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December 28, 2005
Can We Do Better Than The M16?
Iraq, Summer, 2005:
Prosser shot the man at least four times with his M4 rifle. But the American M4 rifles are weak - after Prosser landed three nearly point blank shots in the man's abdomen, splattering a testicle with a fourth, the man just staggered back, regrouped and tried to shoot Prosser.
The preceding snip comes from Michael Yon's post entitled "Gates of Fire", a riveting first person account of a vicious back ally firefight in Mosul.
Ever since I read Michael's post, I've been bothered by his referrence to the standard issue M4 rifle as "weak". My knowledge of military firearms extends only to the level of the History Channel, but I do know the M16/M4 has been dogged with controversy since its inception in Vietnam in the mid '60s. Debate about reliability problems (originally caused by Army incompetence, not the designer's) and the knockdown power of the high-velocity .223 caliber bullet has obviously not been quelled in the ensuing 40 years.
Now Austin Bay cites an evaluation of the AK47 versus the M16/M4 at State Of Flux. See also Strategy Page and Austin's own post. The comments on all three of these posts is most interesting.
It seems clear that our infantry soldier needs an weapon with improved stopping power. Why we can't seem to come up with one is the 64 dollar question.
December 27, 2005
Funny, Funny...
Dr. Sanity scores one of the funniest lines of the year. In assessing the cluelessness of the Democratic leadership vis-a-vis the average Joe, she says:
Ask not for whom the bubble bursts--it bursts for thee.
It's been said before, but I'll say it again:
Heh.
Posted at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)Just Another Average NCO
An inspiring email was sent to Austin Bay by an NCO who is directly involved in training the Iraqi Defense Force. (Actually, most of the Iraqi troops are now trained by Iraqis; we just train the trainers). This guy wrote this after spending Christmas away from home--and he volunteered to deploy even as he neared retirement age.
After conveying some informative details on how the training of the IDF really works, he concludes:
I’ve had family and friends ask me why I volunteered. While the money is good, that’s not the reason. What is it that makes a policeman continue to work a dangerous neighborhood for insufficient pay, while some criminals drive expensive cars and have lots of cash on hand? What makes a farmer continue to hold onto family land, even though he barely breaks even? What is it that makes a volunteer fireman go into a burning house, for no pay, to try to salvage the possessions of a total stranger? It’s faith. It’s faith in your purpose for being on this earth. It’s faith that things will work out the way they are supposed to. It’s faith that what you are doing is right. How can participating in the liberation of millions be wrong? I have faith in this mission and these soldiers. That’s why I’m here.
I’m sorry that this email is so long. I do get carried away sometimes. Christmas has just now passed into the night, and one poor Iraqi Policeman will never forget it, if he survives. An Iraqi Police convoy was ambushed by the bad guys in nearby Balad Ruz, and the poor fellow got shot up pretty bad. They brought him here, and we Medevaced him to Anaconda. He may be a Muslim, but I’ll still say a prayer for him. I’ve met more than one who prays for us.
Think about it: this man is close to retirement age, certainly not a gung-ho twenty-something; and he was on of 500 to volunteer to go to Iraq from his division.
Thank God for the internet, and guys like Austin Bay and Michael Yon and Bill Roggio. If not for their work we would never have known about guys like this NCO, and he is but one of thousands.
The Engineering Gap: A Myth?
Is there really an "engineering gap" between the United States and its technological competitors? Brian Schwarz at The American Thinker says "No.":
As I noted here last week, a new study from Duke University suggests the so-called engineering gap between America and its Asian rivals China and India is a myth. Now BusinessWeek has uncovered some possible reasons behind this “propaganda” and the detrimental effect it is having America’s current high-tech workers.
It seems that both sides are using the imaginary gap to further its own interests: the Asians are using the inflated numbers to lure investment; special interests in US are using the numbers to support their case for protectionist policies or greater government spending on education.
I've often wondered whether there's some connection between the engineering industry and the employment marketeers. It seems the employment section of our local paper regularly features profiles of the engineering profession, and the news is always that "demand will be strong for the foreseeable future"--regardless of the current demand.
There is no doubt, though, that we must do a better job of math and science education, starting in elementary school.
Posted at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)December 25, 2005
Christmas In Autumn
Even though winter is four days old, we're only now getting some real fall color in our Houston trees. Although it's an understatement to say we aren't known for our fall foliage, the sweet gums on my mom's street have always given their best effort:
December 23, 2005
Bring Back The Paper Ballot!
After noting the continuing problems with Diebold Election Systems' electronic voting machines, Glenn Reynolds once again makes the case for a return to paper ballots. From a 2002 TCS article:
Paper ballots are surprisingly resistant to fraud. Actually, it shouldn't be that surprising. A paper ballot encodes lots of useful information besides the obvious. Not only is the information about the vote contained in the form, but also information about the voter. Different colors of ink, different styles of handwriting, etc., make each ballot different. Erasing the original votes is likely to leave a detectable residue. Creating all new ballots with fraudulent votes requires substantial variation among them or the fakery is much more obvious; that's hard work. And destroying the original ballots in order to replace them with fraudulent ones isn't that easy - there's a lot of paper to be disposed of, and shredding it, or burning it, or hiding it is comparatively easy to detect. (Protecting the ballots before counting doesn't require fancy encryption, either: just a steel box with a lock, a slot on the top, and a seal.) What's more, because people are familiar with paper documents, fraud is easy to understand when it occurs. Paper ballots are both robust (resistant to fraud) and transparent (easy to understand).
Compare this sophisticated voting technology to that of voting machines. A voting machine captures only the information regarding the vote. Once it has done so, one vote looks like another. There's no handwriting, no style, no ink, just a simple notation of which candidate was favored. Most voting machines store votes electronically, meaning that if they're changed, there's no troubling paper residue for fraud-perpetrators to dispose of. And because voting machines are complicated - and because their actual workings are unseen, and often kept secret - it's much harder for voters, members of the press, and others to identify or understand fraud. Electronic ballots, in other words, are neither robust nor transparent.
The fact is, if you could come up with a new technology as simple and resistant to fraud as the paper ballot, people would be pretty impressed. So why do we use machines?
Why indeed? Glenn notes one obvious reason: our hyperventilated news cycles require instant information. A common idea is that we're all conditioned now to expect our election results before midnight--God forbid we should have to go to bed without knowing who won. But I wonder if that's really true? The quite justifiable backlash against the major networks for calling Florida too early in the 2000 election indicates that we might be willing to wait a little longer to get it right. And as Glenn notes, the trend with electronic machines is that results are taking longer because of the inevitable challenges and uncertainty that accompanies their use in a close election.
Wired News has more on the successful hacking of a Diebold machine in a test set up by Florida election officials:
Hugh Thompson, an adjunct computer science professor at the Florida Institute of Technology who helped devise last week's test [...] and Harri Hursti, a Finnish computer scientist, were able to change votes on the Diebold machine without leaving a trace. Hursti conducted the same test for the California secretary of state's office Tuesday. The office did not return several calls for comment. [...]
The hack Thompson and Hursti performed involves a memory card that's inserted in the Diebold machines to record votes as officials scan ballots. According to Thompson, data on the cards isn't encrypted or secured with passwords. Anyone with programming skills and access to the cards -- such as a county elections technical administrator, a savvy poll worker or a voting company employee -- can alter the data using a laptop and card reader.
There are many worrisome threads here--maybe the worst is the problems of complexity. I'm fairly computer literate, but by no means a hacker, and the general knowledge level of the average user is probably less than mine. And it would take me weeks or months of study just to understand the basics of how to hack one of these machines--but that's knowledge that quite a few (especially young) people do have. In other words, it's very scary that the very complexity of these machines could hide the fraud from the understanding of the average voter.
I don't think we need the purported advantages of these machines, and I don't think we can afford to tolerate their potential for abuse. I'm with Glenn: bring back the paper ballot.
Posted at 03:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)December 22, 2005
From today's Houston Chronicle:
SUDANAttack on village widely condemned
KHARTOUM - The United Nations and the African Union condemned Wednesday an attack on a village in Darfur in which camel and horse-riding assailants killed 20 civilians and burned their huts. The 500 men, suspected Arab militiamen known as the Janjaweed, swept through the village of Abu Sorouj on Monday, killing the villagers and destroying and looting their houses, a U.N. spokeswoman said.
Ah...the UN has issued a "condemnation". This is serious, and it confirms once again my faith in the strength of international unity and cooperation in combating violent oppression.
Pathetic.
December 21, 2005
Thoughts On The Impeachment Fantasies
Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye has some thoughts on the growing impeachment fantasies of those on the Left. Dave notes the familiar section of the Constitution that stipulates that the president shall be removed from office for conviction of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Of course the problem lies in the definition of "high crimes and misdemeanors". Dave Schuler:
The reality is that impeachable offenses are defined circularly: they are precisely what the House of Representatives finds that they are. Under current circumstances it seems pretty unlikely that the House will find what the President has done (whatever that is) will rise to the level of an impeachable offense.
Perhaps the better question is should the authorization be an impeachable offense? If what the President did was a violation of the law and the law was constitutional and the President knew what he did was a violation of a constitutional law, then it probably should be but that’s an awful lot of if’s and those if’s are, apparently, not completely clear.
I think this is on track, but I believe the "if's" are even more problematic for the Democrats than Dave says. There have been opinions from expert commentators both liberal and conservative that argue that the wiretaps were appropriate. See here and here (both via Powerline). These writers are not indulging in hysterical wish-projection, rather they are analyzing a complicated legal problem in careful, reasoned manner.
And indeed, even if it is finally determined that the President's actions ran counter to the law, there remains another problem for the deluded Dems: the question of intent. Wouldn't they have to prove that Bush harbored a definite intent to break the law? This would require that there was a certainty of opinion in the WH before the wiretaps were implemented that such actions would be illegal, and that the President then proceeded with them anyway.
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see how this could ever get off the ground.
December 20, 2005
Impeach Bush? Well If You Insist...
A reader of The Corner writes to Kathy Lopez:
I think the “Impeach Bush” clamor offers NR a bumper sticker product: “Impeach Bush. Cheney for President”
I support GWB to the hilt, flaws and all. But I'd have no problem with Cheney as president. No problem at all.
Posted at 02:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)December 19, 2005
A Little Perspective
From the New York Times (via Instapundit):
A little perspective is always a good thing. The anti-war Left excoriates the Administration for any civilian deaths; yet the death toll in Darfur/Sudan has been six times that in Iraq--in a concurrent time period. Not to mention the roughly 120,000 that have died on our own highways in that same time.
Another interesting point is raised by the Times' Bill Marsh's statement that the President's figure of 30,000 killed did not distinguish between civilian and military deaths and was close to the current number given by Iraq Body Count. I wonder where GWB got his numbers? As I noted here, some very sharp questions have been posed about Iraq Body Count's methods of counting, mainly concerning the difficulty of determining civilians from combatant who happened to be dressed in civilian clothes.
It will be interesting to revisit these figures in a year or two. In light of the recents trends in Iraq, we can all cautiously hope that there won't be another 30,000 killed in the next three years.
Posted at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)More Proof Of MSM Bias
A new study led by UCLA political scientist Tim Groseclose confirms what other studies has already shown: the mainstream media is biased toward the left (via Instapundit):
While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.These are just a few of the surprising findings from a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly.
"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."
Groseclose does make a mistake in his opinion of the Drudge Report. Anyone who thinks the Drudge Report is a blog is clearly mistaken: Drudge is a link portal--to my knowledge he has never written a single word of original copy:
"One thing people should keep in mind is that our data for the Drudge Report was based almost entirely on the articles that the Drudge Report lists on other Web sites," said Groseclose. "Very little was based on the stories that Matt Drudge himself wrote. The fact that the Drudge Report appears left of center is merely a reflection of the overall bias of the media."
Of course anyone who reads Drudge at all knows that he's the ultimate linker. And Groseclose also make an error in asserting that Drudge's left of center bias exactly reflects the media he links to, because Groseclose overlooks the fact that Drudge makes an actual decision as to which stories he links to on his site--and I think it's obvious that Drudge, in spite of his reputation, is actually pretty dead on center.
But it's a fascinating study, especially in the way it compares news stories to the speeches of our elected officials. It's very common for people to assume that politicians are an elitist out-of-touch group, but I think in reality they are very aware of the pulse of their constituents.
Not that I needed any additional proof--see subject: Mary Mapes.
December 18, 2005
Back Home...
...from two days of bike racing in Austin, Texas. The predicted rain never arrived, thank God, and the temperature was mid 40's and perfect for cyclocross racing:
December 17, 2005
FYI...
Blogging will be non-existent till Sunday evening at the earliest--I'm traveling up to Austin for a couple of bike races.
Have a great inky-blue-fingered weekend!
Posted at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)December 16, 2005
The True State Of The Left
AcademicElephant observes that an organization called World Can't Wait has run a full page ad in the New York Times that calls for mass demonstrations during and after the President's State of the Union address. These demonstrations are intended to "deliver the people's [sic] verdict on Bush’s criminal regime". Here are some of the highlights of the ad. (Please hold your laughter till the end.)
Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.Your government is openly torturing people, and justifying it. [...]
Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.[...]
Your government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.
People look at all this and think of Hitler — and they are right to do so. [...]
Millions and millions are deeply disturbed and outraged by this. They recognize the need for a vehicle to express this outrage, yet they cannot find it; politics as usual cannot meet the enormity of the challenge, and people sense this.
There is not going to be some magical "pendulum swing." People who steal elections and believe they're on a "mission from God" will not go without a fight.
There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. [...]
But silence and paralysis are NOT acceptable. [...]There is no escaping it: the whole disastrous course of this Bush regime must be STOPPED. [...]
We must, and can, aim to create a political situation where the Bush regime's program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking society is reversed. We, in our millions, must and can take responsibility to change the course of history.[...]
But we speak for the majority, here and around the world, and as we get this going we are going to reach out to the people who have been so badly fooled by Bush and we are NOT going to stop.
The World Can't Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!
Pardon my snickering, but I can't wait to check back with them and their "millions" (they're a "majority", remember?) after they've "driven Bush from office". As AE points out, there are some major issues hidden behind the petulant foot-stamping: they are actively promoting the abandonment of our electoral process. And they have equal scorn for any Democrats who would work within the system. These people have actually deluded themselves into thinking that a majority of the people in this country would join with them in overthrowing the government.
Dr. Sanity highlights similar example of "progressive" compassion and concern:
In a comment on this post, we can see revealed the true feelings that the Left have toward the professsionals in the U.S. Military services, who have taken on the responsibility of defending freedom for all of us. [...] In response to a comment that suggested that military personnel were proud to serve and that it dishonored them to suggest that their sacrifices were useless or meaningless, this diatribe was posted:
Dishonor the soldiers? [...]Sorry to disillusion you chumps, but striving to be a drone among thousands of other drones doesn't, by any logic, seem honorable does it? It seems like the the sort of endeavor that would appeal to the insecure and incompetent--Not able to go it on their own in life. Need the group identity and all that... I've known plenty of dedicated soldiers and they do have a tendency toward imbecility.
I was just reminding you that your moronic sentimments about the laughable undertaking in Iraq, and 'supporting our troops,' is actually supporting the sacrificing of these revered (by you) young people for a highly questionable cause.
For myself, I see it as a handy sort of Darwinism. [...] But the army is undermanned--I'm sure everyone who responded could come to such terms with local recruitment officers that you all could ship out within a few months and go help spread freedom. What's keeping you? Are you homosexuals? Or just dispensers of bullshit and cowards?
Besides displaying a profound lack of understanding about the military [...] this is pure, unadulterated and unvarnished prejudice and bias--with obvious overtones of hate and bile. [...]Without making any diagnosis, however, I can say with absolute certainty that this individual certainly captures the spirit of projection, paranoia and denial that is so pervasive in today's Left and clearly demonstrates the Left's true colors.
Projection, paranoia and denial. Each is bad enough on its own; combine them and you can throw constructive debate right out the window. But as I've said many times, debate, constructive or otherwise, is not the goal of the Left.
December 15, 2005
Urban Warfare, Gansta Style...
All my planned posts went awry today because of various distractions, but you must check out this hilarious photo essay of the innovative weapons handling skills of the Liberian fighting man. Via Wizbang.
Having your magazine spring pop out on you like a slinky is not a good thing.
Posted at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)December 14, 2005
SOTU Dreams
Anyone who thinks Iraqis are not better off now than they were three years ago is simply nuts. John McCaslin at Townhall.com makes note of some inspiring figures.
The world will be able to see for itself on Jan. 31 whether this week's pivotal parliamentary elections in Iraq are a success.
That's the day President Bush delivers his annual State of the Union on Capitol Hill, and "it is my fondest hope that . . . maybe in this chamber - in a seat in this chamber - might be a legislative leader or two of the newly elected Iraqi Parliament," says Rep. Mike Pence, Indiana Republican.
Although actual numbers fluctuate, an amazing 7,000 candidates from no fewer than 325 political parties or organizations are seeking office in Iraq.
Emphasis mine. I fervently hope the elections are a success--that the Sunnis are enthusiastic participants--and that there are a few (or more) Iraqi legislators present at the State of the Union address. It would be a dream come true to watch Reid, Pelosi, Kennedy, Murtha, et al., having to join in the standing ovation for democratically elected Iraqis who have literally risked their lives to run for office.
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| Mass graves in 2003 | Mass voting in 2005 |
December 13, 2005
Iran And A Toothless UN
A few posts ago I quoted some comments by Winston Churchill in which he lambasted Britain's policies that allowed Germany to rearm itself throughout the 1930s. But it doesn't take a lot of effort to imagine how appeasement would be an extremely seductive idea to anyone living in Britain or France during that time period--World War I was a long, brutal and horribly degrading war that was still at the forefront of everyone's consciousness. Hindsight is perfect and the future unknown, so the natural human tendency is to try to mold the future by looking backwards. In 1936, when Hitler began the military aggression that eventually culminated in WWII, the end of the Great War was only 18 years distant. As far as wars go, Vietnam was a mosquito bite compared to WWI and we Americans are still living under its shadow, and the end of that war is now much more distant than 18 years.
Keeping that in mind, I read this excellent article (thanks to Right Wing News) by Saul Singer with a sinking feeling in my stomach. Singer notes the near universal assumption (by non-military types, anyway) that Israel would enjoy the same success as it did in Iraq in 1981, when the Israeli air force destroyed Saddam's nuclear reactor at Osirak. But Singer points out that the Iranians have not been obliging enough to repeat Saddam's mistakes, and expert military opinions now express doubt that Israel would be able to reliably destroy the Iranian installations. Singer:
Still, the question remains, why is little Israel being left to fight the world's war? [...]
The irony here is that it is precisely those who claim to believe mot in a borderless world ruled by international law who are ushering in a new Hobbesian era. How is one to explain Europe's obsession with the United Nations on the one hand, and its emasculation of the principles on which that organization was founded?
If Europe, through the U.N. and in partnership with the U.S., simply followed the U.N. Charter, we would be living in a very different world today. That charter (Ch. 1, Art. 1, Para. 1, first sentence) states the U.N.'s purpose: "To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace..." (emphasis added).
Does this ring any bells? Is there a state that is a greater threat to international peace than Iran? How much terrorism does a state have to sponsor, how many member states does it have to threaten with destruction, and how far does it have to get in obtaining the ultimate means to carry out such threats before the collective obligations of free nations under the Charter are remembered?
The nations that wrap themselves most tightly in international law are actually those responsible for turning that law, and its aspirations for the world, into a dead letter. As in the case of Iraq, by refusing to join the U.S. in effective non-military collective action against Iran, Europe is making military action or an Iranian victory inevitable.
Emphases in bold are mine. It still confounds me that the anti-war types seem to think that the removal of Saddam was a unilateral action taken on a whim. Saddam invaded Kuwait, remember? And Bush 41 assembled a by-the-UN-book coalition and expelled him. And in the intervening 13 years Saddam flaunted nearly a score of UN resolutions and conditions imposed as conditions of his first war; it was only the resolve of the United States along with the support of allies like Great Britain that ended the filling of the mass graves in Iraq. The UN is an utter parody of its own stated ideals.
And now we are supposed to look to the UN to deal with an insane state armed with nuclear weapons?
I fear we have sunk into a 1930s mindset. Talk is cheap and toothless resolutions salve national consciences. With the Iraq war still unfinished there is great resistance to any talk of military action against Iran. But looking to the past or burying our heads in the sand will do nothing to influence the mullahs' course of action. Nothing at all.
Coca-Cola vs Coke Classic
I am not alone in the world! The Ranting Raven expounds on an extremely important, but tragically forgotten, subject: the difference between Coke Classic and Coca-Cola.
Afterwards, we did a double-blind taste test. I'd noticed some Spanish on a coke bottle at the store. Hey! They still use sugar down there in Mexico, don't they? Maybe....? YES! It was "Coca-Cola," not "Coke Classic." Read the label: Sugar! So, I bought a bottle, plus a bottle of "Classic."
Explanatory aside for the young: Once upon a time, they made Coke with sugar. The knot-heads who ran the company came out with this "New Coke," that was essentially a Pepsi knock-off. It bombed, so they "reverted" to the old recipie for "Coke Classic." But these men-who-had-no-fathers-and-no-name decided to use corn syrup instead of sugar in the new "classic" formulae. Let me say out loud now the word to which I had alluded earlier: BASTARDS! End aside
The results of his test were inconclusive--the women present preferred Coke Classic, the men liked the original Coca-Cola. It's always bugged me that Coke replaced sugar with corn syrup. I just know that it tastes different than the drink I grew up with. I thought I was imagining things till we went to the Bahamas about ten years ago and discovered that the difference is indeed real.
It's things like this that result in lives lived in "quiet desperation".
Posted at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)December 12, 2005
The Op-Ed Pages: Let The Reader Beware
The op-ed page in any newspaper is reserved for opinion pieces--in other words, what you'll find there is a writer trying to convince you of his or her point of view. It's a given that the author is taking a particular side; what's not a given is that the author is writing in bad faith--that is, hiding a connection or history that would give the reader information that might work against the writer's argument.
Neo-neocon has found a particularly egregious example of an op-ed shell game. In a December 9 article in the Los Angeles Times, George Bisharat argues that a "Pentagon-commissioned study" suggests that the threat posed by a nuclear Iran could be neutralized if Israel froze and then dismantled its nuclear arsenal.
Neo-neocon (along with blogger Omri Ceren at Mere Rhetoric) then compares and contrasts Bisharat's interpretation of the government study with what the study actually said, and finds that Bisharat's representations are shaky at best.
But the fact that Bisharat has blatantly misrepresented the study's conclusions is only part of the problem here. As neo-neocon points out, the bio listed at the bottom of the piece doesn't quite give the full picture:
So, it is in that spirit that I ask: who is Bisharat, and what are his political biases in the area of the Middle East and Israel? Does he have any? The Times identifies him as: is a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco who writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East. And this is, in fact, the case.
But if you read the entire bio to which I just linked, you'll find the following:
[Bisharat's] study of the impact of Israeli occupation on the Palestinian legal profession of the West Bank, Palestinian Lawyers and Israeli Rule: Law and Disorder in the West Bank, was published in 1989. In recent years, Professor Bisharat has consulted with the Palestinian Legislative Council over the structure of the Palestinian judiciary, reforms in criminal procedure, and other aspects of legal development.
Neo-neocon points correctly points out that Bisharat's past association with Palestinian organizations in no way negates his qualifications to write a piece on this subject. But a properly skeptical reader will want to know more about Bisharat's history. Basically one should ask, "Who is this guy and why should I believe him?"
With just a bit more research, one can easily come up with more information about a possible political agenda. Here, for example, is a piece written in early 2004 by Bisharat for the extreme leftist periodical Counterpunch. It's entitled, "The Right of Return: two-state solution sells Palestine short." The opening paragraph:
It is a tragic irony that, more than 55 years ago, one desperate people seeking sanctuary from murderous racism decimated another--and continue to oppress its scattered survivors to this day. In 1948, about 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland, their land and possessions taken by the new Jewish state of Israel. This included the Jerusalem home of my grandparents, Hanna and Mathilde Bisharat, which was expropriated through a process tantamount to state-sanctioned theft.
This clearly establishes that Bisharat has an agenda--and again, making note of his history is an altogether different action than condemning him for his opinion. What we can take him to task for is misrepresenting the conclusions of the government report he cited.
But even more deserving of blame is the LA Times for not providing their readers with adequate background from which to evaluate their columnists' positions.
December 11, 2005
Taxes: Who Pays What (Or: The Same Old Same Old)
It's time for the annual antidote to the "all Republicans want is tax cuts for the rich" myth. Bruce Bartlett (via Free Republic) summarizes the by now familiar (at least to conservatives) statistics:
A few weeks ago, the Internal Revenue Service released data on tax year 2003. They show that the top 1 percent of taxpayers, ranked by adjusted gross income, paid 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes that year. The top 5 percent paid 54.4 percent, the top 10 percent paid 65.8 percent, and the top quarter of taxpayers paid 83.9 percent.
Not only are these data interesting on their own, but looking at them over time shows that the share of total income taxes paid by the wealthy has risen even as statutory tax rates have fallen sharply. A growing body of international data shows the same trend. [...]
These data are all very familiar, but Bartlett goes on to take the analysis an important step further:
A common liberal retort to these data is that they exclude payroll taxes, which are assumed to be largely paid by the poor. However, it turns out that when one includes payroll taxes in the calculations, it has far less impact on the distribution of the tax burden than most people would assume, because the wealthy also pay a lot of those taxes, too.
In a 2004 paper presented to the American Statistical Association, IRS economists Michael Strudler and Tom Petska calculated percentiles data that included both income taxes and Social Security taxes. In 1999, the top 1 percent paid 23.3 percent of combined payroll and income taxes, the top 10 percent paid 52.2 percent, and the top 20 percent paid 68.2 percent.
After noting that data from other countries is now reinforcing the conclusion that higher taxes on the wealthy reduces tax revenue, Bartlett concludes:
At some point, those on the left must decide what really matters to them -- the appearance of soaking the rich by imposing high statutory tax rates that may cause actual tax payments by the wealthy to fall, or lower rates that may bring in more revenue that can pay for government programs to aid the poor? Sadly, the left nearly always votes for appearances over reality, favoring high rates that bring in little revenue even when lower rates would bring in more.
Emphases are mine.
But say what? You, as an observant analyst, might object as this commenter did, that these statistics don't mention the percentage of total income that the wealthy paid--thus rendering the argument faulty.
But another commenter sets the record straight:
In answer to your question about the income earned by the top 1%, here is from an IRS study http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/04asastr.pdf :
Income Shares The share of income accounted for by the top 1 percent of the income distribution has climbed steadily from a low of 9.58 percent (3.28 for the top 0.1 percent) for 1979 to a high of 21.55 (10.49 for the top 0.1 percent) for 2000.
So, apparently the top 1% of earners made less than 22% of the money, but paid 34% of the taxes. The rich are definitely getting "soaked."
Interesting stuff here. The "tax cuts for the rich" line is so reflexively pervasive in the pronouncements of almost every Democrat that most conservatives now can now cite from memory the figures Bartlett recaps. But the payroll tax issue is one I never quite had an answer for so it's nice to get some ammo on that front. And the "total income" question is one I'd never thought of before--and it too falls before the data.
But don't look for these numbers to show up on CBS, NBC, ABC or the New York Times. Why break a fifty year old tradition?
December 09, 2005
My First Tat?
Cliff May recently shared a dinner table with an anti-war type who vehemently questioned whether Arabs really appreciate our promoting of democracy in their region (hat tip: The Strata-Sphere). May's reply was succinct and memorable:
"Is it your impression that Arabs and Muslims would rather take orders from dictators and can't appreciate freedom the way sophisticated people like you do?”
I think I'll have this tattooed on my forehead, in reverse letters.
May's question effectively highlights the fundamental hypocrisy that makes the political label "progressive" a one-word oxymoron.
Posted at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)We All Have Our Hot Buttons
Well, maybe it should be "warm" button.
This is the first instance I've seen of Glenn Reynolds using the term "Holy crap!".
Carry on.
Insanity On Parade
The crackpot rambling pronouncements of Ramsey Clark are well known to anyone who has an interest in US foreign policy. Certainly Clark can comfortably be placed in "fringe" section of the Left; although he's utterly without credibility and bereft of intellectual honesty, there are many others just as ludicrous as he.
But Clark has taken a quantum leap into the next circle--one of calculated evil. Check out Christopher Hitchens' revelations (thanks to Mark at Decision '08):
Hussein stands accused of some of the most revolting crimes ever perpetrated by any despot. A defense lawyer is (presumably) engaged to acquit him of such charges. Yet before he had even had his credentials accepted by the court, Clark announced that his client was a) guilty of disgusting atrocities and b) justified in having committed them.
To be exact, in an interview with the BBC last week and another in the New York Times on Tuesday, Mr. Clark addressed the charge that in 1982, after an apparent attempt on his life in the Iraqi town of Dujail, Hussein had ordered the torture and murder of about 150 men and boys from the area.
Far from denying that any such horror had occurred — and it is one of the smaller elements in the bill of indictment — Clark asserted that it was justifiable. He has now twice said in public that, given the war with the Shiite republic of Iran, Hussein was entitled to take stern measures. "He had this huge war going on, and you have to act firmly when you have an assassination attempt," he told the BBC.
To this he calmly added that he himself had more than once been shoved aside by Secret Service agents eager to defend the president of the United States (and of course one remembers the mass arrests, beatings and executions that followed the assassination attempts on presidents Ford and Reagan). It is as if Hussein had not started, by his illegal, blood-soaked invasion of Iran, the "huge war" that Clark cites as the excuse for Hussein then turning his guns on Iraqis.
I wonder, does the former absolute owner of Iraq quite realize that one on his team of attorneys is proudly trumpeting his guilt?
Emphases mine.
So Clark thinks "that you have to act firmly"? Himmler himself couldn't have said it better. And Clark predictably trots out the usual Leftist logical fallacy by answering the charge of mass murder by citing his "rough" treatment by Secret Service Agents.
This man is depraved and insane.
Posted at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)December 08, 2005
Four Of A Kind
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On December 9, 1938, Winston Churchill said in a speech to his constituents:
In 1934 I warned Mr. Baldwin that the Germans had a secret Air Force and were rapidly overhauling ours. I gave definite figures and forecasts. Of course, it was all denied with all the weight of official authority. I was depicted a scaremonger. Less than six months after Mr. Baldwin had to come down to the House and admit he was wrong and he said, "We are all to blame" and everybody said, "How very honest of him to admit his mistake."
He got more applause for making this mistake, which may prove fatal to the British Empire and to British freedom, than ordinary people would do after they rendered some great service which added to its security and power. Well, Mr. Chamberlain was, next to Mr. Baldwin, the most powerful Member of that Government. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer. He knew all the facts. His judgement failed just like that of Mr. Baldwin and we are suffering from the consequences of it today.
Martin Gilbert, Churchill, A Life, Henry Hold & Co., 1991, p 606.
It's interesting that both of these well-know photos of Chamberlain and Dean capture them in the exact moment of the failure that became their legacy.
A failure of judgement...Churchill did have a way with words.
Posted at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)Able Danger: Trusting The New Technology
AJStrata on the genesis of the Able Danger project and the establishment of the program by General Hugh Shelton :
So I can envision this upstart, prototype data mining methodology being given the evil eye by the old guard. Why do you think the FBI and FAA computer systems belong in museums representing 1990 technology? Able Danger was a demonstration effort to show the power of data mining, therefore it was not supposed to actually be ‘operational’ - a conceptual state a system must attain through process and paperwork, not simply capability to produce results.
This reminded me of a somewhat similar situation in which a warning generated by a radically new technology was misunderstood and ultimately ignored, at great cost to our country. In the early morning hours of December 7, 1941, two operators at the Opana Mobile Radar Station identified the massive Japanese formation of aircraft that would soon attack Pearl Harbor. After carefully verifying that the radar set was working properly, they telephoned the warning to the newly-established Information Center. Due to a lack of coordination between service arms (due it seems to the newness of the operation, not inter-service rivalry) the personnel who could have identified the radar blip were absent.
Making correct conclusions when dealing with new technology is never easy. Adding an element of ferocious political maneuvering to the mix, as in Able Danger, makes the task even more difficult.
Posted at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)December 07, 2005
Narnia Hate Watch
I never read the classic Narnia books as a kid. My wife did though, and has had a set of the vintage paperbacks waiting until our son is ready for them. We all get together for a bedtime story every night, and we just recently read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.
I was slightly surprised at the potency of the Christian symbolism; on the other hand C.S. Lewis is such a good storyteller the religion hardly gets in the way--it's there if you know to look for it. It's tremendous popularity over the years attest to the fact that kids and parents of all degrees of religiousosity place a greater emphasis on the books' entertainment value than any religious message.
But of course, some aren't happy with the upcoming movie, and Paul Cella at Redstate.org has his eye on them. Paul has instituted the "Narnia Hate Watch" which catalogs some of the Left's usual overreaction to anything that smacks of religion:
Here at Redstate we have been struck by the level of unabashed odium that the upcoming film The Chronicles of Narnia has already provoked. Not since The Passion of the Christ have we seen such hatred for a film yet to be released. Thus we inaugurate the NARNIA HATE WATCH.
It is plain to see that men who despise something else make Narnia their stalking horse. They despise American Christianity, or they despise Christianity in general, or perhaps the challenge of the cross confounds and infuriates them. As the Apostle wrote, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.”
Follow the link for some amusing lunacy.
We aren't particularly religious around here, but I thought the story was wonderful. I'll tell you what is scary: the fundamentalist dogma of the socialist Left.
Posted at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)Tom DeLay And The Headline Writers
Media bias against conservatives is as constant as the sun in the sky; but yesterday there was a regular solar flair of prejudice. What was the catalyst for this outburst of noise? Why, Tom DeLay, of course.
Yesterday Texas judge Pat Priest threw out the conspiracy charges against DeLay, but allowed the money laundering charge to stand. Short of outright dismissal of all charges, this was a legal victory for DeLay because the conspiracy charges are easier to prove (and this was also the charge that Ronnie Earle worked on for over a year).
But many in the MSM have practically convicted DeLay already, at least in their headlines. Greg over at Rhymes With Right notes the Washington Post spin:
I love how the Washington Post spun this one on its homepage.
Tex. Judge Upholds Key Charges Against DeLay
Interestingly enough, that isn't really true. The conspiracy charge, the easiest to prove under Texas law, has been thrown out. Not to mention that the excluded charge was the only charge that the grand jury which investigated the case brought.
Greg lives not far from me down here in Texas. I wonder if he noticed the Houston Chronicle yesterday? From the front page story above the fold:
DeLAY FAILS TO GET CASE TOSSED OUT With charges of money laundering upheld, hopes for a rapid resolution come up short
AUSTIN - U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay suffered a blow to his efforts to regain his House leadership position when a judge ruled Monday that he should stand trial on felony money laundering charges in an election finance case.
Senior District Judge Pat Priest threw out charges accusing DeLay and two associates of conspiring to violate the state election code, but he upheld charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
A spokesman for DeLay called the split ruling a victory, but the congressman had hoped to gain a quick resolution to the entire case by challenging the indictments against him. [...]
Some Republicans already are pushing for a House leadership vote in January to permanently replace DeLay. Priest has said he could not hold a trial in DeLay's case before early next year.
Have you ever noticed how the conjunction "but" is one of the most useful words to a writer in the mainstream media? "A spokesman for DeLay called the split ruling a victory, but..." "Senior District Judge Pat Priest threw out charges accusing DeLay and two associates of conspiring to violate the state election code, but..." When you see "but" you can bet that the writer has just thrown a bone to objectivity, and will now proceed to negate it.
Well, I'm sure this is all in my head (the Chronicle smugly points out about twice a year that they get about as many letters complaining of bias from the left as from the right--as if that proves anything.)
In any event, Ronnie Earle can still claim ultimate success: even with his humiliating legal incompetence he continues to prevent DeLay from occupying his leadership position in the House. Earle must be made to feel the consequences of his abuse of his office.
December 05, 2005
Why US Kids Are Mathematically Screwed Up
Why is the National Science Foundation pushing a K-5 mathematics curriculum that strongly discourages the learning of basic math facts (4 + 8 = 12), denigrates the values of computational algorithms (like long division), and encourages the use of calculators?
Bill Quirk (via Mathematically Correct and The Education Wonks) has the details:
Developed by TERC, with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Investigations in Number, Data, and Space purports to be "a complete K-5 mathematics curriculum that supports all students as they learn to think mathematically." The NSF is now spending millions to promote implementation of the TERC program. School Boards find it difficult to say no. They rationalize: "it's just a different way to teach elementary math, and the NSF backs it, so how bad can it be?"
Very, very bad indeed.
They claim their program moves “beyond arithmetic” to offer "significant math," including important ideas from probability, statistics, 3-D geometry, and number theory.
But math is a vertically-structured knowledge domain. Learning more advanced math isn't possible without first mastering traditional pencil-and-paper arithmetic. This truth is clearly demonstrated by the shallow details of the TERC fifth grade program. Their most advanced "Investigations" offer probability without multiplying fractions, statistics without the arithmetic mean, 3-D geometry without formulas for volume, and number theory without prime numbers.
This sounds like a bad parody of "progressive" educational theory, but it all appears to be true. Can you believe this:
Consider the "Sample of Ads Investigation," at the end of the TERC fifth grade. Students are given a 48-page newspaper and a supply of "Recording Strips" that are premarked with "familiar fractions," such as 1/4 and 2/3. They begin by deciding to sample one-third of the 48 pages. After using a calculator to divide 48 by 3, they select 16 sample pages and use eyeball estimation to guess the fraction of ads found on each sample page. Then, using one 3-inch “Recording Strip” for each sample page, students color the fraction of ads, cut out the colored portions, and tape them onto a 48-inch length of adding machine tape, “starting from one end of the tape and putting the pieces right next to each other.” Students then estimate the fraction of ads for the full 16-page sample by folding the 48-inch strip to estimate the fraction corresponding to the 16 colored-in pieces.Why not add the 16 fractions and then divide the sum by 16? TERC students never learn about dividing fractions, and they never learn general methods for adding fractions. They do learn a hands-on method for adding two proper fractions with denominators less than 7, but this paper-folding method doesn't work if the denominator of the sum fraction isn't also less than 7.
All emphases are mine.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. These are fifth grade students--and they are coloring little strips of paper to "estimate" the addition of fractions!
This is the legacy of "progressive" education?
UPDATE: My wife said, in response to my rant about this idiocy: "I really don't want my heart surgeon [for example] to think that 'close enough' is acceptable. I don't want him to have to color on some little strips of paper in the middle of the operating room to get an answer." Her favorite idea is to find a lawyer to work up a class action lawsuit against our local school district: "I paid all this tax money and my son can't read or write."
The Iraqi Army: How Should It Be Trained?
Bill Roggio continues his excellent reporting from Iraq with thoughts on how the cut-and-run talk is affecting the situation over there:
For LtCol Alford, withdrawal from Iraq is not an option, and would be catastrophic. The calls for withdrawal both encourages the insurgency and has a negative impact on his ability to negotiate with the sheikhs and various tribal leaders, “it empowers the insurgency, they listen to the American media and they listen to our political debates… When I meet with sheikhs, village elders and leaders of the tribes, do they think I am going to follow through with what I promise? They also listen to the American media and wonder who’s going to be around in the long run.”
LTC Alford is commander of the 3d battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, and he also has some different ideas on how the Iraqi forces should be trained:
He has a unique, outside of the box idea to get the Iraqi Army trained up to the proper standards to fight the insurgency on its own. Instead of using the MITT model, where small teams are embedded into Iraqi battalions to provide assistance, he would transplant the staff of a Marine battalion and graft it onto an Iraqi battalion. The staffs would team up, man for man, and act as advisers down to the company level, in the areas where the Iraqi military needs it most: logistics, heavy weapons support and air support. When finished, the embedded staff would leave the equipment behind for the Iraqi Army to carry on the fight.
LTC Alford believes this scheme would reduce the deployment time of the lower troop grades and shift the load to the professional levels of the service: captain and above for officers; Staff Sergeant and above for enlisted men. I don't know enough about the inner workings of military staffing to judge the long term implications of this plan, but it does sound intriguing. This is a unique war and as LTC Alford points out, unique thinking will be rquired to win it.
Posted at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)December 04, 2005
Ouch...
Two days of bike racing in Houston has left me pretty beat. See ya tomorrow.
December 03, 2005
The Alternative To "Nice" Interrogators
Dan Darling at Winds Of Change has an excellent roundup of the killing or capture of three important terrorists. But what caught my eye was an observation Dan made about Saudi jihadist Abu Omar al-Saif, who was operating in Chechnya and committed suicide when Russian forces surrounded his hideout:
This tidbit comes by way of Evan Kohlmann over at the Counterterrorism Blog, who recounts al-Saif's final moments in Dagestan as follows:
According to various reports from credible mujahideen sources, Abu Omar Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Saif (a.k.a. Mohammed bin Abdullah bin Saif al-Jaber)--a top tier Saudi Arabian Al-Qaida commander in Chechnya and personal military advisor to Shamil Basayev--has been killed during a Russian counterterrorism operation in neighboring Dagestan. Unable to escape after Russian soldiers backed by helicopters surrounded his temporary hideout, Abu Omar allegedly detonated an explosive device he was carrying and collapsed the building on top of himself.
Good riddance, in my opinion. While some observers may find it odd that al-Saif would kill himself rather than be taken prisoner given the fact that the majority of al-Qaeda leaders don't do this, it should be noted that most al-Qaeda leaders captured by the US aren't facing a Russian interrogation either ...
Emphasis is mine. The other day, in a comment exchange prompted by this post, I suggested that the insurgents in Iraq are probably dreading the day when they will might be forced to surrender to Iraqi, rather than US, forces. I drew a comparison to the situation in Europe in May of 1945, when German soldiers knew their lives depended on being able to surrender to US or British forces; the Germans knew that surrendering to the Red Army meant immediate death or years in a gulag. Ivan did not play nice.
Dan's comment about Russian interrogators reminds me of an incident I read about years ago (the source is here in my office, but there is no hope of finding it for the foreseeable future--so this is purely from memory). Back in the days when Beirut was still embroiled in violence--and CIA personnel had been taken hostage and killed, a KGB officer was also kidnapped and held for ransom. The KGB response was to capture a prominent terrorist; he was soon released, but only after his testicles had been removed. The Russian hostage was immediately released.
Of course I'm not suggesting that we'd ever do anything like that.
Posted at 10:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)A Correction To Rep. Murtha
Major John at Miserable Donuts has a response to Rep. John Murtha's (D-PA) comments that the U.S. Army is "broken, worn out" and "living hand to mouth" (hat tip: Instapundit).
Unmitigated crap.[...]
As anyone who has read this blog knows, The Inner Prop and I served in Operation Enduring Freedom V (Afghanistan, March 2004-March 2005). We stood at the end of the longest sustained supply line in the history of human conflict. We were in war-torn Central Asia. Af-frickin'-ghanistan. We had decent food, e-mail, phone (OK, sometimes they weren't always working, but almost all the time) excellent medical support, good pay, regular (if slow) mail. We had a PXs at most of the larger bases, and coffee places sprang up too. We had so damned much ammunition that we needed to build a bigger ammunition supply point at Bagram, AF. We had so many vehicles that we were constantly squabbling over where to put them all - and we had enough up-armored ones too. Our supply warehouses were stuffed with clothing, boots, body armor and the like. "Living hand to mouth" is the worst lie of the bunch. [...]
What really infuriates me is that someone like Rep. Murtha knows better.
Emphasis in the original. Either Murtha is sincere but clueless about the current state of the military (unlikely since he is the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee); or else he now places more importance on conducting partisan hit jobs than fairly evaluating the military's work in Iraq.
Many Republicans have shown a great deal of respect to Murtha, due to his undeniably stellar record in the Marines (including the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts won in Vietnam). But although there's no "statute of limitations" on that respect, it should in no way continue to provide him political cover for his blatant misrepresentations. If Murtha wants to challenge the conduct of the war, fine. But our military is not "broken" and "living hand to mouth"--as Glenn Reynolds said, Congress is a lot more broken that the army is.
December 02, 2005
Enviro-fanatics Resume Their Campaign Against New Orleans
It seems the Lefty environmentalist faction has opened their campaign on the New Orleans front:
Federal and state environmental agencies are downplaying long-term health dangers posed by chemicals in sediment that covers much of the New Orleans area, several environmental groups charged Thursday.
The Natural Resources Defense Counci (NRDC), one of the nation's largest environmental groups, and several local Louisiana environmental groups said that heavy metals, petroleum components and pesticides in the dusty residue left behind by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters pose such a risk that families with children shouldn't return until it is cleaned up.
"The cancer risk and the risk of other long-term health effects is quite significant according to (federal) standards," said Gina Solomon, a physician with the Natural Resources Defense Council. [...]
The groups' test results largely conform with what the EPA and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality found in samples taken since September. But the groups and government agencies disagree on the implications.
"It's how they interpret it," said Dana Shepherd, a toxicologist with the Louisiana environmental department. Some toxic standards, she said, are based on "a child eating that dirt for 350 days a year for a lifetime."
The government agencies recommend that residents take simple precautions when exposed to sediment, such as wearing respirators and washing exposed skin.
Empahsis mine. "When exposed to sediment". That means "when you spend the day shoveling 20 wheelbarrow loads out of your backyard." It's the usual story...fresh-cooked french bread can be fatal if you eat 20 pounds in ten minutes. Whatever.
And who is the Natural Resources Defense Council, the group mainly responsible for these charges? Well, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is their senior attorney:
Kennedy serves as Senior Attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, is Chief Prosecuting Attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper and President of Waterkeeper Alliance. He is a Clinical Professor and Supervising Attorney at Pace University School of Law’s Environmental Litigation Clinic and co-host of ‘Ring of Fire’ on Air America Radio. He is also the author of several books, including ‘Crimes Against Nature’, a New York Times bestseller [...].
The junior Kennedy, you will recall, blamed Mississippi governor Haley Barbour for the Katrina disaster:
"As Hurricane Katrina dismantles Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, it’s worth recalling the central role that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour played in derailing the Kyoto Protocol and kiboshing President Bush’s iron-clad campaign promise to regulate CO2," Kennedy blogged Tuesday on HuffingtonPost.com.
I'd like to comment more on this, but I've got to go out fo my front yard and dig up some soil for tomorrow's dinner.
OK, I'll Back Away From The Ledge
For someone who regularly rails about bias in the mainstream media (and therefore should know better), I guess I get a little too pessimistic sometimes. AcademicElephant graciously points out (as she has before) that I can safely back away from the window ledge--polls are already indicating that the administration's counterattack is gaining some traction with the public. All may not be lost, after all. As I pointed out yesterday, there's still almost a year to go till the 2006 elections; a year in which the progress in Iraq can continue. And it's beginning to look like the grave structural flaws in today's D