Quenton Tarantino Strikes Again!!
Capsule Movie Review: Kill Bill
By Daniel G. Jennings
The fourth film from Hollywood's mad genius Quenton Tarantino actually lives up to the hype. Quite simply this is the best movie that I've seen in years.
A violent over the top action film with a wry sense of humor that's entertaining, exciting, thrilling and funny at the same time. Like all good action films, Kill Bill is a thrill ride, but it's one we want to get on.
Like all action movies, Kill Bill is a comic bookish fantasy but one that works because Tarantino succeeds in putting all the best elements of modern cutting edge comic books into the film. More importantly Tarantino understands that comic books and movies are supposed to be entertainment, so he concentrates on making an entertainment. Kill Bill is an Entertainment with a capital E and one that works. There's nothing pretentious about this movie, Tarantino isn't trying to make a great statement here. He's simply trying to entertain us, which of course is a radical departure from the direction of modern Hollywood.
Tarantino is a good enough filmmaker to ensure that everything in the movie works. In particular the fight scenes, the climatic sword fight between Uma Thurman and the Japanese Mafia is absolutely incredible. Stuff that shouldn't work such as lots of flash backs and a sequence of animation also work and make sense. As do plenty of pop culture references.
Finally there's Uma Thurman who gives what maybe the performance of the year as the Bride a female assassin out for revenge on her former comrades. Instead of going over the top, Thurman brings quiet dignity and even grace to this role. Her low-key almost deadpan performance makes the character work. Uma is truly frightening as a steely-eyed killer who enjoys her work. Her character is so disciplined and serious that she can only express herself through violence. Yet she seems to enjoy the mayhem and even effects a smirk. A very quirky sense of humor comes across. Thurman grounds the movie and brings a sense of humanity to it. My prediction Uma will get the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, and will receive an Oscar nomination for best actress in an action movie.
This movie isn't for everybody, action movie fans and younger viewers will love it. There is some graphic violence here, but it's not as bloody or as violent as some commentators make it out to be. Still, I wouldn't take a kid to it.

China in Space
Will China Conquer Space??
By Daniel G. Jennings
The history books of the future may not name America or Russia as the nation that led humanity into space, colonized the moon and set foot on Mars. Instead they may give that honor to a country that hasn't even put an astronaut into orbit yet: China.
Although the America media has largely ignored it, the People's Republic of China has been getting real serious about space exploration lately. In November, the Chinese successfully tested the Shenzhou (sacred vessel) a space capsule capable of carrying people into space. China plans to send its first two taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) into orbit sometime within the next week. Several Chinese fighter pilots have trained to become taikonauts in Russia. The budget for China's space program is growing while ours is shrinking.
China's long term plans in space go far beyond orbiting satellites and putting men in orbit. The Chinese are thinking of landing people on the moon, mining it for resources and setting up space ports for journeys farther out into the Solar System. And these aren't flights of fancy being pondered by geeky science fiction fans. An important Chinese official Zhuang Fenggan, a rocket scientist and Vice Chairman of his nation's Association of Sciences told the Associated Press that he thinks the moon could be mined for fluids that could generate electricity on Earth.
Now many people will scoff at this claim. After all China's space program is forty years behind Russian and American efforts. China is testing space capsules similar to those used by John Glenn and Yuri Gregorian. These scoffers are ignoring history and an important advantage that the Chinese space program has: China is poor and desperate.
China's space program may succeed because China is still a poor and desperate nation with limited resources. Although China's economy is growing fast, the Middle Kingdom is still a third world nation in many ways. Many of its people are still poor and living in almost Medieval conditions and China simply lacks the wealth and resources to lift them out of that poverty. China lacks the military might and sophisticated technology to seize those resources here on Earth. China's army with its 1950s weapons and tactics is incapable of projecting its power beyond its borders. How is a nation that can't conquer Taiwan supposed to stand up to American military might?
In other words, China will expand into space because it has nowhere else to go. With a billion mouths to feed, and increasingly, a billion citizens demanding the kind of middle class lifestyle Americans enjoy. The Chinese may have to develop space just to survive.
China will also turn to space because space is a frontier and China needs a frontier, America doesn't. It is people with nothing to loose, persons without hope or opportunity the poor and the desperate who head to frontiers, not the comfortable and contented. China has hundreds of millions of poor and desperate people to populate a new frontier.
It's hard to imagine Americans abandoning their comfortable middle class lifestyle, their cars, houses in the suburbs and home entertainment centers for a tiny cubicle in a box on the moon. It's easy to imagine a Chinese peasant trading his or her hovel in a poor village and exciting career prospects in the rice paddies for an opportunity, no matter how slight, of striking it rich on the moon or Mars.
History proves this in the early 15th Century, the richest nation in the world, Imperial China, sent out seven huge voyages of exploration. Massive well equipped fleets with dozens of ships and thousands of men. These ships explored the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean sailing all the way to Mecca and they weren't followed up by Chinese Conquest and colonization because the Chinese had no reason to do so. In the 15th Century Imperial China was the richest and most content nation in the world - like the USA today - it had no need of bold adventures to gain colonies or markets.
On the other hand, just a few decades later when small poor European nations like Portugal, Spain, England and the Dutch Republic began voyages of exploration and learned of vast new territories overseas they quickly followed up the discoveries with conquest and colonization. Less than thirty years after Columbus set foot in the Caribbean, Cortez was raising the Spanish flag over the ruins over the ruins of the Aztec capitol.
In the 16th Century Spain, Portugal, England and the Dutch Republic were poor, they were small and they were over populated. They needed the resources their soldiers could capture in the new lands, the goods and money their traders could bring back, the new products and the new lands for their people to conquer and settle. China, today, like the European powers at the beginning of the 16th Century needs the things it can find in space, new worlds to conquer, new lands to settle, new resources to exploit. America thinks it has everything it needs here on Earth, just as the Ming Dynasty thought it had everything it needed within the borders of the Middle Kingdom.
The Europeans were able to use the new resources they found in distant lands to totally transform Europe from something of a backwater to the most advanced civilization on Earth. It was the Dutch Republic which was willing to undertake ambitious long range trading ventures, where free enterprise, free speech and representative government began in the 16th and 17th centuries. Britain, which embarked on the boldest voyages of exploration in the 18th century, was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution which transformed the world beyond recognition. Meanwhile China had become one of the poorest and most backward nations on Earth by the beginning of the 20th Century. Having lost whatever technological and scientific prowess it once had.
By acting like Imperial China and ignoring important new frontiers, the United States could end up just like the Imperial China. A poor backwater at the mercy of the descendants of those willing to take the risks of going to a new frontier and conquer it. A little over four hundred years after the budget cutting Ming Dynasty bureaucrats ended China's program of exploration because it was a waste of the taxpayer's money. British and French soldiers were marching through the streets of China's capitol Beijing and burning the Imperial Palace during the Second Opium War, because there was nothing China's army could do to overcome the new military technology the Europeans were using. That's something we Americans ought to think about.
The history books of the future may teach us that space - like any other frontier - belongs not to those with the best technology or science, but those desperate enough to take the risks required to conquer that frontier. At the present moment it seems that China is the only nation desperate enough to take those risks.

Communism
Vietnam: the Left's Pyrrhic Victory
By Daniel G. Jennings
There is a joke that history likes to play on the mighty, it's called a "Pyrrhic Victory"- a victory that is so costly to the winners that it is just as bad or worse than a defeat. A prime example of a Pyrrhic Victory in modern times was the Vietnam War.
Although the Communists and their leftist allies in the US and Western Europe won in Vietnam, their limited victory in one tiny corner of the world laid the groundwork for their inevitable world wide defeat. Instead of the start of the inevitable victory of socialism, the war in Vietnam turned out to be the beginning of the end for the Communist empire.
The victory in Vietnam encouraged the Soviet Union to embark upon a program of expansion by sponsoring wars of liberation (in reality Communist thuggery) around the world. In many cases the Communists won. The result was not a mighty Communist empire but a collection of weak and impoverished puppet states the Soviets had to prop up with aid and resources. In many cases the Soviets ended up buying food from the United States and shipping it to their allies in the third world.
The attempt at world domination through revolution helped bankrupt the Soviet Union and bring about its downfall.
The debacle in Vietnam prompted the US to reorganize and reform its military forces. The draft was phased out and a new professional military with far higher standards of training and professionalism created. New weapons technologies were developed and adopted and new strategies devised. The Vietnam War actually made the United States stronger militarily and laid the ground work for the powerful military forces that dominate the world today. By the mid 1980s, the US military was so far ahead of the Soviets militarily that the Russian military leaders agreed to Gorbachev's reforms because they hoped greater freedom would lead to technological advances.
At the same time, the lessons the Communists learned from the Vietnam War weakened them militarily. The Communists came out of Vietnam believing that they could win through people's war, that they didn't need powerful new technologies. That their military forces and cause were so morally superior that no enemy could stand up to them. The result was the catastrophe in Afghanistan, where a poorly prepared Red Army couldn't contain a small force of poorly armed and poorly organized guerrillas.
The American left, rightly viewed the disaster in Vietnam as its handiwork and wrongly viewed defeat in Southeast Asia as a tremendous victory. The victory in Vietnam cost the American left most of its power and influence and virtually all of its popularity.
Until Vietnam, the left enjoyed quite a bit of popularity in the United States. Many average Americans viewed the left in a positive light because of the New Deal and the Civil Rights movements. Americans liked the left because they viewed it as American and patriotic. The protests against the Vietnam War changed all that.
The sights of protestors burning the flag and calling US soldiers baby killers and leftist leaders bad mouthing America while praising Communism turned average Americans off to the left. Americans who formerly thought leftists cared about them came to view leftists as arrogant, self righteous and hypocritical elitists. Americans began to view the left as an alien force out to destroy their way of life.
The victory in Vietnam made the left completely arrogant and blind to its own weakness. After 1975, leftist intellectuals in the media, the entertainment industry and academia deluded themselves into thinking they ran the country and began to behave accordingly. They began telling the rest of us what to think, how to live and what to believe. They began trying to force all of their screwy beliefs and values down America's throat.
The result was that the public was turned off completely and stopped listening to these people. Even as their stature increased, the actual power of the left was diminished. Within five years of the victory in Vietnam, the American people having had their fill of the leftist elite elected Ronald Reagan President. They began seeking alternative media to watch, read and listen to. The public became more and more conservative. By the 1990s not even the left's sacred cows like welfare were safe from the growing conservative revolution. The last Democratic President, Bill Clinton, won two elections not by tilting to the left but by ignoring the left and parading his credentials as a centrist through the streets.
Now nearly thirty years after their victory in Vietnam, both Communism and the American left are sorry shadows of what they once were. Only a few Communist states remain and of those only two still utilize Communist economics(North Korea and Cuba), even Vietnam has adopted a watered down version of capitalism. The American left finds itself confined to a few urban areas and university campuses and the entertainment industry. Its influence on national policy is non existent. Despite large scale peace protests and a torrent of peace propaganda, President Bush was able to carry out the most aggressive American military adventures since World War II and win popular backing for them.
Vietnam then wasn't the left's finest hour. It was the left's greatest and most destructive defeat. A defeat from which both Communism and the left may never recover.

leftist lies about America in Iraq
Mood:  mischievious
Numerous Comments
By Daniel G. Jennings
Imperialism, Colonialism and Racism in Iraq?
Virtually every leftist around has accused the United States of practicing imperialism, colonialism and racism in its policy towards Iraq. The facts prove that these claims are both incorrect and silly.
First the charge of imperialism, under a system of imperialism the United States would invade Iraq and either annex it directly to American territory or impose some sort of local tyrant backed by American forces. Imperialism also means that America would loot Iraq, steal its natural resources and enslave its people. Much as the Nazis and Japanese Imperialists did during World War II and the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. In Iraq America is prepared to spend billions of dollars to rebuild the country, American forces shut down the dungeons, secret police forces, ministry of propaganda and other instruments of tyranny in Iraq. If the US was really practicing tyranny it would have left the Baath Party and its thug regime in place and simply replaced Saddam with another tyrant more amenable to America. America's actions in Iraq are about as far more from imperialism as one can get.
Second the charge of colonialism. Colonialism is a system whereby one nation rules another directly for reasons of economic exploitation. A classic example of colonialism was the British occupation of the thirteen colonies before the American Revolution. Under that system, the British deliberately tried to stifle American efforts at economic development by banning industrial production. The British also made it illegal for Americans to do business with anybody but the British. If America were practicing colonialism in Iraq it would ban the sale of all but American goods in that nation and turn all Iraqi industry over to American companies. Instead of colonialism, America has implemented free trade in Iraq and Iraqis are importing and selling vast amounts of consumer goods made in countries other than the United States. Also in a colonial system, a permanent community of people from the mother country is established in the colony and left there to rule. In Iraq America is trying to create a new regime so it can get out. Colonial powers want to stay for a long time, America wants to leave Iraq ASAP. Obviously America's agenda is not colonialism.
Third the charge of racism. This is the most ridiculous charge the left is making. Racism is a system in which one group of people are considered superior to another because of their skin color or ethnic origin. Under a truly racist system such as, Nazi Germany or Apartheid, people are classified and separated by race. Some people are denied basic rights because of their racial background. Others are given special privileges because of their race. Is anything like that happening in Iraq? If it is I haven't heard of it. In racist societies such as 19th Century America, groups considered inferior maybe driven out or even murdered en masse because they are standing in the way of the chosen race's progress. Is the United States establishing reservations in Iraq and herding Iraqis into them so Americans can settle on Iraqi land? No.
The charges that America is practicing Imperialism, Colonialism and Racism in Iraq are so ridiculous that they are nothing but shrill, shallow and silly lies told by members of a political movement that is so morally and ideologically bankrupt that its members can only sustain themselves by living in a fantasy world.

comment
Rise of a New Political Class
By Daniel G. Jennings
The Democratic Presidential Primary of 2004 maybe remembered as the race that marked the beginning of a massive change in American politics. The change is an obvious but a profound one: average people with an interest in politics are influencing the outcome of political contests as never before by using the Internet.
The most obvious example of this change is the success of Howard Dean in the Democratic primaries. Dean's campaign has attracted lots of support around the country through word of mouth over the Internet. By using the Internet, left wing grassroots activists have managed to circumvent the big media and the party establishment and help Dean emerge as the front runner. Dean has also been able to raise around $15 million using the Internet.
Candidates who tried to run traditional campaigns relying on TV ads and traditional fund raising like John Edwards and Dick Gephardt have found themselves behind Dean in the polls. In other words average people were able to pick a candidate and set the agenda in the primary to the chagrin of professional politicos.
Now comes the whole Wesley Clark phenomenon which seems to have begun with another campaign of word of mouth on the Internet. Moderate Democratic leaders scared that the left might steal the nomination, heard that the general was receiving good word of mouth on the Internet and decided to run with him. Now, Clark who wasn't even on the radar, a couple of months ago is a major player. Largely because average Democrats who were disgusted with the far left's attempt to force a McGovern clone on their party started demanding somebody who could win the election.
The rise of this new Internet-savvy class of amateur politicos presents all sorts of problems.
First, the Internet amateurs are extremely passionate about politics but their passion is usually not tempered by common sense. They will be less likely to compromise, to abandon or weaken a controversial stand in order to win an election or back a compromise candidate in order to win an election. This could hobble politicians' ability to change their policies to deal with changing circumstances. For example, a Democratic President might be prevented from taking military action against terrorists or others out of fear of offending the "peace" movement.
Second, the Internet amateurs are active and passionate but they often have little or no experience in real world politics. For all their passion these people often don't how to win elections or run campaigns. They don't have the practical experience necessary to win a tough campaign or race.
Third, the Internet amateurs are often passionate single issue voters. They only care about one issue or stand and ignore the big picture. Dean's backers appear to be largely peace activists and others angry about the war. This can be real disaster because these amateurs will latch onto a candidate who takes the right stand on the one issue they care about but ignores the rest of the political program. For example Christians might passionately back a pro life candidate who takes liberal positions on taxes and healthcare.
Fourth, the kinds of candidates and policies that appeal to Internet amateurs represent the kind of ideologically-driven politics that turns the general public off. Howard Dean may evoke passion from liberals but average voters are scared to death by his left wing reputation. This is a particular problem for political professionals because Internet amateurs might mobilize enough voters to win a primary or off year election but they'll never deliver the numbers needed to win say a presidential election. Meaning parties could be saddled with ideologically-extremist candidates who could turn voters off.
Fifth, the amateur politics of the Internet political junkies is inherently unstable. New candidates appear and disappear quickly upsetting the race. Insurgent candidates can undermine and overturn establishment candidates and groups. Fashionable issues and fad candidates can dominate the political discussion pushing aside real issues and serious candidates. Political battles can be become nastier and more brutal.
So what does the rise of this class of Internet amateurs mean for the political future? Campaigns will get more chaotic and convoluted, there will be dozens of candidates, pushing dozens of different positions. Politics will become more and more of a silly circus and drive away more voters.
Candidates will have to become more partisan and ideologically driven to win elections. This could make elections and politics less appealing to average people and decrease voter participation. At the same time important issues that don't evoke ideological passions will be ignored.
For the Republicans the Internet Amateurs could play a big role in 2008 when Bush will be term limited out. Christians, libertarians, pro-lifers and other groups will begin pushing their candidates over the Internet. Established candidates will rush to appeal to these constituencies. The result is liable to be the appearance of a Republican Dean, a candidate so far right he scares both the party establishment and the general public to death. The Republicans could find themselves going through the same process the Democrats are now with two insurgent candidates pushed by Internet amateurs dominating the primary races.
The question facing political professionals then is how can the passion and energy of the Internet Amateurs be harnessed and directed without destroying the effectiveness of candidates and campaigns? I don't know, but unless we find a way to do this the result could be political chaos of the kind we're seeing in the California recall on a nationwide level.

France
If you believe the portrayal of the world situation as told to us by the liberal media. You would think that the United States is in an impossible situation in Iraq and France has all the answers. This is nonsense, the United States is in a position of strength and France is caught in a stupid trap of its own making.
Basically the French have backed themselves into a conrer. They have greatly increased their prestige in the eyes of the world, and become a "world leader" by standing up to the big bad American bully. Which means they must oppose any American move in Iraq besides pull out. If the French make any sort of compromise with the US they loose face and influence. They admit America is right and their role of leadership evaporates. Worse, any French politician who makes a deal with America right now can kiss his prospect of winning an eleciton back home good for the foreseeable future.
The impossible situation France finds itself in is this: to preserve its role of world leadership France must force America out of IRaq. Yet France doesn't want to do that because it would have to step in and police Iraq. But France doesn't have the military forces to do that. If most of the world's nations were unwilling to back America's venture in Iraq, they'll be even less receptive to French efforts. France can't risk a power vacuum in Iraq which would result from an American pull out. The French are demanding that America do something France can't afford. Of course the French leaders know good and well America won't pull out.
yet their position makes it impossible for the UN to take constructive action on Iraq. France has no choice but to veto any UN sanction of the American venture in Iraq. Which makes it impossible for nations like India and Pakistan which have the military power to police Iraq,to get involved in Iraq even if they want to.
My guess is the end of the Iraq debacle will be one the left hates. France will be reduced to a bad joke in the eyes of the world. France will get kicked off the UN Security Council and become an international pariah. It'll become a small nation with less influence than Sweden. And the French people will have only their leaders to blame for this situation.

War Comments
A Few Comments on the War
By Daniel G. Jennings
My guess is that the war on terror is about to heat up probably with a major Al Qaeda attack or a series of attacks on the United States and probably attacks on other Western countries and Israel. Even though Al Qaeda and the rest of the Jihad idiots are soundly beaten and our victory is assured, we're going to see some very audacious and extremely destructive terror attacks launched by those fools in the next few years.
The reason I'm making this prediction is because of history. History has shown that beaten enemies often marshal their resources and launch one or two major offensives before finally succumbing to the inevitable defeat.
Case in point: World War II, in the summer of 1944, most people believed that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were beaten and would soon surrender or succumb. Yet both nations were able to launch major offensives in late 1944 that delayed the Allied Victory. The Japanese launched a major naval offensive in the Leyte Gulf that came dangerously close to sinking a large portion of the US invasion fleet heading for the Philippines. The Nazis were able to launch a major land offensive in Europe ,the Battle of the Bulge that threw the Allied Invasion of Germany into chaos.
Other examples of such last ditch offensives include World War I, when in Spring 1918, the Imperial German Army launched a major offensive that nearly captured Paris. The Germans nearly won the war, yet when their offensive collapsed they lost. In the Civil War, the Confederates launched last ditch offensives in 1864 and 1865. In 1864, even though Union Armies had captured Atlanta and were pressing hard on Richmond, Confederate General Hood, launched an offensive in the West that nearly captured Nashville Tennessee and threatened Southern Ohio. In the east in 1865, another Confederate thrust under Jubal Early threatened Washington.
In all of these cases, the good guys pressed on despite the last ditch attacks and won the war. Even though we will see more attacks on our heartland and the deaths of some of our citizens we shall win if we press on and win the victory.
One more thought, the left loves to accuse conservatives of being Eurocentric that is having a world view centered on Europe. It is the left that is Eurocentric in its world view, leftists believe Europe is a major force in the world and European nations like France are major powers and players they aren't. The major forces in the world today are outside of Europe, the big three powers in our world are the United States, India and China, Europe is a bad joke. Europe has token armies India and China have massive military forces.
If Bush wants America to have real influence in the world, he should go after Europe. Instead of bowing to France he should play hardball, he should go to the UN and say I'll give you a major role in Iraq, strip France of its permanent seat on the Security Council and replace it with India. France is a minor player, India has nearly a billion people and the second most powerful military on Earth, a professional army almost as large as ours. India will have to back us on this, and if the USA and India join forces we can probably press the issue. The arrogant fools in Paris then will pay for their obstruction of our war in Iraq. And America will have an important new friend in the world while the French can crawl back under their rock and hide in the dark alone with their delusions of grandeur and a few bottles of wine.

Frightful Times
In dangerous and trying times, good and intelligent people say and do stupid things that make little or no sense. Case in point, the Free Congress Foundation's Bill Lind.
Lind in his on-war column on the Free Congress Web site suggests that the US set a date for the pull out from Iraq say Dec. 25, 2003. The danger of course is that if Americans would listen to Lind and his counterparts on the left. Which thankfully the won't and did pull out of Iraq on Dec. 25, 2003. This wonderful scene would play itself out on say Jan. 31, 2004. A large limo would pull up to a public square in Bagdad. A square full of fanatics waving automatic weapons and screaming and yelling. The limo's doors would open up. Osama Bin Ldaen would get out and walk up to a podium. Then congratulate his breatheren on their "victory" and scream "on to Jerulesalem and Washington." Meanwhile somewhere outside Bagdad, other fanatics would be filling planes with napalm for the big attack on Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Sharon seeing this wonderful scene played out would have no choice. He'd order his air force commander to drop a nuclear bomb on Bagdad. Millions would die and the blood would be on our hands. Within minutes of this attack, hundreds of thousands of Arab fanatics would mass and attack Israel. We'd see a blood bath on the scale of World War II.
Worse terrorist fanatics emboldened by their success would redouble their attacks on us and instead of 3,000 Americans dead. We'd have 30,000 or even 300,000. Mr. Lind is wrong, this isn't Vietnam, we can't go home. We have to stay and finish what we started. Because unlike the Communists in Vietnam, the fanatics in Iraq will follow us home and continue the attack here. IF we show weakness they'll attack. That's their way.
Yes, the Iraqi state has been destroyed. So we have to rebuild it. That'll be a long and expensive process in which Americans will die but the cost of rebuilding Iraq will be far cheaper than pulling out and going home.
One more thought we've heard Mr. Lind's argument before. Haven't we. Back in 1920, people like Mr. Lind assured Americans that if we pull out of Europe and stay away. Our boys will never have to fight and die over there again. Of course the sons of the American troops pulled out of europe in the 1920s, had to fight their way back into Europe in the 1940s and many of them died there. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died in the early 1940s, doing hwat a battalion of US regular infantry could have done in 1933. Shut down Hitler and his Nazis. Hopefully the American people and their leaders will listen to the Neocons Lind derides and ignore Lind and the rest of the easy answer squad. Because in Iraq there are no easy answers. Only difficult tasks.

Comments on the news
The big blackout of 2003 is over and as usual the media is not reporting on the real story. The real story is what didn't happen, there was no looting, no mass starvation, no rioting anywhere. Our cities didn't descend into chaos and race war didn't break out even though the lights went out. Most people behaved in a normal, civil, and sensible manner. This more than anything else gives us hope for the future, if Americans can react so positively to this catastrophe we can survive and thrive in the trying years ahead.
So who is responsible for this catastrophe politcally?? Both right and left, the right for ignoring the nation's declining, infrastructure and offering senseless taxcuts to the public instead of spending the money to fix our problems. Worse for treating the free market as a magic wand and simply believing that deregulation and less government would solve all the problems. The left for refusing to engage in solutions it finds distasteful like nuclear power and in refusing to confront the problem. Do we have the political will to solve this problem I don't know. Politicians don't like dealing with infrastructure issues, it costs a lot of money, and requires tough decisions. Nobody wants to flood grandfather's farm or put a new power line, highway or rail line through their neighborhood. Yet, that's what we're going to have to do in the years ahead. Worse when infrastructure pays off the public doesn't see it. Politicians like crisises the public can see them solving now, not future problems being averted.
Now onto California, how will the recall mess affect the Democratic primary battles. Well it'll divert attention from, that's good and bad for the candidates. Bad because it means they'll lack name recongition and media attention. Good because there will fewer sound bites of politicians taking unpoplar left wing positions to get some votes from pressure group.
Then there's Iraq, the new terrorism there is frightening. The murder of innocent civilians simply to prove to people that the terrorists have the power to kill. That's disgusting. Even worse is the sabotage of the country's infrastructure. This points to sophisticated sabotage carried out by somebody with some real military training and weaponry. WHo is it? Normal terrorists don't like sabotage they like flashy bombs that attract the TV cameras and pile up the dead bodies.So who's doing it one disgusting possibility is Saudi Arabia and other oil rich gulf states. These countries want the price of oil to remain high so they can make more money from oil sales. Cheap Iraqi crude threatens that so they have an incentive to engage in such sabotage. It would be easy for them to slip a few bucks to IRaqi terrorists and hire a few mercenaries to slip across into IRaq and commit acts of sabotage so the Iraqi terrorists will claim responsibility. THe mess in Iraq and the blackout show us something else in our modern world. It's hard to wage all out war, only really rich nations like America can do that but it's cheap and easy to wreck havoc. Any idiot can plant a bomb at a power plant and shut down a city. What happens if some group or government decides to target our infrastructure and shut it down? What then. It's impossible to protect it all. We're going to have to deal with this possibility now.

comments
Various Comments on the News
By Daniel G. Jennings
Saudi Arabia
The present controversy over the 28 pages censored from the official report on the 9/11 atrocity centers around information supposedly linking Saudi Arabia to the Al Queada terror network. A popular theory has it that Bush and others are covering this up because they don't want to offend Saudi Arabia our oil source.
If this is true, it justifies President Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq. If Saudi Arabia is unreliable and potentially a hotbed of terrorism we're going to need a new source of oil and soon. There's only one other potential source around: Iraq. Well now Iraq is now under our control so we will now have another source of oil.
Without another source of oil Bush couldn't come out and criticize Saudi Arabia because the Saudis could throw the world into chaos by cutting off the oil. Bush couldn't attack Saudi Arabia without provoking the Islamic world, after all it contains the holiest shrines of Islam. We also can't run the risk of King Fahd destroying the oil fields, my guess is the Saudi oil fields are rigged to blow or set up to blow fast. Meaning there's no way to move against Saudi Arabia without seeing the oil fields in flame.
So by demanding this data be made public the Democrats maybe justifying Bush's war when they want to criticize it.
There is a terrible after thought to this way of thinking, is Saudi Arabia or somebody in Saudi Arabia is behind the attacks on our forces in Iraq? The guerrillas are sabotaging the oil fields, who has the most to gain if the Iraq oil fields are kept out of production: Saudi Arabia. Frightening, isn't it.
Guerrillas in Iraq.
The guerrillas attacking the US in Iraq are perplexing, they appear to have no leader, no organization and no cause to fight for yet they are carrying out attacks on our forces that have dozens of Americans. Obviously somebody is organizing the guerrillas, who? Why?
Saddam Hussein is a suspect but does he have the expertise to do this? Is the man who couldn't defeat us with a massive army supposed to be organizing a guerrilla campaign capable of stopping us? Al Queada and Bin Laden are also likely suspects, they hate us and would love to establish a base or better yet a friendly regime in Iraq.
Syria is a possibility but a stronger possibility is Saudi Arabia which stands to loose if the Iraqi oilfields are reopened. Its oil prices will fall, worse, a democratic Iraq would undermine the sorry dictatorship in that nation.
Of course if there is no visible organization or individual behind these guerrilla attacks, these actions are meaningless. They are simply vicious and nasty little crimes. There is no moral dimension to these attacks beyond revenge, frustration and sheer anger. Without a moral dimension, a cause to fight for, a leader or symbol to rally around there is no way the Iraqi resistance can work.
Yes Saddam Hussein is still out there somewhere hiding in the desert but without his storm troopers and secret police force to terrorize his foes, Saddam is powerless. Every time he makes a pronouncement Saddam becomes more and more of a bad joke. Since he has to hide to avoid our forces Saddam can't come out and organize and direct his forces.
History teaches us that the successful guerrilla or resistance leader such as George Washington or Ho Chi Minh must operate openly to get publicity to remind the public that he is still in the fight. That he's still out there battling the enemy.
More importantly he must be able to openly and actively organize his forces and direct operations. The guerrilla leader must operate from a base or safe haven that the enemy can't touch. This can be a base in some remote region the enemy can't reach. such as George Washington's redoubt at Valley Forge or Mao's sanctuary in Yunan or in the territory of another nation, much as Charles De Gaulle used Great Britain as a base during World War II. Saddam has no such place he can go, the US can reach him anywhere in Iraq, and no other nation will take him in. Saddam must remain in hiding, he can stay on the run forever but he really can't do anything.
All Saddam can really do is pay Iraqis to set off bombs and kill Americans. Such activities kill good men and grab headlines but they don't win wars. Armies win wars, even in Vietnam, the Communists didn't win until they were able to come out of the shadows and fight as an army after the US had pulled out.
So I seriously doubt this guerrilla campaign in Iraq will do anything but get a lot of good people killed for no reason and make a lot of people miserable. Once the US restores Iraq's economy and gets effective Iraqi military, police and security forces up and running the guerrillas will melt away.
Gay Rights
Gay rights have been in the news a lot lately. The media has gone hysterical over the issue of gay marriage, the Supreme Court's wise and overdue decision to strike down silly and archaic laws banning Sodomy and the Episcopal Church's questionable decision to appoint an openly gay man as a bishop.
The truth of course is that this debate is a rather meaningless one, gays have always been free to live their lifestyle and practice their sexual preferences in America. There is no evidence that "gay rights" will improve the lifestyles of gay people or affect society in any way. Nor is there any evidence that gay rights will have any sort of impact on average Americans, family values or anything else negative or positive.
Instead this debate on gay rights serves to distract us from real issues affecting the nation, war, terrorism, healthcare, the export of American jobs overseas, Iraq, North Korea, taxes, national security. Issues that affect all Americans in very real ways.
To make matters worse, the gay rights debate seems to be promoting one of the things gay rights is ostensibly designed to stop homophobia the irrational fear of gay people. Many cultural conservatives now see gays as enemies to the family, the church, God, the flag, the country and everything that is good and decent. For the first time in human history homosexuals are seen as a threat to the average man.
Such hysteria can't be good, it will undoubtedly lead to gay bashing and persecution of gays or those branded gay by society. The gay rights movement, the media, cultural conservatives and politicians on both sides of the aisle will be equally to blame for this sorry state of affairs. They will have falsely portrayed a group of harmless people as a threat to the nation for cheap publicity and they will not suffer for it. Instead average Americans will suffer in dark alleys, lonely parking lots and on barbed wire fences. Some will be beaten, some will be killed, and many will loose jobs or homes because of this nonsense.
It is time that we all started working for the good of the country and stopped this silly gay rights debate before it is too late. If we don't, a lot of people are going to be sorry. People like Matthew Shepherd for if this gay rights debate continues we're going to have dozens of Matthew Shepherds, innocent young people killed over a meaningless issue.
However, I fear only in the future when the history books are written will we see gay rights as the meaningless issue it really it is. My guess, the historians of the future will rank the Americans who debated over gay rights with the Byzantine theologians who argued about the place of angels in Heaven while the Turks were outside the walls.