New Peace, not the old one

This would be laughable if it didn't indicate the cluelessness of the U.N. An AP story about mass graves found in the Ivory Coast from the Globe and Mail without any apparent irony.

All parties pledged last week to observe the peace deal at a summit in Ghana called by the UN and African leaders amid fears that Ivory Coast's crisis could ruin a new peace in the region.

What happened to the old peace? Sometimes cynicism hides despair. When was the last time any of us remember Africa in peace? The blight includes the UN that actively works to prolong the misery with endless peacekeeping missions that serve more to prop up dictators and stabilize rebellions than help. Add to that the non-resolution of every crisis and Africans must long for the security of Colonialization.

* * *
The Globe and Mail polls are studies in inanity. Today's winner and runnerup for the month, asks "Given 10 years and UN support, do you believe a stable national government will emerge in Iraq?"

You can guess what the carefully-conditioned-to-pessimism Canadians voted. Or maybe they were reflecting their experience with the U.N. In which case, restating the question, "Given 100 years and $75 trillion dollars, do you think the U.N can accomplish anything, anywhere?" just might be the answer.

So why did Bush, not Kerry, get the bounce?

USA. Today asks, "So why did Bush, not Kerry, get the bounce?" with this possibility.

"Bush's resolute response has created a foundation for him that so far hasn't been shaken by concerns about the war in Iraq and the state of the economy.

Ya think?

Must make the USA Today folks queasy even typing this:

Since polling became a routine part of politics, the only other candidate who failed to see any improvement in his standing after the convention that nominated him was George McGovern in 1972.

Polls are not the end all in politics. There is public opinion industry concern that opinion polls have given respectability to uninformed opinion. DOH. More often than not the media use polling questions and answers to drive the result and people know it. That's why the refusal rate is staggering.(Canada 67.9%) When that many people refuse to participate in polls, how reliable are the results? It isn't as if journalists don't know the problems.

USA Today hopes, "If it's because voters no longer use conventions to make up their minds, then Bush may have the same fate." In their hearts, though, they keep thinking McGovern, something the Boston Globe can't acknowledge. It the debates. Yeah. The debates.

We still have a chance to influence people. We elite media get to moderate, don't forget, and there's all sorts of ways to screw the opposition. Like we did with Bush and Gore. Oh, wait a minute... sh*t *%@!#

The TV generation

Maybe Belmont Club is onto something. Instapundit: notes Maureen Dowd said the Kerry Campaign is channeling Gilligan. Tom Macquire says that Bush is channeling Star Trek.

I am getting frightened. "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!"

Al Franken

Al Franken and Robert Redford's Sundance Channel. Whoa! talk about a 60s flashback. With a theme song from Barbra Steisand to complete the nostalgia, they may have a hit.

We're children, needing other children
And yet letting ourgrown-up pride hide all the need inside,
Acting more like children than children.

Cute at 20. Nearing 70, you would think Redford would take time out from his Sundance channel to grow up. One of the joys of being a liberal means never having to say you are sorry and never growing up. Did Mary Martin know she was an inspiration for an entire generation?

Almost true, ABC: Bush Calls for New Intelligence Director

I never liked the term Czar to describe members of our government. It goes against my view of temporary government employees. So the Intelligence "Czar" envisioned by the amazingly-bright-after-the-fact 9/11 Commission was something I rejected out of hand, even without knowing the insane powers they proposed. Amost true, ABC. The important part:

"Bush rejected the panel's recommendation that the director control all intelligence budgets, and have the authority to choose who would lead the CIA, FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies.

Come to think of it, they were envisoning a Czar.
NPR is happy to omit the good parts, too.
White House - the source without the media filter. Judge for yourself that and this paranoia found at the Los Angeles Times.

The intelligence director would be appointed by the president, with the consent of the Senate. The CIA would be managed by a separate director, while the new intelligence director would have the "broader responsibility of leading the intelligence community across our government," Bush said.

"President Bush wants to be able to hire and fire the intelligence czar so he can have this important position in his hip pocket," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. "If we go down the road of creating an intelligence czar, that position must be insulated from political winds so that he won't feel pressure to please his boss at the expense of our civil liberties."

Any credible news organization that quotes the ACLU is, itself, seriously deluded. But that's been true of the LaLa Times since the 60s.

It's Buffalo, not beef

Ted Turner: "My Beef With Big Media"
Verbose article by a sore loser who unwittingly admits it.

In the end, I found the only way to stay competitive was to merge with Time Warner and relinquish control of my companies.

In the news business, competitive = trusted by the public. Translation: they left CNN in droves and the much-ballyhooed "merger" with Time-Warner was a bailout.

Narcoma

It is interesting that Belmont Club (Wretched) begins his article "Demon with the glass hand" referring to the stock devices of fiction and ends with the opening from Outer Limits and the finality "Reality has intruded on long slow dream of the last years of the twentieth century. And the monsters are real. "

It isn't a slow dream. It has been a trip to the movies and the narcoma induced by an excess of entertainment, living vicariously while interacting with other humans only sporadically, and living in the dark in an alternate reality. It has been showtime with lights dimmed and the abruptness of the lights comes as a shocker to most. It shouldn't.

Most people are willing to confront the evils of our time and hopeful of solving the problems. Look at the hundreds of millions donated to charity annually, the growth in annual gift giving, the hundreds, if not thousands, of competing organizations self-advertised as seeking a cure for every ailment, every complaint, every imagined ailment. Poverty, homelessness, animals, you name it, there's an organization with pity pictures and good publicists and the name of every media outlet in their rolodex. They do not walk away empty handed. Neither do they provide solutions. It's the pretense of actually doing something, this giving of money in lieu of asking tough questions. It has been an act of faith to trust these groups to provide answers and solutions.

Ultimately, the responsibility for having ignored the cancerous growth of terrorism, of genocide, of dysfunctional societies, of the proliferation of nuclear weapons, or the murderous possibilities of Islamofascism is not on the individual or our choices. Our responses were based on the options we had and the information we were provided. We played our roles too well as trusting observers, carefully sidelined to the audience of a greater play for power by people who only too well did know better.

It isn't as if our elite media is deluded about world events. They are active crafters in the role they script for us, of the information they parcel out. Since the 60s, there has been a deliberate distortion of world events that makes it difficult to judge what is happening, a combination of disinformation and non-information that makes consensus impossible, that makes doing anything fraught with uncertainty. Couple that with the systematic assault on our institutions, religion, and common sense and every resource that would serve to provide us with the moral certainty to act with intention, and the result is not apathy, but burnout. This breakdown is being corrected as the Age of Information shifts from the elite media to the interested citizen.

Western governments are no more reluctant than anyone else to be involved with something that has no material impact on them. If that was so we would not spend hundreds of million to provide relief worldwide for every flood, hurricane, typhoon, earthquake, drought, or any other natural disaster. Why does anyone assume we would do less for the political disasters of our time? Are people less victims because the U.N. and the Clinton administration, (not without help from the career State Department mandarins) abandoned them in Rwanda? Or was the public simply uninformed of the extent of the disaster? Ask most Americans where Rwanda is and I doubt Canadians would score higher. Most don't know. Most don't know about the 800,000 million dead in less than three months or, if they have read the figure, suspect the truth in absence of validation by elite media. It's a non-story in the media, once raised and conveniently filed away under "Do not follow up." Faced with uncertainty, the audience suspects disinformation. However, thanks to an elite media campaign, they know all about Kosovo, despite the fact that it increasingly appears that no genocide took place there.

The movie is over, the lights are on and the popcorn gone, so the burning question is, will there be a sudden awareness of the all too real monsters in the world or will Americans buy another ticket to another matinee?

Free to agree or disagree and learn

Orson Scott Card on the election.

When November rolls around, we will choose for ourselves exactly the president we deserve.

In 1864, the American people decided they didn't deserve dithering, pro-negotiation, anti-abolition ex-general George McClellan. They chose Lincoln instead, and as a result chose union and victory and freedom for slaves.

I hope with all my heart that in 2004 the American people don't deserve John Kerry as their president.

And,

"I don't know if President Bush is in any significant way the equal of President Lincoln. Lincoln, however, is not on the ballot. What matters is whether Bush's opponents are in any significant way his equal in their willingness to fight an implacable enemy whose goal is to murder Americans of every age and in any place.

Lengthy not-unrelated riff follows: Wherever I go I buy newspapers. It's addictive, this desire to know what others think, to see what shapes their opinions, how they think, what they think about, what stories they are reading. That's why I often look for newspapers from a century ago. The events are long gone, the issues resolved. There is a big difference though. Those old newspapers actually debated the issues in print, from the competing opinion pieces from two or more local newspapers to the shifting-loyalty letters from folks who actually had viewpoints and had options of who to validate by buying a paper. It made for lively discussion, something that has been missing from our national stage for decades.

I dont' always agree with Mr. Card, (although I do in this case) but I enjoy his viewpoint whether or not I agree with it because he and I are both free to express our opinions. Let the buyer be the judge of the worth, and that is what free speech is about. It is a duel of ideas that has no downside. That is precisely why the stranglehold Liberals have on academia, newspapers, television, and Hollywood is so corrosive -- not to this country or to free speech -- but to the evolution in their thinking.

In many ways the collapse of the Soviet Union as a result of their commitment to a long-discredited politics-as-economics system parallels the ossification of Liberal thinking -- the unwillingness to accept change when called for by reality. In an information age, reality is king, not the staged game plan, alternate universe the Democrat liberal left should have long abandoned.

Palestinian militants. Aren't they all?

Everyone in Palestine is a militant so it's hard to know exactly which militants committed this dastardly attack.

Palestinian militants shot dead two people accused of collaborating with Israel in their hospital beds Monday hours after they were wounded by grenades tossed into their jail cell, adding to internal Palestinian turmoil.

Unsaid is that the Palestine turmoil is self-inflicted, as is much of their suffering for 30 years, assisted by $10 million a month from the EU and the support of the New York Times that seems to think Arafat a "romantic revolutionary."

For a hilarious headline for this story, "Hospital no haven for Gaza gunmen" from the Toronto Sun is curiously non-judgemental considering the article calls it a "dastardly attack." The Sun wants you to know, however, that the dead were gunmen, too.

You have to traverse the article to page two for this tidbit:

In northern Gaza overnight Monday, Israeli troops shot dead three militants near the Jewish settlement of Elai Sinai. The army said troops fired when the men approached a security fence, and assault rifles were later found next to the bodies.

No "army alleges" assault rifles. I guess the fence does work.

Democratic Party "Leper" Endorses Bush

Jerome Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat and chief council of the Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment, has not lost hope for the party that has come to be dominated by the Left he knows well.

Yet, despite my support for two Republican presidential candidates, I intend to remain a Democrat. My reason is simple: I have not lost hope that one day a new generation of Democrats will win our continuous fight to redeem our party's political soul.

Another issue off the table

You don't read something like this very often. [bolding mine]

Mr Edwards has had two successful but controversial careers: first as trial lawyer and then as an economic populist. Republican attempts to paint him as an ambulance-chaser may be a little crude: Mr Edwards's clients included plenty of children who were horrifically harmed by corporate negligence. But they are right to say the country's tort litigation system is a monster. The litigation industry consumes some $230 billion a year, or $3,000 for every family of four in higher prices and insurance premiums. The industry also adds to the soaring costs of health care because of defensive tests and procedures.

Whether you think Edwards contributed to this or not, tort reform is essential. Clearly, it will not be a Democrat-led fight, judging by the donations of lawyers to the DNC. Whether the Republicans can or will tackle the issue is not clear either. But before we talk about universal health care in the U.S., shouldn't we discuss why health care is not affordable in the first place?

A Bush Endorsement

Zell Miller is a man I admire and have for his entire career, and Joe Lieberman is a man of principle that I find decent and honorable. I wish both were Republicans. There are many men in politics who rise above their professions. Another Democrat is Randy Miller, judging by this.

In his book, John Kennedy said both national parties seek to serve the national interest. But when an officeholder finds the interests of party differ from the national interest, the first responsibility must not be to party, but to conscience.

It is not in the national interest to feed the politics of hate. I feel it is in the national interest to keep the economic and international course we are on.

Americans are looking for strong, steady, and principled leadership. They crave politicians who stand for something, rather than rally us against someone. The American people I know the ones I represent in St. Paul care about leaders who stand steady in difficult times, who do not waver nor bend to the wind. They want strong, determined leadership and, I believe George Bush provides us that leadership today at this point in our history.

Read the whole thing.

Mark Steyn weighs in

It isn't complete without Mark Steyn weighing in on Kerry's speech.

Last year, I was at a Kerry campaign stop in New Hampshire chatting with two old coots in plaid. The Senator approached and stopped in front of us. The etiquette in primary season is that the candidate defers to the cranky Granite Stater's churlish indifference to status and initiates the conversation: "Hi, I'm John Kerry. Good to see ya. Cold enough for ya?" Etc. But Kerry just stood there nose to nose, staring at us with a semi-glare on his face. After an eternity, an aide stepped out from behind him and said, "The Senator needs you to move."

"Well, why couldn't he have said that?" muttered one of the old coots, as Kerry swept past us.

That's how I felt after the Convention: all week Senators Biden, Lieberman and Edwards made the case that the Democrats were credible on national security. Why couldn't Kerry have said that?

Because in the end he's running for President because he feels he ought to be President. That's his message to George W Bush: "The Senator needs you to move." And even then everyone else says it better.

Ah yep.

Outgrowing the self-righteousness of protest

Howard Husock of City Journal, "The Anti-war Hero "

Kerry's protest stance is no mere footnote to his biography; it has defined his political career, lies at the heart of his appeal, and constitutes a crucial flaw in his fitness to lead. It is a flaw that his generation (my own) has struggled with, often unsuccessfully: recognizing that it is long past time for us to outgrow the self-righteousness of protest and, instead, make the difficult decisions of adult leadership.

And,

So, too, did Kerry’s acceptance speech at the convention reflect the view that the spirit of protest provides the high points of American political history. He invoked the greatest hits of 1960s protest and saw his role in public life to deliver more of the same: the sixties era, he pronounced, was a “great journey—a time to march for civil rights, for the environment, for women and for peace. We believed we could change the world. And you know what? We did. But we’re not finished. The journey isn’t over. The march isn’t over.” Kerry seemed like an aging one-hit wonder rock star, who’d suddenly found that his song had come back in style. At last, another president could be charged with misleading the nation about war.

And,

This adolescent attitude has been the trap of Kerry’s generation—the feel-good politics that comes from telling off someone else as opposed to the risky politics of adulthood, such as going to war without definitive information but in the assured presence of terrible threat. For whatever reasons—cultural and personal—George W. Bush stands apart from this generational hubris. He has taken risks and stands to defend them.

Botox and Viagra and aging war protesters. That's a wonderful recipe for America's defense, isn't it?

Canada fiddles, the UN dithers and Sudanese die

What is wrong with this story? "Canada deliberates training Darfur police force" subtitle: "Women don't trust officers from Khartoum to protect them from rape, envoy says."

The women want a local police force established, and Ottawa is considering helping with police training as part of an overall peace plan for Sudan, she said in an interview.

Canada has, according to the article already sent $25 million in humanitarian aid, a noble effort. Canada, it is said, worked behind the scenes to help pass a United Nations resolution threatening Sudan with economic and diplomatic sanctions. Not, mind you, condeming the killing as genocide because the U.N. and Canada and "other countries" can't agree that it is genocide, not because it would force them to act, but because they can't get a consensus to do anything.
Again.

And that's the crux of the U.N.'s problem. Veto power of both France and China ensure that nothing meaningful will be done in the U.N. France takes on that job alone in NATO. The U.S. introduced a resolution calling it genocide. It wasn't passed. It wasn't rejected either because they didn't want a public veto. The watered down resolution promised economic and diplomatic sanctions, giving them 30 days. Small print: Annan had negotiated a settlement that would have given them 90 days to disarm. Annan's role in Rwanda for which he later apologized. Then there is the French role in Rwanda still being debated. Chinese oil interests in Sudan.

So how does Canada intend to send officers to train police officers when the Muslim government in Khartoum won't even restrain Muslim mercenaries from rampage killing? They don't. It's just for show. Canada is so impotent they can't even get back the body of a Canadian killed by Iranian police. They weren't even allowed at the trial of the accused. Canada is so useless that they haven't the moral authority it takes to convince the world that they should have a right to be at that trial. Canada, in short, has sold its soul to the U.N. so they could "punch above their weight" as they say in Ottowa. It's a term that means they can be more important working with others - like France and the U.N.

Sometimes it is necessary in life to quit punching at the air and start pulling your weight. Like a responsible adult.