And Now, a Break from Routine: A Posting in Parts 1

By: Unknown

Sorry about the long gap. It's just that I've been really busy, what with the homework, and reading and...

No, I'm lying. I just bought Sims 2 three days ago. I'm only posting now because my brother's playing it.

I'd reply to Smith's old post, but I can't remember it, nor do I care to look it up. Anyways, I'd just be saying the same things I've said over and over again, with different events cited as evidence. Not that I won't say those things again later, but right now I don't feel like it, and this post will be long anyways.

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Editorializing

I'd like to comment on the Beslan incident of a few weeks back, and since this is my blog, I will. And no one can stop me.

To get to the point, the terrorist action on the school in Beslan was the most despicable terrorist action I can remember. I'm sure Smith could inform us of many similar events, but I know of no others that match the sheer insidiousness of this attack. To bring the uninformed up to speed:

In Beslan, Russia, on September 1st, terrorists captured an elementary school and held it hostage. The force of terrorists was sufficiently large that extraction of the hostages was nearly impossible, and any hostages trying to escape were promptly shot. Several days into a siege of their captured stronghold, the terrorists decided to cut their losses by bombing the school, leaving in their wake at least 300 children dead, along with many wounded adults.

Frankly, this attack was far more evil than any other. Even 9/11 doesn't compare. The attacks on September 11th, 2001, were executed against a building housing almost entirely adults, as well as being one which was a recognized symbol of American capitalism. Additionally, the sheer carnage caused in that fateful attack was largely accidentally, Osama bin Laden himself releasing a tape effectively saying he was "pleasantly surprised" that that many people died.

The Beslan assault, however, was not against adults. It was not against capitalism. No, this was far worse. What evil lurks in the hearts of men when they feel the best way to further their cause is to kill innocents, to assault an institution of learning? What cowardice lies latent in mankind if we even hold the capability to seek our own safety by killing 300 children and running? These men represent true evil: perhaps in the only way true evil can come to exist.

For, you see, these men were perfectly normal. A local shopkeep, farmers, and other pleasant townsmen. But, as seems to happen all to often, the group got too massive. In one of the most awesome psychological phenomena, like drunk college students at a football game, the terrorists became, effectively, a mob. And this is the only time the normal checks of society and conscience have a chance to lose their hold.

For their has never been a truly evil person: someone who does things against his beliefs as to what's right. Hitler attempted genocide because he thought they didn't deserve to live, and this was not some half-hearted conviction. Stalin was ruthless because he truly believed he was doing the best for the USSR. Yet in these situations, when mob mentality is allowed to overcome the restraints we place on ourselves, when we let peers and society decide for us, when we stop thinking, and just let the tide of the mob carry us, we can see true evil. The scary thing is, every one of us has stepped on to this road.

Every time we make a bad decision because "everybody's doing it," we begin to embrace evil. Every time we stand by and watch as something terrible happens, as a woman is mugged, beaten, raped, as a thief breaks in to our neighbors house, we begin to embrace evil. Every time we see a car slammed into by another, knowing we could help, aid in some small way, but drive on by because we have somewhere to get, we begin to embrace evil.

Keep this in mind the next time you pass someone you could easily aid, or perhaps even someone whose life you could save, were you to simply take a few seconds. Keep this in mind, but keep in mind also that doing so does not make you evil, that you are only human, and that God knows that you will make mistakes, and that you will sin, and turn aside from your fellow man. Most of all, know that you have done so, and will continue to do so, and repent, and be forgiven.

God bless you.

"If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." -1 John 1:6-10

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Here follows a transcript of the first part of an email conversation between myself and Michael Smith. It contains his original epistle to me, and my reply. The conclusions will follow, one per day, if I can manage it ;).

(Editor's Note: I've removed the log, because it's taking up space. I can't imagine that you'd need it, but I have it.)

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There ya go! A glimpse into the internal workings of the IVIC staff. Notice that we're really not very serious at all... ever ;).


By my hand,

~Michael Akerman

Electoral Elucidations: Sobering Thoughts on September 11

By: UnrepentantNewDealer

What is it about hurricanes that inspires me to blog? First Charley, now Ivan the Terrible (a Category 5 menace bearing down on Florida. (The "Sunshine State" is beginning to sound ironic.)) Actually, it's the anniversary of September 11 that prompted this post. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the President assuring Muslims that this was not a war against Islam; I remember him saying he wanted bin Ladin "Dead or Alive"; I remember him saying "We will wage the good fight and we will prevail." Please tell me I'm not hallucinating, that our president actually said those things. These days, such things seem like another world.

I walked into the classroom of Mrs. Miller, my English teacher, at about 9:50 that morning. As we all stared at the devastation on the television screen, I was the first to breake the silence, asking the question "All right, who else here thinks it was bin Laden?" No one responded to my question, still staring at the screen in disbelief. My first reaction had simply been to think what nation or group had both the means and the motive to carry out this kind of attack, al-Qaida being the most logical suspect.

The government didn't take long to come to the same conclusion. So we started lobbing cruise missiles at Afghanistan and giving aid to the Northern Alliance to fight the Taliban sponsors of Al-Qaida. By early December, Northern Alliance forces had liberated the capital and --most of the country, and bin Ladin and the al-Qaida leadership were holed up in the mountain fortress of Tora Bora. With 3,000 Americans dead because of this man, you'd think the president would have sent the full might of the American military after him. Instead, we offered the warlords of Afghanistan, who had little or nothing against bin Ladin, money to capture or kill him themselves. This is incomprehensible. When you want something done, you've got to do it yourselves. As we all know, bin Ladin and Co. escaped the noose. We had fewer than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan until 2002. This doesn't make sense.

Unless...It is now known that Bush's meeting in November 2001 with Gen. Tommy Franks was not to plan for the Afghan war, as claimed, but to begin planning for a preemptive war against Iraq. Emergency funds approved by Congress for Afghanistan were illegally shifted into the mobilization for Gulf War II. (Thanks to Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, for bringing both of these to light.) Suddenly, in the opening days of one war, before any mission objectives had been acheived, the president had changed focus to another war. No wonder he sent mercenaries to get bin Ladin. At that point, he no longer truly cared.

In Bush's first 8 months in office, he had managed to anger and alienate the rest of the world by withdrawing from many treaties and simply acting arrogant in general. After September 11, we had the entire civilized world on our side. I remember thinking, If Bush blows all this global goodwill, he's even more stupid than I think he is. As Bush would put it, I "misunderestimated" him.

A preemptive war is illegal under international law and goes contrary to American traditions and values. Pearl Harbor was a preemptive strike, an attempt to knock out the American navy, so there would be nothing in the way of Japan dominating the entire Pacific. A preemptive war relies on Mafia logic: I think this person might perhaps someday pose a threat to me so I'll eliminate him now, on that off-chance. That being said, most Americans, myself included, would support a preemptive strike, if it would prevent another attack on America, another September 11. So it only made sense to sell the war to the American people by scaring the bejeezus out of them. A scared populace will acquiese to anything, so long as it is purported to keep them safe. This administration played on the fears of the American people, conjuring up visions of mushroom clouds and Armeggeddon. The basic premise was that the administration knew Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction and could give them to terrorist groups to use against America. The American people, myself included, fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. The majority of other nations refused to join us unless Bush provided compelling evidence of his claims, which he never did. We believed Bush, because whatever you thought of him, surely the President wouldn't lie us into war.

So we invaded Iraq. The first tip-off that we'd been had was fact that the Iraqis did not use WMD against us. Saddam used them against his own people in the 80's. Are we honestly supposed to believe that if Saddam had these weapons, and using them might allow him to keep power for even just a few more days, he wouldn't use them, not even against troops sent specifically to depose him? But no WMD was used and none of recent origin (since the inspectors left in 1998) ever found in Iraq. The second suspicious thing were the reports of CIA analysts being pressured to change their reports to bolster the administration's case. Not to mention the Joe Wilson affair, in which Wilson was sent to investigate a claim Iraq tried buy uranium from Niger, reported the claim was bogus, but the claim still ended up in Bush's Scare of the Union address in 2003. Now, the president has changed the rationale. This "flip-flopper" of a president claims, we went to war in Iraq because of "WMD program-related activities"--whatever that means! I could go on and on, but I hope you get the gist. Bush lied us into war because he could not lead us into it.

And at what a cost. The credibility of the United States is tarnished. Our historic allies eye us warily. And the Muslim world hates us even more than ever. Want proof? This week's Time magazine article about Islam, reports that "In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, only 15% view the U.S. favorably, compared with 61% in 2002. In Saudi Arabia, according to a recent poll, 48.7% of the population sympathizes with the aims of bin Laden." And now, Iraq is in crisis as Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists travel to Iraq to fight jihad--against us. No matter how many terrorists we kill or capture, more will always take their place until we win the real war: the battle for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. The war in Iraq has turned the minds of the vast majority of Muslims in the Middle East against us--perhaps for good. Meanwhile, in a cave somewhere, bin Ladin laughs maniacally. For we have done what he could not: convince the Muslim world that America is waging war against Islam itself.

In baseball, they have a saying: "Never take your eye off the ball." The Bush Administration took their eyes off the ball of al-Qaida. And why? For Cheney, still receiving a lucrative yearly stipend from Haliburton, it probably was about the oil and reconstruction projects. For Karl Rove, it was an issue to use against the Democrats in 2002. But, inarguably, the most important motivation is that of the president. He is the one who sends troops into harm's way. His is the perspective that matters.

During the run-up to the war, Bush didn't mention just WMD. He also said, on a number of occasions when his WMD argument just didn't seem to be persuading people, "This is, after all, the man who tried to kill my father." (In 1993, Kuwaiti police prevented a plot to kill the former president while visiting that country.) Think about that statement. With bin Ladin, it wasn't personal. But Bush had a personal motive to see Saddam dead. Is it a coincidence the opening strike of the Iraq war was an ill-fated attempt to assassinate him? Or that the president, according to reports, keeps the pistol Saddam had on him when he was captured, in a desk as a kind of sick momento, showing it to visiting heads of state? Could the president have, on a purely instinctual level, sent our troops into harm's way to settle a personal vendetta against one man? A vendetta 1,000 Americans and untold numbers of Iraqis have died for? Could this man really be so shallow? So callous? So blinded by a desire to avenge a decade-old attempt on his father's life? As Bush has told us, many have "misunderestimated" him. And we are all of us paying the price.

Yay! Thursday!

By: Unknown

Well... not yet. But I do have a day off tomorrow (yay!) because both of my classes are classes that can't meet on Labor Day week.

Anyway...

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Give Me the Beat, Boys, and Free My Soul

I'm starting to fall in to a pattern now with school. Oi, though! People drive like maniacs around here. No accidents yet though.

I don't seem to need to try, though. Once again, I'm drifting. I'm headed in the right direction, obviously, but it's not like I'm being challenged or having all that much fun with school like I used to in AP classes.

I think I need to get back into music, incidentally. I really miss concert band (not marching all that much). I think music is something deep. The creation of music, and, moreso, that intricate melding of music between each musician in a band, the dancing of notes about one another, playing with the nuances of each other, bouncing off one another in a perfect relationship that rings against the ear, touches something in human nature.

Perhaps it's the natural engineer in all humans, or maybe it's the social animal in man, or maybe some combination of both, but being a member of a symphony draws one out of oneself and into a greater nature. I wonder if this is what a religious experience is like, a feeling of being drawn into a larger being...

It makes you feel gooood (gooood)...

Not to mention the fact that I'd really like to see that girl everyday like I used to...

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Screw your advice! And screw you, too, Blogger Knowledge Base!

Blogger says I should keep my posts short, because apparently everyone on the internet is from New York and has no time to read long posts. At any rate, IVIC's never really been about keeping readers happy (not that I want to offend you, but I hope the purpose of the blog carries the readers along). This is more important than blogging about what I do for the sake of telling everyone my personal life. No, IVIC is a mental record, a philosophical channel that allows me (and Smith and Snyder, when they're about) to solidify and broadcast the deeper ponderings of our lives. Hopefully, there are people out there who take note of my thoughts, and maybe, just maybe, they change peoples' minds.

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Don't Stay Regular!

Or... the Anti-Metamucil

In economics lab today, we discussed price ceilings and floors. This is why I miss AP though. No discussion of regulatory policy took place, had the time to take place, or was allowed to take place. So, I blog...

The Democratic parties idea of a regulated economy is foolhardy, at best. The idea, of course, is to help special interest groups (i.e., farmers or consumers) by keeping the price high for suppliers in some cases, and low for consumers in others.

In the supply side price floor, we end up with an artificially raised price on a good or service. If a price is raised higher than the "equilibrium price" (that is, the price at which demand for a good or service is equal to the supply of the same), there is a surplus of the good or service (it's how it works), as suppliers try to sell more, but buyers won't buy more.

For instance, the department of agriculture currently pays farmers not to grow crops to keep the price higher on the crops. This is tantamount to forcing a certain price, and buying the unused surplus at market price, wasting taxpayer money, as well as crops which could easily be exported for a very handy profit overseas. This is especially appealing considering the United States' ability to grow incredible quantities of crops compared to other countries. Want to end world hunger? End economic regulation.

Of course, the antithesis to this is a price ceiling. For instance, what we don't seem to realize about gas regulation (to make the price lower on a gallon) is the terrible consequences of it. If Kerry chooses to regulate the price to a lower level, suppliers will not be able to afford as many barrels, and they will not be willing to sell as much gas at the now-lower profit. With the lower price causing increased demand for gas, we would quickly hit a deficit in supply of gas (that's turned out well in the past, right?).

Let me make one more extremely controversial example: minimum wage! Seems like a good idea to regulate at least a "living wage" for workers, right? We all see where I'm going with this. That is WRONG! Why?

Let's think, shall we? If we place a minimum wage law on the books, we raise the price of labor. If we raise the price of labor, demand for labor falls. In this situation, there are more workers who need a job than jobs that need a worker, translating to: unemployment. You want a living wage for everyone? Let's start with a wage for everyone first.

Let's assume we drop minimum wage laws. The assumed result is that those greedy, greedy businessmen will see their opportunity and drop wages to nearly nothing. However, the economy has a built-in failsafe for this: the workers themselves. If business owners make wages too low (meaning the demand is high), laborers will not accept the conditions and move to another business, or out of the market entirely. With a high demand for workers and a small supply, a business would find themselves at a shortfall of laborers. The only viable option is to provide a wage acceptable both to the laborers and to the businessmen, set by each individual business, and maintained based on cost of living and economic conditions automatically. Additionally, this equilibrium price for labor would cause unemployment to drop to near 0%, as all the laborers that need to or wish to work for these wages would be able to find jobs. If you want to end unemployment, end government regulation.

Perhaps you understand now why we should stop trying to regulate the economy. My suggestion to you: take an economics class! Hopefully, an in-depth study of how a free economy causes the best overall results will convert you to the Republican party, or at the very least, the Libertarians.

~Michael Akerman

Da E-Mail's Gonna Get You, Da E-Mail's Gonna Get You, Da E-mail's Gonna Get You... Pub-lic-i-ty

By: Unknown

If you'll kindly direct your attention to the line above this (the one which says "Posted by Michael Akerman," with Michael Akerman in fancy-doodle lettering), you may notice a small icon that looks like a letter with an arrow, obviously signifying that it is moving on somewhere. That's right, it's the classic internet representation of e-mail! Due to Blogger's being all awesome and such, they released a way to enable a feature that allows you, the reader, to spread the word about IVIC with a convenient clickable!

So, seeing as you're all in college (except for those of you who aren't), surrounded by politically charged, sometimes-angry-but-always-furious-at-Bush, liberal, Hippie college students (and one or two intelligent Republicans), it would behoove you to send along posts you think someone would enjoy or be enraged by to... whoever it is... you were thinking of.

As I said in a comment below, the big blogs get about 300 comments a day. IVIC's got a lot of catching up to do (like getting a better domain name, which costs money, which I don't have (hint hint, wink wink, click click, ads ads)), so get the word out in a non-threatening, welcoming, come-or-else manner!

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Now, for a public service announcement after my advertisement:

My computer recently fell prey to a virus (sux0r). And before you ask, yes, I always keep my virus definitions up to date, and it's Symantec Professional, so it's got the most accurate virus definitions, too. Apparently, I fell prey to a Brand-New (ooh, aah!) virus.

It was a back door Trojan (which sounds gross. To quote the Simpsons: "From now on, when people think of wood, they'll think of Trojans!"), meaning it pulls spyware, adware, malware and the like off the internet. It's not particularly dangerous, but it fills up your hard drive and takes up a lot of processor time.

If this was one of those viri that sends itself to everyone in my address book, and you got it... um... sorry, I guess, but you really oughtn't open files from anyone if you don't expect it or don't know what it is.

At any rate, I stress that even if you don't notice something wrong with your computer, run a spyware check often (weekly, if you can) and a virus scan as often (at least monthly. I run one twice a week).

Now, for the links:

My favorite spyware scanner is Spybot- Search & Destroy. It is an absolutely free program that you can get here. Make sure you update every time you use it, although I think it does that automatically the first time with the new version (1.3).

Additionally, you may want to run Ad-Aware from Lavasoft (especially the first few times) after Spybot. It's a (mostly) free program (meaning you can buy a better, licebsed version, but the free one is pretty good) from a different company, so it catches slightly different programs. Personally, I run Spybot almost exclusively, and only run Ad-Aware when I notice spyware that's not being caught by Spybot, or I'm under seige by spyware for some reason (like my recent virus, or if a particularly spyware-laden site slips through my various defenses). You can get Ad-Aware here.

Now, the most important bit of protection: antivirus. Here, we have a lot of options:

A commercial antivirus is often the best. If you're going to go commercial, you might as well buy Symantec's Norton Antivirus, because it's simply the best, though it's somewhat pricey.

If you're a student at NC State, you can get a free copy of Symantec Professional Antivirus: Corporate Edition. This is pretty much the best antivirus out there, and is updated automatically by the NC State server when new definitions come out. Set it up to run a full system scan at least monthly (again, I run mine twice weekly). You can download this here. Notice, you'll have to log in with your Unity ID and password to download it.

Additionally, there are several free alternatives: the best, according to many sources, is AVG Anti-Virus: Free Edition. After a short registration form, you recieve an e-mail allowing you to get fully functional virus protection for free (not quite as good as Norton, but close). Of course, I can't really give you a review of this one, because I've never used it, but you can get it here.

One last option for RoadRunner subscribers is the EZ Armor security suite, available for free to RoadRunner subscribers at the RoadRunner website (which is not letting me log in at the moment, so I can't get EZ Armor's exact link) which is www.rr.com. EZ Armor comes with antivirus and firewall.

Speaking of firewalls, Windows XP Service Pack 2 has an integrated firewall (it's not bad, really). Otherwise, there are some free firewall options left, but they're getting harder and harder to find. The best (still) is ZoneAlarm, but it has been decreased from it's former full free version glory to a somewhat stripped down version. Anyways, it's available here.

If you really want to know what to do to fix up your computer, and keep it running in tip-top shape, PC Pitstop is a wealth of knowledge, and has an application set up (use IE) that will scan almost every aspect of your computer and tell you what's wrong, what could be improved, and how to fix it (the site's secure with your information, believe me).

That's about it from me. Do yourself and everyone else a favor: keep your computer virus and spyware-free.

~Michael Akerman

Interesting, But Useless

By: UnrepentantNewDealer

I am typing this on my new Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop from my college dorm room at UNC-Charlotte with a Seinfeld rerun playing on my roommate's tv. That's right--I am now in college. Well, actually, my first class isn't until Tuesday, but I've been down here 24 hours now, so I'll consider myself collegiate material. People often say high school helps prepare you for the real world and your chosen career. But more often than not, academically high school seemed like a joke. Ok, that might be a little harsh. Not that it was all easy, either. But rather than getting harder with each passing year, Mrs. Ward's English class and Mr. Johnson's ELPSA (civics) class were the most challenging classes I had in high school, and they were just honors classes, not AP.

In addition, my interests (politics, history, science, literature) were already well established by the time I was in 5th grade and haven't changed much since. I did narrow my career interests (the planetary geologist idea had to go, due to my dislike of math) to working for the State Department and fighting against genocide (my chosen crusade), then retiring to become a full-time writer (fiction and non-fiction (histories)) when my writing can support itself (like John Grisham was a trial lawyer till he found where the real money is!). That's my life's plan, but high school played no role in its formation. Anyway, I'm no longer sure where I was going with all of this...Oh, yes! The point I wanted to make is that for the past four years, I have been waiting to go off to college and gain experience that would further my career interests and high school didn't seem to help much. However, for some people who didn't have a clue of what they wanted to do as a freshman, maybe high school helped. But now, I can begin focusing on what will really matter to me.

For something completely different, read Akerman's response to my last post. Interestingly, Michael didn't refute my arguments that Bush has screwed up the War on Terrorism from start to finish. Instead, he chose to question weather Kerry could win--an issue I promised to address in a future post. ( For the record, Kerry had a five point lead according to the latest polls I've seen, and Bush has lower approval ratings than any incumbent in recent history. In the twentieth century, Harry Truman was the only incumbent who managed to come back and win after being behind in the summer before the election.) He also wrote about the Iraq war, something I have not criticized--yet. So, apparently my specific criticism of the Bush administration's incompetence and mismanagement of the War on Terror will be allowed to stand, unrefuted. An auspicious start to my "Electoral Elucidations". I will post another entry soon. After all, I did promise to post an "Electoral Elucidation" weekly, so I'll have to post later on.

In Peace,

Michael J. Smith

Expulsia Electoralia

By: Unknown

This is actually just a simple reply to Smith, and probably doesn't need blog post status, but HaloScan won't allow more than 1000 characters in a comment, so I'll post it here. Please note that Michael Smith's post is immediately below this one, but I'll keep this one invisible for a few days to allow Smith's post to be read thoroughly and without bias.

Repost:

Actually, I was under the impression that Kerry is becoming more and more likely to lose this election. Personally, I'm looking for things to yell at him about, but he's striking me more as "Bush Lite" as far as policy goes.

For instance, when asked about Iraq, Kerry said he agreed that Saddam had to be removed from power, but claimed he would have done it in a more diplomatic way, and would have built up a multinational coalition and gained UN approval.

Guess what, bud: we tried that. When diplomatic measures fail, and a dictator like Saddam is in power, he must be removed by force.

And, to be fair, the importance of UN approval has been constantly overemphasized. With a group of four seated countries who have ultimate veto power over war measures, it takes no more than one of these countries to block UN approval. Additionally, there were more nations supporting the war (the Kingdom of Morocco (go monkeys!(that's a Fahrenheit 9/11 joke(I'm going to have so many closing parenthesis right here...)))) or who didn't care than opposing the war (France).

Electoral Elucidations: Bush: Pressured into Leadership

By: UnrepentantNewDealer

I was going to post in responce to Akerman's riff on Fahrenheit 9/11. I may yet get around to it, but right now I have something more substantive to post. This morning when I woke up at 10:15, I checked the Weather Channel, for I am a hurricane junkie as well as a political one. Hurricane Charley, which I have tracked since it was but a wee tropical low off the coast of west Africa, was a Category 2 hurricane headed for the west coast of Florida. At 2:00 pm, I checked up on Charley and found him a monstrous Cat 4 storm with winds of 145 miles per hour. It is bearing down on Akerman's old hometown of Ft. Myers even as I frantically type this. The latest is that the hurricane will cut across the Florida peninsula, strengthen offshore and batter into the Carolinas. Interesting times ahead in my neck of the woods! But as intimidating as this strongest hurricane to batter hapless Floridians since Andrew is, it is a weakling compared to the storm now exploding in Florida and in every corner of this great land: the battle for America's future and its very soul known as Election '04.

This is without a doubt the most important election in our lifetimes, the most important since 1932. For what is at stake is nothing less than the future of American democracy and standing in the world. By far the most important issue to the American people, according to numerous polls, is the economy. Thus the media ignores the sorry state of our economy under Bush and focuses on the War on Terrorism, supposedly Bush's strongest suit. (Thanks, "Liberal Media"!) But what the Republicans and pundits fail to realize is that Bush's prosecution of the War on Terrorism has been a series of almost unmitigated disasters from start to finish!

I have read two quite revealing books this summer: Against All Enemies by Richard Clarke, the man who did the most to fight against and warn about the dangers of Al Qaida in the 8 years leading up to September 11, and the 9/11 Commisson Report by the bipartisan commission of the same name. In retrospect it is obvious that the Clinton Administration did not do a good enough job allocating the resources necessary to fight Al Qaida. But as insufficient as the Clinton's Administration's responce was, they at least tried. The Bush Administration was asleep at the wheel when it came to fighting terrorism. Bush had just been inaugerated, when the intelligence services determined that the recent attack on the U.S.S. Cole was the work of Al Qaida. Clinton had authorized cruise missile strikes after the last Al Qaida attack, the embassy bombings in East Aftrica in 1998. (These strikes demolished a suspected bin Ladin-related chemical weapons plant in Sudan and the main terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. In fact, if not for the probable tip-off by sympathizers in the Pakistani intelligence service and military, Osama bin Ladin would have almost certainly been in the camp when the missiles hit.) According to Condolezza Rice, there was no responce to this act of war because the president was "tired of swatting at flies." One of the commissioners challenged her to name some "flies" the administration had swatted. How could he be tired of swatting flies if he never had? Outrageously, this terrorist provocation was allowed to go unpunished.

Clarke and outgoing Nation Security Advisor Sandy Berger warned the incoming admistration that the their number one priority must be Al Qaida and that nothing else even came close. On January 25, Clarke "urgently requested" an emergency Principals Committee meeting (which brings together all the leaders of the various agencies involved). On September 4, the administration finally got around to having this meeting, but nothing new or substantial came out of it, and Rumsfeld steered the meeting toward combating nonexistent "Iraqi terrorism", and away from Al Qaida. Too little, too late. The President's August briefing entitled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US", warning of aircraft hijackings, didn't stop the President from enjoying the rest of his month-long vacation at his ranch in Texas. The Administration repeatedly thwarted attempts to deploy the armed Predator drone to Afghanistan to spy on and annihilate terrorists, something it has proven very good at since 9/11. The 9/11 Commission found 6 missed opportunies to disrupt the 9/11 plot during the first eight months of the Bush Admistration, compared to four during the entire eight years of the Clinton Administration. Read the report for complete details; I highly recommend this book for every American. If we want to prevent future attacks we will follow the recommendations of this bipartisan panel.

Well, ok, so much for Bush's leadership before 9/11. But, you ask, wasn't his responce to the attacks positively great? Hardly. Senator Joe Lieberman sponsored a bill to create a new Department of Homeland Security. The Bush Administration, obsessed with cutting the size of the federal government, refused and appointed Tom Ridge to be the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, without any real power, budget, an agency to control, resources to do his job, or a seat on the Cabinet Due to public pressure and the outrage of the September 11 families, Bush relented and created the Department of Homeland Security, but he insisted on including a provision that stripped civil service protection and labor rights from tens of thousands of government employees--in the name of fighting terrorism of course! The Democrats in Congress, noting that the airlines had cut security to trim costs and maximize profits, thus enabling the 19 hijackers to slip through the security at three different airports, proposed the creation of a Transportation Security Department. Again Bush opposed it, but relented due to public pressure.

The families who lost loved ones in the attacks as well as every other American, deserved an independent bipartisan investigation into the attacks to find out how they happened, and what to do to prevent further attacks. The Bush Administration tried to block the creation of this commission. When that failed, Bush attempted to appoint Henry Kissenger chairman of the commission. Kissenger, infamous for his secrecy, would likely have kept the findings top-secret. Fortunately, again due to public pressure, and to personal reluctance to divest himself of money he had invested and chairman positions he had on the boards of various companies, Kissenger refused to serve and former Republican governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey was appointed chairman. He repeatedly complained of White House stonewalling and refusal to turn over relevant documents in a timely manner. Bush and Cheney refused to testify or let National Security Advisor Rice testify, either. They once again relented under public pressure. They refused to extend the May 2004 deadline of the commission, relenting to a July release date under--you guessed it--public pressure! Sensing a pattern here? On every matter of leadership, the Bush Administration was uncooperative and only did anything substantive after intense Congressional, Democratic, and public pressure, especially from the 9/11 families. On every matter, the Bush Administration had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing to protect America. Some leadership!

But, you say, surely the War on Terror abroad fares well, thanks to the valiant efforts of the Bush Administration? This is but the first of an ambitious new series of posts that I am entitling "Electoral Elucidations".(In case the meaning of the word eludes you, Webster's helpfully defines "elucidate" as "to make lucid or clear by explanation", something sorely lacking in the media and public discourse this election year.) In my next post I will address Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., and show how the Bush Administration's actions abroad not only threaten our victory in the War on Terror and the continued pre-eminence of America amoung nations,but also the essential liberties and God-given rights of the American citizen. By then, it should become obvious that the War on Terrorism is not Bush's stong suit, but his Achilles Heel, the chink in his armor. Future posts will make it clear that there is only one rational choice this year, John Kerry, and examine how a Kerry victory, looking increasingly likely, could come about. That's all for now.

In peace,

Michael J. Smith

Philanthropy

By: Unknown

I tell people I want to be rich. I don't hesitate to state this if someone asks. People think I'm merely greedy, but it's something more.

I want to help people. Not just single individuals, but on a large scale. I want to give millions, or perhaps billions, anonymously to charities. I want to be able to walk up to a downtrodden homeless person (not one of those panhandlers, mind you) or read a story in the newspaper about a family who has fallen on hard times and can't afford a necessary... something, and send them a cool million anonymously.

I say anonymously because I don't want to fall into the trap that most wealthy people fall into, in which they give solely to increase their public image, like Bill Gates, or Ross Perot, or Ted Turner. No, I want to give with no one knowing, and leave it to my final request to reveal my donations (can't go without some kind of acknowledgment, now can I?)

I read Leonard Pitts' column today (here, at the Miami Herald's website, or in today's News & Record), and it made me think: "What if someone could effect large scale change in Africa?" Obviously, no one, not even the wealthiest person, could pay enough to fix Africa entirely. And the U.S. alone couldn't even do it, because poverty is not something we can fix with military aid alone. Of course, I'm of the firm belief that democracy itself makes great strides toward ending poverty wherever it is effected as the means of government, so the first step would be changing the African governments to a republican setup. But what if someone set a trend after that? I want to be able to donate tens of billions of dollars to African nations (anonymously, of course. You know the schpiel), but will anybody else?

I think they would. I think we just need that seed, but it would have to be arranged correctly. For example, if I wanted to get other wealthy people donating to these causes, I would have to donate my lot of money anonymously, then "accidentally" be revealed. Because, you see, this will worry the heck out of the bigwigs. They'll be left with only one option as they now face the disappointment, which is a mild way to say it, of the general public, and they'll, by and large, be forced to save their image by donating.

Incidentally, the need and, ultimately, responsibility for America to effect changes to democratic government in other countries is why I support the war in Iraq, and why I'll support any war for this cause that doesn't require a draft to support (a draft, as I've said before, should only be used when we must defend our very way of life, as in World War I and II).

God bless America, for we are in a position to really help the world. And God bless Bush, for standing up to criticism and actually helping.

~Michael Akerman,
...by the way, there's a new, though rather unimportant, post below this one...

Rhetorically Useless

By: Unknown

Entering college, it seems that these universities are largely wasting my time. I mean that, at least at State, the information provided is consistently either limited and repetitive or terribly hard to access. For instance, orientation was merely a repetition of everything they had already sent us: all the papers, forms, and pamphlets that we already had.

The information that I actually need, it seems, is carefully hidden, or written in the most difficult jargon possible. Finding out more about foreign language requirements (which Ragsdale (surprise) did a poor job of informing me of exactly what was required) led me, finally, to a Google search on ncsu.edu (yay, Google!). Incidentally, I have my foreign language fulfilled, which both removes a weight from my shoulders and further complicates my already cramped schedule, wherein my mom wants more credit hours.

Aside from ill-designed websites (which is ironic for a university with a design school), setting up remote access to the NCSU computer lab network was astoundingly easy, though harder than it should have been. I'm now set up with a Secure Shell direct access to my Eos/Unity account, a virtual hard drive image that direct connects to Eos/Unity through WolfCall, FTP access to my account, and the ability to remotely run the Unity programs on my home computer. Additionally, every student at State gets 50 Mb of storage or webspace, which means I could theoretically set up PHP and MySQL files on that storage and run really cool programs on the blog (like good message boards).

This laptop is terribly slow, even at basic typing, while Norton's running, so I'm ending it here.

~Michael Akerman

It's Gettin' Hot in Here, So Try to Attack Bush

By: Unknown

A week or so ago, I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 with Smith, because neither of us had seen it yet, and it's easier to argue in person. I went fully expecting it would infuriate and enrage me, or at least make me argue vehemently with Smith.

To be honest, I was quite surprised. The movie is rather well done, with solid filmography and good, though bizarre, audio work. In fact, it was the funniest movie I've seen in a long time. If you go to see the film, you have to understand how Michael Moore's wit works, which is hard to describe. In fact, it works much like my wit, dry and irreverent. He attacks Bush with an unceasing barrage of sharp mockings and hilarious film edits that are obviously and hilariously exaggerated to put Bush in a worse light than is possible. Really, Moore plays expertly to his primary audience.

The film is upbeat and interesting... until we get to the Iraq war. Here Moore becomes simply detestable. Aside from the poor directorial decision on the length of the war segment, which was unbearably long, Moore, in trying to cast Bush down yet more, attacks American soldiers as much as the war and Bush. Choosing the worst possible clips of the most ignorant soldiers, Moore shows true horrors that should never have come to pass. However, he shows few, if any, clips of the achievements of the American soldiers. This gross misrepresentation leaves the audience (more on them in a second) with a distinct feeling that our soldiers are undisciplined, ignorant hicks who learned to fight by shootin' venison. This treatment of our soldiers is juxtaposed by clips of one or two soldiers who are against the war. These few soldiers are, of course, given plenty of screen time to decry the war.

On a less concrete note, I don't get the name. It's obviously a spoof on Fahrenheit 451, but the movie has very little connection to corrupt government and censorship. Then there's the use of 9/11, which is discussed for maybe 15 minutes. The film, perhaps should have been titled Fahrenheit Iraq.

Speaking of corrupt government, Moore does attempt to make a case for it, but it comes off more like he's attempting comedy than seriously lambasting the government. The claim Moore brings up time and again to prove his warped idea of the government, aside from Bush's relative slowness, which I won't precisely argue against, but I don't precisely agree with, is the fact that for many government jobs, Bush called on people he or his family knew personally. Apparently to socialists this is a bad thing.

If you were in a position where every decision you made affected at the very least hundreds of people, who would you call on, a stranger, or someone whom you trusted to look out for America's best interests. I'd choose the latter.

Overall, though, Moore's film is good. I would recommend seeing it once, not to be informed about the true state of America, which the film surely avoids, but to be informed about the film itself.

---

Haha! Propaganda!

While I was pleasantly surprised by Moore's film, I'm still disappointed with the American audience. It's astounding how many people actually believe this is a documentary that is factual in every statement, and take Moore's word as the gospel truth. Fahrenheit would more correctly be called propaganda. I'm also ashamed at how many people base their reactions to "facts" on Moore's applied connotation. If Moore emphasizes the correct words in any statement, the audience is appalled or pleased. It's a power I would love to wield, of course. A large portion of America is putty in Moore's hand.

Let me give you an example. For a large part of the film, Moore follows the mother of a military family. From a poor town, this woman had told all of her children that the army was a good option for them, since they wouldn't be able to get financial aid (apparently, they were really, really stupid, or simply didn't realize that it's easier for poor people to get financial aid). Of course, one of her sons was sent to war in Iraq (why do poor families always have, like, twelve kids?), and was promptly killed (convenient for Moore, eh ;-)?). Moore asks the woman if she's angry that Bush sent her son off to die in war. The audience then exhibits the emotion desired, sadness for the woman. Luckily I was in an intelligent audience, and several audience members and I snorted and chuckled. Yes, yes, it's very sad that people die. However, the soldier was a volunteer, and the mother pushed him to join the army. No, Bush did not send him to war. It would be more proper to say that the mother did. Welcome to America. We have a volunteer army.

Incidentally, Moore talks for a time about how most soldiers are from poor towns. It seems to me this is a large problem. With such a high-tech arsenal, we need well-educated people running our weaponry. As far as I can tell, the problem is, first, antiquated methods. There is no need for marching maneuvers, or the intimidating nature of boot camp. Perhaps we're not aware, but we have no "grunt" infantry who need to be broken into a unified machine anymore. Second, the astoundingly low pay for soldiers: we really ought to raise the defense budget (abolish the Dept.s of Agriculture and Education. We'll have plenty of money then) and raise pay for soldiers.

---

Drafting a Law

Real quick, before I conclude, there's been some talk lately about a new draft for Iraq; not among Congressmen, as far as I know. Just among depressing doomsayers. People think that I would support this because I'm conservative, but drafts piss me off so much. I'm fine with "unnecessary" wars to liberate people, if we use a volunteer army. However, the moment a draft becomes necessary, the war should end. A draft should only be used in matters of utmost urgency, such as defending our country. The last time a draft was necessary was World War II. Vietnam's draft was poorly conceived and against basic human rights.

~Michael Akerman,
...hurry up and post something, Smith!...