Cal
Well-known member
22 July 2005
Federalist Patriot No. 05-29
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THE FOUNDATION
"A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." --James Madison
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THE PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE
Top of the fold --
U.S. National Security: Homeland Defense (Part two of a three-part series.)
In Part I of this series, we identified the primary asymmetric national-security threat to the U.S. and its interests and allies around the world: Zealots of Jihadistan, that borderless nation of Islamic extremists constituted by al-Qa'ida and other Muslim terrorist groups, calling for jihad, or "holy war," against "all the enemies of Allah" -- that's you.
As Congress debated the merits of the USA Patriot Act earlier this week, Jihadis reminded U.K. citizens, and the free world (again) that they have deep-cover terrorist cells in the West which are determined to do us harm. To date, none of the attacks have been as devastating as 9/11, but Jihadis will strike the U.S. again, and hard.
As first noted by The Patriot three years ago, the FBI calculates there is a high probability that homicide bombers, like those who hit London two weeks ago, will target U.S. commercial centers. However, both our military and intelligence sources estimate that far more devastating attacks are on the horizon, indicating it is only a matter of time until domestic Jihadi cells take delivery of fissile weapons (if they have not already) using Russian cores and Iraqi or Iranian technology previously acquired with assistance from Syria by al-Qa'ida. Those estimates indicate Jihadi targets are urban centers in the Northeast and/or in Southern California. Make no mistake, time is on their side.
How do we defend against this imminent threat?
Given that Jihadistan defies the tangible elements and definable characteristics of symmetric threats like uniformed leagues fighting for clear geographic and economic interests, the best defense against this ideological enemy is an effective offense in an attempt to define a warfront. President George Bush's doctrine of preemption in Afghanistan and Iraq, and precision strikes against Jihadis in numerous other locations, which remain classified, has done that, to the degree possible. Creating a warfront on their turf is essential -- "taking the fight to the enemy," as Mr. Bush says. (The doctrine of preemption is the subject of Part III of this series, "The Long War," next week.)
Given the fact that there are Jihadis already staged in American urban centers (like those who struck on 9/11), terrorists who will take, or already have taken, delivery of devastating fissile weapons, the U.S. must have a capable tactical and strategic homeland defense, one that is not hamstrung by obsolete constraints instituted when the primary national-security threats were external and symmetric -- the USSR and China.
To interdict this internal threat, President Bush created the Department of Homeland Security, reorganized the intelligence community, re-directed certain military assets to supplement homeland defense, and enlisted the support of Congress to pass the USA Patriot Act, which enhanced the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to investigate and track potential terrorists.
Additionally, the administration has enhanced security at coastlines, borders and ports of entry, but (despite a relentless chorus to the contrary) our borders cannot be made sufficiently secure to stop the infiltration of terrorists and their weapons; thus "border security" is not a panacea for containing this threat.
Domestic Jihadi sleeper cells in the U.S., many of which were seeded prior to 9/11, are virtually invisible, supported by hordes of Islamists in domestic mosques, Islamic schools and associations, and other domestic breeding grounds for Islamist hatred. The two most important tools in our domestic inventory to detect and prosecute these cells are DHS and law-enforcement agencies empowered by the Patriot Act -- though neither, ultimately, will provide complete protection from the Jihadi threat.
To that end, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff has completed his "Second Stage Review," a comprehensive assessment of the Department's missions, organization and resources, and he has outlined plans to restructure the Department based on this review. Implementation of these plans will allow DHS to implement protocols more effectively to protect commerce, transportation and infrastructure. "Our department must drive improvement with a sense of urgency," Chertoff says. "Our enemy constantly changes and adapts, so we as a department must be nimble and decisive."
Mr. Chertoff plans to create an intelligence directorate to aggregate terrorism analysis from law-enforcement and intelligence agencies and will focus DHS resources primarily on prevention of catastrophic nuclear, chemical or biological threats as outlined above. DHS will also launch the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN-Secret) to share pertinent classified information with state and local homeland-security and law-enforcement agencies. DHS will also implement more stringent immigration and worker-permit procedures.
The most critical defense against the Jihadi threat is the ability of law-enforcement agencies to function within the full limits of their constitutional authority when investigating and prosecuting these terrorist threats. The Patriot Act, as passed by overwhelming majorities of the House and Senate in 2001, clearly defines that authority and removes obstacles which prevented law-enforcement and intelligence agencies from cooperating in these investigations.
Since its passage, more than 400 suspects have been arrested as a result of federal terrorism investigations, and most of them were convicted. Terrorist cells have been dismantled in New York, Oregon, Virginia and Florida, and their support groups have been prosecuted in California, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio.
In December of this year, 16 critical provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire. Fortunately, the House has reauthorized 14 of those provisions with 10-year sunset provisions on the remaining two. The Senate will take up this measure in the fall.
Congressional debate is needed because there are legitimate civil-liberty concerns and, accordingly, The Patriot supports the sunset provisions, but in the estimation of our legal scholars and national-security analysts, stalling legislation over those concerns does not outweigh the risk of catastrophic terrorist attacks.
President Bush, calling on the Senate to renew these provisions, warned, "As we wage the war on terror overseas, we'll remember where the war began -- right here on American soil. In our free and open society, there is no such thing as perfect security. To protect our country, we have to be right 100 percent of the time. To hurt us, the terrorists have to be right only once."
Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified before Congress: "You want to catch a terrorist with his hands on the check instead of his hands on the bomb. You want to be many steps ahead of the devastating event. The way we do that is through preventive and disruptive measures, by using investigative tools to learn as much as we can, as quickly as we can, and then incapacitating a target at the right moment."
The Senate should not delay renewal of all these provisions because they enable investigators to use the same methods to investigate terrorists that are now used in routine criminal investigations, and they authorize investigators to track computer espionage and cyber-terrorism. To address civil-liberty concerns, the Patriot Act comports with constitutional constraints, requiring, for example, a federal judge's approval to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, to track his calls, or to search his property.
Congressional Democrats have attempted to hold critical Patriot Act provisions hostage as political fodder, and the consequences of their folly could be catastrophic.
Quote of the week...
"If it is the plight of the Palestinians that drives them, why, every time it looks as if Israel and Palestine are making progress, does the same ideology perpetrate an outrage that turns hope back into despair? If it is Afghanistan that motivates them, why blow up innocent Afghans on their way to their first-ever election? If it is Iraq that motivates them, why is the same ideology killing Iraqis by terror in defiance of an elected Iraqi government? What was 11 September 2001 the reprisal for?" --British Prime Minister Tony Blair, suggesting the obvious -- Jihadi attacks reflect an effort to undermine the forces of liberty worldwide, early salvos in Jihadistan's Islamist crusade.
On cross-examination...
"In view of these...repeated acts of terror, the incitements against all things Western, Jewish and Christian in who knows how many mosques in Britain and the U.S., the teaching of seditious ideas in radical Islamic schools funded by our 'friends' the Saudis, and the refusal of most Muslim communities to assimilate and learn the language, history and practices of their host countries, why do Britain and the United States continue to allow such things to exist within their borders? Unless we are prepared to accept continued terrorist attacks as 'normal' because of some sick understanding of tolerance and pluralism, we had better do whatever is necessary to root out these radicals and to forbid any more from entering our countries." --Cal Thomas
Open query...
"The fact that native-born Muslim Europeans are committing terror acts within their own countries shows that this Islamist malignancy long predates Iraq, long predates Afghanistan and long predates 9/11. What Europe had incubated is an enemy within, a threat that for decades Europe simply refused to face. Early news reports of the London bombings mentioned that police found no suspects among known Islamist cells in Britain. Come again? Why in God's name is a country letting known Islamist cells thrive, instead of just rolling them up? ... Decadence is defined not by a civilization's art or music but ultimately by its willingness to simply defend itself." --Charles Krauthammer
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The BIG lie...
"[Republicans have] done a p***-poor job of defending us. They want to kill us. They want to kill me and my children if they can, but if they just kill me and not my children, they want my children to be comforted -- that while they didn't protect me because they cut my taxes, my children won't have to pay any money on the money they inherit. That is bulls*** national defense, and we should say that." --Clintonista Paul Begala addressing young Demos at the Campus Progress National Student Conference
On the Judicial Warfront...
DHS and the Patriot Act notwithstanding, The Patriot has repeatedly made the case that the most serious internal threat to liberty and the integrity of our Constitutional Republic is (need we say it again) judicial activism -- federal judges who legislate by judicial diktat and contort the original intent of our Constitution beyond anything our Founders would recognize. The Supreme Court, being the final arbiter of such constitutional contortions by lower courts, is the last barrier between a nation of laws and a nation of men.
To that end, President Bush nominated U.S. Circuit Court Judge John Roberts, a constitutional constructionist, to fill the seat of retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. "A nominee to the Court must be a person...who will faithfully apply the Constitution and keep our founding promise of equal justice under law," said the President. "I have found such a person in Judge John Roberts. ...[He] will strictly apply the Constitution and laws -- not legislate from the bench."
As The Patriot noted previously in our analysis of the President's nomination strategy, this nominee was not on the Senate Demos prospective short list, in order to curb advance objections. Accordingly, we stand by our estimate that when Rehnquist retires (shortly after the Robert's confirmation) the president can argue for the nomination of, say, a Janice Brown to maintain the composure of the court. (Watch the Demos squirm when they attempt to demean the qualifications of a black female.)
Justice O'Connor's reaction: "He is a brilliant legal mind, a straight shooter, articulate, and he should not have trouble being confirmed by October. He's good in every way, except he's not a woman." Indeed, Judge Roberts has argued the extraordinary sum of 39 cases before the Court, and enjoys a reputation for outstanding appellate advocacy. His demonstrated ability and intellect will count for much in the confirmation process.
Will Judge Roberts follow in the tradition of his mentor, Justice Rehnquist, for whom Roberts clerked years ago? Roberts has shown substantial deference to the decisions of the two other branches of government and likely shares Justice Rehnquist's high regard for federalism.
What about hot-button issues like religion and abortion? For the most part, the Roberts record is limited on these questions to his service for the Solicitor General's Office under President Bush(41). In that capacity, Roberts argued before the court in favor of the President's policy that the government could subsidize hospitals providing advice on childbirth but deny it to those advising on abortion (successfully) and in favor of allowing public high-school graduation ceremonies to have a religious invocation (unsuccessfully). Because it is not the deputy SG who decides which side to take in a case, however, it is difficult to infer Judge Roberts' personal thoughts on these subjects (as Senate Demos will attempt to divine), but we suspect he will vote on Constitutional law, not his personal beliefs.
If Judge Roberts follows in the tradition of his mentor, the Court will have gained a judge with perhaps less conservative gusto than Justice Scalia, but one who will usually vote with him -- and perhaps be more effective in winning over a swing vote like Justice Kennedy or Breyer.
Democrats may complain about the lack of a paper trail for Roberts's views, but the irony is that they could have had all the trail they wanted had they allowed Roberts's first nomination under Bush(41) to move forward in 1992, which lapsed with Bush's defeat, or in 2001, when his second nomination died when Jim Jeffords jumped the Senate aisle.
That said, Judge Roberts was confirmed to the appellate court two years ago on a voice vote (without recorded opposition). Since he has done nothing particularly controversial in that span, it will be difficult for 40 Democrat Senators to assert now that he is unfit for the bench. Sen. Joe Lieberman has said that the Roberts nomination does not warrant a filibuster. May his Demo colleagues share his wisdom, or at least his realism.
This week's "Alpha Jackass" awards:
"This much is clear already. Judge Roberts is no Sandra Day O'Connor." --John Kerry, of Vietnam-era fame
Memo to Fightin' John & friends: Roberts isn't like O'Connor? Whoa. Thanks for clearing that up. Could it be that this is basically the idea behind his nomination?
This week's "Braying Jackass" award:
"I want to know whether [John Roberts is] going to be...somebody who would eagerly and willingly overturn settled law." --Sen. Patrick Leahy
Is it possible Sen. Leahy is hinting at a "litmus test" on abortion? How novel.
News from the Swamp...
In the Executive Branch, Lewis Libby, Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has been dragged into the "Scandal that Wasn't" over the outing of already-outed overt CIA paper-pusher Valerie Plame. The Leftmedia and the usual Demo-gogues have been calling for the dismissal of Karl Rove over this affair and are now likely to add Libby to the list of heads they want to see roll. But they are making a lot of hay over nothing. Just take a glance at Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper's words over this affair. "Like [Karl] Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame's name or indicated that her status was covert, and he never told me that he had heard about Plame from other reporters, as some press accounts have indicated." Even Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, has come out saying in a recent interview, "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity." (So what identity was there to blow, Joe?) But never mind the facts...
On the Hill, additional fallout from the Plame plume has spurred a few members to sponsor a bill that would shield reporters from jail when they refuse to reveal their sources in criminal investigations. Rather than give reporters a blank check that would allow them not to cooperate with any such investigations, the bill was revised to allow a federal court to force disclosure of a confidential source if the national security hung in the balance, all "non-media" sources have been exhausted, and the source's testimony is essential to the case.
In the House, there's very little noise coming from the Social Security front. We've said this could still be the year's hot ticket, and reports suggest it's still in the makings. Four House Republicans -- Sam Johnson, Paul Ryan, Jim McCrery and Clay Shaw -- will take the limelight next week to push for SS privatization, now dubbed "Grow Accounts." Further, Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, Speaker Denis Hastert and other powerbrokers are fully supportive of the newly-minted Grow Accounts and are prepared to cast the debate in terms of genuine investment in personal-retirement accounts versus continued pork-barrel spending on the Hill.
In the Senate, further attempts to cut Amtrak loose were derailed again when the Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved a reinstatement of the railroad's $1.4-billion operating subsidy. The move rightfully earned an immediate veto threat from the administration, which sought to cut the subsidy and set aside $360 million for emergency funds in case Amtrak goes bankrupt. Amtrak has made only modest improvements in service over the years and has been a continuous black hole of government money. Like all subsidized companies and industries, there is no incentive for the railroad to improve its service or technology in any way, nor is there any incentive to operate in the black.
Elsewhere, in a remarkable change of direction, indications in the Senate suggest that Republicans are coming very close to the 60 votes needed to end the infamous death tax. With tacit support from Demo Senators Mark Pryor and Ben Nelson, and with a compromise being crafted by Demo Sen. Max Baucus -- up for reelection in the very red state of Montana -- the death tax could soon be capped at 15 percent, and only on estates of $5 million and above. The tax would be eliminated entirely for estates under the $5 million threshold.
New and notable legislation: An amendment to the Higher Education Act was offered by Rep. Virginia Foxx and passed -- prohibiting the Department of Education from creating a federal database of information on "nearly every facet of college students' lives." Rep. Scott Garrett will introduce the Expecting Parents Relief Act, extending the child-tax credit to cover pregnancy. Under consideration in the House is the East Asia Security Act (HR 3100), which aims to prevent arms transfers to China.
On the National Security front...
Advancements in missile defense continue. This week, Japan announced that earlier in the year it reached an agreement with the U.S. to produce domestically the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) interceptor missile starting in 2008. Until that time, Japan will purchase the PAC-3 missiles from U.S. producer Lockheed Martin, with deployment around Japan expected to start in 2006. As North Korea has already lobbed missiles around the neighborhood, this is probably a smart move by Japan. U.S. missile defense, on the other hand, appears to be a case of one step forward and two steps back, or maybe sideways. At Ft. Greely, Alaska, work continues on the silos that will hold the nations' next ten anti-missile interceptors, expected to be in place by the end of this year. They will join the five already in place at Ft. Greely, plus an additional two at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
Combined with space, land- and sea-based sensors and radars, these missiles make up the country's initial, and very limited, defensive line against incoming ballistic missiles. With several recent test failures, and with the expensive system officially not even operational, the current ability of the system to protect against even a single missile is uncertain. However, upcoming flight tests should give a better idea of the system's capabilities, and it should be remembered that any new system, especially one as complex as missile defense, can experience significant growing pains.
On a smaller, more personal level, the U.S. will soon start testing anti-missile lasers on passenger airliners. The lasers, designed to fool heat-seeking, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, will first be tested on out-of-service aircraft. Should testing be successful and the airlines ordered to equip their fleets, it is estimated that the cost could run over six billion dollars, no doubt to be paid by the traveling public. Homeland Security is not cheap, but neither can it be ignored.
From the warfront with Jihadistan...
In a chilling repeat of the 7 July attacks, terrorist attacks again rocked three London Underground stations and a bus at midday Thursday. The explosions were reportedly less forceful than the 7/7 attacks, and authorities report no casualties, in stark contrast to the 56 Londoners killed just two weeks ago. Early indications from the Metropolitan Police indicate that other explosive devices failed to detonate. Then, on Friday, Metro officers shot and killed a would-be bomber in the Underground who was attempting to stage another repeat attack.
Meanwhile, British-born Haroon Rashid Asswad, of Pakistani extraction, is now believed to be the mastermind of the first London bombing and is being detained in Pakistan. Aswad, an al-Qa'ida operative, was captured at an Islamist school in Pakistan in possession of a homicide-bomber's belt, 13,000 British pounds and additional explosives. Authorities verify that Aswad had up to 20 telephone conversations with London bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, the latest occurring only hours before the first attacks.
In response to the wave of attacks from Islamist terrorists, Britain, long-known for its liberal immigration policies, is cracking down on militants with a blacklist to keep known terrorist sympathizers out of the Kingdom and to deport those already there. We commend the British crackdown, and pray it's not a case of too little, too late.
From the Left...
The Bureau of Economic Analysis has released two reports showing that states going for President Bush in the last election are considerably poorer than the ones that went for Kerry. The higher the per capita income of a state, the more it trends Democrat. The top ten blue states had a per capita income 20 percent higher than the top ten red states. So much for Howard Dean-esque stereotypes of Republicans who've never worked a day in their lives....
From the "Regulatory Commissars" File...
As it turns out, the horrors of single-payer medicine may be observed just across our northern borders where the Canadian Supreme Court recently found rationing imposed by the Canadian government imperils the physical health of Canadian citizens. The Court specifically noted there was uncontested evidence that government rationing in the form of waiting lists led to the death of Canadian citizens who would otherwise have survived if they received timely treatment. Attempting to create a buzz to distract citizens from becoming aware of the damage to a society's health caused by socialized medicine is perhaps the most demented example of the inequality of unintended consequences. Conservatives should continue to marginalize the buzzing of the socialists to save the country from them.
Here, in the States, like each raindrop that doesn't believe it is responsible for the flood, state legislators have continued to act as if health insurance is their personal social experiment because someone else always pays the bill and takes the blame. Eventually, costs may be forced high enough that liberals may achieve their dream of socialized medicine. Conservatives would do well to remember President Reagan's cutting of the regulatory burdens so that various industries, including health insurance, get some breathing rooms and become more affordable.
From the "Village Academic Curriculum" File...
The San Bernardino City Unified School District has plans to incorporate "Ebonics" into the curriculum to provide a more "well-rounded" education. Cumbersomely, it is known as the Students Accumulating New Knowledge Optimizing Future Accomplishment Initiative. (Try to say that in Ebonics.) The goal is to improve black students' academic performance by keeping them interested in school. Not surprisingly, sociologists have jumped on the bandwagon -- a professor at Cal State San Bernardino says, "Ebonics is a different language; it's not slang as many believe. For many of these students, Ebonics is their language and it should be considered a foreign language. These students should be taught like other students who speak a foreign language." Indeed. But doesn't that mean teaching them English?
Around the nation...
From the states, in light of the Canadian Supreme Court ruling universal "health" care system violates the citizenry's civil rights because of government mismanagement, we at The Patriot took a look at Tennessee's golden experiment to provide near-universal health care.
TennCare, based on Hillary Clinton's idea of healthcare reform, consumes an ever larger share of the state budget because lawsuits stripped the state of its ability to limit enrollment and manage its risks. According to a 2003 study, if Tennessee does not control TennCare spending, the program would require 90 percent of all new state revenue by 2008, and unchecked TennCare growth will consume up to 40 percent of the state's budget.
How is the current Demo governor dealing with such inept program management in 2005? By removing several hundred thousand citizens from the program based on their private financial and health information, and resorting to claims and accounting tricks to make the program appear somewhat more solvent. Leftists seductively prescribe a transition to government-provided healthcare as the cure to make the world a better place. The reality shows government-mismanaged healthcare is bad medicine.
In business/economic news...
The board of U.S. oil giant Unocal has endorsed Chevron's $17-billion takeover offer, favoring the U.S. company despite a higher bid by China's state-run CNOOC (Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation). Citing national-security concerns as well as possible review-process problems, Unocal's board recommends that shareholders accept Chevron's deal. CNOOC is expected to raise their $67 per share bid, though insiders say that Chevron, whose bid is now at only $63 per share, remains the favorite. We can only watch and see.
In related news, China has cut its decade-long fixed exchange rate to the U.S. dollar, thus raising the value of the yuan by one-quarter of one U.S. cent, or about 2.1 percent. The yuan now stands at 12.33 cents U.S. The U.S. government has said for years that the yuan is undervalued by as much as 40 percent, giving the Chinese an unfair trade advantage. While a fair playing field for trade is definitely what's needed, this small adjustment is far from a cure. While the resulting drop in the dollar will serve to shrink the U.S. trade deficit with China, let's not forget that an adjusted yuan may be designed to make CNOOC's bid for Unocal even more competitive. Likewise, a stronger Chinese currency may prompt more takeover bids in the future. While we wholeheartedly support free-trade policies (with fair-trade partners), and commend Treasury Secretary John Snow for his accomplishment in getting China to seemingly unhitch the yuan from the dollar, caution must be the word of the day.
On the culture front...
In a recent survey conducted by America Online and Salary.com, U.S. workers admitted to wasting an average of over two hours a day at the workplace -- surfing the web, socializing and "spacing out" being the top activities. The estimated salary cost of this lack of productivity is upwards of $750 billion a year. Also of note, 33 percent waste time because they don't have enough to do, 25 percent said they are not paid enough to work all day and younger workers waste more than twice the time older workers do. Perhaps the most interesting bit of data is that taking this survey resulted in wasted time for 100 percent of participants! Bill Coleman, senior vice president at Salary.com, claims that some wasted time is good, producing new ideas, or as he put it, "creative waste." Our Patriot staff especially likes the idea of "creative waste." How else would we find this story?
Family and faith matters...a correction
In Patriot 05-25, we wrote, "In a close vote in Nottingham, England, the Consultative Council of the world-wide Anglican Church expelled the churches of the U.S. and Canada in response to their ordination of homosexuals. ... The expulsions will stand until the 2008 Lambeth Council, where further discipline could be meted out on the North Americans."
We should have clarified that the expulsions were from the Anglican Council's "standing committee and the inter-Anglican finance and administration committee" -- a revision of the original proposal, by Nigerian Archbiship Peter Akinola, which called on the two North American churches to "withdraw their members from all other official entities of the Communion." The committee is a critical decision-making body of the world-wide Anglican Church.
The expulsions do in fact stand until the 2008 Lambeth Council, when the U.S. and Canadian churches' standing in the Anglican Communion will be decided.
On the frontiers of science...
Sources confirm that NASA realistically hopes to launch the space shuttle Discovery on Tuesday, having closed in on the fuel-tank-sensor malfunction that scratched last week's flight, now believed to be the result of faulty grounding. Discovery's mission will be the first since the 2003 Columbia disaster. The countdown to launch begins Saturday; the Tuesday launch is scheduled for 10:39 am EST.
On the frontiers of junk science...
We needed a study to tell us this? A review of widely touted medical research reports found that over a third of 45 highly publicized health studies between 1990 and 2003 were later contradicted, and over another third were later discovered to be overblown. Of a certainty, though, the problem of mischaracterized medical studies is compounded by the fact that Leftmedia reporters are at least as clueless in regard to research science as they are about politics. The meta-study, printed in the Journal of the American Medical Association, warned against interpreting any single study as the final word on a health matter. Indeed, a major foundation of research is replicability -- repeatable investigations, which can address whether one study's findings bear out in further related studies. However, that kind of rational scientific caution would ruin a lot of attention-grabbing headlines, now wouldn't it?
Around the world...
Based on the Pentagon's annual report on the status of China's military, China not only continues to concentrate forces in an effort to intimidate Taiwan, but also to develop long-range missiles, jets and warships intended as a challenge to U.S. hegemony. According to the report, in the "next several years" China will deploy the DF-31 mobile, solid-fuel ICBM and the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile, as well as continue to streamline and mobilize the People's Liberation Army, now numbered at 2.5 million. Additionally, Beijing can activating ten-million men under organized militias, plus another 900,000 in paramilitary, police and reserve forces. Mobile short-range missiles numbering between 650 and 730 are now stationed in range of Taiwan, together with 700 aircraft. China continues to modernize its air and naval forces through purchases from Russia, together with domestic development and production.
Advanced precision offensive and defensive weapons appear to be taking on a new priority. Two new Russian-made Sovremennyy class guided-missile destroyers, equipped with advanced anti-ship cruise missiles and air-defense systems, are deployed with the East Sea Fleet, and two more have been ordered. Diesel submarines are in serial production, and the Chinese navy's first nuclear attack sub, the Type 093, is expected to enter service this year.
And last...
In a feint of political camouflage in advance of the Roberts nomination, AlGore's info-superhighway puppeteers at MoveOn.org, hit upon just the maneuver to prevent President Bush from nominating a "radical right judge." They had a house party.
The Washington Post is inclined to cover this nonsense, so the party host recommended that if the attendees "talk to a reporter, you stay on message." "We don't want to come across as leftist, liberal activists. We want to come across as...regular folks." We think we get it. In case you don't, the party organizer clarified what "regular folks" means: "I suggest we put away our 'Bush is a Liar' t-shirts. Let's look like they do." For The Post, "Che Guevara" t-shirts ought to do.
Lex et Libertas -- Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for the editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world in defense of our liberty, and for the families awaiting their safe return.)
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Federalist Patriot No. 05-29
Friday Digest
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THE FOUNDATION
"A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." --James Madison
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THE PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE
Top of the fold --
U.S. National Security: Homeland Defense (Part two of a three-part series.)
In Part I of this series, we identified the primary asymmetric national-security threat to the U.S. and its interests and allies around the world: Zealots of Jihadistan, that borderless nation of Islamic extremists constituted by al-Qa'ida and other Muslim terrorist groups, calling for jihad, or "holy war," against "all the enemies of Allah" -- that's you.
As Congress debated the merits of the USA Patriot Act earlier this week, Jihadis reminded U.K. citizens, and the free world (again) that they have deep-cover terrorist cells in the West which are determined to do us harm. To date, none of the attacks have been as devastating as 9/11, but Jihadis will strike the U.S. again, and hard.
As first noted by The Patriot three years ago, the FBI calculates there is a high probability that homicide bombers, like those who hit London two weeks ago, will target U.S. commercial centers. However, both our military and intelligence sources estimate that far more devastating attacks are on the horizon, indicating it is only a matter of time until domestic Jihadi cells take delivery of fissile weapons (if they have not already) using Russian cores and Iraqi or Iranian technology previously acquired with assistance from Syria by al-Qa'ida. Those estimates indicate Jihadi targets are urban centers in the Northeast and/or in Southern California. Make no mistake, time is on their side.
How do we defend against this imminent threat?
Given that Jihadistan defies the tangible elements and definable characteristics of symmetric threats like uniformed leagues fighting for clear geographic and economic interests, the best defense against this ideological enemy is an effective offense in an attempt to define a warfront. President George Bush's doctrine of preemption in Afghanistan and Iraq, and precision strikes against Jihadis in numerous other locations, which remain classified, has done that, to the degree possible. Creating a warfront on their turf is essential -- "taking the fight to the enemy," as Mr. Bush says. (The doctrine of preemption is the subject of Part III of this series, "The Long War," next week.)
Given the fact that there are Jihadis already staged in American urban centers (like those who struck on 9/11), terrorists who will take, or already have taken, delivery of devastating fissile weapons, the U.S. must have a capable tactical and strategic homeland defense, one that is not hamstrung by obsolete constraints instituted when the primary national-security threats were external and symmetric -- the USSR and China.
To interdict this internal threat, President Bush created the Department of Homeland Security, reorganized the intelligence community, re-directed certain military assets to supplement homeland defense, and enlisted the support of Congress to pass the USA Patriot Act, which enhanced the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to investigate and track potential terrorists.
Additionally, the administration has enhanced security at coastlines, borders and ports of entry, but (despite a relentless chorus to the contrary) our borders cannot be made sufficiently secure to stop the infiltration of terrorists and their weapons; thus "border security" is not a panacea for containing this threat.
Domestic Jihadi sleeper cells in the U.S., many of which were seeded prior to 9/11, are virtually invisible, supported by hordes of Islamists in domestic mosques, Islamic schools and associations, and other domestic breeding grounds for Islamist hatred. The two most important tools in our domestic inventory to detect and prosecute these cells are DHS and law-enforcement agencies empowered by the Patriot Act -- though neither, ultimately, will provide complete protection from the Jihadi threat.
To that end, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff has completed his "Second Stage Review," a comprehensive assessment of the Department's missions, organization and resources, and he has outlined plans to restructure the Department based on this review. Implementation of these plans will allow DHS to implement protocols more effectively to protect commerce, transportation and infrastructure. "Our department must drive improvement with a sense of urgency," Chertoff says. "Our enemy constantly changes and adapts, so we as a department must be nimble and decisive."
Mr. Chertoff plans to create an intelligence directorate to aggregate terrorism analysis from law-enforcement and intelligence agencies and will focus DHS resources primarily on prevention of catastrophic nuclear, chemical or biological threats as outlined above. DHS will also launch the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN-Secret) to share pertinent classified information with state and local homeland-security and law-enforcement agencies. DHS will also implement more stringent immigration and worker-permit procedures.
The most critical defense against the Jihadi threat is the ability of law-enforcement agencies to function within the full limits of their constitutional authority when investigating and prosecuting these terrorist threats. The Patriot Act, as passed by overwhelming majorities of the House and Senate in 2001, clearly defines that authority and removes obstacles which prevented law-enforcement and intelligence agencies from cooperating in these investigations.
Since its passage, more than 400 suspects have been arrested as a result of federal terrorism investigations, and most of them were convicted. Terrorist cells have been dismantled in New York, Oregon, Virginia and Florida, and their support groups have been prosecuted in California, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio.
In December of this year, 16 critical provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire. Fortunately, the House has reauthorized 14 of those provisions with 10-year sunset provisions on the remaining two. The Senate will take up this measure in the fall.
Congressional debate is needed because there are legitimate civil-liberty concerns and, accordingly, The Patriot supports the sunset provisions, but in the estimation of our legal scholars and national-security analysts, stalling legislation over those concerns does not outweigh the risk of catastrophic terrorist attacks.
President Bush, calling on the Senate to renew these provisions, warned, "As we wage the war on terror overseas, we'll remember where the war began -- right here on American soil. In our free and open society, there is no such thing as perfect security. To protect our country, we have to be right 100 percent of the time. To hurt us, the terrorists have to be right only once."
Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified before Congress: "You want to catch a terrorist with his hands on the check instead of his hands on the bomb. You want to be many steps ahead of the devastating event. The way we do that is through preventive and disruptive measures, by using investigative tools to learn as much as we can, as quickly as we can, and then incapacitating a target at the right moment."
The Senate should not delay renewal of all these provisions because they enable investigators to use the same methods to investigate terrorists that are now used in routine criminal investigations, and they authorize investigators to track computer espionage and cyber-terrorism. To address civil-liberty concerns, the Patriot Act comports with constitutional constraints, requiring, for example, a federal judge's approval to wiretap a foreign terrorist's phone, to track his calls, or to search his property.
Congressional Democrats have attempted to hold critical Patriot Act provisions hostage as political fodder, and the consequences of their folly could be catastrophic.
Quote of the week...
"If it is the plight of the Palestinians that drives them, why, every time it looks as if Israel and Palestine are making progress, does the same ideology perpetrate an outrage that turns hope back into despair? If it is Afghanistan that motivates them, why blow up innocent Afghans on their way to their first-ever election? If it is Iraq that motivates them, why is the same ideology killing Iraqis by terror in defiance of an elected Iraqi government? What was 11 September 2001 the reprisal for?" --British Prime Minister Tony Blair, suggesting the obvious -- Jihadi attacks reflect an effort to undermine the forces of liberty worldwide, early salvos in Jihadistan's Islamist crusade.
On cross-examination...
"In view of these...repeated acts of terror, the incitements against all things Western, Jewish and Christian in who knows how many mosques in Britain and the U.S., the teaching of seditious ideas in radical Islamic schools funded by our 'friends' the Saudis, and the refusal of most Muslim communities to assimilate and learn the language, history and practices of their host countries, why do Britain and the United States continue to allow such things to exist within their borders? Unless we are prepared to accept continued terrorist attacks as 'normal' because of some sick understanding of tolerance and pluralism, we had better do whatever is necessary to root out these radicals and to forbid any more from entering our countries." --Cal Thomas
Open query...
"The fact that native-born Muslim Europeans are committing terror acts within their own countries shows that this Islamist malignancy long predates Iraq, long predates Afghanistan and long predates 9/11. What Europe had incubated is an enemy within, a threat that for decades Europe simply refused to face. Early news reports of the London bombings mentioned that police found no suspects among known Islamist cells in Britain. Come again? Why in God's name is a country letting known Islamist cells thrive, instead of just rolling them up? ... Decadence is defined not by a civilization's art or music but ultimately by its willingness to simply defend itself." --Charles Krauthammer
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The BIG lie...
"[Republicans have] done a p***-poor job of defending us. They want to kill us. They want to kill me and my children if they can, but if they just kill me and not my children, they want my children to be comforted -- that while they didn't protect me because they cut my taxes, my children won't have to pay any money on the money they inherit. That is bulls*** national defense, and we should say that." --Clintonista Paul Begala addressing young Demos at the Campus Progress National Student Conference
On the Judicial Warfront...
DHS and the Patriot Act notwithstanding, The Patriot has repeatedly made the case that the most serious internal threat to liberty and the integrity of our Constitutional Republic is (need we say it again) judicial activism -- federal judges who legislate by judicial diktat and contort the original intent of our Constitution beyond anything our Founders would recognize. The Supreme Court, being the final arbiter of such constitutional contortions by lower courts, is the last barrier between a nation of laws and a nation of men.
To that end, President Bush nominated U.S. Circuit Court Judge John Roberts, a constitutional constructionist, to fill the seat of retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. "A nominee to the Court must be a person...who will faithfully apply the Constitution and keep our founding promise of equal justice under law," said the President. "I have found such a person in Judge John Roberts. ...[He] will strictly apply the Constitution and laws -- not legislate from the bench."
As The Patriot noted previously in our analysis of the President's nomination strategy, this nominee was not on the Senate Demos prospective short list, in order to curb advance objections. Accordingly, we stand by our estimate that when Rehnquist retires (shortly after the Robert's confirmation) the president can argue for the nomination of, say, a Janice Brown to maintain the composure of the court. (Watch the Demos squirm when they attempt to demean the qualifications of a black female.)
Justice O'Connor's reaction: "He is a brilliant legal mind, a straight shooter, articulate, and he should not have trouble being confirmed by October. He's good in every way, except he's not a woman." Indeed, Judge Roberts has argued the extraordinary sum of 39 cases before the Court, and enjoys a reputation for outstanding appellate advocacy. His demonstrated ability and intellect will count for much in the confirmation process.
Will Judge Roberts follow in the tradition of his mentor, Justice Rehnquist, for whom Roberts clerked years ago? Roberts has shown substantial deference to the decisions of the two other branches of government and likely shares Justice Rehnquist's high regard for federalism.
What about hot-button issues like religion and abortion? For the most part, the Roberts record is limited on these questions to his service for the Solicitor General's Office under President Bush(41). In that capacity, Roberts argued before the court in favor of the President's policy that the government could subsidize hospitals providing advice on childbirth but deny it to those advising on abortion (successfully) and in favor of allowing public high-school graduation ceremonies to have a religious invocation (unsuccessfully). Because it is not the deputy SG who decides which side to take in a case, however, it is difficult to infer Judge Roberts' personal thoughts on these subjects (as Senate Demos will attempt to divine), but we suspect he will vote on Constitutional law, not his personal beliefs.
If Judge Roberts follows in the tradition of his mentor, the Court will have gained a judge with perhaps less conservative gusto than Justice Scalia, but one who will usually vote with him -- and perhaps be more effective in winning over a swing vote like Justice Kennedy or Breyer.
Democrats may complain about the lack of a paper trail for Roberts's views, but the irony is that they could have had all the trail they wanted had they allowed Roberts's first nomination under Bush(41) to move forward in 1992, which lapsed with Bush's defeat, or in 2001, when his second nomination died when Jim Jeffords jumped the Senate aisle.
That said, Judge Roberts was confirmed to the appellate court two years ago on a voice vote (without recorded opposition). Since he has done nothing particularly controversial in that span, it will be difficult for 40 Democrat Senators to assert now that he is unfit for the bench. Sen. Joe Lieberman has said that the Roberts nomination does not warrant a filibuster. May his Demo colleagues share his wisdom, or at least his realism.
This week's "Alpha Jackass" awards:
"This much is clear already. Judge Roberts is no Sandra Day O'Connor." --John Kerry, of Vietnam-era fame
Memo to Fightin' John & friends: Roberts isn't like O'Connor? Whoa. Thanks for clearing that up. Could it be that this is basically the idea behind his nomination?
This week's "Braying Jackass" award:
"I want to know whether [John Roberts is] going to be...somebody who would eagerly and willingly overturn settled law." --Sen. Patrick Leahy
Is it possible Sen. Leahy is hinting at a "litmus test" on abortion? How novel.
News from the Swamp...
In the Executive Branch, Lewis Libby, Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has been dragged into the "Scandal that Wasn't" over the outing of already-outed overt CIA paper-pusher Valerie Plame. The Leftmedia and the usual Demo-gogues have been calling for the dismissal of Karl Rove over this affair and are now likely to add Libby to the list of heads they want to see roll. But they are making a lot of hay over nothing. Just take a glance at Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper's words over this affair. "Like [Karl] Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame's name or indicated that her status was covert, and he never told me that he had heard about Plame from other reporters, as some press accounts have indicated." Even Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, has come out saying in a recent interview, "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity." (So what identity was there to blow, Joe?) But never mind the facts...
On the Hill, additional fallout from the Plame plume has spurred a few members to sponsor a bill that would shield reporters from jail when they refuse to reveal their sources in criminal investigations. Rather than give reporters a blank check that would allow them not to cooperate with any such investigations, the bill was revised to allow a federal court to force disclosure of a confidential source if the national security hung in the balance, all "non-media" sources have been exhausted, and the source's testimony is essential to the case.
In the House, there's very little noise coming from the Social Security front. We've said this could still be the year's hot ticket, and reports suggest it's still in the makings. Four House Republicans -- Sam Johnson, Paul Ryan, Jim McCrery and Clay Shaw -- will take the limelight next week to push for SS privatization, now dubbed "Grow Accounts." Further, Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas, Speaker Denis Hastert and other powerbrokers are fully supportive of the newly-minted Grow Accounts and are prepared to cast the debate in terms of genuine investment in personal-retirement accounts versus continued pork-barrel spending on the Hill.
In the Senate, further attempts to cut Amtrak loose were derailed again when the Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved a reinstatement of the railroad's $1.4-billion operating subsidy. The move rightfully earned an immediate veto threat from the administration, which sought to cut the subsidy and set aside $360 million for emergency funds in case Amtrak goes bankrupt. Amtrak has made only modest improvements in service over the years and has been a continuous black hole of government money. Like all subsidized companies and industries, there is no incentive for the railroad to improve its service or technology in any way, nor is there any incentive to operate in the black.
Elsewhere, in a remarkable change of direction, indications in the Senate suggest that Republicans are coming very close to the 60 votes needed to end the infamous death tax. With tacit support from Demo Senators Mark Pryor and Ben Nelson, and with a compromise being crafted by Demo Sen. Max Baucus -- up for reelection in the very red state of Montana -- the death tax could soon be capped at 15 percent, and only on estates of $5 million and above. The tax would be eliminated entirely for estates under the $5 million threshold.
New and notable legislation: An amendment to the Higher Education Act was offered by Rep. Virginia Foxx and passed -- prohibiting the Department of Education from creating a federal database of information on "nearly every facet of college students' lives." Rep. Scott Garrett will introduce the Expecting Parents Relief Act, extending the child-tax credit to cover pregnancy. Under consideration in the House is the East Asia Security Act (HR 3100), which aims to prevent arms transfers to China.
On the National Security front...
Advancements in missile defense continue. This week, Japan announced that earlier in the year it reached an agreement with the U.S. to produce domestically the Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3) interceptor missile starting in 2008. Until that time, Japan will purchase the PAC-3 missiles from U.S. producer Lockheed Martin, with deployment around Japan expected to start in 2006. As North Korea has already lobbed missiles around the neighborhood, this is probably a smart move by Japan. U.S. missile defense, on the other hand, appears to be a case of one step forward and two steps back, or maybe sideways. At Ft. Greely, Alaska, work continues on the silos that will hold the nations' next ten anti-missile interceptors, expected to be in place by the end of this year. They will join the five already in place at Ft. Greely, plus an additional two at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
Combined with space, land- and sea-based sensors and radars, these missiles make up the country's initial, and very limited, defensive line against incoming ballistic missiles. With several recent test failures, and with the expensive system officially not even operational, the current ability of the system to protect against even a single missile is uncertain. However, upcoming flight tests should give a better idea of the system's capabilities, and it should be remembered that any new system, especially one as complex as missile defense, can experience significant growing pains.
On a smaller, more personal level, the U.S. will soon start testing anti-missile lasers on passenger airliners. The lasers, designed to fool heat-seeking, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, will first be tested on out-of-service aircraft. Should testing be successful and the airlines ordered to equip their fleets, it is estimated that the cost could run over six billion dollars, no doubt to be paid by the traveling public. Homeland Security is not cheap, but neither can it be ignored.
From the warfront with Jihadistan...
In a chilling repeat of the 7 July attacks, terrorist attacks again rocked three London Underground stations and a bus at midday Thursday. The explosions were reportedly less forceful than the 7/7 attacks, and authorities report no casualties, in stark contrast to the 56 Londoners killed just two weeks ago. Early indications from the Metropolitan Police indicate that other explosive devices failed to detonate. Then, on Friday, Metro officers shot and killed a would-be bomber in the Underground who was attempting to stage another repeat attack.
Meanwhile, British-born Haroon Rashid Asswad, of Pakistani extraction, is now believed to be the mastermind of the first London bombing and is being detained in Pakistan. Aswad, an al-Qa'ida operative, was captured at an Islamist school in Pakistan in possession of a homicide-bomber's belt, 13,000 British pounds and additional explosives. Authorities verify that Aswad had up to 20 telephone conversations with London bombers Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, the latest occurring only hours before the first attacks.
In response to the wave of attacks from Islamist terrorists, Britain, long-known for its liberal immigration policies, is cracking down on militants with a blacklist to keep known terrorist sympathizers out of the Kingdom and to deport those already there. We commend the British crackdown, and pray it's not a case of too little, too late.
From the Left...
The Bureau of Economic Analysis has released two reports showing that states going for President Bush in the last election are considerably poorer than the ones that went for Kerry. The higher the per capita income of a state, the more it trends Democrat. The top ten blue states had a per capita income 20 percent higher than the top ten red states. So much for Howard Dean-esque stereotypes of Republicans who've never worked a day in their lives....
From the "Regulatory Commissars" File...
As it turns out, the horrors of single-payer medicine may be observed just across our northern borders where the Canadian Supreme Court recently found rationing imposed by the Canadian government imperils the physical health of Canadian citizens. The Court specifically noted there was uncontested evidence that government rationing in the form of waiting lists led to the death of Canadian citizens who would otherwise have survived if they received timely treatment. Attempting to create a buzz to distract citizens from becoming aware of the damage to a society's health caused by socialized medicine is perhaps the most demented example of the inequality of unintended consequences. Conservatives should continue to marginalize the buzzing of the socialists to save the country from them.
Here, in the States, like each raindrop that doesn't believe it is responsible for the flood, state legislators have continued to act as if health insurance is their personal social experiment because someone else always pays the bill and takes the blame. Eventually, costs may be forced high enough that liberals may achieve their dream of socialized medicine. Conservatives would do well to remember President Reagan's cutting of the regulatory burdens so that various industries, including health insurance, get some breathing rooms and become more affordable.
From the "Village Academic Curriculum" File...
The San Bernardino City Unified School District has plans to incorporate "Ebonics" into the curriculum to provide a more "well-rounded" education. Cumbersomely, it is known as the Students Accumulating New Knowledge Optimizing Future Accomplishment Initiative. (Try to say that in Ebonics.) The goal is to improve black students' academic performance by keeping them interested in school. Not surprisingly, sociologists have jumped on the bandwagon -- a professor at Cal State San Bernardino says, "Ebonics is a different language; it's not slang as many believe. For many of these students, Ebonics is their language and it should be considered a foreign language. These students should be taught like other students who speak a foreign language." Indeed. But doesn't that mean teaching them English?
Around the nation...
From the states, in light of the Canadian Supreme Court ruling universal "health" care system violates the citizenry's civil rights because of government mismanagement, we at The Patriot took a look at Tennessee's golden experiment to provide near-universal health care.
TennCare, based on Hillary Clinton's idea of healthcare reform, consumes an ever larger share of the state budget because lawsuits stripped the state of its ability to limit enrollment and manage its risks. According to a 2003 study, if Tennessee does not control TennCare spending, the program would require 90 percent of all new state revenue by 2008, and unchecked TennCare growth will consume up to 40 percent of the state's budget.
How is the current Demo governor dealing with such inept program management in 2005? By removing several hundred thousand citizens from the program based on their private financial and health information, and resorting to claims and accounting tricks to make the program appear somewhat more solvent. Leftists seductively prescribe a transition to government-provided healthcare as the cure to make the world a better place. The reality shows government-mismanaged healthcare is bad medicine.
In business/economic news...
The board of U.S. oil giant Unocal has endorsed Chevron's $17-billion takeover offer, favoring the U.S. company despite a higher bid by China's state-run CNOOC (Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation). Citing national-security concerns as well as possible review-process problems, Unocal's board recommends that shareholders accept Chevron's deal. CNOOC is expected to raise their $67 per share bid, though insiders say that Chevron, whose bid is now at only $63 per share, remains the favorite. We can only watch and see.
In related news, China has cut its decade-long fixed exchange rate to the U.S. dollar, thus raising the value of the yuan by one-quarter of one U.S. cent, or about 2.1 percent. The yuan now stands at 12.33 cents U.S. The U.S. government has said for years that the yuan is undervalued by as much as 40 percent, giving the Chinese an unfair trade advantage. While a fair playing field for trade is definitely what's needed, this small adjustment is far from a cure. While the resulting drop in the dollar will serve to shrink the U.S. trade deficit with China, let's not forget that an adjusted yuan may be designed to make CNOOC's bid for Unocal even more competitive. Likewise, a stronger Chinese currency may prompt more takeover bids in the future. While we wholeheartedly support free-trade policies (with fair-trade partners), and commend Treasury Secretary John Snow for his accomplishment in getting China to seemingly unhitch the yuan from the dollar, caution must be the word of the day.
On the culture front...
In a recent survey conducted by America Online and Salary.com, U.S. workers admitted to wasting an average of over two hours a day at the workplace -- surfing the web, socializing and "spacing out" being the top activities. The estimated salary cost of this lack of productivity is upwards of $750 billion a year. Also of note, 33 percent waste time because they don't have enough to do, 25 percent said they are not paid enough to work all day and younger workers waste more than twice the time older workers do. Perhaps the most interesting bit of data is that taking this survey resulted in wasted time for 100 percent of participants! Bill Coleman, senior vice president at Salary.com, claims that some wasted time is good, producing new ideas, or as he put it, "creative waste." Our Patriot staff especially likes the idea of "creative waste." How else would we find this story?
Family and faith matters...a correction
In Patriot 05-25, we wrote, "In a close vote in Nottingham, England, the Consultative Council of the world-wide Anglican Church expelled the churches of the U.S. and Canada in response to their ordination of homosexuals. ... The expulsions will stand until the 2008 Lambeth Council, where further discipline could be meted out on the North Americans."
We should have clarified that the expulsions were from the Anglican Council's "standing committee and the inter-Anglican finance and administration committee" -- a revision of the original proposal, by Nigerian Archbiship Peter Akinola, which called on the two North American churches to "withdraw their members from all other official entities of the Communion." The committee is a critical decision-making body of the world-wide Anglican Church.
The expulsions do in fact stand until the 2008 Lambeth Council, when the U.S. and Canadian churches' standing in the Anglican Communion will be decided.
On the frontiers of science...
Sources confirm that NASA realistically hopes to launch the space shuttle Discovery on Tuesday, having closed in on the fuel-tank-sensor malfunction that scratched last week's flight, now believed to be the result of faulty grounding. Discovery's mission will be the first since the 2003 Columbia disaster. The countdown to launch begins Saturday; the Tuesday launch is scheduled for 10:39 am EST.
On the frontiers of junk science...
We needed a study to tell us this? A review of widely touted medical research reports found that over a third of 45 highly publicized health studies between 1990 and 2003 were later contradicted, and over another third were later discovered to be overblown. Of a certainty, though, the problem of mischaracterized medical studies is compounded by the fact that Leftmedia reporters are at least as clueless in regard to research science as they are about politics. The meta-study, printed in the Journal of the American Medical Association, warned against interpreting any single study as the final word on a health matter. Indeed, a major foundation of research is replicability -- repeatable investigations, which can address whether one study's findings bear out in further related studies. However, that kind of rational scientific caution would ruin a lot of attention-grabbing headlines, now wouldn't it?
Around the world...
Based on the Pentagon's annual report on the status of China's military, China not only continues to concentrate forces in an effort to intimidate Taiwan, but also to develop long-range missiles, jets and warships intended as a challenge to U.S. hegemony. According to the report, in the "next several years" China will deploy the DF-31 mobile, solid-fuel ICBM and the JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile, as well as continue to streamline and mobilize the People's Liberation Army, now numbered at 2.5 million. Additionally, Beijing can activating ten-million men under organized militias, plus another 900,000 in paramilitary, police and reserve forces. Mobile short-range missiles numbering between 650 and 730 are now stationed in range of Taiwan, together with 700 aircraft. China continues to modernize its air and naval forces through purchases from Russia, together with domestic development and production.
Advanced precision offensive and defensive weapons appear to be taking on a new priority. Two new Russian-made Sovremennyy class guided-missile destroyers, equipped with advanced anti-ship cruise missiles and air-defense systems, are deployed with the East Sea Fleet, and two more have been ordered. Diesel submarines are in serial production, and the Chinese navy's first nuclear attack sub, the Type 093, is expected to enter service this year.
And last...
In a feint of political camouflage in advance of the Roberts nomination, AlGore's info-superhighway puppeteers at MoveOn.org, hit upon just the maneuver to prevent President Bush from nominating a "radical right judge." They had a house party.
The Washington Post is inclined to cover this nonsense, so the party host recommended that if the attendees "talk to a reporter, you stay on message." "We don't want to come across as leftist, liberal activists. We want to come across as...regular folks." We think we get it. In case you don't, the party organizer clarified what "regular folks" means: "I suggest we put away our 'Bush is a Liar' t-shirts. Let's look like they do." For The Post, "Che Guevara" t-shirts ought to do.
Lex et Libertas -- Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for the editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world in defense of our liberty, and for the families awaiting their safe return.)
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