The mature follower of Jesus stops asking, "Who's going to meet my needs?" and starts asking, "Whose needs can I meet?" Do you ever ask that question? -- Rick Warren
Question: A couple of weeks ago you defended the 1945-bombing of Dresden's civilian population on rightwingnews.com. Traditionally, the estimates of the German casualties from this attack range from 10.000 to 30.000 civilian deaths.
I would very much like you to elaborate on this point and, if possible, relate it to the ethical question of how a patriot deals with the inherent moral problems of nationalism?
If we are to exhume a lesson from the political realities of the 20th century it is most certainly that senseless nationalism _will_ lead to moral transgressions not unlikt the ones seen in Abu Gharib.
To put this matter on its egde: If punishing Dresden's civilians for not deposing Hitler is acceptable then the same must hold true for the attacks on the World Trade Center to the extent that some arab warlord fins Ameican intervention in his region objectable.
Best regards,
Smith Royal,(Denmark)
by Ryan_Royal
Answer: So, you want me to relate the bombing of Dresden to, "the inherent moral problems of nationalism?" That's like saying you want me to explain the relationship between cow flatulence and tomato soup. Sure, I could probably come up with something, but they aren't related in any significant sense.
Moreover, let me add that there are no, "inherent moral problems (with) nationalism." That's not to say that nationalism hasn't been misused by demagogues and tyrants at times (See WW2 Germany for a perfect example of that), but overall, nationalism has been a positive force in world history. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of nations today that would be better off with a lot more nationalism and a lot less tribalism.
If anything, there is more of an inherent moral problem with people who aren't nationalistic. If you live in a country and have no loyalty or love for your own country, you're the one with the problem in my book, especially in a great nation like America.
Going on to the rest of your question, on Abu Ghraib and nationalism: Again, we're back to cow flatulence to tomato soup here. There are a lot of things you could pin Abu Ghraib on. Moral decay, lack of supervision, the cruelties of war -- but, nationalism? Please. What those out-of-control yahoos did at Abu Ghraib was criminal and moronic, but it was like a fall picnic compared to what the Iraqis were doing to other Iraqis before we arrived.
Last but not least, anyone who could say that they don't see any difference between the Allies in World War 2 and Al-Qaeda today is obviously a sick and depraved individual whose ethical compass has been shattered by moral equivalence. Quite frankly, if everyone in Europe had your attitude during WW2 -- scratch that, because there was only one really important nation in Western Europe back then -- if the Brits had your attitude during WW2, and weren't willing to do whatever it took to win the war, you'd be speaking German today and heiling Adolph Hitler the 3rd, who'd be ruling your little country with an iron fist from Germany.
Q&A Friday #46: What's Some Of The Best Life Advice You've Ever Received?
Question: "What is some of the best life advice you have ever received?" -- President_Friedman
Answer: Off the top of my head, here are a few (Some of these are paraphrased):
-- Find a way to make a career out of something that you love doing so much that you'd do it for free.
-- Happiness and fun aren't the same thing.
-- Before you get upset about something, ask if you'll even remember it in five years. If the answer is "no," is it really worth getting upset over?
-- "In life, never spend more than 10% of your time on the problem and spend at least 90% of your time on the solution." -- Tony Robbins
-- If you can't afford it, you don't deserve it.
-- "A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow." -- George Patton
-- "Nothing in life has any real meaning except the meaning you give it." -- Tony Robbins
-- The key to being a good conversationalist isn't what you say, it's paying attention to what other people have to say.
-- Don't beat yourself up for everything that happens to you, but act as if everything that happens to you is your fault. If you don't take responsibility for it, you can't do anything about it.
-- 90% of being a success is simply out working and out preparing everyone else and the last 10% is a dogfight in the free enterprise system.
By the way, I just realized today that I've never talked about the two goals Rightroots has for the 2006 election cycle.
#1) From our debut on Aug 1 onward through the elections, we want to raise more money for our candidates than the Netroots crowd raises for their candidates.
#2) We want the Rightroots slate to have a higher winning percentage than the Netroots slate.
Of course, we could have achieved our 2nd goal easily by picking candidates that were guaranteed winners. However, during the selection process, we actually passed on several candidates because we thought that they'd win easily without our help. Instead, what we tried to do was to pick candidates in competitive races, where a relatively small amount of money might actually help put them over the top.
In any case, when it's all said and done, after the elections in November, we'll see if we managed to meet our goals.
P.S.: After being live for less than 96 hours, 9 of the 18 candidates that we've backed have now passed $1000 in donations. It would be great to see us put 12 candidates over the $1000 dollar mark by midnight.
"In my humble opinion, y'all shouldn't judge your success based upon the relative success or failure of your left wing counterpart. Base your success on the success or failure of the candidates on your slate." -- jones
The problem with going that way is that this is really uncharted ground. Nobody on the right has really done anything like this, other than a $10,000 fund raiser that Redstate did for Van Taylor.
So, how much money do we have to raise to be a "success?" How little do we have to raise to be a failure? If, let's say, 8 of our candidates in these competitive races win and 10 lose, is that a crushing failure, a huge success, or something in between? Since this is such a new venture, it's hard to say.
That's why I think it's a good idea to compare ourselves to the left. At least that will give us some sort of bar we can use to measure how much or how little we achieve with this effort.
Update #2: From the comments section:
"KerryHaters did a fund raiser for a Senatorial candidate for South Dakota or Nebraska, for some screwball that talked a good talk until he was elected, and immediately held Bush hostage for some PORK FOR HIS HOME DISTRICT.
KerryHaters had the best intentions, and let it be known the winning candidate they helped put over the top was playing mighty dirty politics, just like a Liberal or Jeffords would have done.
I forgot the guy's name, he was so personable and said all the right things - BEFORE the ELECTION! Had TONS of help nationwide because of KerryHaters' help.
Maybe it was the guy that beat out Tom Daschle? Cannot remember his name." -- Rose
John Thune is who you're thinking of and he is a solid conservative. He did end up having a beef with Bush over a military base in his state, though. One of the things he said, when he was running against Daschle, was that he could save the base and Daschle couldn't. That was a big deal in his campaign. Then, after he was elected, the base was initially targeted to be closed and he raised holy hell about it. Eventually, the base was removed from the list and everything worked out.
It's hard for me to hold that against him since that was something that he campaigned on and that was really important to his state. Plus, we're talking about a guy with a 92 out of 100 rating from the American conservative union. That's certainly an improvement over Tom Daschle.
Update #3: As of 9:54 PM, EST, we have gotten 14 out of our 18 candidates over $1000 inside of the first 96 hours of our existence. What a great start!
Q&A Friday #46: Why Do People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories?
Question: "In re your conspiracy post:
Why DO people believe in deep, dark conspiracies, when there is a perfect rational, reasonable explanation.
e.g., 9/11 WAS a conspiracy, and a successful one, by Al Queda. Why the barking moonbat LIHOP, MIHOP, controlled demolition lunacy? Where does it come from?: -- N. O'Brain
Answer: If you boil it down to its roots, here are two reasons for people buying into conspiracy theories:
#1) There are a lot of people, sometimes even educated people, who intellectually have a great deal of difficulty with thinking logically. These people usually make up the hard-core kook crowd.
#2) The other people who tend to believe in conspiracies generally buy into them because of a lack of knowledge. They hear a claim made, it sounds plausible, and they just don't have enough information to find out the truth. So, they believe in the conspiracy -- sort of. These are people that a person armed with the facts could probably sway.
Unfortunately, one of the side effects of the internet era is that it's creating more and more of these people in the #2 crowd. That's because if you have an internet connection, a kook website is only a click way. Meanwhile, most of the people who know better consider these conspiracies to be so silly that they don't bother to respond. So, if an average person on the street tries to do any research on a conspiracy theory, what ends up happening is that they find 50 articles making all sorts of similar, yet bizarre claims, and almost no one arguing the opposite position.
"I believe there is a third group John. Motivated by ideology and hatred they are ready to believe whatever helps them feel their ideology and hatred are justified and right. No matter how ridiculous or obviously false their conspiracy theory is, as long as it validates what they believe it is accepted as gospel and defended with vigor. You can group Islamo-fascist terrorists & socialist, bush-hating, anti-war democrats in this 3rd group." -- AlexinCT
I think you're right and I should have talked about the mentality you're discussing in the original post. There are a lot of people out there who hate their enemies so much that they believe the worst of them, in almost every case, whether there's any proof of the allegations being leveled or not.
As conservatives, we see a lot of that with George Bush. But, in all fairness, during the nineties there were Republicans who bought into conspiracy theories about Bill Clinton for the same reasons. In my opinion, a lot of the conspiracy theories about Jews spring from this same sort of venomous hatred.
Q&A Friday #46: How Are We Assisting Israel In This Fight?
Questions: "To what degree are we assisting Israel, covertly or otherwise?" -- mojoe
"Syria is about to launch an attack on Israel. Any thoughts on Israel's 2006 War for Freedom?" -- JMHoffer
Answer: My guess is that the only thing we're doing to aid them in the actual fighting is shipping them laser guided bombs that they've already paid for.
But really, that's all the help they really need. They're certain to have better intelligence in Lebanon than we do and they're already systematically demolishing every Hezbollah owned target of value in the whole country.
That being said, we're running interference for them at the UN Security Council, pushing our mutual goals in this conflict with the "international community," and I'm sure we're also regularly talking to the Israelis about what's going on behind the scenes.
As far as Syria goes, they're no match for Israel. If Syria declared war on Israel today, within a couple of weeks there would probably be Israeli tanks driving through buildings in Damascus. So, you can expect them to keep aiding Hezbollah, but it seems highly unlikely that they'd want to bring Israel down on their heads, especially since George Bush is making it clear that he's not going to hold them back this time.
Update #1: From the comments section:
"I would imagine were kickin them a few bucks a year in foriegn aid, and supplying them with about every piece of equipment the IDF uses. Fighting against the global jihad is something ya gotta do all year around."
We regularly give them aid and we gave them about 2.6 billion last year, which they then immediately turned around and spent on weapons from American companies. It's a nice arrangement.
Update #2: Apparently, we may be doing a little more:
"A report by columnist Sidney Blumenthal in Salon claims that Israel is receiving intelligence from the US’s National Security Agency. Blumenthal claims to be in touch with “a national security official with direct knowledge of the operation” to supply Israel with signals intelligence from American assets to help it monitor armament transfers from Syria and Iran to Hezbollah. He states that President Bush has approved the intelligence sharing. [....]"
On the one hand, if this is true, I'm glad that the Bush Administration has been doing this. On the other hand, you have a former senior advisor to Bill Clinton giving out classified info that may help Iran and Syria get more supplies to Hezbollah.
The person who gave Blumenthal that info? He should spend the rest of his life smashing big rocks into smaller rocks in a Federal Penitentiary. And Blumenthal? Well, if you want people who believe in helping terrorists to murder Jews in the White House, put a Democrat in office. If that happens in 2008, you'll have people like Sidney Blumenthal -- heck, maybe even Sidney Blumenthal himself -- helping to shape our foreign policy and helping to decide how national security issues are handled. Would you trust a guy like Sidney Blumenthal to do that? Well, apparently Bill Clinton did.
Q&A Friday #46: Why Doesn't The MSM Take The Islamofascists At Their Word?
Question: "There are countless clips of Muslim leaders on Arab tv calling for death to Israel, Jews, United States and democracy.
Why doesn't the MSM take these threats seriously? Why don't they take these radicals at their word?" -- Anna_Venger
Answer: They don't take them at their word because if they did, they'd feel obligated to do something about it. They might feel obligated to support the war and say nice things about the people who want to fight the war. Even worse, they might have to admit that they've been wrong about a lot of things. That's why most of them would rather keep their heads stuck in the sand.
Tomorrow, my buddy Right Thinking Girl is going to be getting married. Congrats, monkey girl! I hope you have a lifelong, happy marriage and a house full of children!
Q&A Friday #46: Should I Meet This Guy In California?
Question: "Ok John,I know this has nothing to do with politics but I am in need of a man's opinion: A good friend of mine that I went to high school with contacted me after 9 years through my fishing license here in Oregon he got my sister's number in California and contacted her to get my number. Well she didn't give it to him because she isn't stupid but did get his and I contacted him, turns out we lost touch for a while (he went into the Navy to become a Seal) and now we are in contact. This is the dilemma: He has been not so happily married for 3 years now. I will be going down to CA for vacation at the end of the month, for about 10 days. He wants to get together and have dinner. His wife, conveniently is in San Diego where he lives part-time, the other part of the time he lives in Los Gatos, CA where I am from. So this is the question: should I get together with him or not? Now there was some history with us back when, and yes, it was pretty steamy history. Having said all that I need a man's opinion whether or not I should actually get together with him, What do you think? Honestly." -- karensp9
Answer: When I was younger, I had no idea that men and women wanted something different when they asked you for personal advice.
Men, when they ask for advice, want you to come up with a way to help them solve a problem. They're looking for a means to an end.
On the other hand, when women ask for advice, they just want to discuss the whole thing. It's not a means to an end, it's just part of the decision making process that helps them, eventually, make up their mind.
Since that's the case, I'm not going to tell you what you should or shouldn't do because you won't take my advice.
But, I will say this: when a guy with a troubled marriage, with whom you once had a "steamy history," invites you out for dinner when his wife is away, he's probably planning on having breakfast with you, too -- if you get my drift.
That means you have to decide whether you're willing to live with, possibly at least, breaking up the man's marriage so you can have a little fun up in California. We human beings are weak creatures that can easily succumb to temptation, but at least in this case, you have plenty of time to see where this is going and change direction. You know, you could call him up and say that you'd love to meet him and his wife somewhere or that you just won't be able to make it this time...if that's what you want to do.
Either way, it's your call and ultimately you're the one who will have to be responsible for your decision.
Q&A Friday #46: Do We Know How Many Civilians Are Being Killed In Lebanon?
Question: Does anyone have an estimate of what fraction of Lebanese casualties are civilian? Given that terrorists, by definition, pose as civilians, how reliable are the estimates?" -- Pete_E
Answer: It's impossible to estimate the number of civilian casualties vs. Hezbollah casualties in Lebanon because Hezbollah doesn't wear uniforms, they regularly launch attacks from civilian areas, and they lie about anything and everything if they think it might give them an advantage.
So, if let's say you run across a building with 20 dead adults in it, there's no way to split the Hezbollah fighters, from the people who were aiding Hezbollah (giving them food and shelter, storing rockets) and any innocents who may have been killed.
If there are innocents killed in Lebanon, it's Hezbollah's fault any way for committing an act of war against Israel and then trying to use their own civilian population as a shield.
So, if there's a subject you've been wanting me to tackle or an issue you want to hear my opinion on, just ask your question in the comments section. Your question can be about politics, ideology, history, blogging, RWN, from a liberal, conservative, or libertarian perspective; heck, it can even be about movies, music, literature, or TV. Then tomorrow, I'll select some of the more interesting questions and answer them.
A Mini-Interview With David Siegel, The Spokesman At The Israeli Embassy In Washington
Yesterday, I did an interview with David Siegel, the spokesman at the Israeli embassy in Washington. What follows is an edited transcript of our conversation, including part of the pre-interview, which he agreed to allow me to include. Enjoy!
John Hawkins: If you notice, in general, the right side of the blogosphere is extremely pro-Israeli.
David Siegel: Oh, ...we've noticed. We actually do a lot of blog work. So, you're pushing through an open door whenever you need us. We do a lot of work with lots of (blogs).
John Hawkins: Is...that on the record, can I say that?
David Siegel: Oh yeah. We treat the blogosphere just like we treat the mainstream media. We don't see any difference. In fact, we...believe in explaining what we're doing and why we're doing it to all sectors of America and if you ignore the blogosphere, I don't know how you're supposed to be communicating these days. It just doesn't make any sense...
John Hawkins: That's great...well, let's get started. Give us a general run down on how things are going so far in Lebanon and where you see this conflict going?
David Siegel: ...This is a war against an insurgency, a terrorist organization, and it began that way from Day 1. So you need to have different measurements to define how you win this sort of war, what your objectives are, and so forth. Hezbollah hides among the population. They don't have defined camps, they don't have defined targets. They launch their rockets from inside people's homes.
Their whole purpose is to engage our civilian population while hiding in their civilian population. Our approach is to try to "conventionalize" the warfare which means to separate them from their population while defending our population.
...We believe that in the three weeks we've been in this campaign, we've been very successful and for some reason, the perception in the American media has been very different. ...But, let me give you the hard facts. Nasrallah, three weeks ago, the head of Hezbollah, had (weapons) and deterrence over the state of Israel. He built these capabilities over the last six years. He had 13,000 missiles facing Israel. Iran gave Hezbollah everything it needed to threaten Israel all the way down to Tel Aviv, basically the upper half of Israel.
Now, he does not have that capability any more. In the last three weeks, we took out roughly 70%-80% of the launchers or their missile capability. Now, that doesn't mean they're not going to try to shoot more, but the facts are, that even today, when there were over 200 missiles fired at Israel, most of them were short ranged missiles. Those are missiles that are much more difficult to target because they don't have launchers. Those are things you can launch from your home, your window, and you can hide them under your bed. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the long range, strategic arm of Hezbollah that they would use to hold Israel hostage in a future regional conflict.
...Well, Hezbollah doesn't have the capability of threatening Israel with strategic weapons anymore. That's #1.
#2. We have taken out Hezbollah in its totality. We have targeted its headquarters, its command and control, its arms depots, its communications, ...its cash dispersal system. They've all been taken out. We have film of Hezbollah terrorists being sent into these bombed areas to try to look for cash. All of it was burned. We've taken down their financial structures, their charitable structures.
It doesn't mean they don't have the residual capability to fire missiles at Israel, but it does mean that they're on the run. Their leadership has been underground for three weeks and they barely communicate with the world. When they do, they sound defensive...and we believe, more and more, that they're isolated inside of Lebanon and inside of the Arab world.
John Hawkins: Here's the thing: No matter how much you degrade Hezbollah's capabilities, can't Syria and Iran just send them more missiles?
David Siegel: That is the most important problem that we face....We will push them far away from the border and create the conditions for bringing in the Lebanese army and an international force. And believe me, we will be vigilant whether that international force is effective or not.
...The ability to deny Hezbollah (more supplies) is the 2nd part of this and probably the most important part. ...Iran is trying to resupply them as we speak and every day our air force interdicts more and more convoys coming into Lebanon from Syria. Right now, we can do that. But, what we expect to see is a security structure in place...that will patrol that border and as Prime Minister Olmert has said very clearly that Israel will not tolerate Hezbollah being reconstituted...In the future, (Israel will defend) itself by denying Hezbollah any rocket capability.
John Hawkins: Now, ...(as we've seen), any international force that doesn't have the United States or Britain in it has just never been effective if they have to fight. I know...they haven't worked well in the area either. So, how do you deal with that?
David Siegel: ...We have not had a good history with international observer forces. UNIFIL is a prime example. They've been in Lebanon for 28 years and they've...seen Hezbollah grow and allowed Hezbollah to hide behind them while they attacked Israel. So, this is not the kind of force we want to see. ...We expect this to be a robust force that can enforce stability in Southern Lebanon and enforce the border traffic.
...We got to the point where we said, "Enough is enough." We're not leaving that point. We will be active and vigilant in ensuring that Hezbollah will not become the threat that it has become in the last 6 years. ...We are determined to ensure, by force if necessary, that this will never occur again.
John Hawkins: Everyone seems to acknowledge that Syria and Iran are obviously the ones pulling Hezbollah's puppet strings, yet they don't seem to be paying any price for these attacks. While it's obviously a good idea to kill Hezbollah and destroy their supporting infrastructure, doesn't the road to peace involve harming or threatening to harm Iran or Syria?
David Siegel: Sometimes you have to make sure that the school is drug free before you chase every single drug supplier. Forgive me for the analogy...Israel can't police the world and there are things that we think the (rest of) the world needs to be responsible for. The problem that we have with Hezbollah is a product of a failure of the Europeans, the failure of the international community, the failure of the United Nations to enforce its own resolutions, 1559, which called for disarming Hezbollah.
...We, at this point, don't have any intention of extending this war to other fronts. ...We believe there has to be a division of labor. Israel will deal with Hamas and Hezbollah, which are two terrorist organizations sworn to our destruction, and the world, eventually, will have to deal with the threats of Syria and Iran.
John Hawkins: The Iranians have threatened Israel with destruction countless times and now they're moving forward on nuclear weapons, with which they could achieve their aims. If the international community and/or the United States don't stop Iran from getting nukes, is Israel willing to use any and all methods at their disposal to stop the Iranians from getting nuclear weapons?
David Siegel: ...We've always believed in robust diplomacy as the best option, because any other option would be very dangerous. If the diplomatic options fail, it would be very unfortunate for this part of the world and for the entire world...
...Everyone understands the stakes and what this is all about. It's not just about Lebanon, it's about the future of the Middle-East. It's not just about the border between Israel and Lebanon, it's about whether Iran takes over the entire Middle-East or not. Everyone understands that, whether it's open or quiet, in the way that they approach this.
...Had Iran been nuclear, there is no doubt that this would have been much, much, worse and therefore, I think we should be very thankful that what is enfolding now, with all its difficulties, is enfolding now and not in 5 years. I believe that there is still time to stop Iran and the source of Iran's strength is international weakness. Iran...can pressured, can be sanctioned, and this program can be stopped diplomatically. If that doesn't happen, it will be very unfortunate for the United States, it will be very unfortunate for the entire West, because we will lose the Middle-East.
John Hawkins: Last question, ...people have taken a very tough tone with Hamas, which is appropriate. But, how much of a difference is there really between Fatah and Hamas? I mean Fatah says that they'll accept a two state solution, but do you really believe them?
David Siegel: ...It's less important what the organization is and more important what the organization does. Hamas won the elections and we believe that has led to the problems we are facing now and the crisis in the Middle-East. What basically happened was that Hamas won, but they couldn't deliver. They had no money. They couldn't change their ideology. They couldn't rule, the world wouldn't let it rule under conditions where it denied Israel's right to exist and called for its destruction and continued terror. Then they opened an attack on Israel, in terms of rockets, kidnappings, and so on as a result of their inability to rule. We believe that terrorist (organizations) need to be dismantled whether they're Fatah or Hamas or Hizbollah or any other organization. It's time to draw a line and not to be tolerant of terrorism in any case. Both Fatah and Hamas...are terrorist organizations with blood on their hands: these organizations need to be dismantled.
I'll tell you (what's ironic): Israel and the Israeli people have voted for peace repeatedly. Even four months ago, everyone forgets, that we had elections where the government was voted in on a platform for peace, for creating a Palestinian state under certain conditions, and so on. The tragedy of the Palestinians is that time and time again through history, they've chosen the extreme...and now they have to bear the consequences (of) that. So, all we can do is defend ourselves and try to get the world to be with us...and convey the message that terrorism doesn't work, that it's self-destructive, and that the only way is to put aside guns and to negotiate...
John Hawkins: That's it...(thank you for your time).
If you're thinking about investing in that new tinfoil hat manufacturing firm, this would seem to be a pretty good time to invest:
"More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials assisted in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps Howard/ Ohio University poll. The national survey of 1,010 adults found that anger against the federal government is at record levels.
Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks or took no action to stop them "because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.”
Yes, 36% of Americans believe, in Democratic Underground speak, that Bush LIHOP (Let it happen on purpose) or MIHOP (Made it happen on purpose).
After looking at these depressing numbers, I went looking for the Demographics, so that I could at least reassure myself that there were a lot more liberals who believe this nonsense than conservatives. Unfortunately, the link to the file containing the demographics seemed to be broken, but I did come across something else that was interesting.
Apparently, about 35%-40% of Americans will believe just about any halfway plausible sounding conspiracy theory that comes down the pike. Here are some more polling numbers from Scripps-Howard:
38% of Americans think it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that the, "federal government is withholding proof of the existence of intelligent life from others planets?"
40% of Americans think it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that, "Officials in the federal government were directly responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy."
What does this mean? Do the same 40% of people believe every conspiracy theory? Are there different people who believe in each one? What are the consequences of this? Why don't we see people, hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets, demanding that Bush be put on trial for treason?
Personally, I think this just goes to show you the limitations of polls. If you believe the Scripps-Howard numbers, there are around 100 million Americans who you'd think would applaud a Senator calling for Bush's impeachment and trial for treason over 9/11. So, why aren't there pols running on this as a campaign issue?
Because most of the people who believe this nonsense, believe it based on some silly conspiracy website, something they heard third hand, or they've decided it's true based on feeling. They know they don't have much to back up what they believe and just aren't sure enough of what they think to make decisions on it. On the other hand, the people on the other side are armed with facts, know it's absolutely not true, and are willing to speak up and say so.
This is where people who rely heavily on polling information blow it over and over again. Yes, polls are very useful, but they don't accurately measure the depth of feeling people have about an issue. That's why there are times when a politician will benefit politically from voting against an issue that 60-70% of the public favors. If people want to go a certain way, but don't feel strongly about it, they won't have nearly as much impact as a smaller group of voters who are passionate. That's why you've always got to take poll numbers with a big grain of salt.
Jack Kingston challenged the conservative blogosphere to raise $26,000 by Friday at midnight and said that if we pulled it off, his PAC would give $14,000 to candidates of his choice from the list.
Certainly, there were people who were skeptical that we could pull this off. For example, over at Blog P.I. (beta), William Beutler, the ex-editor of the Hotline's Blogometer (On a side note: Shouldn't they change the name to the Hotline's Liberal Blogometer given how little time they spend comparatively covering the right side of the blogosphere?) had this to say yesterday:
"As of this writing [update: Danny Glover has more] the blog-friendly Rep. Jack Kingston and Senate Maj. Leader Bill Frist have added their names to the Rightroots group. Kingston — who has put more stock in his blog guy, David All, than pretty much any other GOP member of Congress — has promised to donate $14,000 if the Rightroots can raise $26,000 by Friday midnight. With $12,070 raised so far, Kingston might not have to follow through on that — although a late-night arm-twisting session reminiscent of the 2003 Medicare vote wouldn’t be too surprising."
I exchanged emails with William, who seems to be a great guy, before and after his post went live and last night I mentioned to him that he should have spent more time listening to me and less time listening Chris Bowers over at MyDD. If he had, he wouldn't have had to add this addition to his post:
"Machiavel is right — the fundraising did pick up today, and Kingston will definitely be chipping in the 14 grand, and crawled the first day or so. Rightroots jumped over this bar — and in August, so not too shabby. So I withdraw gibes. While Bowers clearly doesn’t want it to work, I’m only saying the PAC site must improve to work over the long run. Also in my defense, I watched the Rightroots fundraising total inch slowly upward on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, and the Rightroots ABC page says “(Candidate Totals Updated Daily).” Sounds like “once daily.” So how about a fundraising bat?"
Oh yes, Kingston will be chipping in that $14k because as of right now, we're at $28,527.06 and rising. If you add in Kingston's $14k, that means we've already insured that our candidates will get $42,000 -- and we're not even a week in.
Much thanks goes out to Jack Kingston, Bill Frist, and everyone who has helped get us off to a great start! Also, thanks to everyone who has given us money and the people who'll be donating in the future. We're just getting started with this project and if people stay involved, we can make a big difference by the time November rolls around.
"You can help Rightroots put more Republicans in office by donating here or by spreading the word."
Excerpts Of The Day: Ann Coulter Knows How To Dish Out The Copy
A few excerpts from Ann Coulter's latest column, which features questions and answers that were left out of a Baltimore Sun interview with her:
SUN: The last time we spoke, you told me you're routinely misquoted by newspaper reporters. What are a couple of the more egregious examples? Why does this happen?
Ann Coulter: It happens so much, I don't even keep track of it anymore. The last one I remember was when I said "cutting the tax rate on capital gains seems to have increased tax receipts for fiscal 2006, just as supply-side economics predicted it would." It came out in the paper as, "I worship Adolf Hitler and share all of his goals, especially the 'final solution' to the 'Jewish problem.'"
I have no idea how it happens, given the strict objectivity and rigid nonpartisanship of the American media.
SUN: Any comments on ...Kofi Annan
Ann Coulter: That guy? Isn't he on the ground fighting with Hezbollah?
SUN: Any other wild, hippie-esque practices we should know about?
Ann Coulter: You mean other than the fact that I live in a filthy van with a dog, a gentleman I refer to as "my old man" and our daughter "Diversity Seagull," and we make our living weaving hemp baskets? No, not really.
Oh boy, oh boy -- it looks like the fun is about to really get started in Connecticut:
"Millionaire businessman Ned Lamont opened a double-digit lead over veteran Sen. Joe Lieberman less than a week before Connecticut's Democratic primary, according to a poll released Thursday.
Lamont, a political novice, has support from 54 percent of likely Democratic voters in the Quinnipiac University poll, while Lieberman, now in his third term, has support from 41 percent of voters. The sampling error margin was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
A similar survey July 20 showed Lamont with a slight advantage for the first time in the campaign."
If, as expected, Joe Lieberman is defeated by Ned Lamont next week, there will be much cheering on the left side of the blogosphere -- and then, it may just start to dawn on them that the worst thing that can ever happen to you sometimes is to get exactly what you want.
That's because, what the left side of the blogosphere will have is a candidate, Ned Lamont, who'll probably be at least 15 points behind Joe Lieberman, who'll have most of the Republicans, independents, and even a significant chunk of Democrats still in his corner.
This is going to lead to a lot of dilemmas for the Democrats:
-- Do Democratic politicians please the netroots by campaigning for Lamont, who will probably lose, or for Lieberman, who they will probably be working with for the next 6 years?
-- Is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee going to pour millions of dollars into Ned Lamont's campaign in an effort to beat Joe Lieberman?
-- Lieberman will be an incumbent with a lead, so he will get money. But, are Democratic donors going to give money to Ned Lamont to help him beat Joe Lieberman?
-- Are Jewish and Hawkish Democrats going to rally to Joe's side or will they stick with the Democratic candidate?
Meanwhile, the left side of the blogosphere has poured an enormous amount of time, money, and effort into this race. They own it....and they will continue to own it, for another 3 months. Moreover, if Lamont loses, they'll own that, too. And if Joe Lieberman gets back in for 6 more years as an independent and moves to the right, every time Joe goes off the Democratic reservation, there will be Democrats cursing, "the #$$@#$@# netroots," for causing the whole mess.
49) Donald Kagan: The Peloponnesian War (A: As you read about this epic 25 year long war between Greek States that happened 2500 years ago, you will, believe it or not, see parallels very applicable to the war on terror pop-up.)
47: Desmond Stewart: Early Islam (Great Ages of Man) (B+: It was interesting to read a book about Islam that was done pre-9/11. Lots of details about Muhammad and the power struggles after his death)
44) Fletcher Pratt: The Battles That Changed History (B: This was a good read overall and Pratt is a skilled writer, but a little more detail at times would have been helpful)
The amendment's sponsor said senators were so embarrassed by that July 13 vote that most felt they had to reverse course and vote for it this time -- especially after so many were on record in May voting to build the fence in the first place. The amendment, which provides nearly $2 billion for the project, passed 94-3, with 66 senators switching from "no" to "yes" votes since last month.
"I think people wanted to get right," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican. "People heard from their constituents after they voted to authorize the fence in May and then voted against funding it a couple of weeks ago."
Over a 3 week period, 66 Senators changed their vote? That tells you everything you need to know about which side has the momentum on illegal immigration and here's a newsflash: It isn't the open borders/amnesty crowd.
You look at which members of Congress are standing tall on the illegal immigration issue and talking openly and proudly about which way they voted to their constituents and again, newsflash: It isn't the open borders/amnesty crowd.
There's a simple message the people are sending here: the House approach is right and the Senate approach is wrong. That's something every Republican in the House should remember when they sit down with the Senate later this month to try to hammer out a compromise. If something gets done, it better be because the Senate came 90% of the way towards the House, not vice-versa. If that isn't the case, if the Senate wins out, it will probably cost the GOP the House and the Senate, no matter what else happens and that's no exaggeration.
One of the hottest races in August features two Republicans going toe to toe in Michigan's 7th District. The incumbent, establishment candidate Joe Schwartz, is facing off against conservative challenger Tim Walberg in a Republican primary that will be decided next week, on August 8th. Because there is no serious Democratic challenger in the district, the winner of the primary will be going to Congress.
Although Walberg tells me his internal polling has him up, 41-34 over Schwartz, this is an open primary. That means Democrats are allowed to vote and they're expected to heavily favor Schwartz. So, not only does Walberg have to overcome a candidate with all the advantages of incumbency, he has to defeat his democratic allies as well.
Can he pull it off? We won't know for sure until next week. However, after you read this edited transcript of an interview that I did with Tim on Monday, it'll be hard to blame you for rooting him on to victory.
John Hawkins: Now, I understand that in 2004, Joe Schwartz managed to get elected to Congress with just 28% of the vote. Tell us how that happened.
Tim Walberg: Well, it was the primaries in 2004 and it was an open seat...It ended up that Joe Schwartz (was running) and five other individuals got in as well -- who were pro-life and conservative...So, there were five of us conservative pro-lifers who split up the vote five ways and (Joe won with) 28%. That was then, this is now. This time there are just two of us. It's Tim Walberg and Joe Schwartz, conservative and liberal. We do have a clear contrast..and we don't have that split potential.
John Hawkins: I heard that you once made a pledge never to vote for a tax increase and kept it. Tell us a little bit about that?
Tim Walberg: ...I spent 16 years in the Michigan House of Representatives and signed on to the no new tax pledge numerous times. ...For 16 years, I never voted for a tax increase and that's a badge of pride....I took that pledge and I'm taking it again...this time...saying that I will not vote for any new tax increase. That's not (a pledge) I'm worried about keeping. ...The issue now is how do we reduce the spending?
In 16 years in the State House, I not only voted against any tax increase, I also either voted for, sponsored, or co-sponsored 30 tax cuts during that period of time. ...I also worked...to take the pork barrel spending out of our Michigan budget. I offered a pork barrel list every year (so) that...my constituents could read about spending for sex change operations for prisoners and other programs like that and...they gave me a lot of support to say, "no," to spending. I'd like to do the same thing in Washington.
John Hawkins: Do you think the Schwartz campaign has been honest during this campaign?
Tim Walberg: (Laughs) I guess I'd have to ask you to be more specific. Honest about my record or about their record?
John Hawkins: Either -- or. Do you think they've told the voters the truth about his record. Do you think they're telling the truth about your record?
Tim Walberg: Well, I don't think they're telling the whole truth; that's for sure. When they talk about things like his being a fiscal conservative, yet no one has explained why he voted for significant pork barrel...items. When I debated him last week, ...he said, quote, "I don't have time to look for all that pork barrel stuff." ...He also said taxpayers aren't interested in that spending. Well, I beg to differ. I think they are.
...I think he has been unclear, at the very least, with his record...and he says, "I don't support amnesty," yet he supports the...plan (produced by the Senate) with John McCain and Ted Kennedy in the lead...
John Hawkins: Let me ask you a related question, Tim. If a voter in your district came up to you and said, "Tim, give me 3 differences between you and Joe Schwartz that will convince me to vote for you," what would you tell him?
Tim Walberg: I'm 100% pro-life. I believe in the 2nd Amendment and (think) that it's for individuals, not for (our) collective society. I believe that government is too large, costs too much, spends too much, and has too much regulatory power in our lives. Those are the three key differences between Tim Walberg and Joe Schwartz.
John Hawkins: Now, you've called yourself the "conservative choice" in the race. Why would you say Joe Schwartz isn't a conservative?
Tim Walberg: Well, a guy who votes for pork barrel items...is generally not considered a conservative. One who supports amnesty for illegal aliens is not considered a conservative. ...When you get down to the...definition of marriage being between one man and one woman and you're the only Republican member of the House delegation from Michigan that opposes the President's push for defining being between one man and one woman, that doesn't (seem) conservative.
Then you need to look at his endorsers. Organizations like a bunch of unions, Planned Parenthood, Triangle Foundation, Pride Pac, Log Cabin Republicans -- you don't normally see those organizations endorsing Republicans unless they're extremely liberal...So, in my mind, it's not difficult to define Joe Schwartz as being liberal in contrast to my side of the ledger, where I am a conservative ...having support from organizations like all of the right-to-life (groups), The Club for Growth, The National Taxpayers Union, Citizens Against Government Waste, Americans for Tax Reform, ...Gun Owners of America...I think it's a clear distinction...
John Hawkins: Now, what kind of message do you think it would send to Congress if you were able to knock off Joe Schwartz?
Tim Walberg: It says that conservatives can win. It says that...if people have a chance to choose between one liberal and one conservative, they'll choose a conservative every time. I think it also says that the Republicans need to understand that people are tired of (candidates) talking like Republicans, but acting like Democrats.
They're tired of this administration, not because of George Bush's policies, but because he has been unwilling to stand up and veto excessive spending that Reagan would have choked on. Reagan vetoed a highway funding bill because it had a 121 pork barrel items. He called that unconscionable. This (highway bill) has 6,000 pork barrel earmark items in it. Reagan would have had no trouble vetoing that.
When they look at a Congress that stands up for all the liberal causes and votes for minimum wage increases, led by Republicans -- the people back in the conservative districts...are saying, "Enough is enough. You're using us conservatives. You expect us to carry you through and get you into office, but then you walk away from us. We're going to...take an incumbent, that was put into office as a Republican, but voted liberal, and we're going to throw him out."
"Commoners" Riding On The Elevator With Senators? Well, I Never!
It's seems that the sweaty hoi polloi visiting the Capitol have gone too far: now they're even using the same elevators as members of Congress! The New York Times has the latest on this appalling development:
In addition to lofty issues of war and peace, the Senate is grappling with another urgent matter: the senators-only elevators at the Capitol are being overrun by the unelected.
...The crowding extends to the elevators, one of the few sanctuaries available to beleaguered lawmakers as they try to navigate between the Senate chamber, various hearing rooms and offices in the Capitol.
...Add the elevator problem to the litany of senatorial hardships, somewhere between flying coach and the high costs of barbering.
At times, senators even find themselves on public elevators, an ordeal fraught with the possibility of having to push their own buttons (the senators-only elevators usually have attendants).
Worse, senators sometimes share their moving sanctums with staff members, lobbyists and T-shirt-clad tourists who apparently missed (or ignored or cannot read) the senators-only signs.
...“There’s all kinds of lore associated with the Senate elevators,” said Charlie Cook, a Senate elevator operator during his college days at Georgetown and now the editor and publisher of the Cook Political Report, an independent newsletter.
Mr. Cook mentioned one episode, which he attributed to “accepted lore” but did not witness: Senator John Tower, Republican of Texas, was said to throw a volcanic tantrum when an elevator operator did not recognize him and failed to heed his request to take him directly to the basement.
“Hold onto your hat, cowboy,” the attendant is reputed to have told Mr. Tower, who was wearing cowboy boots. “I’ve got a senator I’ve got to pick up.”
Can you just imagine Ted Kennedy having to stand there on the elevator, next to a farmer from West Virginia who's looking at old Teddy like he's something that he just scraped off of his shoe? Oooh...oooh, then the farmer says, in his Southern drawl, "Leaving that girl there to die, that was wrong," and Kennedy's face scrunches up, he just can't stand it, but he doesn't say anything back and just looks down at the floor in shame.
That's a beautiful little dream...
PS: A little message for the people up on the Hill: We pay your salaries. That means we're your bosses, not vice-versa. If you need more elevators, build them. But, if you can't handle standing next to a taxpayer for an elevator ride, you're in the wrong job.
I Wonder If Ned Lamont Is Wondering If That Netroots Money Is Worth It About Now?
Here's a rather tasteless photoshop of Lieberman from the liberal blogosphere's favorite ultraharpy, Jane Hamsher:
You know what the really weird thing is -- well, besides the pic itself? There's nothing about race, racism, or any related topic in her post. It was all just standard lefty boilerplate like:
"Lieberman has been an integral part of the GOP's bully machine for the past six years, the Democrat useful for his willingness to dicipline his own kind. Ned Lamont is running a legitimate primary contest and Joe is refusing to abide by the results of that primary. As Lowell Weicker said the other day, when he became an independent he didn't screw with the Republican primary first (my words not his) he just left. Joe is mucking up the Democratic primary and then abandoning the party to attack it from the outside. How this is the fault of Ned Lamont or his supporters I would very much like to know."
Who writes a post like that and then goes, "You know, what would really make this post hum? A picture of Joe Lieberman in blackface for no reason whatsoever. After all, there's nothing more hilarious than a Jew in blackface!"
Of course, this photoshop isn't all that surprising because Jane Hamsher has no class, but....ah, that about covers it.
"I live in CT and I can tell you if we could muster/harness half of the hatred these loony libs have for Lieberman (1/100th if we were talking about Bush) and redirected it towards Islamo-fascist terrorists, the war on terror would be over today." -- AlexinCT
John Hawkins Vs. MyDD's Chris Bowers On Rightroots
Over at MyDD, Chris Bowers, one of the heavies in the netroots group, has weighed in on Rightroots. Here are some of the comments from Bowers, with mine following:
"Now, is a less official capacity, a collection of right-wing blogs has created something called "Rightroots," which, as Kung Fu quip tells us, was created to counter Act Blue...
So I went to the Rightroots site to se if they really had created a counter to Act Blue. Immediately, I recognized that they had done no such thing. There was no way for people to start their own fundraising pages or create their own slate of candidates. Instead of being able to give to every candidate for federal office, every party committee, and to candidates in several states not running for federal office, the only options available to people not in control of the page were to give to a fixed slate of around 18 candidates. Further, there were no links available to local blogs covering the race, candidate websites / official blogs, volunteer pages, or lists of campaign events. In short, this page offers only one way to become active in the 2006 elections: donate to their officially endorsed candidates.
It quickly became obvious to me that this page was not a counter to Act Blue, but instead a counter to the Dailykos / MyDD / Swing State Project combined netroots page at Act Blue. After clikcin gon one of the blogs supporting the project, Right Wing News, my suspicion was quickly confirmed:
Now, I don't know whether or not they are confused, and have mistaken the Dkos / MyDD / SSP page for all of Act Blue. It wouldn't be the first time that an outsider to the netroots scene has considered the entire progressive netroots to be the same thing as Dailykos / MyDD."
First of all, it's sort of funny that he asks whether we've "confused" the netroots page for all of ACT Blue, because he has apparently confused Rightroots with ABC Pac. Rightroots is a slate of candidates selected by conservative bloggers to compete with the netroots Endorsed Candidates. We're actually completely separate from ABC Pac, which wants to ultimately compete with ACT Blue.
Let me also say a kind word about ABC Pac as well. They could have sat this election cycle out, gotten some funding, and then gone live with every little feature that Act Blue has and more. However, when I came to them, they saw a great opportunity to make a difference in this election cycle and simultaneously get some publicity for themselves in a high profile effort. That's why it made a lot of sense for them to jump in now, even though they're not able to offer multiple slates yet like Act Blue. The money and publicity they're going to get because of the Rightroots effort will put them in position to be the Republican answer to Act Blue next time around.
Also, let me add that most of the options that Bowers is talking about are useless. For example, Act Blue links to bloggers talking about particular races. Uh, OK. First of all, do people really care what a blog like a A Chicken Is Not Pillage has to say about the John Tester/Conrad Burns race? Even if they did, his last post on that topic is from July 28th. So, why clutter the page up with that nonsense?
Same goes for campaign events and allowing people to be volunteers. The people looking at these pages are going to be coming from all over the country, not from local sources. So, someone from, let's say Florida, might kick in some money to the Lamont campaign, but are they actually going up there to man a phone bank? No. So again, for the most part at least, you're talking about more wasted space.
The one thing that I was really interested in initially having up was the candidate websites, but the ABC Pac guys asked me if it really made a lot of sense to give people a link that would cause them to leave the page or become distracted while they were trying to give us money. That made perfect sense to me and that's why I'd now prefer not to have the website addresses of the candidates on there.
Now, here's more from Bowers:
"Demostrating a bit more both how conservatives are afraid of the progressive netroots and how much of a top down effort this is, it is important to note that many of hte websites involved int eh project are riding the conservative pundit welfare gravy train. At the very least, as I was told over email, "Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits is a senior account executive at Marsh, Copsey & Scott, a Republican consulting firm. Townhall is an 'independent' subsidiary of the Heritage Foundation. Human Events Online is Mellon-Scaife. Right Wing News is written by a Human Events contributor." These people are not grassroots--they are officially part of the Republican / conservative machinery."
You know, I really, really, wish this had been a top down effort. I wish that I would have gotten a phone call from Karl Rove where he said, "Hawkins, I need you to set up a way to get the blogosphere to give money to GOP candidates. We'll be sending you $25,000 dollars in walking around money to get it started and if you need any endorsements or links, just ask me, and I'll put in a call."
Instead, this project, which is unlike anything that's ever been done before on the right side of the blogosphere, had to be put together from scratch in less than 3 weeks. Some people would have probably told you it was impossible.
To begin with, the right side of the blogosphere is smaller than the left side. Furthermore, my assumption was that at least 3 out of the 4 biggest blogs on the right, for various reasons, wouldn't be on board and would probably never link us at all (PS: I really hope I turn out to be wrong about this). So traffic wise, we were starting in an enormous hole. (That's part of the reason why I'd love to see some more conservative news mags and talk radio hosts involved. Email me if you want to help out.)
Then, we still had to find a place to host this project and handle the money and when I made a decision to get this thing started, I didn't even know ABC Pac existed. So, I approached three other sources and asked them about handling the money end of things before I worked things out with ABC Pac.
Next up, keep in mind that I made a snap decision to do this on the 12th of last month. So, that meant a selection committee had to be assembled, we had to choose candidates to be studied, they had to be researched -- then a slate had to be sent over to ABC Pac which had to prepare the page, and then we had to promote this thing to make sure it would have a decent debut -- all in less than three weeks.
So yeah, top down would have been great because we would have had support from the top all along. But instead, this whole project was started by a B-list conservative blogger from North Carolina who managed to talk everyone else into participating (And thank God they did, because without Mary Katherine Ham, Robert Bluey, Erick Erickson, Ed Morrissey, Patrick Hynes, Lorie Byrd, ABC Pac, and the other people that have helped out, this thing wouldn't have gotten off the ground. Now, let's hope we can keep it in the air!)
PS: Since I'm shattering the liberal illusions here, let me add that from where I'm sitting, there isn't much evidence of any "gravy train." I know, I know, from all the stories you hear, you'd think there were Republican donors and conservative think tanks throwing around so many wads of hundred dollar bills that it would look like a green snowball fight. I wish that were the case because it would certainly be a lot easier than living on the small amount I make from my Human Events columns and advertising revenue, especially in the middle-of-summer, when political ads tend to just trickle in.
Over the last few days, it has been fascinating to watch the whole Mel Gibson story unfold. Here you have a wildly popular actor, who has been unfairly accused of anti-Semitism in the past because of his magnificent movie, "The Passion of the Christ," going on a drunken, anti-Semitic tirade against some police officers that included gems like, "[Expletive] Jews … the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?"
This has spawned a couple of obvious questions. The first being: is he an anti-Semite? Well, let's face it -- drunk or not, you don't pull obnoxious rants about Jews out of the ether. On some level, that's probably what he believes.
The other big question is: what now? Should Gibson be shunned? Should he be ignored? Here's how I look at it: while Gibson was drunk and apparently suicidal, he said some really stupid things. Would you want the rest of your life to be defined by some moronic, horrible things you said during a drunken confrontation with a cop?
"I'm not just asking for forgiveness," Gibson said. "I would like to take it one step further and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one-on-one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing."
It was the second apology the 50-year-old Oscar winner has issued through Nierob since his arrest.
Gibson said he is "in the process of understanding where those vicious words came from during that drunken display," and hopes members of the Jewish community, "whom I have personally offended," will help him in his recovery efforts.
"There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of anti-Semitic remark," Gibson said. "But please know from my heart that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot. Hatred of any kind goes against my faith."
Gibson acknowledged "there will be many in that community who will want nothing to do with me, and that would be understandable. But I pray that door is not forever closed."
The actor-director said he must take responsibility for making anti-Semitic remarks, because as a public person, "when I say something, either articulated and thought out, or blurted out in a moment of insanity, my words carry weight in the public arena."
Those are the words of a contrite, humiliated man, not another David Duke.
Furthermore, it's not like we're talking about the Secretary of State here: Mel Gibson is an actor. If we started blacklisting the films of every Hollywood actor who was obnoxious, racist, spoiled, anti-American, or a weirdo, so many people would be out of jobs that the entire film industry would collapse.
So, despite the fact that I thought what Mel Gibson said was abhorrent, I'm not going to skip any of his movies. After all, if I can still watch and enjoy Michael Moore's, "Canadian Bacon," I can certainly stomach Mel's movies.
A while back, I moved over to my current blog host Dreamhost because my host at the time was having horrible, daily problems with their MySQL database.
Dreamhost was cheap, they had a great back end, tons of features and they were reliable. Unfortunately, their service has slowly and steadily gotten worse. Now, we're finally getting to the point where they've been down practically every single day for a couple of weeks. Just look at their Status Page, and keep in mind that it doesn't even come close to showing every time that they were down.
Over the last two days, they've been down for approximately 12 hours.
Here's the explanation their rep sent to me today to explain why my website was down for 7 hours:
"I've reset your web server instance and it's back up again."
Gee, you don't think you guys could have done that 6 hours and 45 minutes ago, do you?
Are they having a run of bad luck, terribly understaffed, or just completely incompetent? I have no idea, but this just can't continue.
So, as much it pains me to say, because of the incredible inconvenience involved, I'm going to have to change hosts. So, can some of you suggest a competent, well run hosting service that offers services at a reasonable price?
Jack Kingston must have really been happy to see some Republican bloggers finally out there raising money for the GOP because he has made us an offer we can't refuse:
"Dear Friends,
I commend the efforts of the Rightroots movement for providing a forum which seeks to help the Republican Party secure our majorities in the House and Senate, and might even push some competitive races over the finish line in November.
I strongly believe that small donations from a large number of people will help influence public policy and change the face of politics in Washington.
This is our opportunity to send a clear message to folks that Republicans don't just beat Democrats on the streets and on Election Day, but on every battlefield, including the Internet.
I'm going to make a pledge: If Rightroots raises a total of $26,000 by 11:59 PM (EST) on Friday, August 4, I will contribute a total of $14,000 directly to some of the candidates from my Leadership PAC in the name of our movement.
It's time for action, and these candidates need our help. Together, we can do it.
Sincerely,
Jack Kingston
Member of Congress"
Yes, you are reading that correctly. If Rightroots can raise $26,000 by midnight Friday, Kingston's PAC has agreed to chip in $14,000 to Rightroots' approved candidates of his choice.
Think about that, folks. If we meet the challenge, then after being live for just 96 hours, we'll have been responsible for raising $40,000 for Republicans in key races all across the country. That is not too shabby, if I do say so myself.
How close are we to reaching our goal? On Day 1, Rightroots raised $8,470. That means we need to raise another $17,530 over the next three days in order to get that extra $14,000 for our candidates. So, if you're thinking about chipping in some money to the Rightroots approved candidates, now would be a great time to do it!
Rightroots: The Republican Answer To The Lefty Blogosphere's Netroots Endorsed Candidates
(This post will be on top of the page all day long. Scroll down for updates, Click here to see the slate of candidates and here to see their bios.)
As you all probably know, the left-side of the blogosphere has endorsed a slate of Democratic candidates and as of last night about 11:59 PM, the "netroots" had managed to already raise $386,968.31 for them.
Time and time again, Republicans have asked, "Gee, why can't someone on our side do the same thing for us?" In fact, I was asking myself that question a little less than 3 weeks ago and it occurred to me that if no one else was going to put this together, then maybe I should do it.
But, putting something together like this, especially in a limited time frame, is too big of a job for any one person. So, I decided to ask for some help. The following bloggers answered the call and joined the Rightroots Selection Committee:
Together, we pored over the most competitive Congressional races in the country and picked the candidates we felt were the most deserving of support.
But, we still needed some place that could handle the money, so we partnered with ABC PAC, a PAC run by credible conservatives that we felt we could trust. Some of the PAC members include:
Jason Torchinsky: Deputy General Counsel to Bush-Cheney '04.
Michael Turk: The former eCampaign Director at the Republican National Committee.
Frank Donatelli: An assistant to President Reagan for political and intergovernmental affairs, a senior advisor to Bob Dole in 1996.
Chuck Defeo: eCampaign Manager for Bush-Cheney '04
So, we've got a great slate of candidates and we've got a credible place to handle the money. But, why should you contribute?
Well, we know a lot of conservatives are tired of business as usual. So, there are no incumbents on this Rightroots approved list. We also know that a lot of conservatives have a hard time deciding who to donate to in contested primaries, so we stayed away from intraparty fights. Moreover, we know that conservatives don't like wasting their money on surefire winners or surefire losers. So, we put together a list of 18 Republican challengers trying to capture contested seats or knock off a Democratic incumbent.
So, if you want to make a difference, if you want to help the GOP hold on to Congress, chip in some money to the Rightroots endorsed candidates here!
Over at the Rantings of a Sandmonkey, which is a pro-American Egyptian blog, the Sandmonkey is asking "Some slightly uncomfortable questions," to his co-workers and not liking the answers:
"I asked him what he would've thought, if a Hezbollah rocket had attacked a building in Israel, killing 55 civillians, of which 30 were children. He responded immeidtely "I would've thought it was great! A7san!".
So I repeated the same question to 8 other co-workers, and the responses so far have been as follows: 7 said they would celebrate, and 2 said that such an attack would've been bad, but justified! Yeah! Not a single person said that the death of any civllian, on either side, is an equal tragedy. Civillians dead on our side is tragic, civillian deaths on their side cause for celebration. And if you think I am being unfair or demonizing arabs or whatever, do me a favor and try it at your work place and/or with members of your family. Conduct this little social experiment and see for yourself. The results are very interesting.
This begs another question: If we were the ones who had the superior military machine, would we have shown them any mercy, or any regard to their civillian casualties?"
Unfortunately, I think we all know the answer to that question...
A Teleconference With Israel’s Former Ambassador To The UN, Dore Gold
The folks over at One Jerusalem set up a teleconference today with Israel’s former Ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold, who was in Jerusalem.
Interestingly enough, Pam, from Atlas Shrugs, was already there and in his hotel room when the conference started (although she swore up and down that they had a chaperone :)
Dore talked for about 30 minutes before opening up for questions and he was a very impressive speaker who did a fantastic job of laying out Israel's point of view. It was logical, it made sense, it was fantastic...but I'm not going to cover most of it. He related the following:
-- He complained that the UN has legitimized Hezbollah.
-- He said that Israel is actually doing the UN's job and fulfilling UN Security Council Resolutions by disarming Hezbollah.
-- Hezbollah is, in effect, a branch of the Iranian army.
-- It's clear Syria had Rafiq Hariri assassinated.
-- He said Israel will quit fighting when the soldiers are returned, the rockets are no longer a threat, and when a reinforced Lebanese military with international forces backing them up are patrolling the Southern border.
He also said two other things that were particularly fascinating:
#1) I asked Dore, "Why do you think Americans are so pro-Israeli when so much of the rest of the world is against your country?"
His response was something like,
Another Israeli said this attack on Lebanon is about sending a message to our enemies in the Middle-East: Don't mess with Israel. I think you have a bumper sticker in Texas, "Don't Mess With Texas." Those are the common values, the common thinking that helps bond our peoples -- and we appreciate the support.
I loved that!
#2) As you may have heard before, the Israelis are actually calling people in Southern Lebanon and telling them to leave. But, Dore added some extra details to the story that just blew me away.
He said Israel actually calls people in Southern Lebanon and tells them that Israel knows Hezbollah put rockets in their home. Either move the rockets or we will blow up your house! Can you imagine? I actually asked him how they could even know that sort of thing or verify that the rockets were moved, but of course, he wasn't allowed to say anything.
On Israel: Jimmy Carter Vs. Jackson, Sherman, And LeMay
Jimmy Carter weighs in with his "solution" to the fighting in the Middle-East. Unsurprisingly, it amounts to little more than Israel caving in every way possible in return for vague promises that they may or may not get something in return:
"The urgent need in Lebanon is that Israeli attacks stop, the nation's regular military forces control the southern region, Hezbollah cease as a separate fighting force, and future attacks against Israel be prevented. Israel should withdraw from all Lebanese territory, including Shebaa Farms, and release the Lebanese prisoners. Yet yesterday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected a cease-fire.
These are ambitious hopes, but even if the U.N. Security Council adopts and implements a resolution that would lead to such an eventual solution, it will provide just another band-aid and temporary relief. Tragically, the current conflict is part of the inevitably repetitive cycle of violence that results from the absence of a
