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Power Line: The AP Goes Over the Top for the Democrats

Bill Graziano — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 00:35:52 GMT

Great post about all the garbage the AP got wrong about the NIE. Even in the articles written after the NIE was released. Morons.

At this morning's press conference, the AP's Jennifer Loven, one of the most partisan reporters in that highly partisan stable, asked a tendentious question about the NIE, in response to which President Bush announced that he had ordered the report's conclusions declassified so that the American people can read it for themselves and draw their own conclusions. We quoted that exchange below.

Source: Power Line: The AP Goes Over the Top for the Democrats

New Sisyphus

Bill Graziano — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 00:34:03 GMT

Interesting post about Clinton on Fox News the other day...

That said, the current turmoil over the President's appearance on Fox News Sunday did illustrate what I think is a long-standing weakness of the Democratic Party and their standard bearers: they're not used to being treated like dirt.

Conservatives are, and it shows. When a conservative Republican is on a show like Hardball or talking with a reporter from the New York Times, he knows he is in for it, that he isn't going to get a fair deal and that everything he says will be twisted and tortured and given the most negative spin possible. Accordingly, conservatives have learned to roll with such punches and, critically, how to get their message across in such an environment.

Liberals have not, to date, had to deal with any of this on such a large scale. One of the reasons Fox News drives liberals absolutely nuts is because of the simple *affront* of it all. No one talks like that to liberals, not the press and certainly not academics.

Clinton had some good points (and some bad ones) but the over-the-top, shrill denunciations of Wallace, Murdoch and Fox News were the product of an outraged temper of a man not used to being treated roughly. This sort of delicacy keeps liberal pols out of shape in the same way that a football player never knocked around in practice is not ready for the big game.

The media is changing, and liberals should wise up and realize their home field advantage days are long over. The sooner they internalize that lesson, the better off we'll all be.

Source: New Sisyphus

Testing

Bill Graziano — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 07:38:38 GMT

Let's see if this thing works. I updated software and it needs a little test.

President Graziano is pro-vacation

Bill Graziano — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 08:48:00 GMT

I've posted a few pictures from Rocky Mountain National Park. I'm still trying to figure out the new Nikon D50. I've got a better neutral density filter on the way -- and that means longer exposures on waterfalls!

Kerry on the Middle East

Bill Graziano — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 10:53:00 GMT

John Kerry is complaining about the situation in the Middle East and made this brilliant quote: "If I was president, this wouldn't have happened".

What exactly would he have done differently? Would he have prevented Israel from withdrawing from Lebanon? Would he have kicked Syria and Hizbullah out of Lebanon? How? Would he have convinced Hamas and Hizbullah to give up their dreams of destroying Israel? Would he have forced Iran to stop funding terrorists? How?

Knowing what he knows now what would he have done differently? If the Democrats want me to take them seriously on foreign policy and actually vote for them I need more details.

The nature of this war

Bill Graziano — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 21:34:00 GMT

I found two interesting posts regarding the nature of this war. The first discusses how Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties and Hizbullah (or however they spell it this week!) tries to kill as many civilians as possible. It also has an interesting quote on the US response after Pearl Harbor:

In 1938, a Gallup Poll had found 91% of Americans agreeing with the statement "all nations should agree not to bomb civilian cities in wartime." Three days after Pearl Harbor, 67% said they favored unqualified and indiscriminate bombing of enemy cities, with only 10% expressing unqualified opposition

It is a very interesting read on the nature of war and its effects.

The second talks about the logistical hurdles of attacking Iran. It was very interesting to see that Iran imports so much gasoline. I like what that type of attack would do to Iran but I don't like what it would do to gas prices here in the US.

My prediction is a full-scale invasion of Lebanon with some type of attack on Syria. Israel needs to recreate their buffer zones and regain control of Gaza. Vast areas of land can't be left under the control of non-state actors such as Hizbullah and Hamas.

The Religion of Peace

Bill Graziano — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 21:26:00 GMT

There was an editorial in an Australian paper that had this quote:

War and murder have been carried out in the name of Allah in Thailand, Bali, Sumatra, the Philippines, Nigeria, Algeria, Somalia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Egypt, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, India, Bosnia, Albania, Kenya, Tanzania, France, the Netherlands, Britain, Spain, Denmark, Russia, the United States and Sudan, where mass murder and mass rape have been the tools of cultural war.

I just wanted to remind everyone that Islam is a religion of peace. In case they forgot.

Catching Up...

Bill Graziano — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 18:40:00 GMT

A collection of links I really should have posted earlier...

The Curse of Freedom - A fantastic post discussing Afghanistan and Iraq. It compares two interesting posts. Of special interest to me was the Iraqi view toward Israel.
Putting the Pieces Together - An interesting look at Islam
Secret, Not Secret; Secret, Not Secret - More of PowerLine making fun of the NYT.
Vietnam as Mental Quagmire - The Belmont Club discussing why Iraq isn't like Vietnam and the problems that comparison causes people.
Or What's a Uniform For - The Belmont Club on the recent Supreme Court ruling.
That Was Then - The NYT calling for the creation of a program to track terrorist finances. Four years ago.

Sorry to dump all that on you at once. The Curse of Freedom is the most recent post and they go chronologically backward. The second post is probably the most timeless (and also the longest).

A Look Inside Al Qaeda

Bill Graziano — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:32:00 GMT

Here's a post about a memo recovered from al-Zarqawi's house. It's a strategy document with some interesting content...

In general and despite the current bleak situation, we think that the best suggestions in order to get out of this crisis is to entangle the American forces into another war against another country or with another of our enemy force, that is to try and inflame the situation between American and Iraq or between America and the Shi'a in general.

Criminal Conduct at the Times

Bill Graziano — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:28:00 GMT

The WSJ has an editorial by a law professor about whether the NY Times broke the law when it published the classified information on monitoring Al Qaeda phone calls into the US. In response to the NT Time's claim that it had a right to publish the classified information the author replies...

This is truly an extraordinary claim, that somehow the New York Times is entitled to weigh evidence and determine for itself whether to publish classified information--in other words, that the New York Times is above the law and can publish whatever classified information it sees fit, with impunity.

When Total War is Not an Option

Bill Graziano — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 22:51:00 GMT

The New Sisyphus has a fascinating post titled When Total War is Not an Option.

A group of Palestinian children were sent towards the Gaza Strip border fence holding toy guns on Thursday in order to test the vigilance of the soldiers on duty.

It covers quite a bit of ground. There is a great discussion about how we go out of our way to avoid civilian casualties and the terrorists go out of their way to cause them. He also talks about how we've handled similar situations in the past.

In case you've been to college lately and think that the Japanese were treated thusly only because they have different color skin and look different, consider our similar treatment of the European, white, blond-haired, blue-eyed, Christian Germans: we firebombed their cities and killed them where ever we could find them, if they fought from bunkers or pillboxes we burned them alive inside with flamethrowers, we bombed their cities into rubble as a matter of strategy, and-again, listen up because this is important-when they hid snipers, troops or supplies in Christian churches we utterly destroyed them, even when they were ancient and culturally priceless cathedrals. And when we were done, we divided the country into four zones, occupied our portion of it, ruled it directly, hung their former leaders, determined on our own who would be allowed to take part in German public life from that point forward and warned the public that more death and destruction would be forthcoming if they dared heed the calls of the last Nazi holdouts to fight a guerrilla war. There was a small German insurgency even so; it was ruthlessly suppressed within two years.

It talks about "Jacksonian" war and how we're fighting. Definitely worth a read to get you thinking.

Catching Up

Bill Graziano — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 22:45:00 GMT

There are a number of items I've been wanting to link to and I'm not going to do them all justice. So here they are:

What Happened to Those Chemical Weapons
The Left's March Through our Instituions - This one especially chapped my hide. The ABA is playing politics with judicial nominees. Here's a little background on who these people are.
So, How Bad are Things in Iraq Really?
Swiftboating the New York Times

The other thing I think is funny is all the articles you don't read on the booming economy. We've been doing well now for thirty-four months in a row. Most of these are PowerLine posts. I'm finding a lot of interesting information through those folks.

Interesting Graphs on Gas Prices

Bill Graziano — Sat, 13 May 2006 11:28:00 GMT

Here's a slick little graph comparing gas prices to searches for "gas prices". He has some other interesting graphs in the article. Google Trends is an interesting tool that lets you compare search history of terms. Here's a comparison of Royals vs. Yankees.

Michael Kinsley is a ...

Bill Graziano — Sat, 06 May 2006 10:21:00 GMT

I really wanted to say Moron in the title. How great is the Internet? Some random guy living in a fly-over state can call a syndicated columnist a moron on a medium that most everyone in America can read.

PowerLine linked to a Kinsley article on taxing excessive oil pofits. I really didn't believe some of their comments. I mean the article couldn't be that bad could it?

Boy, was I ever wrong! This thing is nuts. Where to start.

This hunt for a smoking gun misses the point. Taxes are not a form of punishment. And you don't need to find wrongdoing to justify a special tax on their profits.

Taxes can be a form of punishment if they're used that way. Liquor and tobacco taxes are commonly called sin taxes. Why are the taxes on these products higher than on other products if not to punish the people who use them and produce them?

Ordinarily, and wisely, the U.S. government doesn't try to guess what is or is not a reasonable profit and doesn't try to tax away profit that is unreasonable. As a general principle, the government tries to tax all business profits at a rate that will produce enough revenue to help cover the cost of government without unduly destroying the incentive to produce. Under Republican administrations, the government usually goes further and gives business a bunch of absurd tax breaks. The oil industry has been a special pet over the years.

I like the absurd tax breaks quote. I'm still looking for a list of tax breaks. I wonder how many new refinerys have been built in America over the last few years. The articles I've read say none because of tax and environmental issues. I haven't found the raw data yet to post though. And notice the assumption that all Republican tax breaks are absurd.

Ordinarily, we shouldn't want the government to decide when profits become "excess." But the case of huge profits from the run-up in oil prices is different for two reasons. First, it is unusually clear that these profits have nothing to do with productivity. Diverting them to the U.S. Treasury would have no effect on the incentive to extract more oil from American ground. Second, some or all of these profits are directly related to a situation that is imposing huge sacrifices—financial and otherwise—from others; that is, the Iraq war.

I wonder how you define excess profits? Are Google's profits excessive? Should we create a government agency to monitor profits? If the profit comes from increased demand rather then increased productivity then you don't get taxed. When 3M invented the Post-It Note they created an entirely new product. Their profits didn't come from increased productivity they came from creating demand where none existed. Should they be taxed on their excess profits?

But that's not the stupidest arguement in that paragraph. It's this whopper: "Diverting them to the U.S. Treasury would have no effect on the incentive to extract more oil from American ground." Does he really believe that? Does he really believe that reducing the profits a business can make on an activity will have no effect on how much they invest in the activity?

Because of the war, the government is adding hundreds of billions of dollars to the burden of debt that all taxpayers, including other businesses, will have to pay off. Because of the war, American soldiers by the hundreds, and Iraqis by the thousands, are paying the ultimate tax of death by government policy. And because of the war, American oil companies are raking in extra billions of dollars of profits.

I think he just put this quote in here so he could rail against the war. I'd like to see an honest analysis of exactly how much the Iraqi war increased oil profits compared to increased Chinese demand, overall Middle East instability, Venzualen instabilty, etc.

The oil companies, like other big corporations, are mostly owned by ordinary citizens, either directly or through mutual and retirement funds. Presumably some of them support the war and others don't. Do any of these shareholders, pro-war or anti-war, want to pocket $45 billion (or whatever number you choose) from a war that is costing others so much?

Yes! I do! I did actually. I bought some energy related mutual funds and did quite well for myself thank you very much. He did hit on a key truth here. If you tax the oil companies you are really taxing the people that own their stock. You're really punishing people that have retirement account that own energy companies.

I'm not sure if he wants higher gas prices or lower gas prices. I am pretty sure he hates oil companies though. And he wouldn't make a good economist.

New CIA Head

Bill Graziano — Sat, 06 May 2006 09:33:00 GMT

PowerLine has a funny post on the new potential CIA Director. Their final few sentences:

Hardly anything would give the Republican faithful a bigger boost than the spectacle of Senate Democrats attacking an Air Force general for trying to protect America against terrorism. Please, Democrats, please don't deny us this opportunity. And could we possibly schedule the hearing closer to November?