The only good things that came out of the 1970s were the Steelers, the Reds (hey, I’m from Mississippi and we don’t have our own teams!!), some movies and some music.

Virginia Postrel has a couple of years on me, though she’s way ahead on looks and brains, and remembers why Reagan was so consequential:

Amazingly, his prescriptions worked. The economy got worse at first–much, much worse, so bad Reagan himself called it a depression. But he stayed the course, and helped Paul Volcker stay it. The economy got better, and stayed better–mostly good and sometimes even great, except for a few short bumps–for decades.

Most miraculously, the Cold War ended without a nuclear war. And the president took a bullet and lived and told jokes on the way to the hospital.

In some ways, surviving that assassination attempt in good health was the most important thing Reagan did. It robbed history of its inevitable tragic ending. (Remember, too, that the pope similarly survived a bullet, and Margaret Thatcher made it through an IRA bombing.) Reagan became living proof that things do not have to end badly.

Many of his conservative allies, taught by the terrors of the 20th century, firmly believed that history is a tragedy, that the best we can do is to fight a long, twilight struggle. They believed that evil is as strong as, perhaps stronger, than good, and that tyranny is more powerful than freedom. At the time, I believed them too.

Reagan believed in the triumph of good and the strength of freedom. He acted on those convictions, and he was right.

Interestingly, most of the economic problems of the 1970s can be traced back to three words: the Phillips curve. The curve shows an inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment; inflation increases, unemployment decreases and vice versa.

Starting in 1971, I believe, the Fed had to learn how to manage a fiat currency for the first time. They needed a guide and they chose poorly. They hadn’t been reading their Friedman (see here and here) or their Postrel, for that matter (first link). Friedman pretty much said the Phillips curve is vertical in the long run and any attempt to inflate the currency to lower unemployment would be a wash inside of eighteen months or so; real prices adjusted to make real output (income) the same. See the first “here” link for a clearer explanation.

The strange thing in all of this to me is that Presidents continue to take credit for great economies and get the blame when things go bad. Their impact can be large, particularly if they are stupid and impose price controls or something similar, but it’s usually minimal. The Fed pulls the strings on the money supply and has most of the control. The Fed’s lack of experience managing a fiat currency had more to do with the economy in the 1970s than anything Carter did as President, though he rode into office claiming he could heal the economy and ultimately got sunk by that along with fecklessness in other areas.

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Reagan’s death is getting a lot of attention and, I think, with good reason. I do remember how despondent the country felt after losing the Vietnam War and after enduring the economy of the 1970s. I was just watching Senator McCain, every Democrat’s favorite Republican (unless he became a Democrat; they would find him just as infuriating as the Republicans do), on Hannity & Colmes and he made a number of good points about Reagan and about the war on terror.

On Reagan he said that the first time he heard about Reagan was while he was a POW in Vietnam. They would tap on the walls to send messages and apparently Reagan had taken up the cause of POWs as governor of California. That’s how McCain first heard of him. McCain then went into a good discussion of how Reagan was able to change this country from being despondent to seeing hope. I disagree with McCain from time to time – OK, a lot, if you count McCain-Feingold – but we agree on this and we agree about military spending.

McCain also went on to discuss the war on terror and to say that the country isn’t sacrificing enough and that a disproportionate burden is falling on the military. I’m starting to agree here as well. He wants to undo some of the tax cuts, which I would oppose without matching cuts in non-military spending, but if they could be matched I might go along with it. More importantly, he wants to increase the size of the military. On this I don’t see who would disagree (though I’m sure I’ll find out). The nature of the war on terror is such that the best way to win is on offense, until someone comes up with a better answer for dealing with an asymmetrical threat. That means the military. I know that they will supposedly be increasing the military by 40,000 troops in the near future but I wonder if that is enough? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I suspect the answer is “no” given that we are actually (and thankfully) removing troops from South Korea.

On another issue, I think President Clinton should be invited to speak at the funeral on Friday. For those of us who already admire Reagan, no selling needs to be done. If we want the admiration to extend to the rest of America, or as much of America as possible, the event can’t look partisan. I know Ford wasn’t allowed to speak at Nixon’s funeral (or chose not to), but Nixon was not a good President and he wasn’t to the second half of the 20th century what FDR was to the first half. If those of us who admire Reagan and his ideas want him to become something other than another Republican president, the funeral needs to be bipartisan. Kerry has been very gracious towards Reagan (he should certainly be invited to the funeral) and so has Clinton. Even Carter was able to squeeze in a good word or two, though it obviously hurt. Clinton should be invited to speak as a gesture simply because he’s an ex-President and he’s the first Democrat since FDR to get re-elected. If Carter wants to speak, he should be allowed to as well, though his praise seemed awfully tortured (Reagan had good taste in shoes!). I’m conflicted about Carter.

One person I’m not conflicted about is Ted Rall. Ted Rall is a no-good piece of shit. He completely lacks any decency. I can muster some good things to say about Clinton even now, without waiting for his funeral, and I certainly wouldn’t piss on his grave. Ted Rall’s I’m not so sure about.

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See here.

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U.S. Plans Major Cut Of Forces In Korea (washingtonpost.com)
The same is supposedly going to happen in Germany, and it’s long overdue. I realize there are some logistical advantages to having facilities around the world, but alternate plans can be made.

Korea, in particular, seems like a bad idea. We have 37,000 troops tied up there and they can do nothing that the South can’t do to stop the barrage of artillery that would come from the North in the opening hours of a war. Tens of thousands would die within a few days and our soldiers are basically hostages there. Not much value there and we can return in larger numbers if war does break out.

The United States plans to withdraw a third of its 37,000 troops stationed in South Korea before the end of next year as part of the most significant realignment of U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula in half a century, South Korean officials said Monday.

The withdrawal underscores a broader move by the Pentagon to transform troops stationed at traditional, fixed bases into more mobile forces for rapid global deployments. Defense officials also have proposed pulling two armored Army divisions out of Germany and repositioning some fighter aircraft and Navy command staff in Europe to make it easier to deploy forces to the Middle East, Central Asia and other potential hot spots.

In the case of South Korea, the planned move would mark the largest U.S. troop withdrawal from the peninsula since the Korean War, while shifting a greater burden of defense to the South Koreans themselves. A U.S. delegation, led by Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless, informed the South Koreans Sunday night of the Pentagon’s intention to withdraw the troops, South Korean officials said.

The Pentagon has already announced plans to redeploy 3,600 troops this summer from South Korea to Iraq. The new proposal greatly expands the number of troops to be withdrawn – involving about 12,500 by December 2005, Kim Sook, head of the Foreign Ministry’s North America bureau, told reporters in Seoul on Monday.

It was not immediately clear which U.S. forces would be going – or where. A senior U.S. military officer familiar with the planning, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said in an interview that many such details have yet to be worked out.

“Much of the planning has involved thinking in terms what military capabilities will still be needed in Korea, not the specific soldiers or units,” the officer said.

By most accounts the younger generations of South Koreans don’t want us there, either. Might as well use the troops to lighten the load of the military as a whole or bring them home.

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Economist.com | Europe and America
The Economist seems to understand the reason so many in America were angry with Europe last year: obstructionism. Even when we have made mistakes in the past – Vietnam could be considered one, though it did have the effect of destroying a lot of Soviet infrastructure and contributed to their downfall – Europe looked the other way and let us do what we wanted. Not so with Iraq. They also touch on the fact that Europe has an inadequate military and is very reluctant to use what they do have.

I still think we need a new military coalition with minimum spending requirements on defense so we don’t end up carrying the bulk of the load, as is the case today.

The second world war left America with a military, economic and moral pre-eminence that made it the natural leader of the free world. Its military power is still unsurpassed. But now Europe is rich too, and – more than two centuries after America’s constitutional convention – inventing its own continent-wide system of power in the shape of the European Union. Mr Chirac wants the EU to be a counterweight to America. But even Europeans who do not share the Gaullist horror of a “unipolar” world think differently nowadays about the alliance. Free from the fear of Soviet invasion, they do not feel the same need of American protection, and so are less inclined to defer. Some Germans were ashamed when Mr Schröder found it electorally convenient in 2002 to denounce Mr Bush’s “adventurism” in Iraq. Others greeted this as an overdue coming of age.

You do not save a partnership by glossing over such profound changes in interests and attitudes. The transatlantic alliance will probably never again be as strong as it was when the Red Army was poised to storm through the Fulda gap and NATO was poised to repel it. And although a new and common peril has arisen in the form of Osama bin Laden and his jihad against “Jews and Crusaders", this is not likely to provide the same sort of transatlantic glue. The nature of the new threat is too amorphous, and governments hold too many differing views about the right ways to deal with it. In the meantime, having finished its half-century post-war task of making Europe “whole and free", today’s America has shifted its focus to threats farther afield. Having been let down by France and Germany in Iraq, it may prefer in future to form ad hoc alliances with other countries instead of turning instinctively, as in the past, to a Europe that spends too little on defence and seems allergic to using what little military force it has.

Absent the Soviet Union, an estrangement of this kind need not be fatal to world order. But it would still be a needless loss. When they act in unison, the rich democracies deploy overwhelming political and moral as well as military force. And there is much on which they should still co-operate: securing Afghanistan, sorting out Palestine, spreading democracy to the Arab world, persuading Iran not to build an atomic bomb. Some Americans think they can do all this alone; Iraq did after all show that France and Germany cannot prevent America from going to war if it wants to. But their opposition has made the post-war job in Iraq very much harder. And that is where to start mending relations. For all their pre-war differences, both sides have an interest now in making sure that Iraq enjoys peace and prosperity rather than degenerates into another terror-breeding failed state. The UN this week appointed an interim government for Iraq. What better moment to put aside the recriminations and work together for that?

It would be nice to be able to put differences aside over Iraq, but it’s not likely to happen and I’m not sure what we would gain from it. True, Europe does have a good deal of wealth, but their economies are weak, they aren’t creating very much new wealth these days and their population is aging rapidly. I’m not sure what we would gain by bringing them to the table other than a lower decible level for their complaints.

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CNN.com - Bush: America would do it again - Jun 6, 2004
It’s sad to think that this ten-year anniversary will be the last that a good number of the actual veterans of the Normandy invasion will be able to attend. Facing that kind of peril took enormous courage and these vets are entitled to any and all recognition we can give them before they pass on.

With it being D-Day and all, I’m feeling particularly magnanimous and won’t take any cheap shots at the French. I do hope that we will one day be allies with them again in a meaningful sense. Until then it’s worth remembering the sacrifices that were made to defeat the Nazis and Japan. What they represented, alone, justified our entry into WW2 and that we could rid the world of a totalitarian belief system in the process allowed millions to live in freedom.

The alliance forged between the United States and Europe during World War II is strong “and is still needed today,” U.S. President George W. Bush told veterans commemorating the 1944 D-Day landings.

“America would do it again for our friends,” he said of the key role played by the United States in helping to free France from Nazi occupation.

[….]

Bush told those who had fought to liberate Europe on June 6, 1944: “You will be honored forever and always by the country you served and the nations you freed.”

Bush and French counterpart President Jacques Chirac stood side by side at the vast American war cemetery to start a day of somber reflection over the heroism and loss of life during the D-Day landings in Normandy 60 years ago.

Later world leaders gave a standing ovation to D-Day veterans Sunday at a moving ceremony overlooking the invasion beaches of June 6, 1944 at Arromanches.

Chirac, the host of the commemorations, said modern leaders had a duty to honor the values the soldiers died for by defending the cause of freedom and democracy together.

“France will never forget what it owes America, its steadfast friend and ally,” Chirac told a ceremony attended by about 20 heads of state and government at the coastal village which was the scene of heavy fighting on June 6, 1944.

“Like all the countries of Europe, France is keenly aware that the Atlantic alliance remains, in the face of new threats, a fundamental element of our collective security.”

Blackfive has a comprehensive post on D-Day as does Sgt. Hook. They are far more qualified to tell this story than I.

UPDATE: Spoons has a link to the beaches that were invaded that day.

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I wasn’t going to write any more about Reagan today until I realized that tomorrow is the anniversary of D-Day. Tomorrow is a day for the veterans of WW2 and the people who currently serve in the military. I won’t be writing about Reagan tomorrow at all. If I do post it will be about D-Day or some thanks to the troops. However, today is Reagan’s day.

As is often the case, Jeff says it best: “You gave us back our dignity. Rest in peace.”

When Reagan was elected I was in seventh grade and twelve years old. I sat in Mrs. Hogue’s English class and watched Reagan’s inauguration and saw the plane with the Iranian hostages either leave Iran or land in America about 30 minutes later; can’t remember which. Reagan had made it clear to the mad mullahs that the hostages would be returned or Iran would suffer terrible consequences, of the military variety.

By the time I was in college in the late 80s, I was fully aware of how far we had come in the preceding few years. Reagan inherited a country from a political Left that had forgotten their roots (Hubert Humphrey, Scoop Jackson, JFK) and said, seriously, that our best days were behind us. The Right, such as it was, was either corrupt or inept. One of my earliest memories was Nixon leaving just ahead of the articles of impeachment. Reagan changed that and, of all people, Bill Clinton understood that you can’t get elected President anymore without being able to convey hope to the American people. That goes a long way in explaining Bill Clinton’s success as President. He did move to the middle on some important issues – trade, welfare reform, to a lesser extent foreign policy – but it was his ability to convey hope that made him successful. Our best days are not behind us and that’s still the case.

Even as young as I was, I had a feeling for how despondent our country was in the seventies. I was a business major as an undergrad and had a commercial law professor who was a genuine leftist. He had hated seeing Reagan win – both times – but even he had to grudgingly admit that Reagan had transformed the country. When I get accused of Reagan worship, I find it easy to laugh off. My memory is clear enough to know what he did for this country and I’ll be eternally grateful. He defeated communism, deregulated the economy and endured – without pressuring the Fed – a recession that was engineered to kill off inflation. That recession was the worst since the Great Depression, but was completely necessary to kill off inflation and inflationary expectations, thus altering people’s behavior. They became more rational economic actors over the long term because monetary stability returned.

We went from high unemployment and high inflation to low unemployment and low inflation and Reagan guided us through it, so much that he won re-election massively. It was one of the biggest ass-whippings in electoral history. In spite of a terrible recession he convinced the American people to hope again and all of our successes since then are a product of what was done then. To the extent that a President does have control over the economy – not much in my estimation – Reagan performed superbly through deregulation, tax cuts and having the political will to talk directly to the American people and give them hope in trying times.

His defeat of the Soviet Union is still a matter of dispute among some, but not me. It’s not a coincidence that the Berlin Wall fell less than a year after he left office. His defense buildup was remarkable, going all the way up to 6% of GDP during a time of fast economic growth and at a time of “peace". In defiance of most of the population of Europe he convinced the West Germans to accept Pershing missiles as a move against the Soviet deployment of similar missiles in eastern Europe. You think Europe hates us now? They were convinced Reagan would get them incinerated in the early 1980s and the protests were massive. Never mind that it would be Soviet missiles that did the killing, we were supposed to sit back and let them deploy them and hope they wouldn’t use them. Reagan would have none of it.

Against the strenuous objections from the diplomats in his administration, he included the line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!", in a speech in front of the wall in 1987. Two years later, after that wall had fallen, CNN was using it as a tag line beside the traditional James Earl Jones voice of “This is CNN". He didn’t believe in small dreams and favored a moral foreign policy. He made it OK to love your country again, when the prevailing wisdom said no. He did more for us than we’ll ever be able to repay. That’s why he remains the best President of my lifetime. He gave us back our dignity and believed in this idea called America. His detractors called him a simpleton, but they were horribly wrong and we have the election results – and the economic results and the foreign policy results – to prove it.

Perhaps the moment that cemented my affection for him was the Challenger disaster. I would be graduating from high school in a few months and knew full well what was going on in the world. Again, in a moment of crisis, he was able to talk to the American people in a way that acknowledged the tragedy but allowed us to keep moving forward. As he said, they “slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God”. Today he did the same. Thank you, Mr. President. You won’t be forgotten.

UPDATE: See also Sgt. Hook, Silent Running, Darmon, Sean, Right Wing News and Poliblog.

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It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly ten years since Reagan left the public scene with his announcement that he had Alzheimers. He’s had such a profound impact on my life and has been the best President of my lifetime. The country was a mess when he tookover – interest rates in the low teens, inflation high and unemployment high – and when he left office the country had been transformed. I’ve missed him for the last decade or so and I’ll continue to miss him. More later.

Ronald Reagan, February 6th, 1911 – June 5th, 2004.

James has more here and here.

UPDATE: Hee even has some admirers across the pond.

ANOTHER UPDATE: From a post I made last November:

Reagan wasn’t perfect but he remains the best President of my lifetime. He took over this country at a time when America seemed impotent in foreign policy – the Iranian hostage crisis and Vietnam – and the economy featured high unemployment and high inflation. When Reagan left office the economy had morphed from one of high unemployment and high inflation to one of low unemployment – by the standards of the time – and low inflation. On foreign policy we had faced the Soviets head-on by forward deploying nuclear missiles in Germany and increasing the budget for the military to nearly six percent of GDP. Despite the words of the revisionists, including Gorbachev, Reagan’s actions precipitated the downfall of communism as a global threat. After it had fallen there were a bunch of people saying communism was doomed to fail anyway, but that had been true for seventy years. Someone had to give it the push over the cliff and Reagan is the man responsible for that.

That’ll do it for today.

YET ANOTHER: Had to get this in. George Will has an excellent piece on Reagan’s monument:

One measure of a leader’s greatness is this: By the time he dies the dangers that summoned him to greatness have been so thoroughly defeated, in no small measure by what he did, it is difficult to recall the magnitude of those dangers or of his achievements. So if you seek Ronald Reagan’s monument, look around and consider what you do not see.

The Iron Curtain that scarred a continent is gone, as is the Evil Empire responsible for it. The feeling of foreboding – the sense of shrunken possibilities – that afflicted Americans 20 years ago has been banished by a new birth of the American belief in perpetually expanding horizons.

Yes, sometimes it’s the things you don’t see anymore that matter most. Generations will grow up not having to fear for the destruction of the entire planet. That’s the extent of his legacy. RTWT.

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Chris Lawrence has a post on blogging frequency and the like. This explains a lot of my recent rollback in posting. I have other commitments over the next couple of months and blogging has started to feel like a chore. I have noticed a steep dropoff in people that are hitting the main page since I didn’t resume my normal blogging after Memorial Day. Apparently my traffic levels were tied heavily to my frequent posting, but it’s gotten to the point that blogging isn’t that much fun anymore and that’s a sure sign of a need to throttle back for a while. From now on I’ll only be posting when I’ve got something to say. Hopefully that will improve the quality of the site, regardless of traffic, and make the people that do read happier.

It’s odd that it coincides with my two-year blogiversary but that, combined with a weekend away from the computer almost all of the time, played a big role in the cutback. That and the realization that more than 4600 posts in two years is insane. That rate was never sustainable over the long term, unless you are Glenn Reynolds. I’m not and I’ve really enjoyed spending more time away from the computer and when I’m there I do more reading than before. That’s a good thing.

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With the cutback in blogging around here I’ve had more time to read. Here’s a quick roundup:

• Dan Spencer has a number of good posts. For a post on the Zarqwi aid that was nabbed, look here. For a post on Kerry’s missed vote on the bioshield, look here. For a post on Kerry’s reduced idealism, look here.
• Spoons has an excellent link to the biggest dork on the planet. He’s not kidding.
• Blackfive has an excellent roundup of D-Day links. Via Wizbang.
• The economy is humming, creating 248,000 jobs last month and 1.1 million since last August. The BLS report is here. It’s great news regardless of who’s elected. Whoever wins will get to take credit for a massive amount of job creation in 2008, regardless of whether he had anything to do with it.
• Steven Taylor has some idiocy from CNN on Kerry’s VP choice. Apparently they’ve also forgotten that Bill Clinton can never succeed a sitting President given that he’s served the maximum of two terms. Doesn’t make much sense to pick him.
• James Joyner has a post about possible troop adjustments. Apparently Rummy is looking at reducing, and hopefully ending, our permanent deployments in Europe and South Korea. It’s long overdue. James notes, in a very droll manner, that this might force Europe to actually learn to defend herself. That, too, is long overdue. We’ve been subsidizing their recklessness for far too long.

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The Transplanted Texan
Yep, nothing new under the sun. Hating Europe – and being hated by her – is as old as our country. It’s a tradition dating back through P.J. O’Rourke all the way back to Mark Twain, at least.

Are we indeed going to lose Spain’s respect? Is there no way to avoid this calamity - or this compliment? Are we going to lose her respect because we have made a promise in our ultimatum which she thinks we shall break? And meantime is she trying to recall some promise of her own which she has kept?

Is the Professional Official Fibber of Europe really troubled with our morals? Dear Parisian friend, are you taking seriously the daily remark of the newspaper and the orater about “this noble nation with an illustrious history"? That is mere kindness, mere charity for a people in temporary hard luck. The newspaper and the orator do not mean it. They wink when they say it.

RTWT.

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I’ve been having some trouble with the sidebar on the right spilling over into the center column for the past few days and I believe it is fixed. If you notice any problems, leave me a note in the comments to this post, please. Thanks.

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I’ve been getting a pretty large number of hits on this post about Bill Cosby and his impolitic remarks at a banquet celebrating the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Cosby made some remarks that were right on the mark, though not exclusive to black people, and took some heat for it.

Matt Rosenberg, of Rosenblog, has written a piece in National Review on the media coverage of it and it appears that things move slowly to the left coast, if at all. He’s been following the media coverage from the beginning at his blog and you can start here. Most surprising to me: his statement that many black op-ed writers have been supportive of Cosby. Others have not and he lists them as well. There’s a bit of promotion for the blogosphere also, for giving the story “legs". Check it out.

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Amazon.com: DVD: Star Wars Trilogy (Widescreen Edition)
Everything that’s been done to the Star Wars movies in the last seven years is, without a doubt, the biggest pooch screw in the history of cinema, and yes, I’m including Ishtar and Heaven’s Gate. From an Amazon editorial review of the upcoming DVD release:

Years later, George Lucas transformed his films into “special editions” by adding new scenes and special effects, which were greeted mostly by shrugs from fans. They were perfectly happy with the films they had grown up with (who cares if Greedo shot first?), and thus disappointed by Lucas’s decision to make the special editions the only versions available on DVD. Still, the Star Wars trilogy was one of the last remaining DVD Holy Grails, and only the most stubborn critics won’t welcome its release.

I care that Greedo shoots first and changes the introduction to Han Solo. It screws up his transformation from being a self-involved hardass into a good guy during the film. I care that in the best of the original films, The Empire Strikes Back, Luke is now heard yelling as he falls into the chute in the city in the clouds. In the original it was a stoic silence and much more befitting a Jedi in training. Irvin Kershner must be horrified at what Lucas has done.

I saw the Special Edition films when they were re-released and was happy to see them just because I hadn’t seen the movies on the big screen in so long, but I will not buy the SE DVDs. The only one I might consider buying is TESB if it is sold separately because the damage that Lucas did to the original movie is minimized. Yes, there’s that stupid yell, but the other changes are pretty innocuous as I remember them; mostly filling in backgrounds that had been blank and making the snow monster more life-like.

As for the new movies that have been released: Lucas should never be allowed to direct again. He did himself a big favor by handing over the direction of Episodes 5 & 6 to other directors and should have continued in that tradition. Even the Ewoks were tolerable – though they were the worst part of Return of the Jedi – because they were handled by another director. Lucas would have had us up to our ears in the damn things.

Lucas has, either out of idiocy or ego, alienated the most loyal fans he has ever had. Some of my best memories growing up – well, before high school – involve those films and the Indiana Jones movies. Thankfully the only thing Lucas has managed to ruin in them is the original name for Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was the only kid that thought TESB was the best Star Wars movie and got into a lot of fun arguments over why it’s better than the first one. I enjoyed being a contrarian – even at the age of eleven – and I was, after all, right. I can’t even imagine why Lucas refuses to release the original Star Wars movies on DVD but I won’t forget it and I will not be buying the mutilated versions on DVD, unless I can get TESB alone.

Michele has been obsessing over this for a good while. See here, here, here and here.

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Well, so much for throttling back, at least for the moment. Reading more seems to inspire posting. Feministe is complaining about the under-representation of women among top bloggers (she apparently doesn’t know Michele) and the first time I read her blog, on the first page, is an idiotic rant about the draft and she blames “Rethugnicans” without even bothering to research the issue. Of course she uses the worn out, and unsubstantiated, notion that America is an imperialist power. Red meat to the jackals.

I’m not one of the “top bloggers” either, but I can give you one reason why she isn’t: accuracy. HR 163, a bill to reintroduce the draft, is something that Charles Rangel (D-NY) has been bleating about since, well, ever since he introduced this bill and before in early 2003. I’ve seen him at least three times in the last two years pushing this idea. Why? He’s not concerned about OPTEMPO or anything like that. He’s bothered that our volunteer military contains too few rich people. Based on his reasoning it’s unfair for people to seize opportunities that the military provides – or simply choose it as a career – when people of means don’t have to make similar choices. His solution to this problem is to reinstate the draft.

I don’t agree with Rangel’s reasoning and doubt conscription is necessary unless we can’t recruit enough people. If anyone should be attacked it’s Rangel, not the “Rethugnicans". She makes a passing mention of telling Kerry that he should oppose the draft but he said during the primaries (in a debate, no less) that he opposes the draft, so unless he’s waffling again it’s been ruled out. She’s being dishonest by using the possibility for a draft as a reason to rant against Bush. If you’re going to rant like that, at least do a bit of homework.

Via Dan via The Professor.

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Darmon has a couple of good posts that are certainly worth your time (see here and here).

Also, the WaPo has an editorial that suggests that we defer to the Iraqis on our troop movements once the handover is complete. Not a good idea. Better to allow the troops to disengage, create bases out of the major population centers for their own protection and then allow the new Iraqi government to veto proposed operations. That’s it.

UPDATE: NRO has a good article on the nuclear bunker busters that are being researched – we already have them but they are of limited use. The more advanced ones would be able to go through hardened underground bunkers where enemy research and military command facilities are housed. If we ever use nuclear weapons again – unless fired upon, of course – these are the ones we would use. Kerry’s against them, Bush is for them.

This is another reason we’ll never ratify the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, though we are in voluntary compliance with it now. If Bush wins again, expect the left to come after him hammer and tong when he ends our voluntary nuclear test ban, in spite of the fact that the treaty hasn’t been ratified. More “unilateralism” on the part of the Bush Administration.

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You can find this entry in: Constitution , Iraqi War , Military

The past day or so I’ve just been reading the news and following what other people have to say and have been enjoying it. It’s likely to last a while unless my situation changes – overwhelmed with life in meatspace and in a good way – or I get over being burned out. I’m just throttling back a bit. I lengthened the number of posts that show up on the main page so there will be more reading available. The past weekend felt so good I want to get a feel for life away from the keyboard.

It’s an awkward time with this being an election year and all but there’s still a while until the election and lots of news that’s going to be repetitive. Very repetitive. If you like, this post can be an open thread to discuss whatever you want. Just keep it civil and I’ll still be responding to comments as possible.

My summary of recent news:

• The handover caught me a bit by surprise and the amount of violence is likely to increase. The choice for Iraqi PM seems like a good choice, though anyone taking that job might as well have a bullseye on him. I hope we are providing Secret Service protection for the guy.
• Bush handled the impromptu press conference pretty well. A pleasant surprise.
• Kerry’s positions are barely distinguishable from President Bush’s these days. The only difference is his healthcare plan and the repeal of the upper-class tax cuts. The other stuff is just form, though Europe would probably cooperate with him more readily. Of course, their fundamental problem remains: they lack a substantial military and have little to contribute in the way of troops or money. Just a bunch of talk about multilateralism and other diplomatic platitudes.
• The economy continues to improve and at a strong pace. Should work in Bush’s favor though we’re seeing the revenge of the baby boomers and Bush has a tough road in front of him. My parents are from that generation and can’t stand it because there’s a huge mass of people that cut their teeth politically in the 1960s, which goes a long way in explaining the divisiveness in the country now.

That’s about it really, at least as far as I’ve seen. Like I said, just throttling back a bit to enjoy life a little more and deal with the work load.

BTW, I’ll try to get that thing with the right sidebar fixed when I can.

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You can find this entry in: Blogging

What a story. A fascinating, though morbid, story of man that planned to kill another man who had raped him when he was seven. His mother, correctly in my estimation, suspects that there are other victims. It’s also clear that the victim is still suffering. Not for the faint of heart. A quick excerpt:

I was going to watch him writhe like a poisoned cockroach for a few seconds, then kick him onto his stomach and put three bullets in the back of his head. This time last year I had a gun, and a silencer, and a plan.

Via Spoons. DP link via Say Uncle in comments to Spoons’s post.

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You can find this entry in: Crime

Been away from the computer all weekend. Wouldn’t have posted at all except for the post-dating in WP. The posts are hidden until the time arrives. Hope everybody had a good Memorial Day. It’s the longest I’ve gone without posting in months. Felt good. See you in a day or so.

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You can find this entry in: Blogging

I said I would return to Troy and so I shall.

I don’t remember The Iliad well enough to say how faithful it is to the source material, but I suspect not much. The closing credits say “Inspired By” as opposed to “Based On". Even so, I enjoyed it. I have basically the same gripe with it that I had with LOTR: Return of the King: it overdid the battle sequences to the point that it wasn’t pushing the story forward. It’s a pet peeve of mine, but after seeing literally hundreds of movies, battle scenes don’t impress me that much. At times it felt as if the battle scenes were being dragged out and the director was doing it to appeal to our love of carnage.

I liked the movie, even so, because it reintroduced me to the characters and the story. The movie is well-made as far as it goes. Brad Pitt makes an OK Achilles and the others are fine also. The girl they picked to play Helen is worth starting a war over; quite the babe. OK, so it was her husband’s vanity that was the real motivation, since he planned to kill her himself once they had retrieved her from the Spartans. Still good casting for Helen. For women wanting to see scantily clad men, the movie will not disappoint, either.

As I said in an earlier post, the movie had the best effect a movie can have: it made me want to return to the source material. I went to the Barnes & Noble that’s right by the theater and apparently I wasn’t the only one who had the idea. They were sold out of copies of The Iliad. As luck would have it I stumbled across an old copy – my brother’s, not mine – and will be reading it again. Hopefully it has a nice explanation by someone well-versed in literature to accompany the book because I’m pretty dense when it comes to those things. It’s one of the reasons I rarely read fiction, at least the highbrow stuff.

I recommend the movie as a movie though. It was pretty entertaining and not bad for its kind these days, though it pales when compared to older epics that managed to tell stories well without special effects and massive battle sequences filled with gore.

7/10

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You can find this entry in: Movies