November 2006 Archives

Article VI, Section 3 (emphasis added):

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Dennis Prager:

Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress.

Nope, there's certainly no religious element in requiring one to swear on the Bible instead of the Koran. Another one of those "historical traditions," I suppose.

Oh, and he adds this:

But these naive people do not appreciate that America will not change the attitude of a single American-hating Muslim by allowing Ellison to substitute the Koran for the Bible. In fact, the opposite is more likely: Ellison's doing so will embolden Islamic extremists and make new ones, as Islamists, rightly or wrongly, see the first sign of the realization of their greatest goal -- the Islamicization of America.

Here here. If Mr. Ellison swears on the Koran, then the terrorists have won and every American will be killed by the Islamofacist's quest for world domination.

I'm so glad we have these spokespeople of moral clarity to keep us straight.

UPDATE: This is even stupider than it appeared. According to this, the House doesn't include a religious text in the swearing in ceremony. So apparently, this is another of those fake controversies intended to get people riled up over nothing.

I've installed a Coppermine Photo Gallery and will be uploading images there. Pictures should be a lot better organized now.

A while back I created my first Wikipedia entry.

It's on Ozark Adventist Academy, my alma mater. I attended OAA my junior and senior year. Seven hundred and fifty miles was a long way to be away from home, but I enjoyed my time there. And during that summer I spent in rural Northwest Arkansas, I learned quite a bit about finding interesting things to do for entertainment.

Unfortunately, someone has since edited my Wikipedia article; I think I should have been consulted first.

We know that in October you stepped up the violence in Iraq because the American elections were approaching, and that was your way of voting Democrat.

Well, thanks to your support, the Democrats won. Mission accomplished. But the elections are over now, so you can stop blowing everything up .

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald elaborates, with more quotes.

After four or five failed submissions, I finally made it to the front page.

Thank you State Senator Tim Burchett (R-Roadkill), for making it all possible.

What do the following people have in common:

Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
Edwin Meese III
Sandra Day O’Connor
Leon E. Panetta

If you answered "members of the Iraq Study Group with no apparent expertise in the Middle East," you'd be correct.

Additionally, I wonder how much working knowledge Senators Alan Simpson, Charles Robb, and former Secretary of Defense William Perry have on Iraq. But I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, due to their prior posts in government.

The point being that this group has gotten a lot of play, particularly from the news media. Yet when you break down its composition, there's no reason to assume that these members will come up with a novel peace plan that will magically transform the reason. It seems likely that this group's chief virtue will be in providing politicians with short-term cover on the problem, as most high-profile blue ribbon commissions are prone to do.

Sorry, this deserves a "BREAKING NEWS" caption, doesn't it?

Really, how did parents survive in the days before TV news?

I don't pretend to have any special insights into the mood of the electorate today. But for the heck of it I'll offer predictions based upon polling data and the wisdom of political gurus.

Obviously, outcomes in close races all come down to who votes. Hardcore Democrats will vote. Slightly more Republican base voters will show up. The wildcard is how many [moderates, swing voters, independents, whatever you want to call them] are counted. If "independents" are as disgruntled as the media has said they are--if they show up to vote, it should be a good day for the Democratic party.

Without further ado, here are my calls:

U.S. Senate: Democrats +6 seats

This is a tough call. Ordinarily, I'd look at the close poll numbers and try to split the difference, assuming some would break for the Democrats, and some would fall for the Republicans. But recent history indicates that if this is a wave-type election, almost all the races will break one way. And recently the Senate has also been more likely to switch control than the House. So although my gut tells me the Democrats will pick up four or five seats, I'll go with six on the wave theory.

U.S. House: Democrats +26 seats

Many national pundits are predicting a turnover in 20-35 range. I'll lean toward the more conservative end (hedging my Senate pick). But I wouldn't be surprised with anything up to 30. If the Democrats pick up more than 30 seats, things are worse for the Bush administration than I thought.

Governors: Democrats +7 governorships

Today should see the Democrats retake a majority of governorships, which portends well for the future of party-building.

Here's a nice color-coded map showing poll closing times and close races to watch.

UPDATE: Think Progress has compiled a list of pundit predictions. I'll soon see how I stack up against the "experts."

Looks like the "commanders in the field" didn't do their homework:

A series of secret U.S. war games in 1999 showed that an invasion and post-war administration of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, nearly three times the number there now.

And even then, the games showed, the country still had a chance of dissolving into chaos.

And yet, in the battle to save western civilization from the Islamofacists, we only send 150,000 troops. Go figure.

Muslims:

Clippard reserved his strongest words for what he said he considered paramount for all Americans: the threat of Islam. "Today, Islam has a strategic plan to defeat and occupy America," he told the 1,200-strong crowd of delegates (called "messengers"), pastors and lay people, many of whom cheered his words.
. . .
Clippard said that Muslims were hoping to take over the United States government one city at a time, and that they were starting with Detroit, where there is already a large Muslim population.

"They are trying to establish a Muslim state inside America, and they are going to take the city of Detroit back to the 15th century and practice Sharia (or Islamic) law there."

In an interview Tuesday, Clippard said he believed the Islamic "strategy for taking over America" was to wait until there was a Muslim majority here and then "eradicate those who don't conform to their religion."

Apparently Islam has filled the void left when Communism fell--the external threat our visionary leaders can rail against.

UPDATE: Fox News Channel contributes to the effort this weekend, airing "Obsession: The Threat of Radical Islam" five times. The thesis: "the Islamofascists are exactly the same as the Nazis, except -- to quote one of them -- 'way more dangerous'." I guess I should watch this documentary, because I didn't realize the Islamofascists had a trained military of several million troops.

Glenn Greenwald goes way back in the time machine (one month) and discovers that one of Dick Moris' election predictions was completely wrong. Very surprising. I remember when the alleged liquid bomber threat was uncovered, Morris said that event would completely reshape the mid-terms in the Republicans' favor.

Punditry and "analysis" of this type really is the backbone of American political dialogue. Most of the people who have been anointed as our mainstream pundits and experts know nothing. The better ones do nothing but mindlessly recite ossified, thoughtless conventional wisdom that they exchange with one another, while most of them are driven by all sorts of personal agendas that cause them to propagandistically spout their own desires and beliefs masquerading as political analysis.

I'm at the point where if I hear Morris say something, I suspect the opposite will likely happen.

Best quote: "This isn't an election anymore, it's an intervention."