Hamilton's Pamphlets

The Emperor of the DNC Has No Clothes

Not that it comes as even a mild surprise, but jeez... Ya think the Moonbats surrounding Emperor Dean might want to tell him that he is way, way off script...  All things considered it looks like good news for the GOP, but it is painful to watch a major political party come apart at the seams like this...

First from TKS, Dean tells audience at Cornell University that "Social Security has a big Problem".  Geraghty quoting Robert Novak:

"... Over the years it's going to lose about 80 percent of the benefits. That, Judy, is not the Democratic line. The Democratic line is there is no problem."

Then from the Power Line guys, "No One Here But Us Tolerant Folks" where Emperor Dean tells us that

"The issue is not abortion. The issue is whether women can make up their own mind instead of some right-wing pastor, some right-wing politician telling them what to do.

"Moderate Republicans can't stand these people [conservatives], because they're intolerant. They don't think tolerance is a virtue. I'm not going to have these right-wingers throw away our right to be tolerant.

"This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good."

Hindrocket adds,

"In my opinion, Dean's main problem in the 2004 campaign was not that he was too extreme; his problem was that he had a tin ear. Too often, he failed to understand how he was perceived not by hard-line Democrats, but by the general public. My guess is that Dean's tin ear will dog him as DNC Chair, too." [Emphasis mine]

If you agree with Howard Dean he is downright inspirational, trouble for the Democrats/DNC is that only a small minority of Democrats agree with Mr. Dean.  Worse by far is that only a tiny fraction of the American population thinks he's on the right track.  The Dems have apparently hopped on the plane headed for Guyana to go drink the Koolaid, with predictably the same end result (metaphorically speaking, of course).

Hamilton's Pecuniary Theorem of Blogging

I've "discovered" yet another odd thing about my blogging.  When I was on the free trial period (I scammed a 90 day free trial!!) I blogged like crazy.  Granted, the 90 days were from the end of September to the end of December, which had the hot blogging of the election smack in the middle of it.  Yet, still I continued pretty regular and consistent blogging through the entire free trial period.

Oddly, now that I'm PAYING, I haven't been blogging as often.  I've decided that I'm calling this - Hamilton's Pecuniary Theorem of Blogging.  Here's the theorem:

There is an inverse proportion when relating the amount one PERSONALLY spends on their bandwidth versus the amount they actually blog.

For example, bloggers like Hugh Hewitt probably don't personally pay for their sites.  Part of their "on air persona" and their business of talk radio.  Big name bloggers like Glenn Reynolds have advertising that most likely pays for the bandwidth and puts some cash in their pocket as well.  These guys blog like mad, they ALWAYS have something worth checking out.

However, bloggers like me, who don't do ads and pay for their online rambling from their own funds, well, we tend to blog when we feel like it and ignore it when the sun comes out (or any other good excuse...).

Just a theory, but I think it has some validity.  Any scientific types out there who want to put this to a test?

Guess it must be pretty obvious to all concerned that the nice weather up here in the PACNORWEST is over... Raining again... blogging again...

Corollary to the Post-election Blogging Slow Down

I just realized that I hadn't posted since the 16th, yikes!  I can't believe a whole week's gone by.  Which brings me to the subject, a while back I said that post-election and into the holidays bloggers would slow down and not be as active.  I have a new corollary. 

As the weather improves and people want to spend more time outside working and playing, they will blog less.

That's kind of what I've been doing.  The weather has been spectacular here in the PACNORWEST.  NOTE:  If you live in California and you are considering moving up here, it has rained every day since January 4th, 1974.  Seriously, though it has been spring up here.  I actually had to mow the lawn on Monday.

I've been doing "other" stuff too... Command Function (mandatory fun) on Friday, Lincoln Day Dinner (Stefan Sharkansky as one of the featured speakers) on Saturday, but lots and lots of time outside.  I just know something bad is going to happen.  We're gonna get 16 inches of snow in April...

Tony Snow

I just saw in Power Line (no pop-ups lately, I've noticed), who got it from Lucianne (argh! Lucianne does have pop-ups),  that Tony Snow has Colon Cancer and will undergo surgery next week.

Excerpt:

Tony, as he announced on his Fox Radio Show yesterday, has colon cancer. He will be operated on early next week to have his colon removed. His spirits are amazingly high and his humor unchanged. He said that after the announcement he got word that folks were praying for him and it literally made him feel better.

The Power Line post has the skinny, go read it and then send Tony an email.

Email Tony at [email protected].  I did and I hope he is flooded with well wishers and prayers of hope and healing.  I like Tony's broadcasts and his style.  He seems like a genuinely nice guy.

For those of you keeping score, Tony is a guy I would invite over for beers on the deck.  Heck a classy guy like him I might even bring out the single malt scotch and good cigars...

Note to Homeland Security

Hire this guy.  NOW! 

Jim Geraghty over at TKS has a reader that thinks security.  Just the kind of people we need in the Department of Homeland Security, need to work around that non-US citizen thing, but hire him.

Excerpt:

With a 350 kilo bomb you can kill anyone as long as you know their time and place, including the president...

...So what happens if Al Qaeda or the Syrians or the Iranians or Zarqawi’s gang or someone else get some sleepers in the U.S. to start paying attention to the president's public appearance schedule (the way John Hinkley did with Reagan), and arrange a really huge truck bomb, like the one they used in the first World Trade Center bombing or in Oklahoma City, to explode when the presidential motorcade is not very far away? Or to blow up a building in which the President is scheduled to speak, while he's there...

...And if we can't keep the elected leaders of democratic countries alive in the face of terrorism, we will have lost. Game over. No more free world.

I sure hope they have people that are thinking along these lines both at Secret Service and at Homeland Security.  Chilling thoughts that didn't even pop up on my radar...

Academic Freedom, the First Amendment and Ward Churchill

I've held back on commenting on this whole issue mostly because the thought of giving Ward Churchill any publicity (or any legitimacy in any way) made me ill.

Academic freedom does not mean you get to lie about your ethnicity, plagiarize legitimate scholars, make up facts and footnotes and episodes that support your delusional view of the world.  Realistically, outside the world of the college campus, such things will most likely result in a visit to a mental hospital or jail, perhaps both.

I'm no Constitutional scholar, but I believe that the right to free speech means you can say what you think, feel, or believe without any fear of imprisonment, torture, etc from your government.  It does not mean that if you say offensive things in public that you get to keep your nice job, or that people have to talk nicely to you.  It does not mean that they must have you come speak at their college/meeting/conference.  If you say perfectly awful things that make others question your sanity/integrity/values, you should not be surprised that no one wants to loan you money for your house or your car - crazy talk can get you fired and then how would you pay back the loan?  No, the First Amendment garuantees that you can say it.  You just have to be ready to live with the consequences that society may level on you once you've said it.

Ward Churchill.  Paul Campos, a law professor at Colorado, says it best in Freedom Unused is Abused (H/T: Instapundit) .  Excerpt:

Tenure and academic freedom are hard to defend if they don't provide us who benefit from them with the minimal degree of courage necessary to say, when confronted by someone like Churchill, enough is enough.

If even the extraordinary protections of tenure don't lead us to condemn a fraud of this magnitude in unmistakable and unapologetic terms, then we don't deserve them. What else is academic freedom for?

He is a poser and a fraud.  He is a liar and an anarchist.  The Constitution barely protects his hateful speech and attitudes, I certainly hope that U of C will decide that tenure does not.

This Man is a Genius

That man being Pejman Yousefzadeh.  He has posted a great review of the book that spawned the name of my blog over at Pejmanesque:    BOOK REVIEW--ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

I had just recently finished reading this book when I started blogging and I could not think of a better homage, than to reflect the modern incarnation of Alexander Hamilton's pamphleteering and thus Hamilton's Pamphlets was launched.

Excerpt from Pejman:

Ron Chernow's biography has to rank as one of the best and most comprehensive historical pieces I have ever read on one person's life and career, and confirms all of the reasons why Alexander Hamilton is my favorite Founding Father. I enthusiastically recommend it to all and sundry.

I agree with Pejman's evaluation of the book and his feelings towards it.  Like this (substituting Republican-Conservative for the Libertarian-Conservative, of course):

What is a libertarian-conservative like me doing praising the likes of Hamilton, who when compared to Jefferson and Madison was a centralizer of power? While I do not share Hamilton's general distrust of the populace and believe in "the wisdom of crowds" as a general principle, history has quite clearly proven Hamilton right in his arguments for a Bank of the United States (at least in the time in which Hamilton lived), the assumption of state debt by the federal government, and a centralization of power in the Constitution compared to the gross diffusion of power that existed in the Articles of Confederation. It is, of course, possible to take principles too far and neither Jefferson nor Madison acquitted themselves with much honor in their various post-enactment manipulations of Constitutional language and intent--manipulations that were wholly self-serving and solely designed to frustrate Hamilton's legislative and managerial plans without confronting those plans on their merits. I am more than pleased to be a libertarian-conservative and advocate the diffusion of power when one considers the federal government in present circumstances. When it comes to the time of the founding, however, it can scarcely be argued that the scheme envisioned by the Articles of Confederation was superior to that implemented by the enactment of the Constitution. Relatedly, Jefferson was entirely off-base with his advocacy of an agrarian-based society, while Hamilton saw that large cities and an industrialized society were the wave of the future, and helped prepare the United States accordingly. Finally, while both Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans leveled calumnies against one another, the accusations that Hamilton was a monarchist, an "Angloman," and someone dedicated to using his position as Treasury Secretary to enrich himself were quite laughable--as Chernow shows. It becomes more difficult to take Hamilton's critics seriously in retrospect when one considers their Herculean efforts to slander him. Additionally, it is more than a little appalling to read through the meandering and weak excuses offered by Jefferson, Madison and James Monroe for the bloody excesses of the French Revolution. Hamilton--ever the realist--was much more on the mark in assessing the turbulent events across the ocean.

Long excerpt, but so on the money and there's much more at Pejmanesque.  I leave it with this last quote and then you'll have to go check it out for the rest:

Chernow's book is an excellent one. If all Revolutionary biographies were so well-written, we would have no trouble teaching history to our kids. I urge the reading of Alexander Hamilton most strongly.

I too urge the reading of this book.  I really like to read and I really like American History and this is the best book I have yet read on the Founding Fathers.

Some Final Thoughts on the USS San Francisco

Bubblehead posted some of his thoughts and opinions on CDR Mooney (former USS San Francisco skipper)  and the grounding of the USS San Francisco HERE.  Some really good inputs in the comments.  I think Submariner "Rob" has absorbed way too much radiation or something... I know that the Navy is a cross section of society, but how can you be that far to the left and still serve in the Navy in good conscience...  Rob must spend alot of time back aft, cause if he came forward with views like that, I think the "coners" would eat him alive...

As I have mentioned before, I worked for RADM Sullivan a few years back.  He is a compassionate commander and would fight like hell if he thought that relieving CDR Mooney was wrong.  I have seen him fight for what he believes in.  He is determined and tenacious when he feels some wrong needs righted.  That he has not stepped in tells me a great deal.

Something else that seems to be missing in the whole "CDR Mooney got a raw deal argument" is that this is the way we do things in the Navy.  With Command comes responsibility.  Here's the comment I left with Bubblehead:

Come on guys.  It has always been this way and it always will be.  The CO has ultimate accountability and responsibility for his command.  When the sh*t hits the fan, he's the one that has to answer for it.

While I don't have any inside info on what procedures they weren't 100% on, we all know that if there's an incident of any kind and you were operating outside the guidance (regardless of whether "everyone is doing it" or not) you are history.  Getting a newly refueled 688 decommissioned and having one of your Sailors die is as about as bad as it gets.  Anything less than 100% compliance garuantees getting relieved of command.

That's how our system works.  CDR Mooney knew that when he took command. 

It is always a shame when the Navy loses a good leader like this, but that accountability and responsibility cannot be delegated to anyone, much less to "fate" or "bad luck".

While that may seem cold and harsh to some, how many Americans would be willing to send their sons and daughters to a Navy that in the event of their death while on duty, attributes their death to "bad luck" or "fate" without holding anyone accountable.   Military service can be a very dangerous line of work and those in Command hold a very unique position.  With the power and authority comes the responsibility and accountability.  We cannot have it any other way.

Cyclist in Chief

From the Sunday SEATTLE TIMES, via Charles Johnson at LGF.  The President has taken up mountain biking and cycling with a passion.  I, myself, have been known to do such things and I have the bikes hanging in my garage to prove it.

Just another reason I like this president...

Hail to the Chief

Excerpt:

"We got thrills, spills — you name it," Bush quipped to an Associated Press reporter who accompanied him on a ride during which the president sailed over his handlebars, crashed to the ground, and then promptly hopped back on his bike.

For Secret Service agents and others who have ridden with Bush, it can be a perilous experience. At least one agent has broken several bones trailing the president.

It also can be demoralizing — he is famous for leaving stragglers behind — but seldom boring...

...But perhaps no president since Teddy Roosevelt, who combined harrowing horseback rides in Rock Creek Park with subzero skinny-dips, has relished so risky a hobby.

That may be why Bush likes it. (Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company)

I've gone over the handle bars a time or two.  He's right about the rush.  Hour and a half ride up the mountain 10 minute ride down the mountain...very cool.

Think Again

Do you think that having Liberal far left thinking and behaving teachers and administrators in elementary and secondary schools and our colleges and universities is having no real and lasting impact?

Think again.

Do you think that constant bombardment of gay couples re-doing their homes on HGTV, hip-hop lifestyle on MTV (and any other number of channels), sports stars behaving like spoiled children and criminals is having no real and lasting impact?

Think again.

Doverspa over at Redstate.org summarizing an Economist article:  Is America Moving to the Right?

Excerpt:

The Economist has an interesting survey and article in this week's issue. Click through and see the nifty graphic which displays the following statistical information in a much better manner. The main results show that people's views on a slew of issues is more liberal than it was in 1995. Specifically, support for the Death Penalty dropped 20 points to just over 60%, support for legal homosexual relations jumped by about 10 points to over 50%, support for legalizing marijuana moved over 15 points up to 40%; however, support for labor unions is down from 60% to 40% over the past decade.

How do we turn this around?  Is it possible to regain control of public education? Can we influence TV shows to downplay or not promote alternative lifestyles?  How do we get sports stars to behave more like Cal Ripken, Jr and less like Randy Moss?

The future is looking like South Park Republicanism, and that's just not gonna work for me.