You know, the economy is in the dumper. Republicans blame Clinton and the Democrats. Democrats blame Republicans and Bush. Usually, recessions are hard to pin point. But this time around, it's pretty obvious who the blame lies with -- THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Every American who bought stock in some idiotic dot-com idiocy helped contribute to the recession. Let's face it, as a collective, we earned this recession. Any country that puts together the capital to support a pet supply website to ...
It must be something in the water. As Right Wing News points out, Johnny Depp, just before the opening of his new movie, "Once Upon a time in Mexico" was in France slamming the United States Would he have us emulate France? Possibly the most cynical self serving country on Earth? These are the guys who wouldn't let their "ally" even fly over their air space during a strike on Libya after Libya's terrorist bombing of a disco frequented by American troops As RWN points out, his remarks will...
Steven Den Beste has an interesting article that responds to some of the statements that the German Foreign Minister put out this week. But it got me thinking about how much the world has changed in just the past 50 years. 50 years ago, we expected strategies to play out over decades. Now, we have the German Foreign Minister claiming that the domino strategy in the middle east has failed. Huh? We've only been over there a few months. Germany of all countries should know that it's not wise t...
To me, removing Saddam from the board seems like a pretty clear cut "smart" thing for the US to do for so many different reasons. But if you try hard enough, you can make any foreign policy decision look foolish. Why, in June 1944 did the why did the US invade northwest Europe? Hundreds of thousands of Americans died in Europe. Why? The USSR would have defeated Germany on its own. That was pretty obvious by June 1944 so we don't have the excuse of not k...
In an article asking whether Europe liking the US should be a campaign issue or not , I pointed out some of the questionable international actions of France in the past century. Admittedly, the article had its share of French bashing. My point wasn't just to bash France though. It was to point out the absurdity of listening to France's advice on foreign policy. I got a lot of email on this as well as comments on it. Here's one that asked specific questions that I'd like to address. 1. W...
Michael Moore and I share two things in common. We're both from Michigan and we're both grew up in the midst of Big Three blue collar workers. But that's where the similarities end and the different readings on what the "majority" of Americans think about things. Michael Moore seems to have two basic beliefs: (1) The majority of Americans have liberal opinions. (2) Conservatives are all about "me me me me". To extrapolate on that, he essentially feels that m...
Those who say there isn't a liberal bias in the media should take a closer look at what the media chooses to report on. It doesn't even take long to discover that the issues that get reported tend to be ones dear to liberal causes. Let me give you a good example: Today the news covered how any millions of people are not covered by medical insurance. It was reported repeatedly on NPR, CNN, ABC News, and CBS evening news (didn't see NBC but I bet it was reported there). Is that real...
There was a report, repeated often on the news today, that there are now 44 million Americans without health insurance. So what? No, seriously. What exactly does that mean? Does it mean you can't get medical care? No. What it means is that if you need medical care that you are responsible for paying for it yourself. In other words, there are 44 million Americans whose health care isn't pay for by someone else (i.e. such as their employer as part of their compensation package). Unt...
Seems like everyone is writing about the recall in California. It makes for an exciting story but the aftermath won't likely be nearly as exciting. You already hear the Democrats complaining about lack of polling places (apparently it was too much to have to fill out a ballot and mail it in for these people). But here's some sobering realities: California is a mess. Why any business would locate itself in California is beyond me. If any state should have been chopped up into several states it...
Right now there's a lot of people who seem to think that because we haven't found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is a major problem for the US. In fact, it's not. In the bigger picture, WMD was just a low hanging fruit excuse to do what needed to be done in Iraq. Those same people seem to forget that there were a lot of other low hanging fruit reasons to invade Iraq. One of the most obvious is, if he didn't have WMD, then Saddam was a fool to flout the UN resolutions and mess with the inspe...
At the risk of being an anti-populist (and worse), I'll be up front: I don't agree with universal suffrage. There, I've said it. Go ahead, call me names. I'm a bad bad man. But there's a reason for my view on this. I don't believe that those who don't contribute to the treasury should be allowed to dictate what is done with that treasury to those who do. Calor writes in "Why the left hates Bush" that Gore should have been President. If only a few voters in Florida had man...
In American politics, presidential candidates like Howard Dean stress the need of getting other countries to like us "again". Do you think that French candidates sweat whether the United States likes France? In fact, the United States has a 200+ year obsession with wanting other countries to like us or to accept us. The upper crusts of the American life have traditionally felt scorn and embarrassment at the "crass" culture of the United States. In the United States, the middle class has always ...
Chicago Boyz has an article that outlines the continuing problems between the French and the UK. The French perspective seems to be "How can you Brits side with the Americans?" the British view tends to be "How can you not?" British Foreign Minister Jack Straw thinks the problem comes from differing experiences from the second world war. IT was a watershed moment for the French. As the Chicago Boyz blog points out, the French capitulated quite easily. As I'v...
Manufacturing jobs going over to China? Republicans fault. IT jobs going to India? Republicans. Acid rain? Republicans. Warm weather in November? Republicans. In fact, all bad things, if you listen to some people, are the fault of Republicans. You see, they have a deep dark secret: They favor businesses. And as hard as this is believe, given how enlightened we're supposed to be these days, they actually think capitalism is good. Isn't that amazing? Capitalism good! Let's take the charge t...
There is often a basic problem when trying to debate geo politics. You have one side that seems to be ruled by emotion or at least believes in "spiritual forces". You have the other side that seems to be ruled by logic and believes in direct causes and effects. The two don't mingle too well in debates. And nothing brings that up into sharper contrast than the debate about "root causes" of 9/11. For instance, some try to argue that the United States "provoked" ...