This article, which points out that temperature records from the 1930s still stand, has been circulating around the blogosphere. Often it is used to argue against the reality of Global Warming. I have stated my opinion in support of the reality of Global Warming before.
The relevant point is not that some record highs from the 1930s still stand. Look instead at the averages: the first six months of this year were the highest on record. I think there is cause for concern.
The relevant point is not that some record highs from the 1930s still stand. Look instead at the averages: the first six months of this year were the highest on record. I think there is cause for concern.
04/08: Castro and Santeria
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
This article from the Havana Journal presents some of the rumors in Cuba regarding Castro and Santeria.
04/08: nervous fowl
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
This article from Reuters is about followers of Santeria in Miami buying birds to sacrifice for Castro's demise (some on the island itself may be sacrificing for his health).
In addition to its intrinsic interest, this article indirectly raises the issue of church-state in the U.S. I was living in Texas during the big controversy over prayer before public school football games. My usual comment was that a lot of minds would change the first time some student (or teacher or minister/priest) in Houston brought a chicken to the fifty yard line and made a Santeria sacrifice before the game. In discussing church/state issues we are not just talking Protestant v. Catholic any more.
In addition to its intrinsic interest, this article indirectly raises the issue of church-state in the U.S. I was living in Texas during the big controversy over prayer before public school football games. My usual comment was that a lot of minds would change the first time some student (or teacher or minister/priest) in Houston brought a chicken to the fifty yard line and made a Santeria sacrifice before the game. In discussing church/state issues we are not just talking Protestant v. Catholic any more.
Category: Religion & Public Policy
Posted by: an okie gardener
Photognome draws our attention to this recent court ruling. (pdf file 140 pages)
Prison Fellowship summarizes and responds to the ruling in the following:
"Judge Strikes Down Faith-Based Prison Program, While Public Backs Helping Prisoners
June 21, 2006 | Vol. 5, No. 6
A federal judge in Iowa recently issued a stunning decision declaring that Prison Fellowship?s InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI) was unconstitutional. In his 140-page decision, Judge Robert Pratt made sweeping findings that are as troubling as they are erroneous. He found that Prison Fellowship is ?Evangelical Christian in nature? and then went on to describe evangelical beliefs as not being in common with other Christian beliefs. His mischaracterization of Prison Fellowship and his misunderstanding of what Christians believe are apparent throughout his opinion. To cite just a few examples:
(read more)
Prison Fellowship summarizes and responds to the ruling in the following:
"Judge Strikes Down Faith-Based Prison Program, While Public Backs Helping Prisoners
June 21, 2006 | Vol. 5, No. 6
A federal judge in Iowa recently issued a stunning decision declaring that Prison Fellowship?s InnerChange Freedom Initiative (IFI) was unconstitutional. In his 140-page decision, Judge Robert Pratt made sweeping findings that are as troubling as they are erroneous. He found that Prison Fellowship is ?Evangelical Christian in nature? and then went on to describe evangelical beliefs as not being in common with other Christian beliefs. His mischaracterization of Prison Fellowship and his misunderstanding of what Christians believe are apparent throughout his opinion. To cite just a few examples:
(read more)
04/08: A Book Worth Reading
Category: America and the World
Posted by: an okie gardener
A few years ago (perhaps A Waco Farmer remembers exactly when), Tamim Ansary spoke at McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas. Just this past week I finally read his important book West of Kabul, East of New York : an Afghan American Story . I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Afghanistan, Islam, Americanization, and the current war with Radical Islam.
Mr. Ansary was born and raised in the old Afghanistan--before the communists, before the Soviets, before the Taliban. He moved to America as a young man, eventually becoming a writer and editor. He is uniquely positioned to help Americans understand how a person can love a traditional Islamic culture, even though the author no longer fits into that setting. He also helps the reader to distinguish between the relaxed Islam of traditional Afghanistan, and the harsh, militant Islam of the Taliban. In addition, he has provocative thoughts on the unintended consequences of westernization that helped lead to communism in Afghanistan, and then to the emergence of the Taliban in the context of the Soviet invasion.
On the personal level of the author, his is another fascinating story of Americanization and modernization, from the walled compounds of the old country to the open society of San Francisco, USA. His siblings also came to America: his sister becoming completely Americanized, his brother finding meaning in radical Islam, and he himself trying to understand himself as Afghan American.
Mr. Ansary was born and raised in the old Afghanistan--before the communists, before the Soviets, before the Taliban. He moved to America as a young man, eventually becoming a writer and editor. He is uniquely positioned to help Americans understand how a person can love a traditional Islamic culture, even though the author no longer fits into that setting. He also helps the reader to distinguish between the relaxed Islam of traditional Afghanistan, and the harsh, militant Islam of the Taliban. In addition, he has provocative thoughts on the unintended consequences of westernization that helped lead to communism in Afghanistan, and then to the emergence of the Taliban in the context of the Soviet invasion.
On the personal level of the author, his is another fascinating story of Americanization and modernization, from the walled compounds of the old country to the open society of San Francisco, USA. His siblings also came to America: his sister becoming completely Americanized, his brother finding meaning in radical Islam, and he himself trying to understand himself as Afghan American.
The failure of the so-called second two-party system (Whigs and Democrats) to address vexing questions during the 1840s and 1850s hastened the coming of the Civil War. Once labeled the "bumbling generation" for their inability to achieve a lasting compromise, the politicians of the ante bellum period too often pursued partisan and sectional loyalties over common sense. Notwithstanding that notable exception, the two-party system has, in actual fact, proved quite adroit at finding long-term solutions to an endless parade of crises and crossroads in the life of our nation.
However, we are currently in a period in which compromise and solution-oriented legislating seems increasingly rare and difficult. Predictions of an Impending Crisis of Civil-War magnitude are hyperbolic, but the extreme partisanship and self-interestedness of the current generation of statesmen is depressing.
The upcoming vote in the Senate on the Minimum Wage bill presents an instructive dilemma for the leadership of the Democratic Party. For years, Democrats have called for an upward adjustment in wages as a cornerstone in their program to achieve "fairness" for working people. This bill cements a healthy increase ($2.10 over three years). On the other hand, the legislation also includes a permanent reduction in the "estate tax," which Democrats have resisted just as vocally. With midterm elections drawing near, and the Democrats riding the wave of mass discontent with Republican governance, the opposition party seemed poised to organize a national campaign around the issue of the minimum wage. The dilemma: what to do now? Take the minimum-wage compromise? Or hold out for all (and risk achieving nothing) while preserving a promising wedge issue for November?
In today's Opinion Journal the WSJ editorializes:
"The bill needs 60 votes to defeat a liberal filibuster, and nearly all of the 55 Republicans are in favor. So we are about to find out if Senate Democrats are more interested in achieving the policy goals they claim to want, or merely in blow-everything-up obstruction."
This is obviously a tough call for Democrats. This will be a telling week.
However, we are currently in a period in which compromise and solution-oriented legislating seems increasingly rare and difficult. Predictions of an Impending Crisis of Civil-War magnitude are hyperbolic, but the extreme partisanship and self-interestedness of the current generation of statesmen is depressing.
The upcoming vote in the Senate on the Minimum Wage bill presents an instructive dilemma for the leadership of the Democratic Party. For years, Democrats have called for an upward adjustment in wages as a cornerstone in their program to achieve "fairness" for working people. This bill cements a healthy increase ($2.10 over three years). On the other hand, the legislation also includes a permanent reduction in the "estate tax," which Democrats have resisted just as vocally. With midterm elections drawing near, and the Democrats riding the wave of mass discontent with Republican governance, the opposition party seemed poised to organize a national campaign around the issue of the minimum wage. The dilemma: what to do now? Take the minimum-wage compromise? Or hold out for all (and risk achieving nothing) while preserving a promising wedge issue for November?
In today's Opinion Journal the WSJ editorializes:
"The bill needs 60 votes to defeat a liberal filibuster, and nearly all of the 55 Republicans are in favor. So we are about to find out if Senate Democrats are more interested in achieving the policy goals they claim to want, or merely in blow-everything-up obstruction."
This is obviously a tough call for Democrats. This will be a telling week.
In a Washington Post op-ed today, "Stop the Band-Aid Treatment:
We Need Policies for a Real, Lasting Middle East Peace," Former-President Jimmy Carter asserts:
"Tragically, the current conflict is part of the inevitably repetitive cycle of violence that results from the absence of a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East, exacerbated by the almost unprecedented six-year absence of any real effort to achieve such a goal."
Why this statement? Why now?
Former-President Carter believes that he is uniquely qualified to speak on this issue. In addition to his success in forging a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt during his administration in the late-1970s, he remains convinced that he alone among American statesmen possessed the vision to bring about peace in the Middle East. A few years ago, he famously bragged: "Had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final solution."
Moreover, Former-President Carter has never retired from politics, and he rarely passes up an opportunity to tweak a Republican president. And while we often hear that former presidents, traditionally, have supported rather than attacked active administrations, that general assertion is simply inaccurate.
In fact, there is a strong tradition of ex-presidents, especially one-term chief executives who suffered humiliating defeats for re-election, throwing rocks at their successors. For twenty years after his electoral loss, John Quincy Adams railed against the party of Andrew Jackson. After his national defeat in 1840, and his intra-party defeat in 1844, Martin Van Buren declared war on both sides and ran as a third party candidate in 1848. After his degradation in 1932, Herbert Hoover proved a strident and consistent critic of FDR.
Former presidents enjoy many of the residual benefits of the office, including the bully pulpit. Jimmy Carter, not unlike his aforementioned predecessors, believes he drew a raw deal from the American people, who lacked the vision to recognize his superiority. Combined with his evangelical sense of obligation to share his wisdom with a less-enlightened and mostly unappreciative American public, Carter’s need for vindication propels him into the arena time after time. Waiting for the day that Americans will come to see him (as his friends in the international community do) for the great man that he really is, Jimmy Carter takes every opportunity to remind us of his discernment.
We Need Policies for a Real, Lasting Middle East Peace," Former-President Jimmy Carter asserts:
"Tragically, the current conflict is part of the inevitably repetitive cycle of violence that results from the absence of a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East, exacerbated by the almost unprecedented six-year absence of any real effort to achieve such a goal."
Why this statement? Why now?
Former-President Carter believes that he is uniquely qualified to speak on this issue. In addition to his success in forging a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt during his administration in the late-1970s, he remains convinced that he alone among American statesmen possessed the vision to bring about peace in the Middle East. A few years ago, he famously bragged: "Had I been elected to a second term, with the prestige and authority and influence and reputation I had in the region, we could have moved to a final solution."
Moreover, Former-President Carter has never retired from politics, and he rarely passes up an opportunity to tweak a Republican president. And while we often hear that former presidents, traditionally, have supported rather than attacked active administrations, that general assertion is simply inaccurate.
In fact, there is a strong tradition of ex-presidents, especially one-term chief executives who suffered humiliating defeats for re-election, throwing rocks at their successors. For twenty years after his electoral loss, John Quincy Adams railed against the party of Andrew Jackson. After his national defeat in 1840, and his intra-party defeat in 1844, Martin Van Buren declared war on both sides and ran as a third party candidate in 1848. After his degradation in 1932, Herbert Hoover proved a strident and consistent critic of FDR.
Former presidents enjoy many of the residual benefits of the office, including the bully pulpit. Jimmy Carter, not unlike his aforementioned predecessors, believes he drew a raw deal from the American people, who lacked the vision to recognize his superiority. Combined with his evangelical sense of obligation to share his wisdom with a less-enlightened and mostly unappreciative American public, Carter’s need for vindication propels him into the arena time after time. Waiting for the day that Americans will come to see him (as his friends in the international community do) for the great man that he really is, Jimmy Carter takes every opportunity to remind us of his discernment.
Category: Joe Lieberman
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
I am currently reading Revolutionary Characters: What Made The Founders Different, by Gordon Wood, which is a compilation of biographical essays. I heartily recommend it. Gordon Wood is a national treasure.
In his essay, "The Greatness of George Washington," Wood describes the first president's frustration with American politics at the end of his long public career. Wood writes of Washington's exasperation with the diminished importance of character and virtue in politics. Decrying the "new" spirit of party, Washington complained, "[i]f the members of the Jeffersonian Republican party set up a broomstick as candidate and called it a true son of Liberty or a Democrat or any other epithet that will suit their purpose, it still would command their votes in toto!" But even worse, Washington understood, the Federalists were no better. This was the disadvantage of the party system.
Watching great Democratic statesman dance around the primary election in Connecticut, exhorting Democratic primary voters to return eighteen-year Senate veteran, Joe Lieberman, to Washington, while at the same time hedging their bets and making it clear that they will support whoever receives the party's nomination, I understand Washington's lamentation.
American politics is cyclical. We are once again in a cycle in which party trumps personality. Our elections are rarely about integrity and "distinctions of character;" they are, to borrow a phrase from Wood, "a world in which parties, not great men, [have] become the objects of contention."
In his essay, "The Greatness of George Washington," Wood describes the first president's frustration with American politics at the end of his long public career. Wood writes of Washington's exasperation with the diminished importance of character and virtue in politics. Decrying the "new" spirit of party, Washington complained, "[i]f the members of the Jeffersonian Republican party set up a broomstick as candidate and called it a true son of Liberty or a Democrat or any other epithet that will suit their purpose, it still would command their votes in toto!" But even worse, Washington understood, the Federalists were no better. This was the disadvantage of the party system.
Watching great Democratic statesman dance around the primary election in Connecticut, exhorting Democratic primary voters to return eighteen-year Senate veteran, Joe Lieberman, to Washington, while at the same time hedging their bets and making it clear that they will support whoever receives the party's nomination, I understand Washington's lamentation.
American politics is cyclical. We are once again in a cycle in which party trumps personality. Our elections are rarely about integrity and "distinctions of character;" they are, to borrow a phrase from Wood, "a world in which parties, not great men, [have] become the objects of contention."
Still Thinking Out Loud:
1. Very Funny (as in this actually makes me chuckle). I spoke of the seeming fascination with King James II in the Task Force Report. Coincidentally, the ABA complainants choose to refer to the two Bush administrations as Bush I and Bush II.
2. I advocate taking a closer look at all this. The President's use of signing statements strikes me as a radical departure from the past. Changes of that magnitude merit mature discussion and a healthy dose of skepticism. Moreover, in a previous essay, "Power and Liberty," I expressed my opinion that the jealous "departments" and the interest of extra-governmental entities play essential roles in protecting liberty. Let the Judiciary Committee and a hostile ABA kick this around a bit.
Power is the enemy of liberty.
3. The framers purportedly designed the office of the presidency with two thoughts in mind: 1) George Washington was going to be president (and you could trust him to be a good steward of executive power); and 2) George Washington would not be president forever (and there would be a president someday who was not a trustworthy steward of executive power).
Patrick Henry warned that a president would come along one day, who would "make that bold push for the throne."
In this respect the ABA is right (allow me to paraphrase): this is not a question that should be approached from the perspective of our man sitting in the oval office. We should, in fact, close our eyes and imagine Hillary Clinton in the oval office. Then ask ourselves: is this a process we want to establish as precedent?
4. One last consideration/counter-point: the ABA report never seems to consider the post-9/11-ism of all this. Much of the administration's argument assumes that these are war powers. That really is a pivotal question. Are we at war? How long can a president assume war powers without a Congressional declaration of war?
While power is the enemy of liberty, too much liberty can be also the enemy of liberty. Or, as United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson cautioned, "the Constitution is not a suicide pact."
Note: Part of this appeared in the discussion in the "comments section" following the first post.
1. Very Funny (as in this actually makes me chuckle). I spoke of the seeming fascination with King James II in the Task Force Report. Coincidentally, the ABA complainants choose to refer to the two Bush administrations as Bush I and Bush II.
2. I advocate taking a closer look at all this. The President's use of signing statements strikes me as a radical departure from the past. Changes of that magnitude merit mature discussion and a healthy dose of skepticism. Moreover, in a previous essay, "Power and Liberty," I expressed my opinion that the jealous "departments" and the interest of extra-governmental entities play essential roles in protecting liberty. Let the Judiciary Committee and a hostile ABA kick this around a bit.
Power is the enemy of liberty.
3. The framers purportedly designed the office of the presidency with two thoughts in mind: 1) George Washington was going to be president (and you could trust him to be a good steward of executive power); and 2) George Washington would not be president forever (and there would be a president someday who was not a trustworthy steward of executive power).
Patrick Henry warned that a president would come along one day, who would "make that bold push for the throne."
In this respect the ABA is right (allow me to paraphrase): this is not a question that should be approached from the perspective of our man sitting in the oval office. We should, in fact, close our eyes and imagine Hillary Clinton in the oval office. Then ask ourselves: is this a process we want to establish as precedent?
4. One last consideration/counter-point: the ABA report never seems to consider the post-9/11-ism of all this. Much of the administration's argument assumes that these are war powers. That really is a pivotal question. Are we at war? How long can a president assume war powers without a Congressional declaration of war?
While power is the enemy of liberty, too much liberty can be also the enemy of liberty. Or, as United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson cautioned, "the Constitution is not a suicide pact."
Note: Part of this appeared in the discussion in the "comments section" following the first post.
Category: Politics
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Today's (Friday, July 28) RCP op-ed round-up is remarkable for the plentitude of Democrats supporting Bush (or, more accurately, critical of their own party's mindless opposition to the President, regardless of whether he is right, wrong or somewhere in-between).
Peter Beinert: "After years of struggling to define their own approach to post-Sept. 11 foreign policy, Democrats seem finally to have hit on one. It's called pandering. In those rare cases when George W. Bush shows genuine sensitivity to America's allies and propounds a broader, more enlightened view of the national interest, Democrats will make him pay."
Read all of "Pander and Run," (Washington Post). Note: Read all of this, if you can. Beinert is a thoughtful and strong voice on American foreign policy, and this essay is packed full of devastating (and quite funny) criticism of Democratic partisanship.
Alan Dershowitz: "...I believe that it would be a mistake at this time for the Democrats to hold the Bolton nomination hostage to this dispute. The senators have had a year to observe and evaluate Mr. Bolton directly on his performance as our ambassador. They can intelligently vote based on what he has done at the United Nations and not based on documents related to his role as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.
"What remains of last year's nomination battle, though, is what I suspect to be the real reason that some Democrats oppose the Bolton nomination. That is, they felt uncomfortable with Mr. Bolton's oft-expressed and blunt skepticism over the United Nations' legal and moral authority."
Read all of "A Public Advocate for the United States" (Washington Times).
And, something of a stretch thematically, but because three is a good number, Ed Koch: "There are those who wishfully conclude that if Israel turns the other cheek and does not respond with armed force to attacks upon it, that such restraint will pay off with an ultimate peace treaty with its neighbors. That is ridiculous. I agree with those who believe that standing up to terrorism and never blinking is the only way to win that war."
Read his not-directly-critical-of-anyone-by-name, "Negotiations Alone Never Brought Peace" (RCP).
Peter Beinert: "After years of struggling to define their own approach to post-Sept. 11 foreign policy, Democrats seem finally to have hit on one. It's called pandering. In those rare cases when George W. Bush shows genuine sensitivity to America's allies and propounds a broader, more enlightened view of the national interest, Democrats will make him pay."
Read all of "Pander and Run," (Washington Post). Note: Read all of this, if you can. Beinert is a thoughtful and strong voice on American foreign policy, and this essay is packed full of devastating (and quite funny) criticism of Democratic partisanship.
Alan Dershowitz: "...I believe that it would be a mistake at this time for the Democrats to hold the Bolton nomination hostage to this dispute. The senators have had a year to observe and evaluate Mr. Bolton directly on his performance as our ambassador. They can intelligently vote based on what he has done at the United Nations and not based on documents related to his role as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.
"What remains of last year's nomination battle, though, is what I suspect to be the real reason that some Democrats oppose the Bolton nomination. That is, they felt uncomfortable with Mr. Bolton's oft-expressed and blunt skepticism over the United Nations' legal and moral authority."
Read all of "A Public Advocate for the United States" (Washington Times).
And, something of a stretch thematically, but because three is a good number, Ed Koch: "There are those who wishfully conclude that if Israel turns the other cheek and does not respond with armed force to attacks upon it, that such restraint will pay off with an ultimate peace treaty with its neighbors. That is ridiculous. I agree with those who believe that standing up to terrorism and never blinking is the only way to win that war."
Read his not-directly-critical-of-anyone-by-name, "Negotiations Alone Never Brought Peace" (RCP).
