commonly available in 1973.

Simply amazing.

CBS at first stood by its story. Now, according to Drudge, (via Power Line), CBS is launching an internal investigation. Dan Rather is said to be "shell-chocked." (Whether at being duped, or shell-shocked with disappointment that he likely won't be bringing down a Presidency, isn't clear.)

Again, this is simply amazing. CBS News, with its million-dollar budget and hundreds of employees was outmaneuvered, outhustled, and outwitted by a handful of guys sitting around their computers, who don't know each other from Adam, who were able to exchange ideas, share their thoughts, and gather information from the vast array or readers who had knowledge or access to documents, methods, or sources, that could illuminate this issue. The tide has turned. This was a momentous day. This was not just discussing and promoting little-known stories until they caught on in the mainstream press. This was original reporting. This story originated in the blogs (Power Line, specifically, and then enhanced by others). And it may shake CBS News to the core.

The tide has indeed turned.

Reduced Iowa Values Fund Created

The state legislature didn't follow my advice and did pass a bill creating a new version of the Iowa Values Fund. Boooo! On the other hand, rather than a $500 million monstrosity, this is merely a $100 million monstrosity. Yea, sort of. The best that can be said is that this bill isn't as bad as it could have been.

Along with the $100 million for the Values Fund, the legislature also passed a secondd bill with $87 million in tax cuts for Iowa businesses. Yea! That part of the article, however, does contain the obligatory critique from the Iowa State Education Association. The ISEA, of course, feels that $87 million in tax cuts is terrible since (it argues) the schools are so woefully underfunded. The ISEA makes no complaint of the $100 million in spending that goes to something other than the schools. It only cares about tax cuts.

That figures.

Stories I Halfway Expect to See in the Next Few Days

Hollywood Questions Timing of Hurricanes
Los Angeles, California

Surrounded by several hundred fans who braved near 100 degree heat, several Hollywood luminaries promoted the upcoming DVD release of Michael Moore's surprise summer hit Fahrenheit 9/11. Toward the end of the thirty-minute event, the promoters apologized to the crowd for the oppressive heat, joking, "George Bush will do just about anything to keep you from learning about the cruel nature of this administration. I'm sure he had something to do with the heat today." Then, in a more serious turn, "At the very least, Bush is partially responsible for the climate change that we are experiencing. His administration has been the worst for the environment in fifty years, probably ever." He continued, "He's destabilizing the world environment. It was never this bad before. They are talking about never having had three large hurricanes strike Florida in one year before, but that's what we are seeing happen right now. It's happening right in front of us and nobody is talking about it. Is it just luck that these hurricanes are keeping Iraq out of the headlines? Is it just luck that these hurricanes are caused by the destabilization in the environment that George Bush champions? What better way to hide your lies but with other lies."

Kerry Campaign Won't Speculate as to Connections Between Bush and Hurricanes
Bone Steel, SD

Campaigning with Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle today, John Kerry refused to directly speculate as to the rumor that George Bush was responsible for the rash of hurricanes that were victimizing the state of Florida. When questioned by reporters Kerry stated, "Oh, that's just speculation. It's interesting talk for the pundits, but I'm not going to engage in speculation about whether or not the President has involved himself in a scheme to get his brother, the governor of Florida, extra television time and give [Bush] the opportunity to appear generous with federal disaster relief money." Kerry added that he wished the communities in south Florida well, but feared that the poor and mostly black communities that lined the lowest laying regions of the state would be the most endangered and might find it difficult to concentrate on the election if they were cleaning up from a third hurricane. "It's just like how the poor were forced to fight in Viet Nam."

Congressional Leaders Demand Inquiry Into Bush Connections to Hurricane Ivan
Washington, DC

Congressional Democrats called upon President Bush to come clean on his connections to Hurricane Ivan today. One Democratic staffer was the most vocal of those demanding that a special commission be set up to investigate the alleged connections between the Bush administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "These people have been spending millions of dollars watching and studying the weather for three years. I find it impossible to believe that these hurricanes just happen." He added, "It's just like the Bush Administration to use these types of tactics of fear and intimidation to keep minorities away from the polls on election day. Fear and intimidation. That's their game plan, but we won't let them get away with keeping us away through these types of brutal tactics."

A Bush administration official admitted that NOAA is part of the Bush administration and did receive an approximately $15 million dollar increase in its budget this year. The administration official denied that there was any connection between the increase in NOWA's budget and an attempt to use the weather to intimidate voters of African descent from voting.

Left Holding the Bag

Here is yet another example of why the Iowa Values Fund is a loser of an idea. The State of Iowa gave $125,000 to an outfit that has developed a technique known as "brain fingerprinting."* Problem is, about the same time the state cut the check, the organization appears to have been headed out of the state. The company is still promising to bring all sorts of jobs to Iowa, but as of right now, it has one employee here. It should be noted, the company also appears to be promising to bring all sorts of jobs to a couple of other states as well, Colorado and Washington. So, I'd hate to bet that we'll see those 65 to 200 jobs.

Mostly, it looks like the state of Iowa got taken for a ride by a slick sales pitch. I want someone to explain to me why this sort of problem won't be replicated a thousand times over with the Iowa Values Fund.


*For those who don't know, it's a controversial technique its proponents claim can prove the guilt or innonence of alleged criminals.

Repeating the Same Actions and Expecting a Different Outcome..

Is one definition of insanity. Think back to the deal Jimmy Carter made with North Korea on behalf of the Clinton administration. Yeah, that deal. The one that was going to get North Korea to give up it's nuclear weapons program in exchange for shipments of fossil fuels. Well, that worked out real well. North Korea went back on the agreement, took the fuel, and kept working on their atomic bomb.

Now, a decade later, the government in Tehran is rattling its sabres, alleging that it needs a nuclear program for peaceful electrical production. (Insert your stifled laugh here.) Bush thinks that we shouldn't deal with the mullahs because, well, because they are bad people.* John Kerry, in contrast, thinks we should give them nuclear material to run their reactors with. The Iranian government just has to agree to give back the spent (and thereby somewhat enriched) material.

Anyone out there think that the Iranian government will hold up their end of the bargain? Anyone?

This proposal is essentially repeating the deal we gave to North Korea. That didn't work out. Neither would this. You would have to be crazy to believe this would work. John Kerry can't be trusted with our national security.


*And, no, I don't want to hear about how they are just misunderstood, or how they have legitimate gripes with the U.S. They hanged a 16 year old girl for having premarital sex. The actual penalty for doing so is, you know, only a slap on the wrist (and a hundred lashes on the back), but since she dared to take off her hijab in court, the judge felt compelled to have her hanged. HANGED!!. They are evil scum.

Kerry's Midnight Rally

In an unusual move, the challenger is holding a rally just minutes after the President's party finished its convention. That's odd enough, but the really strange thing is that Kerry is defending himself against accusations that were never made. He's accusing Cheney of having impuned his service in Viet Nam. In fact, Cheney specifically said that John Kerry served honorably; that it was his behavior upon returning from Viet Nam that is at issue. Hell, the crowd clapped when Cheney said that Kerry served honorably. Now, to me, this appears a little thin-skinned, a little defensive--you doth protest too much.

Why oh why does Kerry want to wage the battle on this ground? It's not a winner for him, and it may in fact be a loser. By going after Cheney, he's allowing two things that potentially hurt him to stay frong and center. One, he's keeping his Viet Nam service out there where the Swift Vets can continue to chip away at it. Two, by going after Cheney's imagined slights rather than Zell Miller's very real accusations of Senate dovishness, he's giving added creedence to the impression that he really is anti-military. To my mind, he's got to answer the charge that he voted against all of those valuable military weapons systems, but instead he's putting on his Don Quixote suit to go tilting at a windmill called Cheney.

The Acceptance Speech

Solid. Not necessarily spectacular, but solid.

That's my assessment.

The second half was much better than the first, especially when he talks about how his interaction with regular people affects him. I believe that the emotion he showed when speaking of the families he's met who lost loved ones on 9/11 or in Iraq is quite genuine. I suspect most others feel the same way. That type of emotional genuineness is Bush's strongest suit. It's where he excels. They need to figure out how to work that in to more of what he does. I'm having trouble imagining how to pull it off, but a small-group event should be included in all of Bush's events. Something where a large group of people could witness him interacting with a small group of regular people.

Zell Miller Rockin' the House

Well, this is why Zell Miller was invited to speak.

"Nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling our soldiers occupiers rather than liberators."

"Twenty years in the Senate tell you a lot more about a man than twenty weeks of campaigning."

"Listing the weapons systems that our soldiers depend on and that John Kerry opposed makes you sound like an auctioneer selling off our national security." (Or words to that affect. I'm doing this on the fly, afterall.)

Oh goodness, he just said that the two worst Senators in the nation are the duo from Massachusetts. I suspect Mr. Miller does not receive a warm reception at the Democrat caucus.

"George Bush wants to get the terrorists by the throat and not let them go to get a better grip."

This is some good stuff. Zell just kicked the Kerry campaign in the crotch. I feel sorry for Lynn Cheney to have to follow that.

My favorite line

from the convention watchers/commenters last night comes from Lileks:

Big banner: “A MORE HOPEFUL AMERICA.” Lame. Why not “FLUFFIER KITTENS” or “BRIGHTER LAUNDRY.” I want A CHAIN-MAILED FIST CRUSHING THE FORCES OF JIHAD! But you can’t have everything.

"A MORE HOPEFUL AMERICA" sounds like something we might have seen in Boston.