I'm heading to upstate New York (Geneseo) this morning with a couple buddies to celebrate my 10-year college reunion (!) this weekend, so I'll most likely be on hiatus until Sunday when I return. I'll do my best to get my hands on a computer while I'm up there, but I have a feeling the weekend will fly by before I know it!

The World Summit on the Information Society is holding meetings, the ostensible goal to expand Internet access in developing countries but the real agenda to shift control of the Internet to the U.N. from U.S. dominated organizations. As in all things, the countries united to suppress freedom who are the majority at the United Nations, facilitated by cowardly European eunuchs envious of the U.S., pay lip service to the downtrodden as they devise ways to keep them that way.

South African journalist at the Summit, Brenda Zulu, summed up the stakes: “With censorship we can never get anywhere and the marginalized voices will never be heard.”

Reporters Without Borders, among the many cases it tracks, tells us about cyberdissident Nguyen Vu Binh. Nguyen began his fourth year in Vietnamese prison on September 25. He formerly worked for “The Communist Reviews”, an official communist party publication. Among his sins was involvement in an organization fighting corruption, rampant in the workers’ paradise to enrich its ruling elite, and applying to set up a liberal democratic party, that might actually benefit the downtrodden rather than those wearing the boots.

Reporters Without Borders tells us “the 11 commandments of the Internet in China,” announced on September 25 by the state controlled media. As RSF says, “The Chinese authorities never seem to let up on their desire to regulate the Web and their determination to control information available on it ever more tightly.” The RSF report concludes that these moves to filter the Internet are “a sign that the Internet frightens those in power.”

Constructively fighting back, Reporters Without Frontiers just published its downloadable “Handbook for Bloggers and Cyberdissidents.” Global Voices Online calls it “the first truly useful book [for] people who have views and information that they want to share with the world…if you’re in a country where the government might not like what you’re saying, how to avoid getting in trouble when you by-pass the information gatekeepers.”

The Washington Times’ report on the Handbook reminds us that, “China has acquired the gear and know-how to engage in censorship so effectively from American companies, as for example Cisco Systems Inc. and Yahoo Inc.” And, don’t forget Microsoft and Google’s willing collusion in suppressing freedom of the Internet. Human Rights Watch, blisters the “trend of major American-based companies assisting the Chinese government in its efforts to censor free expression on the Internet,” reminding us “Google has agreed to exclude from a list of links publications that the Chinese government finds objectionable. Microsoft has capitulated to China by sending an error message to Internet users in China who use Microsoft’s search engine to search for the Chinese words for democracy, freedom, human rights, or demonstration, among others.”

As Human Rights Watch correctly observes, “When companies like Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google decide to put profits from their Chinese operations over the free exchange of information, they are helping to kill that dream.”

Carlos Ramos-Mrosovsky and Joseph Barillari have a succinct yet comprehensive report on the Summit to suppress Internet freedom, full of links, “World Wide (Web) Takeover,” at National Review Online.

Ramos-Mrosovsky and Barillari so well describe this Summit’s attempted putsch to further the take over of this bastion of free thought that its entirety and links is a MUST read. Some brief excerpts:

“Only dictators, and, perhaps, the doctrinaire internationalists who so often abet them, stand to gain from placing the Internet under "international" control. If, for example, the U.N. were to control domain names, its component tyrannies would find it much easier to censor and repress. After all, "internet public policy" is subject to interpretation, and it is hard to imagine international bureaucrats resisting — as ICANN and the U.S. largely have — the temptation to politicize their task.”

Another good point made is that, “Surrendering the Internet might also increase America's vulnerability to online security threats. It could be difficult to guard against cyber-terrorism or to pursue terrorists online, if the Internet were under the supervision of a body unsure of what terrorism is, but quite sure that it does not like the United States.”

Ramos-Mrosovsky and Barillari conclude: “Although the Bush administration will not relinquish U.S. oversight of the Internet, a future president may be more willing to make this seemingly small concession to curry favor with internationalist elites or supposed strategic partners. As with the Kyoto Protocol or the International Criminal Court, Washington's refusal to bend to the "international community" over the Internet might be magnified into another gleefully touted example of American arrogance. America's rivals, less constrained by electoral cycles, tend to view foreign policy over the longer term. They are willing to wait. If we are to preserve the Internet as we know it, the Bush administration must take steps to foreclose the possibility of it ever becoming the plaything of dictators.”

The Associated Press reports today that the “U.S. insists on keeping control of Web,” quoting U.S. Ambassador David Gross, the State Department’s coordinator for international communications and information policy, “ The genius of the Internet is that it has been flexible [and] private sector led.”

The AP failed to note, as the International Herald-Tribune does, that Ambassador Gross comment was “an angry reply” to a last-minute, typical European Union weasel proposal, what Gross called “a very shocking and profound change of the EU’s position,” to “create an intergovernmental forum that would set principles for governing the Internet.” Gross said the “EU’s proposal seems to represent an historic shift in the regulatory approach to the Internet from one that is based on private sector leadership to a government, top-down control of the Internet.”

Lover of free enterprise that I am, we must recognize that many U.S. companies have more love of enterprise than freedom.

I’d suggest that legislation be introduced in Congress and backed by the Bush administration that penalizes any U.S. company, like Cisco, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google, from facilitating censorship of the Internet. Like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), penalizing U.S. companies for participating in the common international contracting corruption far beyond anything even Louisiana politicians can fantasize about, this will not be an easy bill to craft, and it may take years of interpretations and court cases to flesh it out. But the effort is needed and worthwhile. Like FCPA, such a bill will help maintain U.S. corporate standards of conduct in commerce and human rights and through the very weight of the U.S. economy in the world may further them elsewhere. At the very least, we will not be letting Microsoft, Google, Yahoo! or Cisco be defining to the rest of the world that America does not really stand for freedom.

No surprise here. Conventional wisdom around Washington has been that Democrats would save their fight for Bush's next nominee, which the New York Times reports may be announced as early as this week.

And a fight is exactly what President Bush should give them, despite the fact that senators like Harry Reid and Patrick Leahy have already puffed their chests in the hopes of intimidating Bush into attempting to evade their threatened filibuster.

Republicans said there appeared to be less possibility that Mr. Bush would select Priscilla R. Owen or Janice Rogers Brown, federal appellate judges appointed by the president. Judges Owen and Brown, strong conservatives, set off bitter confirmation fights in the Senate, and Democrats blocked them for years by filibusters until a compromise on their confirmations was reached this year.

On Wednesday, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, and Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, sent Mr. Bush a letter urging him not to name to the court any of the three judges who were part of the compromise - Judge William J. Pryor Jr. and Judges Owen and Brown.

"The nomination of any of these individuals to the Supreme Court would represent an unnecessary provocation and would be met by substantial opposition in the Senate," the letter said.

The problem is that Senate Democrats are going to give the next Bush nominee to the SCOTUS a rough ride of it, regardless of whoever it might be. The fact that Reid and his band of sniveling ankle-biters have already warned against nominating Pryor, Owen, or Brown should be all the information Bush needs. Now more than ever Bush needs to stand his ground and take the fight to his opposition. He's risked losing his most loyal supporters by failing to veto a single bill during his presidency (not even the pork-filled Transportation Bill) and by throwing a horde of tax dollars at Katrina victims, and just this morning the Washington Times reported that Republicans have rolled over and given Gov. Kathleen Blanco a free pass on Katrina questioning as she appeared before a Senate committee to beg for even more federal subsidies for Louisiana.

Unhinged liberals and opportunistic Democrats are going to attack President Bush indiscriminately on all fronts, no matter what. That he's losing support, however, among die-hard conservatives and Republicans - who've continually given him the benefit of the doubt - should be cause for concern. And his next Supreme Court nominee might just be the last chance the president has to redeem himself in the eyes of increasingly anxious and wavering constituents.

I'm not in the prognostication business, so I'm not going to speculate as to whom Bush might nominate. But considering the recent comments of Reid, et al., he would be wise to nominate anyone from their short list of "unacceptables." My personal favorite is Janice Rogers Brown, who is known to adhere to the letter of the law - credentials despised by the left, but revered by those who are still waiting for Mr. Bush to honor his commitment to nominate a judge to the Supreme Court in the mold of Justices Scalia and Thomas. And yes, failing to do so would simply further alienate those same constituents whose support he desperately needs to regain.

Of course, as Ann Coulter writes today, Bush is no stranger to peculiar judgment, so the next few days should be rather interesting. My only advice is that the president start acting like he won the last election - Democrats be damned - and force his opponents to drag out the cots if those "caring, tolerant, racially-sensitive" Democrats feel like filibustering the first black American woman ever nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States.

UPDATE: John Hinderaker speculates that the timing of the DeLay indictment is directly related to Bush's impending SCOTUS nomination. I agree, and reiterate that Bush must not waver under the pressure that's sure to come, and nominate a judge like Janice Rogers Brown who will make Democrats go ballistic. [h/t: Lorie Byrd.]

Indefatigable war reporter Michael Yon sends a touching dispatch this morning, highlighting that there is no limit to what good people can accomplish when they live in a free country.

American “Deuce Four” soldiers found Rhma one night in Mosul. She needed serious medical attention. Doctors, nurses and others back in America, along with the soldiers in Mosul, worked diligently on behalf of this child, and eventually they generated the support required to get Rhma the treatment she desperately needed. But it wasn’t just Americans: I also saw offers come in from the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, among others.

[...]

I wrote about it, knowing that if Americans knew that Rhma was stuck in Jordan, our good people would not let that stand. Once again, the good and generous nature of average Americans glimmered the moment they found the problem. People all over the United States took it upon themselves to call their congressmen and senators, many of whom interceded on behalf of a sick little girl who had faith that Americans would take care of her.

Read the whole inspiring story. And take note that "Operation Rhma" was largely successful because our government was content to merely facilitate the efforts of everyday private citizens - not least of all our U.S. soldiers serving on the front.

My buddy Denis Tri would have been 38 today.

CNN reports:

DeLay faces a single conspiracy count stemming from a long-running campaign finance investigation, the county clerk's office in Austin told CNN.

DeLay blasted the charge a "sham" and an act of "political retribution."

"I have done nothing wrong," DeLay told reporters. "I have violated no law, no regulation, no rule of the House."

Michelle Malkin has a good roundup.

Mark Levin can't find a single sentence in the indictment tying DeLay to a crime. Nevertheless, Jonah Goldberg says this is going to be a tedious, drawn out process all the same.

As a matter of pure political strategy it seems to me that the Republicans have a great deal to learn from the Clinton administration. They managed, as best they could, to translate the myriad investigations into their “ethics” into the general political complaint that everyone should “move on.” Indeed, that’s where we got Moveon.org, which at the time baldly lied that they were a non-partisan, one-issue organization. If the GOP can’t make this into an issue about the increasing desperation of the Democrats -- which does have the benefit of being at least partly true -- they’ll be in trouble. Not life-threatening trouble, but trouble nonetheless.

The problem, of course, is that they don’t have nearly as sympathetic a media climate to operate in.

Indeed. And that could make all the difference in the world. One thing you have to admit is that the timing couldn't be any better for the Democrats. Bush is already taking heat from the left for creating these wascally hurricanes in the first place, while at the same time ticking off the right by committing so much federal aid to cleanup and recovery costs.

You'll be hard-pressed to find a better synopsis of the political hype and resulting bureaucratic messes that follow natural disasters than this article in Reason Online by Glenn Garvin - written all the way back in 1993 as he reflected on the government response to Hurricane Andrew.

The piece is quite lengthy, but it's a must-read. The only meaningful difference between the federal government's response to Andrew vice Katrina is that when all was said and done, Bush 41 and Congress had stuffed enough pork into the hurricane aid package to total about $8 billion, while 43 has already teamed with Congress to earmark $75 billion - and the federal tab is almost sure to rise even further.

My regular column essay at Augusta Free Press is titled "Watch out for Hurricane Prescription." What is now estimated as a $720 billion program over the next 10-years, I suggest will cost closer to the $1.2 trillion that advocates of the program shy away from. Nonetheless, in my middle-class 57-year old opinion, not having a retiree health plan and having had expensive prescriptions, it's not a bad program as it is constructed after 40-years of debates and consensus building. It does rely on managed care, means testing, and private enterprise partnership, techniques and administration. It is not a frozen relic from the 1960's like Medicare.

There will be decades of continuing arguments about and high costs from Part D, what I call the continuing "tidal wave" of Hurricane Prescription. And, we'd better face up to it, the baby boom generation's senior costs will be much higher than anything forecast by anyone. Unless we get on with Social Security reforms and more managed care Medicare reforms.

I did a quick blog search this morning at technorati and google. Other blogs are not discussing this huge Hurricane that hits American shores this Saturday. You might want to "get your hip boots and rowboats ready" for Hurricane Prescription.

Americans for Dr. Rice is the epitome of a grassroots organization. Led by Crystal Dueker, who literally criss-crosses the country in her Mini Cooper gathering support for a Condoleezza Rice presidential run in 2008, Americans for Dr. Rice is a small but growing contingent of self-proclaimed "Condistas" who are beginning to make their presence felt.

Tonight the 527 political organization will air "Condi 2008," its first commercial promoting a Condi candidacy in '08, in New Hampshire during the season premiere of the new ABC series "Commander-In-Chief" starring Geena Davis and Donald Sutherland.

When I spoke with Ms. Dueker a month ago, I could tell immediately that this was a woman dedicated to her cause. Full of excitement, Crystal had just scored her organization recognition by National Review Online and had just returned from Iowa, where she learned that Condi drew support of 30% of registered Republicans polled.

Among 400 Republicans who said they are likely to attend the 2008 caucuses, Rice received the backing of 30.3 percent. U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona was second in the survey with 16 percent, and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani received support from 15.3 percent. Roughly 20 percent were undecided.

I wrote just the other day that I've been warming lately to the prospect of a Rice candidacy, mainly because Condi isn't a politician. Considering the profligate spending of our Republican Congress, I believe Rice could bring the voice of ordinary Americans to the floor and evade the ire of conservative and libertarian Republicans, who by that point could very well be fed up with a Republican party that appears content to alienate its core in an effort to seem "compassionate." On the other hand, this could also be her curse if Republican heavy-hitters deem her a threat and rise up against her to protect their own backsides, many of which have grown fat as they've bankrolled pet projects on behalf of the American taxpayer and an indulgent Congress.

Needless to say, there will be many variables to a Condi presidential run, especially if Hillary Clinton gets the nod to oppose her, which, I might add, is no certainty. But make no mistake: If 527s like Americans for Dr. Rice are successful in not only getting Rice on the ticket but also helping her to win the Republican nomination, we'll see a presidential fight like none we've ever seen. Indeed, today's "liberals" cannot afford to see a black Republican woman become president, for they know all too well that this would effectively extinguish their ability to exploit black Americans as the perennial victims of an oppressive white society.

And that right there would be worth the price of admission.

According to the AP:

The pace of illegal immigration to the United States has increased despite tighter security measures and it generally parallels the pace of economic growth and the availability of jobs, a report said Tuesday.

The report by the Pew Hispanic Center also found that the stronger security steps since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 have had the effect of reducing legal immigration.

I'd be tempted to file this report under "No S***, Sherlock" and be done with it, if it weren't for the blithe and faulty assumption that the United States has tightened its immigration laws since 9/11. Should you feel tempted to contest such a claim, I refer you to Michelle Malkin, who has written tirelessly about the Bush administration and Congress's refusal to crack down on illegal immigration.

There's no need to poll the obvious: When you refuse to deter illegal immigration, you encourage it.

Two men of tempered judgment today made recommendations for an investigation of the mainstream press’ performance in reporting on Katrina.

John Hinderaker of the powerline blog calls for a Congressional investigation of “how could the mainstream media have done such a poor job in reporting Hurricane Katrina.” As Hinderaker points out, and then corroborates, “the lurid reports of widespread criminality in New Orleans, and especially of crime and chaos at the SuperDome and Convention Center, were almost entirely untrue.” This raises important questions to Hinderaker, as it should to anyone who cares about best helping these or future catastrophe victims, of how rumors came to be treated as facts, the failure of journalistic procedures to control this, the extent to which such reporting had political purposes, and whether misreporting damaged the rescue effort.

John Hinderaker has a bit more faith than I in a Congressional investigation. Both Republicans and Democrats are too deep into blame games at this point. Also, Congress is not famous for defying the major media, the treatment from whom so affects their re-election.

Experienced conservative journalist Mark Tapscott’s alternative suggestion is for an investigation led by the press. “MSM’s several professional organizations would do well to call an emergency meeting, appoint a commission of respected editors, academic journalists and knowledgeable non-journalists to get to the bottom of what could become a blow to media credibility from which there will be no recovery.”

I’d add to the list of inquiry the extent to which misinformation from political and rescue leaders is at fault, and the extent to which their innocent ignorance, incompetence or political motivations are at fault. Although raising the question will lead to the press finding reasons – probably correctly – to reduce its culpability, the failure to raise this question is unfair to the press, to understanding the whole story, and to finding worthwhile answers and remedies.

The New York Times and the Washington Post did major retrospective reporting of their own decisions and performance leading up to the Iraq War. Two hundred billion dollars later, this only accomplished increased skepticism that anyone can see through the fog of war, rather than recognition that the press needs to commit more resources, knowledgeable reporters, and frontline experience to foreign reporting. We’ll be two hundred billion dollars into Katrina spending before the same result, increased skepticism, comes from a Congressional or press investigation of Katrina reporting, but the expectation of the shrinking mass media committing more resources, knowledgeable reporters, and frontline experience to major disasters, of nature or man-made, is equally bleak.

So, let both alternatives investigation paths come, for whatever worth.

However, I suggest a third investigation path. Let several major foundations, from left, right and center, fund a commission of investigation drawn from the blogosphere, which contains as much or more expertise and experience and less institutional conflicts of interest than either Congress or the mass media. From this, I would expect a substantial step forward in maturing the perspective and in professionalizing this new media, moving it further toward its potential of a greater check on the old “estates.” That will have more lasting effect than either of the old estates’ investigations.

Townhall's Mary Katharine Ham has a little fun today with Cindy Sheehan's arrest at the expense of the semantic magicians at the Associated Press.

Sadly, however, Lorie Byrd at PoliPundit points out that while Cindy Sheehan has been made a hero of the antiwar movement, the MSM will almost certainly fail to report tonight that her son Casey was a true hero, who was killed in a mission similar to the one yesterday that extinguished al Qaeda's No. 2 man.

President Bush apparently hinted today that his next Supreme Court nominee would be either a woman or a minority. When asked about the impending nomination, he stated, "I will pick a person who can do the job. But I am mindful that diversity is one of the strengths of the country."

W.'s been accused - almost always unfairly - of saying some dumb things in the past, but this is disgraceful.

There are few judges in the country who are known to adhere to the rule of law as consistently as Janice Rogers Brown, who was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in June. She also happens to be a black female.

The "diversity" the president should be concerned about when nominating judges to the SCOTUS is that which sets such nominees apart from liberal activists currently on the Court, like Justices Kennedy and Ginsberg, both of whom have, incredibly, acknowledged that international laws should apply to America. Considering that Janice Rogers Brown has been pilloried by liberal organizations such as the NAACP and People for the American Way, accused of being a "female Clarence Thomas," you know she'd be a perfect fit for the high court.

If President Bush is smart, he will nominate Judge Janice Rogers Brown immediately, and champion the true diversity this would bring to a court that has found in the Constitution rights to abortion on demand and sodomy while ignoring our explicitly stated right to bear arms; has legalized race-based discrimination in our universities; and has thumbed its proverbial nose at private property rights.

Diversity is one of America's strengths primarily because the vast majority of Americans believe in individual freedom and a capitalistic economic model that makes racial differences virtually irrelevant. Bush should know this. But alas, even if we're lucky enough to obtain the services of Judge Brown on the SCOTUS, she'll likely now be viewed simply for what she is, rather than who.

Trevor's post of September 23, asks a question I've been hearing a lot inside the Beltway, why support the GOP if our leaders are going to be as profligate with spending as our Democratic counterparts? Two words: John Roberts.

My work in the political arena is focused on combatting judicial activism, and while there is no guarantee that John Roberts will be a conservative's dreamboat justice -- i.e. overturning Roe v. Wade, limiting the scope of the commerce and police powers, etc., when Roberts said in his opening statement that he believes "Judges are like umpires...Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them," he gave the proverbial middle finger to judges who believe it is their role to make law, and to throw aside the laws that the people's representatives in the Congress and state legislatures worked hard to pass.

While I share Trevor's and Dan Miller's angst about the GOP's spending, I also know that all other things being equal, a President Kerry would have appointed a pitcher, not an umpire to replace Chief Justice Rehnquist on the Supreme Court.

"If Iraq is like Vietnam, how come the rallies keep getting smaller?"
The Gay Patriot asks and tells the truth about yesterday’s rallies. All the observations and links are there to decide the perversity of major media’s biased reporting. (Hat Tip: Instapundit )

Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker headlines “Shame apparently works,” with regard to the New York Times' ombudsman Byron Calame. I’ll let Lifson introduce this Sunday’s column by Mr. Calame:

“Byron Calame, the New York Times' "public editor" has taken to the web and (apparently) print to upbraid Alessandra Stanley's lie about Geraldo Rivera, and opinion editor Gail Collins's failure to follow the Times policy on corrections. Calame has been relentlessly criticized here and elsewhere for his previous failure to comment adequately on his employer's journalistic misbehavior. Now that the New York Times is cutting newsroom staff, how long will he last?”

Wascally Wabbits: Scott Johnson at Powerline has another take on Calame: "I think his column today is notable and even courageous." No doubt there. And, as I say below, even when these newsroom mice peep their roars, their overall record at independently investigating and revealing their newspapers' serious shortcomings is so spotty as to be almost pathetically laughable. These wascally wabbits are more lettuce eaters than journalistic carnivores.

Michelle Malkin is too kind when she says, “The NYTimes Ombudsman is totally worthless.” Most of them are usually worthless.

I haven’t investigated every one. Surely there may be a few who reasonably consistently act as true readers’ representatives, who track down answers within their newspapers to the uncomfortable questions of why some matters are covered and others not, especially when significant matters, whether the full facts are presented, whether assertions are professionally substantiated, and whether the reporter’s opinions are kept separate from the facts.

The leading ombudsmen that I have investigated fail to meet the test of their own so-called professional organization’s standards: the former ombudsman of the New York Times, Daniel Okrent (go to October 26 at the link), the ombudsman of the San Diego Union Tribune, Gina Lubrano, who is also the Executive Secretary of the Organization of News Ombudsmen, and the ombudsman of the Guardian, Ian Mayes, who is also the President of the Organization of News Ombudsmen. Scott Johnson at Powerline has referred to the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s ombudsman, Kate Parry, as “reporter’s enabler” for failing to confront repeated documented falsity from a Star Tribune columnist. The anonymous media insider at Mediacrity, calls the New York Times ombudsman Barney Calame an “empty suit” and wonders whether ombudsmen are just “management shills.”

Yes, from time to time these newsroom mice make a peep-like imitation of a roar, but their usual meekness and excuses for their newspapers make even their occasional fits almost laughable. Management knows they have house eunuchs.

The same people who call for independent investigators at the suspicion of a dropped dime in a hat by a lobbyist and who call for the CEO’s of giant corporations to go to jail for not knowing every detail that may be sordid in their organization, are not heard calling for truly independent, and courageous, fact and journalism-standards auditors of the “fourth estate.”

Newspapers are businesses, apparently not too well run at meeting their consumers’ needs as witness their sharp fall in readership and stock-value. They waste the remaining readers’ time to read their ombudspuppies’ columns about punctuation while ignoring the crimes on their front and opinion pages of omission and commission, and waste their stockholder’s investments on most ombudsmens’ salaries. This is a gross violation of responsible corporate conduct, to not uphold newspapers' promise of professionalism in return for the deference they demand and are given.

It looks like I'm not the only one who's become increasingly incensed over the flagrant spending by an out-of-control Republican Congress. Townhall blogger Dan Mitchell points to three articles - all published today - from well-known conservatives/libertarians who are sick of "compassionate conservatism" and its ambition to duplicate the liberal version of the welfare state.

If Republicans insist on adding to this government distention, they may not have to worry about whom they run in 2008 because conservative Republicans are just principled enough to stay home on election day and hand victory to the Democrats. I've feared for some time now that GOP chair Ken Mehlman's outreach to black voters could have disastrous consequences, especially if Republicans are hellbent on attracting blacks to the party using the same strategy that's worked for Dems the past 70 years: buying them.

I've been meaning to write about Condi's chances in '08 for some time now, but events over the past two weeks have essentially prevented it. In a nutshell, I'm warming to the idea of a Rice campaign - if for no other reason at the moment than the fact that she's extemely intelligent and she isn't a politician - and it's no secret that if she could secure 20-25% of the black vote, Democrats wouldn't win another election for God-knows-how-long. The only problem is, I think Republicans know they can accomplish this with the right amount or money. But who really cares who's in charge if both parties vow to grow government and keep us dependent upon them?

I never miss, and always learn from the blog at History News Network by Judith Klinghoffer, scholar at Rutgers.

She just excerpted from an article by Ephraim Karsh, head of Mediterranean Studies at Kings College, University of London. The excerpt is below. The entire article contains much more and can be found here, copied from Vancouver, Canada’s National Post. Karsh’s book, Arafat’s War (Grove, 2004) is a must read as well, at least if one wants to really know “Who Ruined Gaza?”, the title of the article from which the below excerpt comes.

"Under Israeli rule, the Palestinians also made vast progress in social welfare. Life expectancy rose from 48 in 1967 to 72 in 2000 (compared with an average of 68 years for all the countries of the Middle East and North Africa). Israeli medical programs reduced the infant-mortality rate of 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 in 2000. (In Saddam[’s] Iraq, by comparison, the rate was 64, in Egypt 40, in Jordan 23…). And under a systematic program of inoculation, childhood diseases such as polio, whooping cough, tetanus and measles were eradicated. No less remarkable were advances in the Palestinians’ standard of living. By 1986, 93% of the population in the West Bank and Gaza had electricity around the clock, as compared with 21% in 1967; 85% had running water in dwellings, as compared to 16% in 1967; 84% had electric or gas ranges for cooking, as compared to 4% in 1967; and so on for refrigerators, televisions and cars. . . ."

Then came Arafat:

"This combination of corruption and terrorism proved catastrophic… [W]ithin six months of Arafat’s arrival in Gaza, the standard of living in the strip fell by 25%, and more than half of the area’s residents claimed to have been happier under Israel. Things got much worse in 2000… Arafat’s terror war… eradicat[ed] the fragile fabric of civil society that had been developing in the territories during the decades prior to his arrival. Unemployment increased from 10% to an average of 41% during 2002, and the proportion of the population that was poor rose from 20% to over 50%…"

The Washington Post gets one mostly right today in an editorial criticizing federal funding that it fears could amount to a national school voucher program for students displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

The federal government is right to help those states that have had huge influxes of displaced students, but this is not the time to create any kind of large federal schools program, let alone a voucher program: Good federal policy is not going to be made in the wake of a crisis. In the past we have favored vouchers, on a trial basis and as a specific solution to the problems of specific school systems, such as those of the District. By contrast, a federally funded national program would destroy local districts' ability to make their own decisions, and there's no evidence it would help schools or children.

I suspect that the Post is much more concerned with the creation of a widespread voucher program than it is with massive federal spending, as such a program could potentially threaten the omnipotence of public schools. Nevertheless, the Post is correct in stating that any "emergency" bill that would subsidize private schooling should be quashed, inasmuch as I believe that federal subsidy of any public schooling should also be eliminated.

Yesterday I was very critical of an article written by FreedomWorks' Chris Kinnan, in which he advocated a federal voucher program similar to what the Post dismisses today. But if the Post truly wants to get it right, it will admit that the federal government belongs neither in the business of education, nor - in the words of James Madison - in any other business of expending "on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

The anti-Israel, anti-Semitic cast running and supporting the anti-Iraq coalition that is putting on a march in D.C., L.A. and San Francisco this coming Saturday is finally too much to stomach by at least one Jewish group. Harry’s Place today quotes the Shalom Center’s Arthur Waskow: “Some of these anti-war activists taint their opposition by demonizing the whole of Israeli society and by refusing to criticize the "violence of the oppressed," even when it includes terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians by Palestinian groups.” Waskow understates that, “Their misguided views make it much easier for some parts of mainstream America to reciprocally demonize the entire anti-war camp and deprive it of support.” Waskow’s got that only half correct. The entire so-called anti-war movement represented by ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice is controlled by extremists of the worst sort. They are not demonized, except by their own extremism.

The Workmen’s Circle in Los Angeles, hypocritically participating in the demonstrations anyway, said: “The overwhelming emphasis on Israel as the world power committing wrongful acts is so misguided, so obstructionist. It is extremely dispiriting to see it repeated yet again. Regardless of our positions on an eventual resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, indeed on the complex sources of that conflict, the simpleminded conflation of what is happening there with what is happening in Iraq, and an assumption of identity of purpose between the Israeli and American governments, is a strategy that reduces great historical movements to a few "militant"-sounding slogans that are objectively not just anti-Israel but anti-Jewish.”

I wonder if these jerks hope to get medals from their anti-Semitic leaders that they can use to try and excuse themselves from those ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice support would line up to march into the Mediterranean.

Chris Kinnan is the director of public affairs for FreedomWorks, an organization advocating lower taxes, less government, and more freedom. Which is why it's so puzzling that in his latest column Mr. Kinnan encourages federal intervention in New Orleans that would only contradict the three pillars of his group's mission.

Kinnan argues that a portion of the billions of dollars the federal government is flinging at New Orleans in the form of hurricane disaster relief should be spent to "create emergency school-choice vouchers for the children displaced by Katrina."

As part of the overall aid plan, Congress is contemplating billions in educational assistance. With so much at stake, Congress must get this right, and there is an obvious solution: The U.S. Department of Education should administer an "Emergency School Voucher" program. School vouchers get aid directly to the student, and empower parents and children [to] take real control over their education. The federal voucher could follow each young evacuee student to their new school, whether they are settled in a district in northern Louisiana or Texas or beyond. A lot of these students need immediate assistance, but they're not located in a permanent home yet, and vouchers will give each individual student maximum flexibility as their circumstances warrant. The program could be a powerful example of connecting students and educational dollars and giving true educational choice. In fact, if the voucher were large enough, we could even see school districts across the country actively competing to attract evacuee students. That would be a pleasant irony after so much neglect in their own failing public schools.

I appreciate Mr. Kinnan's support of school choice, but encouraging further federalization of public education is anathema to the views of anyone who espouses less government and more freedom, and it makes me wonder how FreedomWorks could sponsor such an article.

To be fair, Kinnan envisions a plan where emergency school vouchers could "provide a path to a permanent local school-choice program throughout New Orleans," which ostensibly could then be used as a model for the rest of the country. And I also realize that Kinnan would like to capitalize on these federal outlays, many of which are apt to find their way into the pockets of corrupt officials in New Orleans. But he's crazy if he thinks this would ever originate at the federal level.

Put simply, the federal government is the problem. Instead of assuming even more responsibility over the states, the U.S. Department of Education should be turned into a parking garage. This, of course, is unlikely. But local school choice programs don't develop with the help of the federal government - they develop despite the federal government!

Unfortunately, Mr. Kinnan makes the mistake that far too many "conservatives" today make. He automatically assumes that the federal government bears responsibility for the problems we should be solving ourselves. Simultaneously, he misses a golden opportunity to outline the true lesson that Hurricane Katrina has taught us. When the chips are down, American citizens - who collectively already have donated about a billion dollars to victims of Katrina - are far more capable of rescuing those in need than our bureaucrats are.

If we're willing to donate to people, many of whom were - let's face it - unintelligent enough to expect the government to save them from a hurricane, why would anyone think we wouldn't donate schooling to poor children if it meant fostering intelligence in the first place?

There aren’t many of us who remember the Barry Goldwater of the 1950’s who challenged many of the safe, consensual policies of the Eisenhower administration as prudent to the point of ineffectual, just tightening a bit the liberal orthodoxy, and excessively reticent to confront the Soviet threat. There aren’t many of us who remember Barry Goldwater’s challenge to the excessively liberal common wisdom of the 1960’s, his conscience of a conservative trumpeting the creed that put the individual first and launched the modern conservative movement said to dominate the Republican Party, which in turn is said to dominate American politics.

But, that creed has morphed into a political machine in which the purism of Goldwater’s beliefs are peripheral to obtaining, keeping, and using power, as often for self-enrichment and glorification as any statist. There aren’t many of us who remember Barry Goldwater’s libertarian core in the 1970’s running contrary to some of the social conservatism that much of the Republican alliance rested upon. Most Republican leaders paid him as much false homage as to Lincoln, but treated him mostly like a loved but aged and quirky uncle. Today, I can’t even remember the last time I heard his name, not to mention his views, mentioned by a Republican.

There are faint echoes today of the debates over the fundamental meaning of conservatism and of liberalism that dominated discourse in the 1960’s and 1970’s. But, that’s all they are, faint echoes heard in the halls and media of power, largely treated as trivial to the business at hand. And, that’s what is at hand, the business of power, not the power of ideas, including the powerful idea of individual responsibility and morality.

Public morality, or poses of it, often hides private amorality and immorality. From the left, Lance Mannion offers a blistering diatribe against conservative hypocrisy that for all its one-sidedness still rings at least half-true. Big-government conservatives, like most liberals, make the common error of substituting emphasis on government solutions for the building of, exercise of, accountability for individual character. Whether conservative or liberal, when daily life becomes about wielding huge, centralized power, the individual often becomes a blur or abstraction instead of a tangible reality.

Some liberals are waking up to their abdication of the field of ideas, now that they’ve been relegated to sideline carping. Michael Tomasky, executive editor of The American Prospect, is worth quoting at length:

“Democrats in Congress hate to talk about ideology, and in some ways I can’t say that I blame them. For most of them, there is absolutely no profit in it. For 25 years, the essential dynamic of Washington politics has been that the Republicans advance an idea and the Democrats develop a rearguard response, a response that says, “Yes, we, too (believe in a strong defense, are troubled by Hollywood values, want to reduce taxes, etc.), we just think the approach has to be tempered with this or that.” We debate the pros and cons of conservative ideology. But only rarely are liberal principles even on the table.
“There may never again be a chance quite like this to draw a crystal-clear line from the A of conservative ideology to the B of the administration’s Katrina failures to the C of the broader lessons about American society. The right, we can be sure, will fight to ensure that its syllogism -- the A of bloated bureaucracy to the B of government failure to the C of replacing government action with private relief -- is the one that takes hold of the public consciousness. Now is the time to make the kinds of arguments Democrats haven’t made for a generation.
“Against the three conservative assumptions that worsened the disaster, we liberals must counterpose our beliefs. We cherish individual liberty, but we also believe in a community in which each of us has equal worth. We believe in robust government to do what the corporations refuse to do, or are not constituted to do well. Finally, we believe in reason and evidence, and we believe that it is a core responsibility of government to respond to them.”

Unfortunately, however, these liberal beliefs, nice generalities, do not translate into any new programs different than the old, and just add burdensome regulations, stifling bureaucracy, and crippling taxes to the fetid mix. Instead of corporatism, as the liberals accuse the right, the left prefers statism. Corporatism may be more responsive to the needs of its customers and the needs to be flexible, but just by dint of size and the dynamics of groups does not either fill all our needs. Both political parties are beholden to their core constituencies and, moreso, organized interest groups purporting to speak for them but more concerned with their leaders’ own pelf.

Both liberals and conservatives who look to government as their conscience ultimately reduce individual responsibility and conscience. Both are ultimately disappointing if one expects any organization to foresee all possible adversities, agree upon their priority, plan how to ameliorate, fund the plans, and execute the programs well. As Arnold King points out, there is “the impossibility of ‘planned improvisation’.” There is also the impossibility of collective morality detached from individual morality.

Out of their loss of power, like conservatives in the 1950’s, liberals are at last realizing they need new thinking. It may be comfortable to see their state of thinking epitomized by their equivalent of conspiratorial Birchers whose insanities we highlight, but below that surface there are some saner thinkers stumbling toward a newer more attractive vision that may resonate over the coming decades. Meanwhile, the primary contrary thinking from the right is more concerned with cutting spending, but of the other guy’s programs, or the same programs but at a state instead of federal level, but not much new that recognizes the fallibility of relying on government programs to the relative exclusion of individual initiative and acceptance of the limitations of group programs.

Both liberals and conservatives have reached virtual bankruptcy of ideas. Both are rummaging around their vaults of oldie goldie slogans, and polls show most Americans except the few most partisan see through both’s emperorial clothes. Both need to really rethink their core assumptions, and take on their vested interests. If conservatives don’t get a new Barry Goldwater soon, the liberals may find theirs first.

UPDATE: Peggy Noonan's column in today's Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal Online, subtitled "A Bridge to Nowhere", is a must read by someone who does remember, and sees through today's sham.

Last week the Center for Strategic and International Studies hosted a fascinating breakfast on Capitol Hill with Marc Sageman, a University of Pennsylvania professor of psychiatry and ethnopolitical conflict.

Sageman summarized for Hill staffers the findings of his book, Understanding Terrorism Networks. A forensic psychiatrist, Sageman uses the scientific method to ask important and fundamental questions like what makes a person a terrorist? What do these terrorists have in common?

The results of his findings, while not surprising, are alarming because it reveals the ridiculousness of airport security policies that single-out old ladies from Nebraska for random security checks. Sageman makes the following findings:

1) Al Qaeda is a diaspora phenomena with most members joining the group when living in non-Arab and non-Muslim societies.

2) Eighty percent of Al Qaeda members join the terrorist group with fellow friends.

3) The great majority of Al Qaeda members were secular and 10% were Christian prior to joining the terrorist group.

4) Two-thirds of Al Qaeda members come from upper-middle class backgrounds.

5) The average age of entry is 26. They are all male.

6) Only 13% are Madrasa educated.

7) Homegrown Al Qaeda members from Arab countries like Osama bin Laden, primarily focused their terrorist activities against their own countries initially, but when this failed to change their nations into a country governed by Sharia law, these members then turned to terrorist activities against the United States and other western powers, for the belief that these countries were propping up governments like Saudi Arabia.

8) Sixty-percent went to college.

9) Most Al Qaeda members studied engineering, with Sageman believing this training leading Al Qaeda members to have a highly independent streak, believing they can interpret the Koran on their own.

10) Three-fourths of Al Qaeda members are married and the vast majority have children.

11) The gift of suicide to Allah must be a clean one. Therefore, Al Qaeda members usually pay off all of their debts before going on a suicide mission.

12) Al Qaeda members are usually elite kids who get homesick and look for others like themselves, usually in mosques.

13) The rate of acceptance into Al Qaeda is only 15-20%, like an Ivy League school. They only take the very brightest.

14) Europe is a hotbed for Al Qaeda recruitment because European societies are very racist, and do not integrate Arabs and Muslims very well into their society. Unlike the United States, where people have the American dream to provide hope, Europe offers no equality of opportunity.

15) Because the United States has done a very effective job taking out the old Al Qaeda, and its recruitment network in Madrasas and mosques in Europe, the new recruitment ground is the Internet. In the last five years, the number of sites devoted to Islamic jihad went from 12 to 5000, with many being hosted in the United States.

This is just the tip of the iceberg from Sageman's book. If we fail to heed his findings, we will continue to waste precious resources on searching folks who don't need it, while being too afraid to go after the potential real culprits, for fear of being impolitic or politically incorrect. Our safety and our nation deserve better.

Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, had perhaps the most accurate prediction of the inconclusive German elections. “I think you very soon will see in Europe an exhaustion of political parties,” Karzai told an interviewer from Der Spiegel, the text of which appeared one day before Germany’s elections. (Captain Ed posts on the failure of Germany's pollsters.)

Karzai’s interview is full of wisdom and insight into the situation in Afghanistan, and in Iraq. For example, he distinguishes between the colonialist border-drawing that made modern Iraq, contributing to its internal divisions, compared to that not being the origin of Afghanistan’s composition, and that Afghans have a long tradition of building consensus compared to less experience with that among Iraqis.

Germany is not ignorant of Afghanistan either. About 90,000 Afghans reside in Germany. Germany has played a constructive role in Afghanistan since 9/11. It hosted the late 2001 UN Talks that led to agreement to form a future government. It hosted follow-up meetings in Berlin in spring 2004 at which 65 international delegations pledged $8.2 billion over the following 3-years, including 320 million euros from Germany. Germany has about 2-thousand troops in Afghanistan, of the approximately 8-thousand International Security Assistance Force, plus civilian humanitarian and police aides, helping to train police forces and to re-establish education and administrative infrastructure.

A source of tension between Washington and Berlin has been Germany’s refusal to engage in military operations, or to substantially expand its or NATO’s presence in Afghanistan much beyond Kabul. Last January, Australia’s former foreign minister, head of the International Crisis Group think tank, called NATO’s Afghanistan mission, “a triumph of presentation over substance.” The Boston Globe article continued: “Human Rights Watch warned in a report that failure in the Central Asian state would signal ‘the global community’s impotence and insincerity in transforming failed states,’ returning most Afghans to ‘warfare, chaos and misery.’ “

America’s ever-ebullient Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, last week met rejection from Germany, supported by other European countries, at becoming more involved in counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan. NATO forces are working at “security” missions, mostly around Kabul, mostly in training and reconstruction capacities. As Germany’s defense minister, Peter Struck, said: “NATO is not equipped for counterterrorism operations. That is not what it is supposed to do.”

David at Medienkritik kindly steered me this morning to an article in Der Spiegel, in German, pay to view, about the Bundeswehr lacking military capabilities. However, David tells me the article says that Germany at some future time may increase its contingent in Afghanistan to 3,000. The U.S. investment over 50-years of tens of billions of dollars does not seem to have yielded much in Germany caring to maintain more than a sham of a modern army.

Britain, Canada and the Netherlands will add some forces, to the approximately 20,000 U.S. forces fighting al Quaeda and Taliban remnants in the south and along the Pakistani border. Germany’s defense minister Struck encapsulated inanity when he opined: “The signal from Berlin should be that NATO will respond to new threats not only militarily, but politically as well.” Britain’s defense secretary, John Reid, expressed more sense when he commented, NATO “has to have forces which are not paper forces.” Reid went on, “All the elements – counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, economic development and counter-narcotics are an integral part of an final solution.”

The additional forces coming from Britain, Canada and the Netherlands will focus on disrupting the opium trade, an important funding source to al Quaeda and Taliban. Otherwise, last week’s NATO meeting concluded with NATO officials “let it be understood that they will wait until the German elections on September 18 before finalizing the deployment plans for Afghanistan.”

They may as not bother. Germany is in stalemate. Nothing more constructive should be expected from that quarter. See the latest election non-results at Medienkritik.

Today’s elections in Germany are important…..aren’t they? If Merkel becomes Chancellor, at best, relations with the United States may be a bit warmer. However, no increase in contributions toward U.S. efforts in Iraq is likely. The integration of Turkey into the EU will not be eased. Little, if any, reduction is likely in the restrictions on competitiveness from the labor laws or the stagnation stemming from the tax burdens and disincentives to risk from the welfare laws. Too many are hooked. About the only bright spot may be the replacement of nettlesome Gerhard Schroeder as Chancellor, but at this point probably only Chirac may care and he will be gone before long as well, and few care any more about either of the Franco-German twits. To keep up with developments, go to David’s Medienkritik. The first exit polls show that Schroeder’s government was voted out of office, with 33% of the vote, but Merkel’s Christian Democrats, at 37% also received less backing than expected. If the exit polls hold, then a stagnant stalemate between contending views of Germany’s future is even more likely to emerge.

Probably of more importance is that the elections in Afghanistan have concluded, pretty peaceably. (Take note, that Germany has played a constructive role in the efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.) Final results of the elections won’t be known for some weeks, as tabulations commence. In any event, the legislators are more concerned with local issues than geopolitical. This is to the good over the longer term, as democratic means of achieving goals takes deeper root in the disparate regions. The key result is already known – Afghanistan continues down the road to more firmly entrenched democracy. The effect will continue on reinforcing the democratic aspirations of those in the other traditionally hidebound satrapies of the Muslim countries.

UPDATE: So, that's why they say about German operas, it's not over until the fat lady sings. The final results seem to be tightening to about one-percent spread between Merkel's Christian Democrats and Schroeder's Social Democrats, according to the latest vote projections at Der Spiegel. Wrinkles in the German electoral system could also affect the final results. Schroeder says only he could be Chancellor. The SPD coalition partner Green's Joschka Fischer, serving as Foreign Minister, rejects any coalition with the CDU. The strengthened Free Democrats, more pro-business than other German parties, but not by American standards, rejects governing with the SPD and Greens. Disappointment with Merkel's showing is evident, although few are talking about the negative impact among traditional Germans of her being female or from the East. Look out for more posturing, and indecisiveness in Germany to meet its crippling problems. See the London Financial Times for analysis.

UPDATE #2: See my "Afghanistan's Karzai best predictor of German election stalemate" in September 19's Democracy-Project.com . -- And, a hearty welcome to all the Instapunditians.

A funny and revealing article about the upcoming Afghani elections.

It is an insult normally confined to the playground rather than bandied around in political debate. But in the run-up to today's historic Afghan parliamentary elections, the vexed question of whether a certain candidate smells or not has become a potentially vote-winning issue.

Could somebody please explain to me why it apparently takes a natural disaster for a U.S. president to vow to cut spending?

President Bush said yesterday the federal government won't raise taxes but must cut spending to cover some of the costs from Hurricane Katrina, responding to a mini-revolt in his party over the escalating price tag.

"We're going to have to make sure we cut unnecessary spending," Mr. Bush said. "We've got to maintain economic growth and, therefore, we should not raise taxes.

Well, hoo-ray for W. for refusing to raise taxes to cover the federal cost of rebuilding areas destroyed by Katrina (whether the taxpayers should so comprehensively cover this cost is another story). But if Mr. Bush needs some input on where to start slashing spending, I've got over 4,000 suggestions right here.

Yesterday around 1:30 p.m. I received word that Edward J. Heil had passed away. He was a World War II veteran, serving in the U.S. Navy from January 16, 1943 to October 30, 1945. He was a sonar operator aboard the USS Capps (DD-550). He was my grandfather.

Readers of this blog know I've been pulling abbreviated duty the past several days while I've been on vacation in the Outer Banks, and it looks like I'll be on a little hiatus for the next few days as I'll now travel to New York to pay my final respects to my grandpa.

One quick story before I grab some dinner and hit the hay in preparation for an early flight tomorrow:

When I was a little kid I always thought it was ironic that my grandfather fought (in part) the Germans because he was 100% German himself. Of course, I had no idea what the term "ironic" meant back then, so I would have said something like "funny" instead. But when I once mentioned this to him, he told me that we were American, regardless of our heritage. And when he said "we," I knew he didn't just mean us, but all families in America (well, legal ones anyway).

This no doubt contributed heavily to my makeup as someone who detests the insistence by many people to divide America along racial and ethnic lines, whether for the means of implementing affirmative action quota programs, banning any and all racial profiling, or simply blaming Americans collectively today for the sins of our forefathers.

Grandpa Heil was not what you'd call a politically correct man, and for that he would be hated by many in this day and age. But that's precisely one of the many reasons I loved him.

Rest in peace, Grandpa.

In the 1950’s, we laughed at “Made in Japan” labels for kitsch and poor quality. In the 1970’s, we stopped laughing and panicked to catch up to Japanese quality and management focus. In the 1990’s we hoped we had gotten our money out of the Japanese stock market in time. In the 2000’s, we’ve largely just ignored Japan.

Japan’s GNP, almost half in size and second to the U.S. in the world, over double Germany’s and over triple Britain, France or China’s, seems to merit some attention. Its stable democracy of 125-million industrious people, strategically situated on the rim of Asia, a firm U.S. ally increasing its armed contributions to ours, seems to merit some attention. Yet, Japan rarely gets much space in our media these days. Its crucial elections only received a few inside news columns, and columnists have been focused on Katrina, SCOTUS and such.

Seasoned Asia reporter Sol Sanders never forgets. Or, I should say, Sanders has forgotten more than most ever knew. He’s been a correspondent for Business Week, US News & World Report and UPI. Those knowledgeable who experienced the Vietnam War know him as one the finest correspondents there, and his contacts and experience continue to be invaluable.

In Sol Sanders’ latest column, “The Koizumi revolution: Japan embraces change, for a change,” he goes behind the vote count of Prime Minister Koizumi’s landslide election gamble.

Sanders cautions, “It’s still early on for a deep analysis,” but then gets to the core meaning of the election. “After a decade of economic stagnation…Japanese are welcoming change.” The importance of this sea change in this very powerful, key country cannot be stressed enough for its potential impact on the next decade.

Sanders proceeds in his usual methodical manner to summarize the open questions about Japan’s future internal and external course. Read it, and keep reading Sol Sanders’ regular column at World Tribune.com for still one of the finest reporter’s commentary on developments in Asia.

Don't miss Ann Coulter's column today deconstructing liberals' understanding of "judicial activism."

If Congress passed a law prohibiting speech criticizing Bush, or banning blacks from owning property, or giving foreigners the right to run for president – all those laws could be properly struck down by the Supreme Court. That's not "judicial activism," it's "judicial."

Invalidating a law that prohibits killing unborn children on the preposterous grounds that the Constitution contains an extra-double-secret right to abortion no one had noticed for 200 years – that's judicial activism. When conservative judges strike down laws, it's because of what's in the Constitution. When liberal judges strike down laws (or impose new laws, such as tax increases), it's because of what's in The New York Times.

It's really not too surprising liberals in our public schools can't teach our kids to read when Democrat lawyers in the Senate can't even read our Constitution.

The past two days, my 5-year old has been practicing reciting the Pledge of Allegiance for his Kindergarten class. He proudly places his right hand on his chest, says each line, then explains what it means. Today's U.S. District Court ruling forbidding the Pledge of Allegiance from Sacramento, CA public schools as "a coercive requirement to affirm God" does not affect San Diego. If it does, after being battled to the Supreme Court, how do I explain to my son that he's a criminal for professing at school his loyalty to faith in God and country?

The perfume of peace, Gaza-style, smells like cordite. In just the few days since the turnover of Gaza to Palestinians seeking a better life, their zeal for free trade has already shown benefits to poor terrorists. Palestinians crossing into Egypt have brought back so many weapons and their ammunition that prices for AK-47's have dropped by a 34%, bullets by 75%, and pistols by 87%, reports an arms dealer in the trade. Israel has, of course, protested to the new Egyptian border guards.

On the other coast, California’s coming catastrophes may make the Gulf Coast’s Katrina catastrophe look comparatively tame. Big earthquakes are predicted, as are big floods from levee breaks.

“With more than 300 faults beneath Southern California, and the giant San Andreas fault running through the state, California is a seismic time bomb. A magnitude 7 quake has a 62% chance of hitting San Francisco in the next 30 years, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS); the risk for L.A. is only slightly less.” So reports Business Week’s cover story on September 19.

Compared to the now likely (but difficult to know until searches are complete) death toll of about a thousand from Katrina, Business Week continues: “Such a powerful quake would cause far more damage than the temblors that shook San Francisco in 1989 or L.A.'s Northridge neighborhood in 1994. A magnitude 7 quake that struck during a workday on a recently discovered fault under L.A. would kill 7,000 to 18,000 people, says the USGS. In San Francisco, 5,800 people would die if a temblor the size of the 1906 quake again savaged the city.”

Compared to the $150 billion estimate of damages along the Gulf Coast, “All told, if the quake hit directly below L.A., the damage could top $250 billion, a USGS study predicted.” A similar magnitude of damages could occur in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Although there are some improvements in earthquake prediction, they are nowhere close to the accuracy or days of warning from tracking a hurricane. Time to evacuate is not a reasonable expectation, nor is hiding in the attic from encroaching floodwaters an option.

Building codes have been upgraded for schools and hospitals. However, an inventory in 2002 by the California architect’s office found over 20% of the schools surveyed still “not guaranteed” to withstand future earthquakes. California isn’t asleep at the switch. The state is spending about $10 billion for hospital retrofits. Voters approved $25 billion in new bonds, part going to help make schools more quake-resistant. Still more is needed.

On September 4, I wrote about the comparable danger in California’s central valley from levee failure, as in New Orleans.

About 22-million Californians depend on the water that flows from its delta. There are hundreds of thousands of people living on low land who could be flooded by levee overflows or breaks. As USA Today reminds us, “Much of the delta was filled in a century ago for farming.” Since, much of that farmland has been turned into housing tracts. “The state looks after 1,600 miles of levees that protect at least a half-million people.” For example, “in 1997, more than 50 California levees broke on rain-choked rivers and killed eight people, forced the evacuation of 100,000 and damaged or destroyed 24,000 homes.” Yet, last January’s report by the State Department of Water Resources says levee maintenance funds have declined from Washington and Sacramento.

As the director of the California water resources departments points out, “it’s an old, aging system that instead of protecting farmland is actually protecting small cities, levees of questionable integrity protecting higher value real estate.”

Technology is becoming available to determine the internal strength of levees and determine measures to strengthen them.

California’s legislators have not been idle. Senator Feinstein and Congressman Pombo last year sponsored an approved authorization of $90-million to shore up the levees and now want the funding released, plus more to be devoted. Before Katrina, Sacramento legislators introduced bills to study the levees further and warn property owners of their flood risks, which did not find sufficient backing to pass. Katrina is the wake-up call.

Congress has already authorized over $63-billion for Gulf Coast relief from Katrina, and another like amount is expected. Principles of insurance require self-responsibility and to commit adequate funds to both prevention and to pooled risks. Several billion dollars should be earmarked to California quake and flood damage prevention measures, matching funds increased for other states to increase their preventions, and a national requirement imposed for property owners in flood plains to buy federal flood insurance.

Steve Schippert, my fellow Marine and blogger, has thankfully not lost his capacity for outrage and action. Steve wrote me this morning, "When a value is placed on death beyond justice, death will inevitably become a business or, in this case, a profitable segment of an industry." Steve delves into the Chinese skin trade, and I don't mean girlie shots. Read, weep, get angry, speak out. Demand accountability from our businesses and politicians who cooperate or who look the other way.

Only President Bush, as President Truman recognized “the buck stops here,” has accepted responsibility in the wake of Katrina for the actions and inactions of the individuals and bureaucracy it is his to lead. We’ve yet to hear comparable self-effacement or expression of ultimate responsibility from Louisiana’s governor or New Orleans’ mayor or from Congressmen, all also culpable for grave shortcomings.

Aside from the most partisan pundits, most Americans realize that even our most stalwart and watchful chief executives and politicians cannot themselves be knowledgeable about and guard against all eventualities, nor be johnny-on-the-spot and everywhere in responding to all problems. Yet, that is what we expect.

Do we have high expectations? Yes. Are those expectations incorrect? No.

We have high expectations because we, most of the American people – left, right, and center, have acquiesced in the election of politicians and the erection of the bureaucracies that promise to do better, and we have convinced ourselves that they always can and should. We are correct in those expectations because, although no man or group of men is able to foresee all or always react promptly and appropriately to all things great and small, it is their sworn duty to do everything possible in that direction. Shortcomings are to be admitted and corrected, not evaded nor dissipated so widely that no one is ultimately responsible.

Politicians get elected by making promises. It is rare that one hears a politician say he won’t promise, whatever, or that we must scale back undue expectations or demands. We need to hear more of this latter reality.

Nonetheless, regardless of promises made or not, there are reasonable minimal expectations that our elected leaders will both act responsibly to marshal resources effectively to avoid the worst of problems and to dispatch resources to their outbreak. When this is not done, the collective wisdom of the electorate more often than not recognizes excessive dereliction of duty, and sends the poor performer on his way.

Yet, one must ask, why now has President Bush stepped forward, and not over the shortcomings in execution of our Iraq mission. After all, regardless of political stripe, except for the relatively very few hardcore isolationists or anti-Americans whose indictments are so utterly contrary to any exercise of U.S. power abroad, there is wide agreement that more U.S. troops on the ground would have been useful early on and that inadequate planning took place for the occupation phase.

In the case of Katrina there truly is much blame to spread around, so that even President Bush expressing responsibility for all federal executive department failures does not detract from our knowledge that there are also many others who truly share the blame in Congress and at the state and local levels.

In the case of Iraq, unless one goes into the widespread blindfold we put on ourselves across the political parties enjoying spending the “peace dividend”, the planning and execution of our Iraq mission is entirely a federal executive responsibility. Admitting or publicly accepting responsibility for failures there cannot be diffused by recognition of others’ failures.

The consequence is that more and more Americans, even the most stalwart defenders of this administration, of our goals in Iraq, or of the inevitable difficulties and fog of war, are uneasy with our faith in the future of our necessary war on terrorism to defend the West and enlarge freedoms elsewhere. That undermines our confidence and resolve throughout our domestic and foreign agendas.

President Carter was not incorrect in speaking of our “malaise” during the late ‘70’s, following on our disappointments in Vietnam, with President Nixon’s integrity, and the shock to our cheap-oil induced wasteful habits. Carter’s futility, his negativity and his lack of programs or leadership to reverse the “malaise”, and his utter cravenness in the face of blackmailers in our Tehran embassy, was rejected in favor of Ronald Reagan’s ebullience about America and its potential for good at home and abroad, and then his follow-through to execute that vision of our “city on a hill.”

Unlike his father, George Bush does profess to have and does have a “vision.” However, his ability to communicate it has been spotty and too often turgidly repetitive. We can blame hostile or ignorant media, or exploitive politicians, all we want and they deserve. Regardless, the large majority of Americans continue to agree to stay the course in Iraq. However, we deserve more for our loyalty. We deserve more honesty from the administration combined with specific positive programs to do better.

What is needed now, especially as he will not be standing for reelection, is for President Bush to go beyond publicly accepting Katrina self-responsibility to self-responsibility for failures in Iraq. Then, he should express specifically what and how much we’ve learned from the failures, and stake out the bold programs needed to correct them in Iraq and in the future. That includes increases in our active and mobilizable forces and, even more important, establishment of a highly distinguished formal group of advisors from outside government empowered to privately to him and publicly to us recommend tactical and strategic policy alternatives, regardless of sacred cows or sacrifices.

Before we slide into and wallow in another fruitless “malaise,” we need bold leadership. President Bush, only he really, can provide that. Otherwise, his place in history, I believe rightly, will be tarnished. The American people have always and will now respond positively to worthy leadership, disregarding the defeatists. We know we deserve worthy leadership. We’re, impatiently, waiting for who will provide it.

The American Conservative Union released a statement today calling on President Bush and Congress to rein in out of control federal spending.

“Let us not lose sight of the fact that prior to Hurricane Katrina, federal government spending was already spiraling out of control,” Keene said. “Excluding military and homeland security, American taxpayers have witnessed the largest spending increase under any preceding president and Congress since the Great Depression.”

Annual non-military and non-homeland security spending increased $303 Billion between Fiscal Year 2001 and Fiscal Year 2005. The acknowledged Federal Debt has increased over $2 Trillion since Fiscal Year 2000 and now stands at $7.9 Trillion.

As much as it pains me to admit it, we're witnessing the consequences of virtual one-party government. Politicians left to their devices are dangerous, and at the end of the day they're still politicians. It hardly matters which party they belong to. Without a responsible check on spending authority, this is what we'll see.

There's no way I want to see the Democrats in power, but it's not good for the country for them to continue to wallow in the deep end. As they say, the Republican Party brought conservatives to the dance, but it's quite clear the dance floor isn't filled solely with conservatives.

There are legitimate commercial uses of the Internet, and by responsible governments restricted by courts to use it to track terrorists. However, there are too many mega-corporations and oppressive governments who are also exploiting Internet potential to steal our privacy, choice and freedom.

Yesterday’s post (“Bubba Yahoos…) discussed Yahoo, Microsoft and Google’s collusion with the Chinese government in repressing freedom of speech on the Internet, and Bill Clinton’s go-along. Bill now claims, sounding like my 5-year old, “He explained this Sunday by saying he was suffering from a bad cold," according to the Washington Post follow-up, and that he says he “didn’t know about that issue until this morning,” as he headed off to another paid appearance at a Golf charity tournament.

The editorialists at the San Diego Union-Tribune today are not so relaxed about the threat to freedoms from trends in Internet management, headlining their concern “Cyber Anxiety.”

By order of Google’s CEO, “CNET was banned from receiving any official communications from Google for a year,” because this tech web site revealed how easy it is to use Google to penetrate Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s private info with Google’s “practice of recording whose computer is being used and what is being sought every time its search engine is used.”

The editorial goes on to comment, “Whatever the reason for Schmidt’s freakout, it belies the dreamy idealism of Google’s slogan [“Do no evil”] – and makes one wonder if a company run by a bully can be trusted with anything, much less the biggest trove of data around.”

The editorial then lashes into Yahoo’s collusion with Chinese authorities to imprison a journalist emailer: “The way things now stand, Yahoo! Is a silent partner to the secret police of the world.” The clear conclusion: “Like Google, Yahoo! has had great success in selling itself as a paradigm of corporate enlightenment. But both companies will find that image fading fast if they don’t get their acts together.”

The editorial concludes, “If Internet users don’t trust the companies they use for e-mail and searches, it’s not like they don’t have other options.”

Judith Klinghoffer is also hopeful. She notes, “people living in totalitarian states excel in finding way around forbidden words. So, don’t declare the battle lost. Do your best to help win it.”

Rafael Behr writes in London’s Guardian that despite the enlargement of freedom that has come via the Internet, “for how long? Ranged against the new culture of digital freedom is a strange coalition of spooks, suits and vandals. There are governments unable to resist the technology that can track our every move; there are corporations lusting after the attention of the 2 billion eyeballs focused on screens; and there are the spammers, clogging up the net with junk mail, hijacking computers to peddle trash.” Behr’s review of the trend to dominate the Internet for commercial and government purposes is well worth studying. His own conclusion is that while he is “fired with enthusiasm” for the freedom promised by web gurus, “I fear the odds are against them. An excess of idealism only seems to prove that the golden age of the web is, in fact, right now.”

The United States and Britain contain enough of the world’s brains and civil libertarians, the governments responsible enough to take constructive action, and the commercial weight, that they can restrict the abuses and shape the future of the worldwide web for all’s freedom. Our legislators need to get on this quickly, construct protective firewalls between decent users, businesses and governments and the mercantile bandits and ideological thugs, or lose for us all this great potential for furthering democracy and respectable capitalism around the world.

Worth Reading: Daniel Drezner post and links, "China 1, Yahoo! 0", offers good perspective.

American internet giant Yahoo admits to being the snitch that put away brave journalist Shi Tao for ten years in a Chinese gulag. Tao posted on the internet a government order barring Chinese media from marking the 15th anniversary of the brutal June 1989 crackdown on democracy activists in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Maybe we Americans should make the cost of doing business with the Chinese too high for Yahoo by not using them?

I'm in the Outer Banks this weekend on vacation and we're waiting for Ophelia to make landfall. Hopefully this one won't be important enough to write about.

Here's my latest column, published at The American Thinker.

We only have dial-up access here at the beach, but I plan on posting every day. We'll see how that goes as the storm gets closer!

Bill Clinton’s angst over failing to act in Rwanda seems to stop at his own wallet.

Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights in China urged Bill Clinton to raise the case with Chinese authorities of their imprisoning a journalist, and to encourage Internet companies to implement their human rights obligations. Former President Clinton was the keynote speaker at the 2005 China Internet Summit in Hangzhou celebrating Yahoo’s $1 billion investment in China.

Yahoo squealed out a Chinese journalist to a 10-year sentence for the grave offense of, as the London Times summed it, “sending an email to exiled democracy advocates in America disclosing the contents of a Communist party document outlining restrictions on the media. It ordered Chinese journalists to beware ‘risks to stability’ posed by the return of dissidents to China on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.” Also see the New York Times report.

Bill Clinton is “certainly up there among the highest paid” speakers in the world, according to a June 2004 evaluation by the CEO of AEI Speakers Bureau, at $100,000 to $300,000 documented per speech, averaging $159,000 per speech in 2002 for a total take of $9.5 million.

All Clinton could faintly utter, as he pocketed his fat fee, was that, “In China, I think that so far the political system and restraint on political speech has not seemed to have any adverse commercial consequences. It will be interesting to see whether that is true of the future.” Yahoo’s position according to its chief Jerry Yang is that “we get a lot of these orders, but we have to comply with the law and that’s what we need to do.”

According to IT World’s report, that is a Wonton evasion: “Companies like Yahoo are not legally required to sign the Internet Society of China pledge,” amorphously written to allow Chinese authorities to pry into and control access to the portal. Human Rights Watch wrote Yahoo’s Chairman, “The pledge is an inappropriate commitment for an industry leader to undertake.”

As the Christian Science Monitor reported, “The revelation [of Yahoo’s “finger” of the journalist] reinforces a conviction among many Chinese ‘netizens’ that there is no place security forces can’t find them.” The report continues, “Legally, Yahoo is not obligated to cooperate with Chinese police. Yet in practice it may have to.” At least, if it wants to be allowed to profit from the China market.

Bill Clinton and Yahoo are not alone in kowtowing to Chinese repression. Microsoft and Google are also cooperating, by banning the terms “democracy”, “capitalism”, “liberty”, and “human rights” for its Chinese customers, who are greeted by “This message includes forbidden language.” The L.A. Times reports Microsoft saying that, “even with filters, we’re helping millions of people communicate…For us that is the key point here.” Not lucre, of course! Then, Microsoft can't tell the difference between communication about freedom or pornography: “Microsoft adds that filtering objectionable words is nothing new. In the United States, the company blocks use of several words in titles, including ‘whore’ and ‘pornography’.”

As Judith Klinghoffer sums up the immoral profiteering, “Oh, yes, the Swiss banks also supplied information to the Nazis about Jewish bank accounts.” Let’s see Microsoft censor me for using the word “whore” to describe Bill Clinton, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google’s greed.

The United States has repeatedly risen from a blow to greater heights of unity, purpose and accomplishment. There is no reason to expect this won’t happen again, post-Katrina.

To do so, we must step back from defensiveness, partisanship and obfuscation to look ourselves in the mirror.

Richard Haass’ column, a painful must read, offers us that opportunity, through the looking glass of foreigners’ perceptions of how we handle the aftermath of Katrina. Foreigners’ perceptions are not proposed as the arbiter of what we do, and no one is proposing that anyone else does better.

But, although it may be painful to see ourselves this way, it offers a valuable opportunity to critically look at ourselves in order to see what we must do to rise renewed and further strengthened. Just looking away, or saying that’s not our image, or saying the mirror is distorted, or saying we look better other days, in other words to just focus on inadequate reporting or the petty performance of particular politicians, is to engage in avoidance of the benefits we may still reap from tragedy.

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, director of the State Department policy planning staff from 2001 to 2003, writes of a “Storm Warning” that the New Orleans “images seen around the world communicated a lack of competence and considerable chaos and suffering.” He goes on, “The global impact goes on beyond impressions. A priority of this administration’s foreign policy is to promote democracy around the world. But the attractiveness of the American model, and the ability of the United States to be an effective advocate for more democratic, capitalist societies, which had already been weakened by the disarray in Iraq, is now weaker still as a result of the disarray at home.” Haass concludes, “In the end, American power is a reflection of the strength of the American economy and the cohesion of American society. Any country must balance what it allocates for guns and what for butter; the United States is no exception….Something will have to give.”

Haass points to examples: “The hurricane will raise additional questions about the ability of the United States to ‘stay the course’ in Iraq…to refocus resources at home;” “The Guard will not forever be available for overseas duty on anything like the current scale. The need clearly exists to expand the active duty Army;” “Americans cannot drill or diversify or substitute their way out of this shortage. The United States must act to cut its consumption of oil;” and “We are not wealthy enough to fund both [guns and butter] to the extent we are now doing and keep taxes as low as they are.”

Needless to say, there are additional measures of maturity, focus and self-restraint we must face up to. Getting on with reforming Social Security and Medicare are the most glaring. Congress stripping the transportation bill of $24 billion of gratuitous pork would demonstrate political seriousness, worthy of our elected legislators.

I, not pollyannishly, suggest that most Democrats will join President Bush and Republican Congressional leaders in a bipartisan biting of the bullet, and the American people will applaud and be reinvigorated in our jaded faith in our system.

I suggest an omnibus bill, fast-track excluded from filibusters, that pairs opening up the Alaskan oil fields with rapidly substantially raising vehicle fuel economy requirements, pairs increases in the Army’s size with a National Guard that can be quickly ordered into action domestically by establishing a joint Defense Department-state governor board, pairs freezing the higher estate tax exemption now in effect – instead of eliminating estate taxes – with requirements that reconstruction in flood zones be preceded by developer payment for adequate flood control measures, pairs lock-boxing current Social Security surpluses for offsetting coming deficits and evaporating the sham curtain behind which excessive spending hides with eliminating the salary cap on Social Security payroll taxes; and strips the just passed transportation bill of its $24 billion of irrelevant pork. Behind the gridlock on enacting these common sense measures, that polls show well over the majority of Americans agree upon, is nothing but petty partisanship, not statesmanship. Any politician who fails to get on board will be clearly demonstrated as a buffoon and obstructionist, and most – I predict – will be defeated at the next elections.

I suggest that America’s critics, at home and abroad, will be set back on their duffs by this demonstration of what America truly is, the fair middle will turn even more away from the hateful words of the insanely petty, and the rest of us will have more faith in and resoluteness in pursuing the American dream here and for others looking to our shining light on the hill.

UPDATE: Take the "No Pork Pledge". Click and get kosher politucs rolling.

Should we be “shocked”, as Claude Rains in the film Casablanca so mock-innocently said of gambling at Rick’s place, that government wastes vast funds?

Yes, we should be shocked and more noble reactions to crises are preferable. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Washington, where better should be expected than from the perennially corrupt Louisiana statehouse or New Orleans city hall.

Yesterday, Congress approved $51.8 billion of additional Katrina aid, on top of the $10.5 billion approved last week. Only nearly a dozen House Republicans dissented, “some of whom expressed concern about accountability for the huge expenditures.” Democrat House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer also raised such concerns but, like all his donkeys and the almost all of the elephants, followed in herd to quickly spend, spend, spend for both immediate basic needs and for experiments in fast distribution of funds to victims of the floods. Little wonder that, “Lawmakers gave $15 million to the Homeland Security inspector general, but that did not mollify critics.” Weekly reports are to be given Congress on the use of the money.

A FEMA spokesman says of the verifying the qualifications to receive the innovative $2000 debit cards to victims, to help with immediate needs, “We’re going to have to take people’s words for it and then get back to them later and make sure that they’ve told us the truth.” He says they’ll be audited later and, “if it comes back and we find out you’ve defrauded us, then it’s a federal crime. We’ll file charges against them, absolutely.” It is reasonable to anticipate the auditing difficulties, and then the larger legal bills and wranglings, and weak court enforcement.

As the New York Times reported, “White House officials and Congressional budget experts now assume that federal costs for the hurricane will shoot past $100 billion,” indeed far past if one includes all the extensive reconstruction of infrastructure and new preventive measures. The spending limit on 250,000 government credit cards was increased from $15,000 to $250,000, another occasion for some to misuse the privilege. Senator Sessions, Republican of Alabama, said, “We are reaching a perfect political storm. We have all the earmarks of a rush to spend money that is very dangerous.” The vote in the Senate was 97-0 in favor of the $51.8 billion. The “rush” is a stampede.

Neither the White House nor the Congress seems to have learned much from prior largess with the taxpayer’s dollars. The Washington Post headlined about past Army Corps of Engineers ea