I'm a little late putting my two cents worth in over this controversy, but it's so hard to resist liberal hypocrisy.  Even though Juan Williams is on the liberal side of the spectrum, he's a decent and honorable journalist with whom you can conduct a mutually beneficial and respectful conversation.  However, horror of horrors, he also worked for the "nefarious" Fox News along with National Public Radio, and NPR's leftist apparatchik director, influenced undoubtedly by big time NPR financial benefactor George Soros, decided Williams needed to be purged lest his more realistic understanding of Islamist terrorism, contaminate the multicultural mush adhered to by NPR management and many of its listeners.  NPR's "leader" suggesting that Williams should see his psychiatrist is especially hideous given the practice of the Soviet government of sending political dissidents to sadistic "psychiatric rehabilitation" in order to get their political thoughts and beliefs "straightened out."  Perhaps this woman should be sent to set up a new bureau in Pyongyang, North Korea and worship "dear leader" Kim Jong Il and his newly "anointed" son, so she can get an indepth understanding of true political madness.
 
NPR does provide more in depth analysis of governmental issues than most other networks and has included some relatively conservative perspectives in its broadcasts in recent years.  However, the bottom line is that it serves as a publicly subsidized fulcrum for leftist agitprop.  It's stable of "journalists" includes leftist mares like their Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg, former Romanian "poet" Andrei Codrescu who wished the rapture would cull the world of Christians, and long-time pseudo-journalistic leftist crank Daniel Schorr who leaked content from the congressional Pike committee on FBI and CIA activities than sanctimoniously hid behind the 1st Amendment and refused to reveal his sources.  Schorr was also a useful idiot for the Soviet Union and in 2002 described the Supreme Court's Gore v. Bush decision as a "coup by a gang of five."  You can also count on NPR to be a reliable mouthpiece for any leftist cause such as global warming, appeasing Islamist terrorism, deficit spending, supporting WikiLeaks, and serving as an enemy of traditional sexual morality.  It's time for Congress to unplug NPR's federal subsidies and force it to compete for dollars like thousands of other broadcasting entities.  If leftists want to fund NPR, they should do it entirely on their own dime.   

If, hopefully, a sufficient crop of conservatives Republicans is produced in the upcoming election to give control of one or both houses to the GOP, it will give conservatives a chance to reclaim our fiscally conservative credentials.  This can begin by cutting back on the size of government and consolidating and eliminating selected government agencies.  Even though, I'm a super hawk, there are ways we can cut the Defense Dept. budget without harming national security.  For instance, defense contracts should be managed through a single agency with helpful guidance from a recognized private sector accounting firm with the guts to stand up to corrupt or poorly performing contractors or petulant Representatives or Senators who are more concerned with whether these firms help their reelection prospects or their districts rather than actually produce dependable, high-quality, and affordable weapons that benefit national security.  Individual armed service branch science boards should be eliminated and consolidated into a single defense scientific research agency which would promote joint scientific and technological research and development collaboration within our military and holistically addressing current and emerging national security threats instead of seeking to promote selfish service budgetary dreams and prerogatives.

Unlike some conservatives, I am against eliminating the Energy Dept.  However, DOE's national laboratory system is a giant octopus that needs to be consolidated and some labs eliminated.  For instance, the Sandia National and Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico and the Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in California are very close to each other geographically and must have a significant amount of duplication in their research.  Starting here would be a good start.  There are several districts of the Federal Reserve system.  While they all do good analysis of regional economic conditions, do we need to have so many.  For instance, the part of Indiana where I live is part of the Chicago branch of the Fed, while Indianapolis and southern Indiana are part of the St. Louis branch of the Fed.  Surely, some consolidation is possible here.
NASA is another agency where facility and program consolidation should occur. Inspired by the pork barreling of its creator Lyndon Johnson, members of Congress have placed NASA facilities in areas as diverse as Washington, DC's Maryland suburbs, Pasadena, CA, Cleveland, OH, the Texas and Mississippi Gulf coasts, and Florida's Atlantic coast.  Opportunities for consolidating facilities and eliminating duplicate programs are also available here.

Agencies created in the depression are still around that have outlived their usefulness and their duties can be better performed by the private sector include the Agriculture Dept's Rural Utilities Service, the Bonneville Power Administration, and Tennessee Valley Authority.  Agencies such as the Interior Dept's Bureau of Land Management own significant percentages of western U.S. states and these should be sold off to private interests who would do a better job of managing them and bring in revenue from natural resources on these lands while following existing environmental regulations.  Smaller agencies such as the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, the Çorporation for National Service (Americorps), Legal Services Corporation could also be eliminated.  There are also a large number of health care research agencies within the National Institutes of Health whose research needs to be better prioritized and some of these agencies could be consolidated or downsized.  Do we need both an National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) within the Dept. of Health and Human Services and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the Labor Dept?

There are numerous individual government statistical agencies; most of whom produce useful research.   However, most developed foreign countries have a single centralized national statistical agency to collect, analyze, and disseminate government and private sector quantitative information.  We should look at consolidating these agency into a single national governmental statistical agency such as Canada's Statistics Canada.  We also need commissions that can look at ways of reforming entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to make them more sustainable and to encourage Americans to develop an ethos of personal savings from the beginnings of their formal education so they can make lifestyle choices that will keep them from becoming dependent on governmental assistance programs.  This is just a start, but as conservatives we need to introduce substantive proposals for reducing the size of our government besides rhetorical complaining and this is one modest step in that direction.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, the gatekeeper of presidential access, decides he wants to return to Chicago and run for mayor.  In other words, changing from one cesspool of corruption to another.  National security advisor James Jones also decides to leave.  Key presidential economic advisors such as Christina Romer and Larry Sommers also have left or are about to leave the Obama Administration.  The country is deeper in debt, unemployment is up and resistant to the Obama Administration's "magic wand" Keynesian pump priming stimulus, Iran is closer to becoming a nuclear weapons state, elements of Pakistan's military and intelligence services are openly supporting Al Qaida and the Taliban, and our international credibility and respect are oozing down the toilet.  Bob Woodward's new book on the administration reveals a president more concerned with appeasing his leftist peacenik base than developing a war winning strategy in Afghanistan.  The highly touted "change you can believe in" rhetoric of 2008 has become a sick joke and we are looking at a reprise of the Carter Administration.  At least, we've not had a repise of the Iranian hostage crisis yet.  On college campuses, many of the imbecilic students who were seduced by the Chicago charlatan are now realizing they face a future of limited employment opportunities and high personal and familial debts because of Obama Administration polices.

In response, Obama and his cultish acolytes are bringing out classical Democratic class warfare rhetoric against Republicans.  This administration, from the President on down, is so egocentric that they can't intellectually conceive of the possibility that their policies have created this morass and show the humility to admit their failures.  Consequently, they are poised to receive a huge kick in the groin in next month's elections which may result in them losing control of the House and Senate.  While some commentators think this may be a replay of the 1994 midterm elections, noted political analyst Michael Barone thinks it's possible that the 1894 midterm elections may be a more appropriate electoral analogy.  That year the country was enduring the 1893 panic under Democratic President Grover Cleveland and the electorate responding by increasing Republican representation in Congress by over 100 at a time when there were far fewer representatives and senators than there are today.

Obama, Reid, and Pelosi misinterpreted 2006 and 2008 election results as a sign that Americans were ready to embrace a return to big government policies including increasingly nationalized health care, permitting open military service by gays, bailing out incompetently run financial institutions and government sponsored enterprises such as  Fannie Mae, and allowing the EPA to regulate carbon emissions.  They are going to be rudely disappointed when they wake up the morning after the elections.  While Republicans need to do a better job of specifically articulating where the country needs to be taken, the energy of the Tea Party has repudiated the post-2008 prognostications of liberal election pontificates that the GOP and American conservatism had been consigned to historical obsolescence and political irrelevance.

American politics are inherently cyclical.  The triumph of one political cause or party can be reversed in a very short time thanks to two year congressional elections and other political developments.  Even significant Republican gains next month should only result in dancing in the streets for a day.  Hard work and tough choices must be made and governance is a serious business.  Remember that Bill Clinton was reelected in 1996, despite 1994's glorious triumph, so it's up to us to remember that it will be a long hard struggle to regain the trust of the American people and the presidency in Nov. 2012.

In 1898, as part of the Spanish-American War, the U.S. acquired the Philippines and the island territory of Guam.  Following World War II, the Philippines gained independence and hosted a significant U.S. military presence until the early 1990s.  Guam has remained a U.S. territory with an estimated 2009 population of 178,000.  It also hosts a growing U.S. military presence including Andersen Air Force Base and a naval base.  The impending withdrawal of some U.S. troops from the southern Japanese island of Okinawa will see these troops transferred to Guam.

As a U.S. territory, Guam is administered by the Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs.  It has an elected governor and territorial legislature as well as an elected congressional delegate who serves on congressional committees but does not have House floor voting power.  It has been 51 years since Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the union and I believe it's time for Guam to become the 51st state.  My reasons for this are geopolitical.  Guam is located within a few hours flying time of Indonesia,  Japan, Taiwan, China, the Korean Peninsula, and the Philippines.  The 2010 Defense Department report on Chinese military power features a map on p. 23 listing Guam and the U.S. administered Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands as being within the 2nd island chain of a Chinese maritime defense perimeter.  This is intolerable!  We cannot let China think it has a manifest destiny to threaten U.S. military dominance of the western pacific by extending its hegemonic aspirations to well beyond any reasonable coastal defense limits.

We must also remember that we have defense treaty obligations to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan that would be threatened if China controls these seas or airspace.  In addition, the Western Pacific and South China Sea's increasing importance in international trade and energy supplies would also be jeopardized if China is allowed to gain control of this area.
We also must be aware of the need to rapidly deploy U.S. and other allied forces to this region if North Korea engages in aggression against South Korea or Japan or if the current dispute China and Japan over Japanese boarding of an errant Chinese fishing boat is allowed to escalate as Chinese nationalist bloggers are advocating.

Maintaining Guam as a territory creates a sense of ambiguity about its status which could embolden assertive powers such as China to think we would barter it away.  This unfortunately, is highly possible under the strategically naive Obama Administration.  Granting statehood to Guam would make our presence in the Western Pacific permanent and send a clear signal to rulers in China and North Korea that their hegemonic aspirations will have to contend with a significant and permanent military presence and a relentless willingness to protect our interests in this strategic area by not allowing a hostile power or combination of powers to threaten our interests and hegemony in the Western Pacific.

News reports indicate there may be some kind of "deal" not to burn Koran's at a Gainesville, FL church on Saturday's 9th anniversary of 9/11.  We'll see if this is just some media or public relations trick or not.  It's the height of hypocrisy for secular multicultural leftists to get worked up over the burning of a book that is antagonistic to their world views and lifestyle practices, and not share the same outrage toward Muslim attempts to subjugate women, impose Sharia jurisprudence, and seek to restore the Islamist caliphate on a global level.  The level of multiculturalist leftist diversity cultism has become especially sad when General Petraeus worries that U.S. troops will be endangered by incendiary activity and when Defense Secretary Gates has to make a direct phone call to a previously obscure pastor at a small Sunshine State church.  I'd like to remind General Petraeus and Secretary Gates that our troops are already in danger because we are at war with a ruthlessly messianic enemy seeking to impose their nefarious religious beliefs on us by compelling our surrender or death.  During World War II would Eisenhower or MacArthur called an individual or organization who was planning to burn Mein Kampf or a written defense of Japan's bushido code out of concern for the "sensitivities" of the Germans or Japanese?  Highly unlikely!

 The historic body count of this Islamist enemy in  its fourteen century existence far surpasses that of genocidal regimes of recent history such as Nazi Germany, the former Soviet Union, and Maoist China and will increase exponentially if Iran is allowed to acquire nuclear weapons and if Al Qaeda or allied terrorists gain possession of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. 

There needs to be more appreciation of religious pluralism in the Islamic world instead of the post-Christian west.  Perhaps we could build an interfaith "dialogue center" or a cathedral larger than St. Peter's adjacent to Mecca's Grand Mosque.  When Libyan dictator Qaddafi urged Italians to convert to Islam during his recent visit to that country and when Iran's obnoxious leader Ahmadinejad denounces Judaism and urges conversion to Islam we need to abandon our supine multicultural notions that we can all live together in harmony and that this can be somehow achieved through greater dialogue.  We should actually encourge greater promotion of Christianity in the Islamic world and condition the overall status of our relations with Islamic countries on how well they permit the open practice and promotion of Christianity, whether they grant human rights and due process to Muslims in their countries who voluntarily convert to Christianity, and leverage any economic or security assistance they receive from us on how well they carry out policies which encourage Christianity.  Until Muslims countries stop persecuting Christians and burning Bibles and other Christian liturgical paraphenalia, there's no way I can take their purported "religious sensitivities" seriously about incendiary activity being considered toward their textual works which are incapable of withstanding even rudimentary critical evaluation.

P.S. Check out this excellent analysis by Michelle Malkin

I've always been an assiduous reader of history encompassing many corners of the globe.  As an avid book reader and collector, I have read and collected extensively in U.S. national, regional, and state history; the histories of many countries with a current emphasis on Australia following a trip to Sydney earlier this year; and political, diplomatic, and military history.  Two years ago, my wife and I visited the Getty Villa in Malibu, CA.  Inspired by its architecture and landscape patterned after a Pompeian villa, I have begun to read classical literature again.  I started by reading Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and am now reading Virgil's Aeneid.  Despite being written more than two thousand years ago, the classics have much to tell us today.  They profile the highest attributes of human behavior such as courage, fidelity, honor, and virtue and the lowest such as evil, greed, promiscuity, and vengeance.  Although they were not written with the wisdom provided by Judeo-Christian values, they contain much insights that we can apply to the proliferation of folly and sometimes wisdom which we see today.  The ancients struggled with fiscal recklessness, questions of war and peace, and numerous ethical dilemmas such as the difference between right and wrong in many life circumstances.  Sometimes they succeeded, sometimes they failed, and many times they managed to muddle through.

Seeing classical stories portrayed in art is also provides aesthetic inspiration and moral instructive.  Practically any art museum will have depictions of scenes from Greco-Roman mythology in their collections done by artists from many countries and representing many time periods and perspectives.  One of my favorite examples of this is Thomas Cole's the Course of Empire series which describes the inevitable rise and fall of all human civilizations.  Cole (1801-1848) was concerned with the direction America was taking under Andrew Jackson's presidency and the emergence of industrialization in national economic life.  Today, many of us of conservative political and intellectual viewpoints are troubled by the direction America seems to be taking toward greater collectivization under Barack Obama's presidency.  Classical literature and art can help us gain valuable historical perspective and moral insight on contemporary trends and developments and help us develop a more long-term and even eternal perspective on contemporary developments.  We will survive Barack Obama's folly and become recommitted to a financially and morally conservative ethos if we carefully study the classics and historical experience and apply these lessons within the parameters of a Judeo-Christian worldview that recognizes our need to depend on divine providence and take individual responsibility for our actions instead of expecting any level of government to meet all of our needs.

Many book publishers including Penguin and Harvard University Press' Loeb Classical Library provide affordable book versions of classical literature and Internet resources such as Project Gutenberg and the HathiTrust Catalog also provide ready access to these resources.  I encourage you to take advantage of them.

President Barack Obama began his Mideast foreign policy by traveling to the Islamic world and apologizing for real, or in the overwhelming case, imagined sins of U.S. foreign policy in that region.  This foreign policy novice and his guilt ridden liberal advisors who are ashamed of American exceptionalism and Israel, sought such going to Canossa pronouncements to the Arab masses would sow numerous benefits and improve our allegedly tarnished image in that part of the world.  A year and a half into Messiah Barack's presidency, none of this is working.  Recently released public opinion polls show the U.S.' standing in the Mideast has not improved and may actually be worse.  Obama has managed to alienate Israel our most important ally in that world, has a Afghan policy that seems determined to cut and run in mid 2011 instead of actually trying to win the war against the Taliban and Al Qaida, his efforts to get increased international sanctions against Iran's nuclear aspirations have failed miserably and the fanatical Shiite regime is closer to become a nuclear weapons state, and our withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq is resulting in increased internecine violence negating the hard won progress which has been made in that country since 2007.

Obama Administration incompetence in this region all merit apologies.  There are other historical mistakes we've made in this region we should apologize for.  We should apologize to Iran for not crushing Islamist opponents of the Shah after we helped him over throw the leftist secularist Mossadeq regime in 1953 which helped lead to the Ayatollah's revolution of 1979 whose human rights and geopolitical consequences still plague that region today.  We owe an especially big apologize to the British for not supporting them, the French, and Israelis, against Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1956 Suez War.  This betrayal, out of an idiotic sense of anti-imperialist spite, drove two important countries out of the Middle East and emboldened Islamist terrorists into the belief that they could impose their noxious doctrines on that entire region without the U.S. or any other country trying to stop them.  We should apologize to Lebanese Christians for our military withdrawal in 1983-1984 and allowing militant Muslims to gain greater political and cultural influence in that country.  We should also apologize to Israel for not letting it fully develop the West Bank and Gaza and for clinging to the delusional belief of the Palestineans and Arab World that "lasting peace" in that region is only possible by creating a terrorist controlled Palestinean state in Israeli territory which would be a dagger pointed at Israel's jugular vein.  We should also apologize for not having the courage to tell Saudi Arabia to quit promoting its poisonous Wahhabite Islamist ideology in educational systems all over the world and for not allowing freedom of religion within its own borders and we should also collaborate with Israel if it becomes necessary to take military action to prevent Iran from acquiring and using nuclear weapons.

We have to accept the Mideast as the bloodthirsty tribal Islamic cauldron that it is, with the honorable exception of Israel and maybe Jordan and some oil rich Persian Gulf countries, and quit deluding ourselves into thinking that we can transform these countries through soothing words or more money.  Unfortunately, that won't happen under this President and administration who are useful idiots for Islamist tyranny!

Nullification was a doctrine advocated by slavery proponents in the 19th century.  It claimed that states had the constitutional authority to overturn federal laws they considered unjust.  The doctrine was discredited by the Civil War, but recent legal developments are giving it a new lease on life.  In Arizona, we have the spectacle of its state government taking strong action to enforce immigration laws which the federal government refuses to do and which, in fact, has filed a lawsuit against Arizona's valiant attempts to properly enforce federal law.  Another instance where nullification is becoming increasingly justified was last week's California District Court decision by "Judge" Vaughan Walker overturning the California electorate's November 2008 decision banning same-sex marriage.

This case was brought by militant gay rights proponents who claimed their civil rights were violated.  First of all, marriage is not a right but a legal and moral privilege granted by state governments and religious institutions.  Marriage is also a state prerogative so this case should never had been heard in a federal court anyway!  The only thing which can overturn election results must be subsequent election results on the same subject; not court rulings!

Throughout the world and human history government and religious institutions, representing an immense variety of political, religious, and cultural traditions, have justifiably restricted marriage to being a covenant relationship between a man and a woman.  Recent decades have, sadly, seen an erosion of this common sense as militantly organized individuals and groups (primarily in legal circles and academe) have seduced many into believing that same sex couples should have the rights and privileges of legally sanctioned marriage.  Over 30 times this has been placed on the ballot in U.S. states, and EVERY SINGLE TIME traditional male-female marriage has been upheld by voters. 

Now an openly gay judge, who should have been removed from this case for his personally chosen ideological bias, has arrogantly decided he is entitled to overturn the will of California voters and send this case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and probably the Supreme Court.  We can still hope this repulsive ruling and horribly administered trial will be overturned, but this case shows us how dangerously far the movement for sexual perversity has advanced in this country in recent decades.  The decision itself has the intellectual quality of a whining child with a predisposition to rule in favor of same-sex marriage regardless of what the historical and legal facts, along with commonsense moral tradition say.  There's an excellent dissection of this ruling in National Review's Bench Memos blog by Ed Whelan on August 5.

If heaven forbid, the Supreme Court upholds this shameful decision, states need to take concentrated efforts to refuse to recognize same-sex "marriages" issued by other U.S. jurisdictions.  If Republicans gain control of Congress this fall, they should withhold "Judge" Walker's salary and benefits from the next federal judiciary appropriations legislation and they should also create subcommittees within the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to review and fast-track legislation to overturn federal court decisions that are so legally and morally horrendous.  Roe v. Wade is obviously a prime target for such legislative reversal.  Proponents of traditional marriage need to provide better social science empirical data to demonstrate the dangers of granting marital status to same-sex couples.  For instance, in countries such as Sweden which have allowed this to occur, the number of children growing in two-parent families and who are born in wedlock has declined significantly while increasing social welfare and criminal justice costs for these countries.  We must be prepared to wage a relentless intellectual war against proponents of same-sex marriage and be prepared to erect any kind of legal firewalls, up to and including nullification of court rulings, to protect traditional marriage against this insidious threat.
    

Last Saturday my wife and I attended by 30 year high school class reunion.  I'm originally from Marion, IN and I've enjoyed attending my high school class reunions on a regular basis since 1990.  My class had 650 students when we graduated in May 1980 and went on to college, the workforce, and marrying and starting families.  We've had victories and defeats and all that life can offer.  There are some high school friends I keep in touch with fairly regularly and I saw them at this reunion.  It was also wonderful to see classmates I had not seen for awhile.  In fact, there were some I don't think I'd seen since we graduated.  It was nice to reminisce and share past memories as well as current and future hopes and concerns in a positive environment.  I particularly appreciated it when a classmate said she appreciated what I said in my controversial "economic consequences of homosexuality" blog posting several months ago.  A number of people asked about my father who was a chemistry teacher at Marion High School when I attended there.

Some classmates looked almost like they did three decades ago, but with some you had to check their name tags to see who they were because their appearance did not match their high school yearbook picture which was on their name tags.  High school can resurrect various memories for people.  Although there were growing pains and negativity in some of my high school experience, I enjoyed it on the whole.  Consequently, it's good every five years to get reacquainted with various classmates and reminisce.

Although three decades have passed there are some eerie political similarities between now and 1980.  We had an incompetent Democratic President with a messiah complex then and that worm has returned to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW Washington, DC.  Our economy was struggling with double digit inflation, high interest rates, and a Islamist terrorist regime in Iran.  Today, we struggle with near double digit unemployment, accelerating budget deficits and national debt, and an administration that is afraid to forcefully confront the reality of Islamist terrorism and the leaking sieve that's become our southern border.  Fortunately, November 1980 saw Ronald Reagan's providential election to the presidency and our economic situation and national security gradually improved thanks to Reagan Administration policies.  We're stuck with Barack's Follies for over 2 years but we can do some congressional household cleaning in November by removing Obama's cronies from the House and Senate and sending full spectrum conservative reformers to these deliberative bodies to pursue policies that are beneficial to Americans, promote our national security, and restore fiscal probity while adhering to the highest ethical standards.  Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters need not apply!

Extraordinary rendition refers to transporting suspected foreign terrorists or criminal suspects to third countries for interrogation and imprisonment.  The perpetrators of the leak of highly sensitive information on U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, whether they are Americans or any other nationality, should face the highest possible punishment.  If we can capture these individuals and harshly interrogate or exterminate them in third countries go ahead and do it.  If we exfiltrate them from their own countries and bring them to the U.S. and administer justice than that's fine too.

Since the Pentagon Papers, self-appointed leftist zealots and "advocacy organizations" have felt it was their sole prerogative to determine if classified information they have illicitly obtained is published.  Given the ideological animosity felt by these groups toward the Nixon Administration four decades ago, such hostility is understandable even if leaking and publishing this information on U.S. operations in Vietnam was wrong.  Remarkably, this leftist animus toward governmental and military authority has been extended by Wikileaks and comparable groups to their Messiah Barack Obama.  Wikileaks founder Julien Assange is obviously an extremely stupid and reckless individual who seeks to glorify and enrich himself and his organization by aiding and abetting the Islamist enemies of western civilization.  The clear leftist orientation of his ideological compatriots is evidenced by their providing this information to leftist publications like the New York Times, London's The Guardian, and the leftist German magazine Der Spiegel.  The stunning and growing synchronicity between leftist western secularists and Islamist extremists is an extremely appalling phenomenon whose fruits we are now seeing.

Democratic governments have done a terrible job punishing those who leak classified information.  This is not something that can be resolved by conventional legal proceedings.  Since this action affects military and intelligence operations and may cost the lives of U.S. and allied soldiers and intelligence agents, the  U.S. Government should also use the resources at its disposal to  hunt down, capture, and even kill individuals like Assange who knowingly endanger U.S. security regardless of how unpopular this may be with the chattering classes of self-appointed guardians of "free expression" and the "free Internet" or their own national governments.  These individuals should be tried in military court, regardless of their civilian status or country of origin.  We live in a globalized and highly interconnected information drenched world and treason against the United States can be committed by individuals who are not Americans.   We should also use USA Patriot Act or other statutory powers to seize the financial assets of these individuals and organizations.  There should be no sanctuary for such individuals and organizations and the U.S. must be willing to use extraterritorial jurisdiction to apprehend these enemies.

We also need to upgrade our document security systems to impose maximum penalties on those who knowingly and illegally transfer such highly sensitive information.  This case, again, demonstrates the Obama Administration's incompetence in conducting national security and intelligence policy.  How many American and allied personnel will pay for these leaks with their lives because of this treachery?  We can begin partially rectifying the damage this egregiously incompetent administration has done to national security when the November elections come.

In  late May and early June, my wife and I had the enjoyable experience of visiting to Australia.  It took two flights each way with cumulative flying time averaging 18 hours each but it was well worth it.  Most of our time was spent in Sydney which is Australia's largest city and the New South Wales state capitol.  It was late fall/early winter down there, but since Sydney's latitude south of the equator is about the same as Los Angeles' north of the equator temperatures were not that bad.  In fact, highs most days were in the mid to upper 60s and may have even jumped into the low 70s a day or two.  We had a couple days of rain but only one of these days, our next to last one, was the rain heavy.

We were fortunate to stay in the Grace Hotel in Sydney's central business district so we were within 15-20 minutes walk of most attractions.  The Grace is an art deco hotel patterned after the Chicago Tribune building.  It is Malaysian managed and was a first class place to stay with an absolutely awesome breakfast except for the vegimite.  We were with a tour group a couple of days and got to take a nice guided bus tour of Sydney seeing Bondi Beach, sections like Paddington, and the historic Rocks area which was where Sydney's first white convicts and settlers came ashore after being transported from Britain in 1788.  The other guided tour we took we went to Featherdale Wildlife Park in west suburban Sydney where we got to see a wonderful variety of wildlife.
While there, an emu picked at my jacket zipper, we also got to have our photo taken with a koala, and saw wallabies, kangaroos, dingos, kookaburas, crocodiles, and other animals.  We then went on to see the town of Leura in the spectacular Blue Mountains which are about an hour northwest of Sydney.  We saw Govett's Leap in Blue Mountains national park and one of the three rocks called the Three Sisters in this same park.  It was very foggy that day so we could only see one of the sisters who are important in Aboriginal  mythology.  We did get to walk in a rainforest and saw Katoomba Falls and on our way back we got to see Homebush Bay where the 2000 Sydney Olympics were held and the Olympic Stadium which is now called ANZ Stadium.

Downtown Sydney is chock full of attractions and we took advantage of them.  We saw the National Maritime Museum and got to explore a replica of Cook's ship the Endeavour,  the Museum of Sydney, Powerhouse Museum (covering science, technology, and the decorative arts), the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Queen Victoria Building, the Royal Botanic Garden, the Chinese Garden of Friendship, and went to church at St. Andrew's Anglican Cathedral which is pleasantly evangelical in theology.  We saw the spectacular Sydney Harbour Bridge and a chamber music concert in the Sydney Opera House.  We also saw the New South Wales state library and legislative building and enjoyed hearing about Australian political developments on the news.  We also took a trip on the Sydney ferry which is an experience I highly recommend.  Sydney's harbor is spectacular and you should make an effort to see the gap area where the Pacific Ocean flows into the lengthy network of waterways.  We took the ferry over to Manly where we saw their spectacular beach, a nice local art gallery, and got to hike in Sydney Harbour National Park.  On our way back from Manly the sky cleared enough for us to see the Southern Cross constellation.  We also were very moved by the ANZAC Memorial in Sydney's Hyde Park.  We should remember and appreciate the sacrifices made for freedom by our Australian allies and study their historical and political developments as carefully as we study ours.

I bought a ton of books on Australian history and politics which I'm still working my way through.  One of these books is called Battlelines and is written by Tony Abbott who's the leader of Australia's Liberal Party which is actually a center-right party.  He would fit very comfortably within mainstream conservatism in the U.S. and Battlelines is clearly written by an intelligent and principled individual who was Australia's Health Minister in the last years of John Howard's government ending in 2007.  Hopefully, Abbott will become Australia's next Prime Minister after their election in late August.  When we were in Manly, we were actually in Abbott's Warringah constituency in the Australian House of Representatives.  Last summer, we spent some time in Witney near Oxford which is the seat in the British House of Commons represented by David Cameron who is now Britain's Prime Minister.  It would be totally awesome if I could say I was in the legislative districts of two conservative Prime Ministers just before they were elected!

When we were there the Labour Party Government was headed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.  Just a few weeks after I left, dissatisfaction with Rudd in his own party became so high that he was forced out by his fellow party parliamentary colleagues and party bosses and replaced by his deputy Julia Gillard who comes from the same genetic and ideological cloth Hillary Clinton does though Gillard has never been married.  Rudd was viewed with Obama like worship when he defeated Howard and was elected in 2007.  Australia's previous conservative government, under Howard and his first-rate treasurer Peter Costello, had managed to eliminate Australia's national debt which Rudd and his incompetent Labour cronies squandered with stimulus spending including a blundering home insulation program which produced household fires that killed four people.  Australia has weathered the recession better than many countries thanks to the 1996-2007 conservative government's reforms but Rudd and Gillard have brought debt back to the Australian economy and Rudd's continual policy reversals and idiotic decision to impose a "super-profits" tax on Australia's highly profitable mineral resources industries spelled  his downfall.  Perhaps, Obama will follow Rudd's example and meet the same fate.

The Australians are very friendly and I  hope I get the chance to see more of their country.  It's a long flight but it's well worth the journey to go to the land down under! 

Ma

I bought tons of books

I was fortunate to live near the Gulf of Mexico from late 1989-1994.  Although I lived in southeast Texas, I got to see part of the Louisiana section of the coast too.  It is truly one of creation's treasures with its warm weather and the vast variety of land and marine ecosystems along its shores.  It's also an area that God decided to endow with extensive petroleum reserves.  States that are located on the Gulf Coast, particularly Louisiana, have had a Faustian bargain since the development of the modern petroleum industry.  On one hand, they've been able to attract plenty of tourists to their shores and receive large amounts of money from these oil and natural gas reserves.  On the other hand, they have been subject to energy price volatility and to the environmental damage that can be caused by oil spills and and which has also been caused by the depletion of wetlands due to oil drilling and some other human activities.

There is risk inherent in offshore oil drilling and no one should try to tell us otherwise.  British Petroleum has its strengths and weaknesses like any other petroleum company.  Other oil companies and their fellow private sector contractors have failed to meet safety regulations.  The federal government, including Congress, has failed to effectively enforce federal laws and regulations on oil drilling.  Although agencies such as the Minerals Management Service, Interior Dept. Office of Inspector General and Government Accountability Office have prepared numerous congressionally mandated and publicly accessible reports on offshore oil drilling program performance, it's highly doubtful grandstanding members of Congress have ever looked at those reports.  You would think annual agency budget requests would be a good time for relevant congressional oversight committees to look at these reports and check and see if the already extensive corpus of federal laws and regulations on offshore drilling are working or need revising and if these agencies were doing their jobs properly!

Unfortunately, most members of these committees, such as Rep. Henry Waxman, the unctuous ambulance chasing chair of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, are most interested in strutting like peacocks having fits of righteous indignation at BP then actually trying to solve this problem.  You would like to think that petroleum company representatives, the Obama Administration, and Congress would be historically literate and familiar with the lessons learned and produced in the documentary record about the 1969 Santa Barbara, CA and 1989 Alaskan Exxon Valdez spills.  Instead, they run around like decapitated chickens shouting about the need to kick someone's posterior. 

While we need to forcefully emphasize the need for BP and the government to stop the oil spill, clean up the mess as much as possible, and financially sustain Gulf Coast residents whose livelihoods have been damaged by this catastrophe, we must remember this is a engineering problem.  Instead of having tons of federal agencies and congressional oversight committees berating each other and "wicked" oil companies, there should be a collaborative effort involving the Interior Dept., Energy Dept., petroleum companies, and sea grant universities to develop technologies to decrease the likelihood of offshore oil leaks and be able to reduce the damage from such leaks and the time required to stop these leaks when they occur.  We also need to repeal idiotic depression era and sycophantically protectionist pro-union legislation like the Jones Act which keeps foreign vessels from delivering supplies between U.S. ports.  We should also swallow our national pride and be willing to let experts from other countries such as the Netherlands, who have experience working with oil spills, to let them use their expertise when such accidents occur in U.S. waters or on land.

We need to develop rigorous scientifically sound standards and laws, regulations, and criminal penalties for conducting offshore oil drilling and violating safety standards written in succinct and plain English that leave no room for ambiguity.  We don't need a biblical plague of lawsuits against BP and its contractors because that would prevent us from solving this technical problem and would financially damage, if not destroy BP, reduce the competitiveness of the petroleum industry and produce unnecessary price increases for consumers.   Instead of saying "drill baby drill," we need to take a few deep breaths, learn some lessons, then "drill, carefully drill."  We also need to abandon the idiotic notion that we can shake our dependence on foreign oil because we are to large and productive as a nation to support our petroleum needs with existing or even untapped domestic oil reserves.  Apparently, the moronic Waxman doesn't want a pipeline to be built from the  oil rich Canadian province of Alberta to the Gulf Coast because the tar sand oil is not "clean enough" for his snotty palate. 

This spill is a tragic event, but it should not seduce us into believing that we can turn to solar, geothermal, wind, hydropower, or other energy sources as the magic bullet for our energy needs and for reducing environmental pollution.   Let's roll up our sleeves, calm down, and start working on pragmatic and enduring responses so we can avoid a environmental tragedy like this occurring again.

Twenty three years ago this summer, Robert Bork, one of our nation's most distinguished legal scholars was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Sadly, his nomination was defeated by intellectual and moral pygmies such as Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, and current Senate Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy who marshalled fraudulent falsehoods about his record and judicial temperament.  With Elena Kagan's Supreme Court by President Barack Obama, it's time for conservatives to achieve payback.

Kagan has no judicial experience at all.  As Solicitor General of the U.S. in the Obama Administration, she has a political interest in supporting Obama Administration political objectives when she argues a case before the Supreme Court.  Do you really believe she will be able to make objective, let alone constitutional, rulings on cases this administration brings before the Supreme Court through 2012, or, God forbid if it's reelected, through 2016.  This takes "court packing" to a level that Franklin Delano Roosevelt never dreamed of in the 1930s.

Kagan claims in her testimony that she would respect precedent such as yesterday's Supreme Court ruling upholding the 2nd Amendment rights of citizens living outside of Washington, DC.  As an associate of Obama and his cronies, do not give credibility to any claim produced by members of this increasingly arrogant and incompetent administration.  She has a limited record of judicial writings which should also disturb U.S. Senators interested in her views on the multiple issues confronting the court i.e. whether foreign or international law should be applied to U.S. constitutional law, her views on abortion, presidential war powers, terrorist suspects rights, the death penalty, commerce, intellectual property rights etc.

Most distressing, though, are Kagan's views on "gay rights."  While Harvard Law School Dean, she actively sought to thwart the presence of military recruiters due to her vociferous opposition to the Solomon Act and "don't ask, don't tell."  Kagan lamely rationalizes that she was only following Harvard's non-discrimination policy which includes "sexual preference."  As an attorney, Kagan should know that federal law is SUPERIOR to university policies even if the university has as lofty a view of itself as Harvard.  Kagan has proven to be a zealous crusader for deviant lifestyle practices having spoken to GLBT gatherings and would, undoubtedly, be eager to write an opinion inventing a "constitutional right" to same-sex marriage which would have grievous societal implications affecting 1st Amendment rights, public health, children's psychological well-being, and numerous other areas.  It's very possible California's Perry case may get appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and give Kagan such an opportunity.  Yesterday's injurious Supreme Court ruling saying that the University of California's Hastings Law School could prohibit funding to the campus chapter of the Christian Legal Society because the GLBT lifestyle is antithetical to that group's core beliefs, makes Kagan's views on this subject and religious freedom particularly relevant if any "gay rights" case coming before a Supreme Court she serves on.

 Though her confirmation would replace retiring liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, it would further strengthen the dangerous turn to the left taken by the Supreme Court since Obama's 2009 nomination and Senate confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor.  It's time for Senate Republicans to use every means at their disposal to prevent an inexperience, unqualified, and constitutionally illiterate nominee such as Kagan from receiving a lifetime Supreme Court appointment.

General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of American military forces in Afghanistan, has got himself into quite a pickle to use a southern folk expression.  Doing an interview for Rolling Stone magazine, he and some of his advisors managed to harshly criticize Vice-President Biden, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, and, horror or horrors, the Commander in Chief, a couple of Senators, and the direction of U.S. war strategy.  Why McChrystal was doing an interview with Rolling Stone is incomprehensible.  Are there Rolling Stone subscribers in Afghanistan or Waziristan?  After a hard day's jihad do Al Qaeda and Taliban personnel, rock out to Lady Gaga on their Ipods?  This is a good periodical if you want to know about the rock music industry, but it's not the place to go to promote U.S. military strategy given the leftist anti-military bias this periodical has had since the Vietnam War.

McChrystal has apologized for his criticisms even though they are substantively correct.  The Obama Administration appears to be getting ready to cut and run from Afghanistan as evidenced by its announced July 2011 troop withdrawal date.  The situation in Afghanistan is tough but some progress is being made and we must recognize that this is a situation that will take years or even decades to stabilize.  We need a Commander in Chief who's willing to decisively and effectively communicate this unpleasant reality to the American people and international community and won't dither and equivocate like Obama and his team of geostrategic amateurs.  Organizing the residents of Chicago Hyde Park and surrounding environs is insufficient qualification for winning a war against Islamist terrorism and understanding the cultural and historical complexities of the Afghan-Pakistan region.

Given Obama's lofty but fragile ego, and the need to maintain civilian control of the military, Obama will likely fire McChrystal.  The question then will be whom will he appoint as McChrystal's replacement and will that individual and the Obama Administration be committed to long-term engagement in Afghanistan and to nothing less than victory over Al Qaeda and the Taliban.  Obama needs to decide now if he wants to win in Afghanistan or go down in history as the President who cut and ran from Afghanistan and be remember as a disgraceful and vacillating coward when dealing with the national security threats facing our country.

The leftist protest yahoo movement has gotten riled up over Israel's raiding of an allegedly "humanitarian" flotilla to supposedly assist Palestineans in Gaza.  The fact that there were armed hooligans on these ships who fought and injured Israeli soldiers carrying out legal and legitimate surveillance and defense operations against Iranian and other attempts to smuggle weapons to Palestinean terrorists in Gaza seems not to have occurred to the dimwitted apologists for Islamist terrorists.  Israel has been subject to regular artillery and missile attacks from Gaza since it ceded control of this derelict community to the "Palestinean Authority."  Members of this authority, possibly inspired by comparable North Korean efforts to infiltrate weapons and terrorists into South Korea, have sought to dig tunnels to smuggle weapons and terrorists into Israeli territory to kill, injure, and terrorize Israelis and other individuals in that area.

This incident has outraged leftist imbeciles worldwide.  Recently, my wife and I were on vacation in Sydney, Australia and heard a bunch of noise as we walked near Sydney's picturesque town hall not far from our hotel.  We later saw on the news that night that the square by this government building had been the site of a demonstration by pro-Palestinean jihadi and their useful idiots.
It's particularly ironic that one of the ships in this "humanitarian flotilla" was named for Rachel Corrie.  Corrie was an incredibly stupid American leftist from Washington state who decided to enhance her  collegiate education by working for a Palestinean terrorist front organization called the International Solidarity Movement.  During 2003, she had the audacious stupidity to stand in front of an Israeli bulldozer trying to stop legal Israeli attempts to build housing in sovereign Israeli territory.  Corrie was killed and has become a Palestinian jihadi martyr heroine though I doubt she heard the words "Well done good and faithful servant" when she stood before God to give account for her life.

It's time the international community quit rationalizing Palestinean terrorist excuses and right of return sob stories.  The Palestineans had a chance for an independent state in 1948 when Israel was created, but were greedy enough to want to push the area's Jewish population into the sea.  Following the 1993 Oslo accords, the Palestineans were given  yet another chance and we have seen the results of this ill-advised endeavor as Israel had to build a wall to protect its population from Palestinean territories in the West Bank and from Gaza and been subjected to repeated intifadas.  Incidentally, Egypt has closed off its borders with Gaza and you don't hear anything about Palestinean attacks on Egypt.  It's time for the international community to give up its utopian and failed notion of a Palestinean state or a two state solution as the key to solving that region's problems.  The Palestineans and the Islamic world need to abandon their stupid beliefs that they can push Israel into the sea.  This boat incident is particularly sad because Turkey, ostensibly our NATO ally who has had good relations with Israel, has let itsself be seduced by Palestinean propaganda and mythology.  Turkey has plenty of opportunities to achieve growth in the Black and Caspian Sea regions and shouldn't waste its time, energy, money, or blood on misfits like the Palestineans.