podpolia

Senator John McCain, following the usual political move to try to draw support from both sides, met with Cindy Sheehan today. Naturally, she came away talking about how much of a warmonger he is. He (after wasting a whole bunch of time) is going to get negative press from an event from which he was hoping to get a boost — making it look like he listens to both sides. Naturally, Sheehan added nothing politically viable to the discussion, and merely smears him afterwards.
Sheehan and those she works with are really a negative force in politics today (in the sense that they are not providing a political solution to issues — a positive force would encourage positive action, directed towards a coherent goal). They are using anger and dissatisfaction with the status quo to attempt to destroy part of a holistic world view, while offering no real alternative. “Get the troops out of Iraq!” they say. What do they want to do instead? Nothing, really. They are simply attempting to attack and destroy a particular part of a complete plan because they find it distasteful. So goes post-modernism in the modern political debate.

PS – My apologies if this doesn’t make much sense. I’m on prednisone and hydroxyzine right now, and what seems like a coherent thought to me may not make sense to the rest of the world. I also have the impression that I’m using the word ‘coherent’ a lot — I don’t know why I feel that way, and I don’t seem to be able to stop. Coherent coherent coherent.

This article casts some doubt on the validity of the claims of people who insist that the current trend of global warming is entirely due to people. If the polar ice caps on Mars (this being dry ice instead of frozen water) are melting, it can’t really be blamed on humans. In fact, it rather backs up the conflicting idea that the Earth is getting warmer because the Sun is going through a particularly warm cycle at the moment.

There’s a fascinating article here about the ongoing movement to clean up the CIA by new director Porter Goss. Since this began, the number of leaks from the CIA has dropped dramatically. Why? Because those who were more interested in using their position at the CIA to play the Washington power politics game are being pushed out. Goss is attempting to break the bureaucratic mindset that hinders effective and original intelligence work. So far he seems to have gotten rid of many of the loudmouths, but will he be able to improve the efficiency of the agency? Time will tell — such a change is likely to only be noticable over a span of years.

This is not a good sign. The influx of weapons into Gaza is likely to increase the number of attacks (and increase the chances of success of those attacks) on Israelis, and might further undermine the grip that the Palestinian Authority has on power in the area. I expect to see major fighting either among the Palestinians or against the Israelis, which would likely cause the Israeli army to enter the area to eliminate the weapons. This doesn’t look pretty, but was probably forseen by the Israeli government before the withdrawal, and may even be part of a move to expose the weakness of the PA and its uselessness at stopping terror attacks. We’ll have to see how it plays out.

What the media isn’t telling you about the response to Hurricane Katrina. Why this isn’t worth discussing (and the opinion of every pompous windbag in the country is) is beyond me.
And people wonder why I complain about the media.
Via Power Line.

I could write all kinds of long and excruciatingly boring posts about the use of Hurricane Katrina by the left, the intricacies of the issues involved, and the functioning of the Posse-Comitatus act, but I’m not going to. I just don’t have the energy at this point. So here’s a link to a funny.

This is typical of the things that teacher’s unions do that make me never want to be involved with them. Unfortunately, after I graduate, I’m not going to have a whole lot of choice. You just about have to have the protections and insurance that teacher’s unions provide.
Jerks.

This is a shrewd move. Roberts has already been in the limelight for a while as a nominee, and nobody has managed to come up with anything that makes him appear even slightly unsuitable for the Court. Coming up with something now (and I don’t think it’s likely that anything significant would have been missed for so long) would make it look like whoever brought it up was trying to obstruct filling the seat with someone who has been considered fully qualified for the past few months. It also saves the trouble of trying to come up with another teflon nominee. I’m sure whoever is next on the White House’s list is well qualified for the position, but they’re unlikely to be as squeaky clean as Roberts has proven to be so far. Ideal selection now for the Associate Justice post? If I were making the call, I would make the nomination after Roberts’ confirmation, and it would be a woman; ideally a minority woman. Many on the left were complaining that O’Connor’s replacement was going to be a white male. This would be an excellent time to respond with a nomination of a woman — particularly a conservative one. The recent (by then, presumably) success of Roberts’ nomination would give Bush’s choice more credibility. Paul at Power Line has possibilities listed in a recent post, and I agree with his mention of Edith Clement. She presents a small target to pro-abortion groups with being a woman and with her particular views on the abortion question. With these groups being the most well-funded and vocal of the likely opposition to Bush’s choices, she’d be fairly easy to confirm. If Bush is sure she’ll go his way on most or all of the other possible cases, expect her to get the nomination.