Cranial Cavity

Here are a few excerpts and various thoughts on the John Howard victory as Australian Prime Minister.

Chrenkoff – The international implications:

Would have been much greater had the Howard government lost. We can all imagine how the media would portray it as a major political defeat for Bush, the end of the Coalition of the Willing, and a portent of things to come in America in November. So Howard saved Bush a good few days of bad press. The media will now have to run with something else; I’m sure they will find something; they always do.

Silent Running who commented on some bloke on Melbourne IndyMedia predicting a resounding Howard defeat:

Yeah, yeah, Dewey Defeats Truman, heard it all before. These are the same people who are insisting that Chimpy the Texas Wonder Nazi is about to get his clock cleaned by Captain Nuance. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Relax America – W is going to win and it isn’t even going to be close.

Tim Blair, who readily admits being wrong but continues his love affair with the “homeland.”

Never again will I doubt the wisdom of Australians. I called this election all wrong, essentially because I couldn’t believe—despite a powerful economy, correct views on the war, and a lame opposition campaign—that John Howard could win four elections in a row.

I love this country for proving me wrong. I love Australia.

McQ of Q and O

Not only was he reelected, the result appears to have increased his government’s majority in parliament. Good news for the Bush administration.

The polls were wrong, not that it comes as a particular surprise.

Perhaps a foretelling of the results here? The incumbent reelected by a good majority (as I’ve been predicting for months)? With last night’s debate under Bush’s belt its entirely possible.

Whiskey at Captain’s Quarters

Certainly, the Australians sent a decisive signal to the murderous thugs plotting against democracy. But the US election will be more than a signal to AQ and its like, it will be a decisive proclamation: either “we will continue to hunt and kill you wherever you may hide” or “we’re just gonna to wait for a global test on what to do with you, raising taxes is far more important.”

Mike of Cold Fury who also notes the effect that The Baroque Candidate’s sister Diana had on the election.

And I would have to say that this was a dastardly attempt by Kerry to undermine the war effort by directly undermining the coalition fighting it, hoping to convince Australians to abandon a steadfast will to win in favor of tremulous cowardice and appeasement. Just another day’s work for Kerry’s minions, nothing more. Thankfully, she failed; could we call this Kerry’s first defeat of the ‘04 campaign, perhaps? Let’s hope our countrymen are smart enough to see through their blinding, destructive, all-devouring ambition—just as the Aussies were.

Here are a couple reasons given by Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, in his book Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?

Last year an official report on public libraries declared that “New libraries should include cafes and chill-out zones where young people can watch MTV, read magazines and listen to CDs on listening posts”. The justification for this was not market-driven (libraries are not in commercial competition with cafes), but was based instead on the feeling that your average MTV-watching, milk-shake-slurping, chilling-out youth might feel “excluded” by the silence (and, even worse, the books) of a traditional library.

Similarly, Furedi quotes a Professor of Education who argued last year that universities should stop expecting students to write essays, because essay-writing might seem “difficult and alien” to some of them, who would then be “disenfranchised”; instead, they should be given “small-scale writing tasks” with which they would feel more comfortable. Giving students something difficult to do is thus to deny them their rights, just as allowing libraries to look like libraries is to encroach on the rights of those youngsters who would prefer them to resemble their living-rooms.

It has been at least a decade since I last visited California, and longer one of its libraries, but I have a strong feeling this type of non-sense may rear it’s ugly head there first. Assuming it hasn’t already.

Remember Kerry’s words from Friday’s Debate?

The president also took Medicare, which belongs to you. And he could have lowered the cost of Medicare and lowered your taxes and lowered the costs to seniors. You know what he did? He made it illegal, illegal for Medicare to do what the V.A. does, which is bulk purchase drugs so that you can lower the price and get them out to you lower.

Double “L” Michelle has the counterpoint. And in related news Michelle also notes why you won’t be getting your flu shot this year. Hint: It’s the Government buying on the cheap, very much like his proposed Medicare plan.

Surprisingly the BBC has provided a balanced report on the recently released Iraqi Survey Group report. If I didn’t know better one would almost believe they were pro-war – I’am shocked – shocked I tell ya.

• Saddam Hussein’s goal was evading and ultimately ending UN sanctions that severely restricted what he could import into Iraq. The UN oil-for-food programme gave the Iraqi economy a much-needed boost, but not enough to let him re-start a weapons of mass destruction programme.
• Once he could restart those programmes, his intention was to focus on chemical weapons for use on the battlefield, long-range missiles, and nuclear weapons.

Saddam Hussein ended his nuclear programme in 1991, after the Gulf War, and there was no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart it.

• His motivation for developing these weapons was his enmity with Iran, with which Iraq fought an eight-year war in the 1980s. His secondary goals were to oppose Israel and raise his status in the Arab world. The report does not suggest he sought the weapons to oppose the US or to give weapons to terrorists.
• Saddam Hussein’s belief in the value of WMD was shaped from his experiences in the 1980s and early 1990s. He believed that during the 1991 Gulf War, WMD had deterred US-led forces from pressing their attack beyond the goal of freeing Kuwait.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

• Saddam Hussein ended his nuclear programme in 1991, after the Gulf War, and there was no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart it. Senior Iraqi officials believed Saddam would restart a nuclear programme if UN sanctions imposed after the end of the Gulf War were halted.
• Baghdad undertook a variety of measures to conceal key elements of its nuclear programme from successive UN inspectors, including specific directions from Saddam Hussein to hide and preserve documents.
• There were at least two instances in which scientists involved in uranium enrichment kept documents and technology. Although apparently acting alone, they did so with the belief and anticipation of resuming uranium enrichment efforts in the future.


• The regime prevented scientists from the former nuclear programme from either leaving their jobs or Iraq. In the late 1990s key personnel were given significant pay rises in a bid to retain them. The regime also undertook new investments in university research to ensure that Iraq retained technical knowledge.

BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

• Baghdad abandoned its biological weapons programme in late 1995 out of fear it would be discovered. Such a discovery would have made it harder for Iraq to free itself of UN sanctions.


• There was no evidence of any biological weapons work after 1996, and Saddam expressed no interest in biological weapons after that time.


• Iraq appears to have destroyed its hidden biological weapons stocks in 1991 and 1992. However, it kept a few samples that would have been useful in starting a biological weapons programme, and it had a group of scientists knowledgeable about such weapons.


• No evidence was uncovered that Iraq had biological weapons production systems mounted on trucks or rail cars.

CHEMICAL WEAPONS

• Iraq unilaterally destroyed its hidden chemical weapons stockpile in 1991, and there is no credible evidence that Iraq ever resumed producing such weapons.


• However, Saddam Hussein never abandoned his intentions to resume efforts in chemical weapons when UN sanctions were lifted and conditions were judged favourable.


• The regime organised its chemical industry after the mid-1990s to allow it to conserve the knowledge-base needed to re-start a chemical weapons programme.


• One of Saddam’s sons, Uday, tried to obtain chemical weapons for use during the US-led invasion in 2003, but there is no evidence he came into possession of any.

The BBC also sheds a little light on Saddam’s intentions and motivations in this piece.

Now, somebody tell me after reading this partial transcript of John Kerry’s comments to reporters Thursday how it is possible he has any clue at all. He is not only clueless, but dangerous, And as Glenn Reynolds puts it, Kerry’s case has collapsed.

As provided by John Rosenthal and his blog, Transatlantic Intelligencer.

The Legend of the Squandered Sympathy

In the last two months, with John Kerry and the Democratic Party attempting to prove the superiority of their credentials to conduct America’s foreign policy, we have heard much of the legend of the squandered sympathy. According to this legend, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 the US enjoyed the heartfelt sympathy of the world, only to see this capital of goodwill frittered away by the successive faux pas of an inept and arrogant Bush administration and then definitively exhausted by the launching of an illegitimate war on Iraq in defiance of “world public opinion.”

The Democratic National Convention in July already set the tone. In the absence of much else to say on foreign policy matters, speakers at he convention returned to the theme of the squandered sympathy again and again. Jimmy Carter invoked it: “After 9/11, America stood proud, wounded but determined and united. A cowardly attack on innocent civilians brought us an unprecedented level of cooperation and understanding around the world. But in just 34 months, we have watched with deep concern as all this goodwill has been squandered by a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations.” Ted Kennedy alluded to it: “The eyes of the world were on us and the hearts of the world were with us after September 11th – until this administration broke that trust. We should have honored, not ignored, the pledges we made. We should have strengthened, not scorned, the alliances that won two World Wars and the Cold War.” And the Reverend Al Sharpton – the extent of whose expertise in international questions was made painfully clear during the Democratic primary debate in New Hampshire when he was unable to distinguish the Federal Reserve Board from the International Monetary Fund – elaborated upon it in characteristically grandiloquent style: “Look at the current view of our nation worldwide and the results of our unilateral foreign policy. We went from unprecedented international support and solidarity on September 12, 2001, to hostility and hatred as we stand here tonight. How did we squander the opportunity to unite the world for democracy and to commit to a global fight against hunger and disease? We did it with a go-it-alone foreign policy based on flawed intelligence.”

And the mandatory, read the rest.

H/T Chrenkoff

The presidential campaign has given “The Baroque Candidate,” John Kerry, ample opportunity to blast the current administration over its tax lower taxes and spend policies. Bush quite naturally catches all the rhetorical barbs like “largest deficit in history.” Never mind the present deficit is 17th on the list as measured by a percentage of the GDP. That fact won’t win any votes come November.

It has always been my contention that Congress holds the taxpayers purse. Bush, or any resident of the White House, only makes suggestions and recommendations thru yearly budget proposals.

Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post provides the perfect example of governmental largess and lays blame at the feet of its rightful owner, Congress.

Just look at the numbers. According to the president’s fiscal 2005 budget, discretionary federal spending—meaning money nobody is being legally forced to spend—has risen 29 percent over the past four years and is growing even faster than spending on Medicare and Social Security. According to a Cato Institute study, the increases for 2002, 2003 and 2004 constitute three of the five biggest annual increases in the past 40 years. Contrary to popular belief, not all the money has been spent on the military: Spending on everything besides defense will increase by more than a third during President Bush’s first term. Nor is it all going to homeland security. The Education Department, once slated for abolition, has experienced a huge spending boost [Say goodby to that Dem talking point – ed]. So has the Energy Department, whose creation was once greeted with skepticism. In fact, many of the programs that Republicans promised to eliminate in the mid-1990s—the dubious public-private partnerships, the extraneous commissions, the grants for pet causes—now have larger budgets than ever.

Judging from the record of this Congress, whose members are right now leaving Washington to ask us to reelect them, the growth isn’t going to stop, either. Partly this is because no one particularly cares. Partly it is because members will no longer allow any measure to become law unless they are bribed with billions of dollars of pork for their districts. The energy bill that nearly passed last fall would have contained some $23.5 billion in tax breaks for the oil and gas industries—three times what the president asked for—not to mention more billions for ethanol (on behalf of farm-state legislators) and coal producers (on behalf of coal-state legislators). The Medicare bill—even leaving aside what could be trillions of dollars for prescription drugs over the next decade—contained some $25 billion for rural doctors, on behalf of congressmen from rural states. A $5 billion corporate tax bill emerges with $150 billion in extras attached to it. A highway bill turns out to fund parking lots and museums, and costs billions more than it should.

Yet, while there is campaign talk about tax cuts and the resultant deficit, mostly from Democrats, I hardly hear anyone from either party crusading against the government spending that is equally responsible for the deficit and that will, if unchecked, force taxes up again anyway. With a few oddball exceptions, no one talks about what happens to the national economy when more activity is controlled by the government.

Nail – hammer – direct hit.

In forty plus years of public service Marion Barry has gone from serving three consecutive terms as mayor, holding the position for over a decade. Caught in an FBI sting he was arrested by the FBI and D.C. police for cocaine use and posession. Barry was charged with three counts of felony perjury, 10 counts of misdemeanor drug possession, and one misdemeanor count of conspiracy to possess cocaine; however, he was convicted only of a single misdemeanor count of possessing cocaine in November 1989. He was acquitted on one possession charge and a mistrial was declared on the 12 remaining charges. And just last month he was selected as the Democratic nominee to the City Council.

So who could make a larger comeback? None other than Saddam. At least according to one of the many shysters he has on the payroll.

Saddam Hussein now seems to have found faith in the democratic process. Saddam’s lawyer has told a Danish newspaper that the ousted dictator will run in Iraq’s elections with the view to become president again, media reported. Giovanni di Stefano has reportedly said that there is no law preventing Saddam from taking part in the election for the interim National Assembly.

Something tells me Saddam wouldn’t receive 99% of the votes like the last Iraqi election he participated in.

In an attempt to woo back the female vote the Kerry camp has decided to hide Te-raaaa-sa.

Democratic election advisers have ordered Teresa Heinz Kerry to adopt a lower profile in the final stages of the campaign by her husband, Senator John Kerry, for the White House because they fear that she may be alienating voters.

Mrs Heinz Kerry, who as the heiress to the Heinz fortune is one of the world’s richest women, has been told to keep out of the spotlight because her outspoken and unpredictable manner is regarded as an electoral liability. ...

Mr Kerry drafted veterans of the Clinton White House, including the former press secretary Joe Lockhart, into his team last month to reinvigorate his campaign. They warned that his wife appeared to be costing him votes and have instructed Mrs Heinz Kerry – who was born in Africa to Portuguese parents – to confine herself to mostly low-key events with only small numbers of voters.

“Teresa simply does not come across well to the general public,” said a female Democrat strategist. “Part of that is a suspicion of her foreign roots, I’m afraid. But it’s also her manner that puts people off and that has been very frustrating. So now her job is to speak to specific and carefully-chosen groups rather than general campaigning.”

What does that say for a potential Kerry presidency. What happens when Kerry’s team is in “bilateral” negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear program. Kerry has reached a settlement sold the farm and NK has agreed to stop delay its nuclear ambitions?

What happens if Te-raaaa-sa then is quoted as saying, as only she can, “North Korea isn’t that where they eat that crap in a can called Kimchi?”