Finally, the Rhode Island House has passed Separation of Powers!

"Mike Tranghese isn't the kind of guy who beats around the bush. He usually says what's on his mind and then lets the chips fall where they may." So starts todays piece by Kevin McNamara in today's ProJo concerning the Big East/ACC flap. It looks like Tranghese puts the blame squarley on the shoulders of the ACC presidents and isn't too pleased with what he views as their unethical behavior in poaching schools from another conference. As has been stated, no matter if the Big East staves off the raid or not, Providence College had better get used to the idea of playing in a mid-major conference for men's basketball. The days of the Friars in the Big East as we know it are over. They don't have enough money, simple as that.

Things aren't looking very good for Providence College's chances of staying in the Big East. Once again, Kevin McNamara is all over the story. Looks like it's almost inevitable that the 5 Catholic Big East schools will have to be spun off because they don't play, or at least try to play, big time football. McNamara has a couple interesting options. When on the ProJo site that I linked to, look to the right for a list of more stories concerning this fiasco.

Motor mouth Dick Vitale has a take on the ACC/Big East mess, too. And he's right on. Best part:

"School presidents talk so often about academic integrity, graduating athletes, etc. I don't want to hear about it -- it's all about the cash, baby! It's all about the dollars, not the kids.

Sadly, it looks obvious to me: Use the kids, spit them out and make as much money as you can. I get fed up when I hear about it. There are seminars, committees are formed, school presidents talk about graduating players.

If schools want to graduate players, then give student-athletes five years to graduate with four years of eligibility and make freshmen ineligible. Let kids get acclimated to college life. Oh well, that won't happen either. It makes sense, but it won't happen in this day and age.

It breaks my heart to hear about situations like this. I have a passion and love for young people and sports. I enjoy dealing with the kids who compete and the coaches who work so hard.

What bothers me is the excess travel and the time involved when conferences use alignments that don't make sense. It isn't conducive to where the schools are located. Please, don't make these kids travel longer distances because conferences make absurd decisions like this!"

Right on Dickie V!

ESPN has a great breakdown on possible conference realignment scenarios that could result from the ACC/Big East mess.

Could it be true? Could Li'l Rhody actually be coming in line with the rest of the nation? Could separation of powers become a reality?

Kevin McNamara piece about the continuing ACC/Big East feud has an interesting angle. What will Notre Dame do? Regardless of what they do with their Independent Football program, which way they lean in a potential Big East split will be the deciding factor in the success of a possible "Catholic East" league made up of St. John's, Providence, Georgetown, Seton Hall, Villanova and other schools, such as Marquette or Xavier, that could be wooed into such a league. If Notre Dame doesn't go with the other Catholic Schools, and probably even if it does, the new "Catholic East" would be a conference on par with the Atlantic 10. Not major but probably the best of the so-called mid-major schools. Regardless, Providence College is a helpless bystander as it watches it's big time conference disintegrate around it. It was PC's Dave Gavitt who got the original Big East basketball conference going. It is former PC administrator Mike Tranghese, who vows a fight, is the current Big East commissioner. A big weekend in Florida lies ahead for the Big East conference. I predict it will not be intact for very long.

Nashville Matriarch June Carter Cash Dead at 73, which is surprising because I thought that Johnny was closer to death over the past few years. The Man in Black has lost his Muse.

Rock, Older Buyers Rule in Depressed Music Market, according to a headline. Does this mean that more singer-songwriter types will start getting radio airplay instead of the Hip-Hop/Pop Shmop Britney Aquilera Backstreet Sync stuff? Doesn't this fly in the face of all we're told about marketing in today's music industry? We can only hope.

Andrew Sullivans Daily Dish has this quote from Margaret Thatcher:

"There are too many people who imagine that there is something sophisticated about always believing the best of those who hate your country, and the worst of those who defend it."

Feel like taking a survey regarding web logs and their impact? Go here.

Kevin McNamara of the ProJo weighs in on the effects of the ACC expansion on Providence College.

Big Time colleg sports talk today. The news that the ACC Votes in Favor of Expansion could have serious reperscussions throughout the college athletic world. The obvious bid by the ACC is to strengthen as a football conference by enticing the Univ. of Miami into the fold, they will also try to drag in two other teams, probably from the Big East, and probably Syracuse and either Boston College or Virginia Tech. That would put the ACC at 12 schools, allowing them to break the conference into two divisions, with each regular season winner meeting in an ACC Football Championship game. This would allow enable the ACC to continue to be a viable and important player in the NCAA's jury rigged Bowl Championship Series that is going to be revamped in a couple years. Bottom line, it's about the money.

So what does this mean for the other schools in the Big East? First, the other football schools, Pitt, Rutgers, UConn, Temple and one of either BC or VaTech (whichever doesn't get invited to the ACC) will have to seriously think about splitting off and forming a new conference, perhaps with the likes of Cincinatti, Lousville or some other Conference USA types of schools. This would be the only way they could maintain viability as a football conference. The possibility of a football Big East is there, but it would be more likely that the Big East as a conference would be essentially blown up.

For much of the Big East, this means that their basketball programs would be in jeopardy of dropping a tier. Specifically, the Catholic schools that don't have football (Providence, St. John's, Georgetown, Villanova) would be at a big disadvantage. You would see the Big East basketball conference attempting to entice schools from other conferences, most likely Atlantic 10 schools like Temple, Dayton or the like would seem logical. This would then send shockwaves through the college basketball world as larger conferences robbed slightly less prestigious ones of their better members. This all results in the rich getting richer and the little guys being put at even more of a disadvantage. Capitalism. I love it in the real world, but I'm not sure that it is necessarily a good thing in collegiate athletics.

This move could also prompt Notre Dame to merge with the Big Ten to ensure it has a seat at the table when the BCS comes up for review again. Or they could maintain their independence and continue their relationship with the remnants of the Big East basketball schools, most of whom would also be Catholic institutions. This last would allow the League to essentially operate on similar moral grounds, if you will. Perhaps even a school like Holy Cross would be enticed into the Big East given the Catholic angle. It's all very interesting for a sports nut and points to the ever growing aspects of big business type mentality that is taking over college sports, especially football and basketball. If anyone thinks these kids are amateurs in the truest sense of the word, this should be a wake up call. The disingenuous administrators of the NCAA and these big conferences long ago stopped placing their primary emphasis on the well being of the student athlete. It's all about the money.

Report: Stark to miss next season of "Monday Night Football''

sniff sniff

This is my new blogchalk:
United States, Rhode Island, Warwick, English, history, politics, sports. :)

A few days ago I posted a "find your faith test"...today it's the Dante's Inferno Test. My interest in things moral and medieval collide! My results below...

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

All that I think about this overblown Bill Bennett affair is summed up by Jonah Goldberg' on National Review Online. The summary:

"Bennett is a big, sloppy Irish Catholic guy from Brooklyn who believes in old-fashioned morality and decency. He's not perfect, but he's been focusing our attention on the right things. When charged with hypocrisy, Max Scheler — the moral philosopher who dallied with the ladies — responded that the sign pointing to Boston doesn't have to go there. America is a better place because Bennett pointed in the right direction. Tearing him down is a sorry, pitiful, and deeply hypocritical way for supposed champions of privacy to tear down the man instead of his arguments. If you disagree, fine. Tell me where he was wrong. Don't tell me that the messenger is a sinner — we all knew that. Tell me what's wrong with the message. What passage in The Book of Virtues was invalidated when Bennett put the first $500 chip into the machine?"

Exactly. Never been a big fan of "gotcha" politics/journalism myself.

The fact that France helped Iraqis escape may be enough to finally make a Franco-American renounce his heritage! Well, not quite...my theory on any of us who have European roots is that our ancestors were the independent and risk taking folks who weren't happy toiling away as their father's did and decided to get out and come to the land of opportunity. Also, our ancestors had to shake the religious and economic repression in Europe that had become the status quo at various times and felt that the place to do it was over here, in America, land of the free. That doesn't mean there aren't some fine individuals back in the various home countries, but I just think that a good percentage of the more adventuresome and rambunctious characters crossed the pond. That would also explain how we as American's are so very much "acta non verba" and why we get all of the supposedly negative stereotypical traits assigned to us by the European chattering class, even if we are sometimes arrogant, loud cowboys. When a country continually puts it on the line, like a great prize fighter, some cockiness is required, don't you think? It's important to point out that I think some admirable individuals didn't give up on their respective homelands, and their progeny continue to fight the good fight. (Andrew Sullivan is one and Tony Blair is another.) This all crossed my mind while chewing over how to reconcile being proud of my French ancestry and possibly even the latest Doonesbury strip this past Sunday's circular. I think Trudeau went too far with his last blurb, but I sympathize with his belief regarding the French reaction to the destruction of the WTC compared to a theoretical reaction by Americans should the Eiffel Tower suffer the same fate. But I digress, I guess it would be a good psychological study of the motivation and make-up of various migratory peoples and/or individuals throughout history. Sounds like a psychohistorical study to me. Wonder if anyone has done something on this? I'll have to look into this.

Life here at The Ocean State Blogger may slow down a bit as I prep for finals. Stay tuned though, I may pop in now and then.

This is a pretty scathing op-ed about the Derderians by James Medoff who is a labor economist at Harvard University. He couches it as a critique on SMALL businesses (as opposed to the much maligned BIG business). There are a few things I didn't know. A couple quotes pulled below:

"The neighbor suggested the Derderians go one step further and insulate the walls. At a company in Johnston, the Derderians bought $575 worth of black packing foam and tacked it up on the ceilings and walls. They didn't buy the fire-retardant kind of foam -- that would have cost another $500.

About eight months later, Jeffrey Derderian did one of those breathless TV investigations on a deadly product he and others have described as 'solid gas.'

He interviewed a Lowell man who had pulled a smoldering mattress to his back porch, only to see it flare up again, injuring eight family members and killing two others. The killer, Derderian told his audience, was what was inside the mattress: polyurethane foam. The same cheap black stuff he and his brother had put up all over The Station."

then he wraps it up with:

"The Station didn't worry about such details and neither did the regulators. These were good guys, local guys, small-business guys. And their employees seemed to be loyal to them right to the end.

Bartender Julie Mellini didn't just run out of the club after the fire started. She says she took time to find the cash drawer and the tips.

She met Jeffery Derderian in the parking lot. According to a chilling story by Journal Staff Writer Lynn Arditi, Derderian told Julie to go back and help people get out of the club.

Mellini says her boss grabbed the cash register drawer from her and ran behind the burning building.

That's a small-business man for you."

That's pretty tough. And pretty maddening.

Did a tweak of the left side links today...I'm trying to decide if I should get more focused with this blog or maintain my jump all over the board style. Yet, I think that the current method is easiest, as I can post anything I want, when I want. So I'll probably maintain the current format. But I reserve the right to change my mind.

Today is the opening night of X2, the X-Men movie sequel. The X-Men were my introduction to fantasy in the form of an old, worn stack of 60's comics from my older cousin. I thumbed through them endlessly as I followed the adventures of Cyclops, Jean Grey, The Beast, Iceman, and Angel, all under the watchful eye of Professor X. In the great Marvel tradition, Stan Lee had taken his "everyman" concept which he had developed for Spiderman and applied it to a "team" of young heroes. He used them as a metaphor for the race relation problems of the sixties. (Lee himself compared Professor X to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Magneto, the evil mutant, to Malcolm X.)

I caught up to the team again in the early 80's when I tired of reading the "old" adventures and sought out the contemporary version. Cyclops and Professor X were still around, but Jean Grey had become Phoenix and there were some cool new guys and gals called Nightcrawler, Storm and Colossus...oh, and this other guy, Wolverine, the meanest sumbitch I'd ever seen in a comic. The theme of benevolent outcasts continued, even including the entire team "dying" at one point so that they could more effectively protect mankind without all of the political problems and notoriety. Ocassionally, Beast or Angel or Iceman would turn up, and new characters were coming in and out all of the time, Rogue among them. By then, well... I was starting to grow up.

I stopped reading them shortly after they had all "died", mostly due to interest in other things, more "respectable" literature (like LOTR, for instance), sports, girls; but also because it started to get too confusing as the spin-off titles exploded into Uncanny X-Men, Adventures of the X-Men, X-Factor, ad naseum. My simple comic had become an industry. And it was getting expensive to spend $ on all of those comics and to try to entertaind the ladies!

Now we have these movies and the X-Men have been brought back to me. The essential theme is still there. The "universe" may have changed a bit, different eras have been mixed together, but the soul of the X-Men remains. The X-Men comic served to remind me that the ignorance of others was not an excuse to lash out at them or to be ignorant yourself. That to do the right thing for it's own sake without expecting any recognition was the right path. Sacrifice for those who misunderstand you was the ultimate act of nobility. The X-Men save mankind a million times and got nothing but grief and misunderstanding in return. To me, in a way, they could be a metaphor for our Armed Forces, who willingly put it on the line for all of us, even for those who may disagree with their mission.

The X-Men were, and are, great characters who are easy vessels of self projection for people young and old. They could be me and you, but they have something a little different that sets them apart. A little something strange that scares people who fear the unknown. Yet, most of the time they are normal like us. They simply want to be accepted for who they are. It may be a dream, but isn't that what we all want?

Now this is a leader!

This is pretty cool. Take a quiz and see to what religion you REALLY should belong.

Excellent column by Bill Reynolds of the ProJo about the game that pro basketball has become. It's just not as intriguing anymore, and Reynolds, a former Brown player himself, nails it.

Channel 12 here in Providence has a Special Programming Announcement about an episode of CSI:Miami being cancelled because it deals with a night club fire started by pyrotechnics. Here's the complete release"

"The Monday, May 5, 2003 episode of CSI: Miami, scheduled to air at 10 p.m., will not be shown on WPRI-TV. The episode focuses on the crime scene investigation of a Miami nightclub fire caused by pyrotechnics. The episode contains some striking similarities to the tragic fire at the Station Nightclub on February 20, 2003. Out of respect for the victims, their families and the Rhode Island community, WPRI-TV will not air the episode.

In its place, WPRI-TV will air portions of the benefit concert, “A Night of Healing,” held on April 22, 2003 at the Providence Performing Arts Center. The concert, produced by Century Productions, Inc. of Warwick, raised money for the Station Nightclub Fire Relief Fund. In addition to highlights of the bands’ performances, donation information will be included for viewers who wish to contribute money to the Relief Fund. The commercial-free concert will air at 10 p.m., followed by the regularly scheduled Eyewitness News."

Is this justified or necessary? Is it too soon? I'm not sure... But then I remembered that one of the owners of the Station, Jeff Derderian, also was a reporter for Channel 12. This is starting to fail the smell test.

The Circus is in town! Tonight we go! And if there are any PETA types there...

Well, if this Boston Globe Online Warren report is right, the Patriots have drafted a high character guy. It's things like this that make it easy to cheer for this team.

Here's a neat thing I got from this Blog by someone called b-may who looks like he may be a lib with his wish that Gary Hart would be president. Nonetheless, this is clever:

The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.

The Washington Post is read by people who think they should run the country.

USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their smog statistics shown in pie charts.

The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave L.A. to do it.

The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country either, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority
feministic atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy as long as they are democrats.

The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores.

OK, the 2003 draft was interesting from a Patriots standpoint....Ok, let's take a look at 2004 on CBS.SportsLine.com!!!

Good analysis of the phenomena known as the White Stripes by Mark Jenkins at Slate.com.

Regardless of their degree of responsibility in the Station night club fire, I have to give credit to Great White for announcinga tour to benefit the victims of the tragic fire. I think there is enough blame to go around. Even if it is just a PR move, the results will be tangible. Perhaps the owners should think about this and stop worrying so much about self-incrimination.

Oh my goodness, the Yankees lost two in a row!

By the way, today more is coming out about the perfidy of the French. Opinion Journal's Best of the Web Today (for yesterday) has a good detailed look. The most cogent point:

"The Telegraph also found "a six-page letter dated February 1998 from Saddam Hussein to Jacques Chirac, welcoming the French president's support in the campaign against sanctions and assuring him that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction."

This should put to rest the complaint that the Bush administration's "botched diplomacy" is to blame for the U.N. Security Council's failure to approve an 18th resolution authorizing the liberation of Iraq. If veto-wielding France was actively colluding with Saddam's regime to oppress the Iraqi people and to prepare for a prospective attack, then winning Paris's approval for a resolution explicitly authorizing regime change was never a possibility. Those who urged the Bush administration to subordinate American foreign policy to the French veto have a lot to answer for."

This story about An Equal Opportunity Athlete is intriguing. It delves into the interesting dilemma's that result from Title IX enforcement. Essentially, Title IX as a concept is entirely proper. Schools should provide equal opportunities for men and women in sports. But the devil is in the details, and the problem is that, whether we want to admit it or not, boys tend to like to play sports more than girls. As such, to try to give them equal opportunity effectively ends up limiting the opportunities for boys. Mostly due to money reasons, schools don't add women't sports to make up the difference. Instead, while they may indeed add some, they make up the difference more often by removing men's sports to get to the prescribed ratio of athletes according to Title IX's goals. While not exactly in the spirit of the "law", it does achieve the goal. Many argue, and I would to, that, especially in college, the whole playing field is skewed by the relatively massive number of boys playing football. No women's sport has such a high participation requirement. This has led to the loss of many men's sports, especially wrestling and swimming, to make up the difference. The article mentioned above deals with another problem, the participation of boys on girls teams because there is no boys team of that kind. Title IX makes it highly unlikely that that there will ever be a boys lacrosse team at that young man's school. Title IX also speaks specifically to the equitable chances for WOMEN in sports, not men AND women. This is one solution, if the young men are strong enough to go for it. When I was in High School, we had two guys who played on the girls field hockey team. They met with wide ranging attitudes from other teams, but they played and contributed. More power to them. This seems to be yet another example of how, in an effort to be fair, unfairness has occurred as a byproduct. Like I said, the concept of Title IX is nice, the implementation isn't.

Once again, Senator Chafee attributes the worst of motives to President Bush, this time in the details of the President's tax cut plan. In this latest story from ProJo, Chafee seems to be taking a "principled", though flawed in my opinion, stance of no new tax cuts if it means bigger deficits. But then the real truth comes out, and we see Senator Chafee at his paranoid, fraidy cat best.

"If you get big deficits, then the pressure will be on" to cut social programs that pay for health care, pensions, education and housing for the poor, Chafee said. "I think that's the tactics" that conservative Republicans have chosen.

So the Republicans don't want you to have more money, what they really want is an excuse to throw grammy on the street and to lengthen the lines of the soup kitchens. Once again, Senator Chafee seems to be making a belligerent, politically suicidal stance for no real good reason, other than his own paranoid fears of the motives of the "vast right wing conspiracy."

As I blogged on Saturday, here is a more in-depth look at what the good Sen. Chafee had to say about North Korea, as reported in Saturday's Projo. The story's text, including Chafee's comments, are in Italics, mine aren't.

U.S.-North Korea talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program have "broken down" because a confrontational Bush administration team is holding out "a heavy military threat" against the Asian nation, Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee said yesterday.

The Senator is correct. This proved to be extremely ineffective in dealing with Iraq.

"The administration just doesn't put a premium on diplomacy," said Chafee. The Rhode Island Republican, who returned Tuesday from a trip to Asia, said that military victory in Iraq helped bring North Korea to the negotiating table with the United States. But Chafee reiterated his view that war in the Persian Gulf region should have been averted and that the talks on North Korea's weapons program could have begun long ago.

Once again, it is Chafee's view that it is failed diplomacy on the part of the U.S. when the other side refuses to talk. He then

Chafee played down the importance of North Korea's reported statement to U.S. diplomats during the Beijing talks that it has nuclear weapons. "We've suspected that," Chafee said.

Bahh, no big deal.


Chafee said yesterday's conclusion of three days of U.S.-North Korean talks in Beijing confirmed his pessimistic view of the situation. He largely blamed the Bush administration for the apparent impasse. "They don't want to give," Chafee said of the U.S. negotiating team, led by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly. "They want this to be blunt and uncompromising."

Doesn't it seem that all Senator Chafee wants to do is "give"? In every situation, he seems to take the position that the Bush Administration should compromise.

Chafee said his pessimism had been fed by the assignment of this diplomatic role to Kelly -- whose "very confrontational" stance toward North Korea proved "unproductive" last fall as the nuclear-weapons controversy unfolded.

The U.S. should quickly start back to work on fresh talks with North Korea and "they should send a new team," said Chafee, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Are you volunteering, Sen. Chafee?

Chafee said he is also "a little bit pessimistic" about how hard China will work against Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program.

"It's very important to have this dialogue," Chafee said of the U.S.-North Korea weapons talks, which began under Chinese sponsorship Wednesday in Beijing, the day after Chafee, Senate GOP leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and several other senators completed a 10-day tour to Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei.

"But everybody seems to realize that this isn't going to be easy and it's going to take a long time," Chafee said of the effort to curb North Korea's nuclear ambitions. He suggested that one obstacle is the complexity of the motivations of the nations involved. Beijing, for example, seems to demand a weakening of U.S. ties to Taiwan as its price for tougher steps against its longtime ally in Pyongyang.

He leaves unsaid the implication that the U.S. should acquiesce to China's demands.

Chafee said the tour -- including talks with key political and military leaders of the three nations, plus a visit with Rhode Island soldiers stationed in South Korea -- also gave him insight into the fight against the deadly new respiratory disease that has come out of Asia, and the possible sale of New England-built submarines and warships to Taiwan.

blah blah

Chafee said he believes that timing of the nuclear-arms discussions in Beijing is "not coincidental" and shows that North Korea and China were both struck by the demonstration of U.S. military dominance in Iraq. China appears to have pressured North Korea strongly to agree to the negotiations -- something that did not happen before the Iraq war, he said.

At the same time, Chafee -- who opposed the war -- said the talks also showed an American willingness to compromise. Whereas North Korea had once insisted on nation-to-nation talks with the U.S., the Bush administration demanded multilateral talks involving Russia, Japan and South Korea. The compromise of the current Chinese-brokered talks showed new flexibility on all sides.

Whu..huh..but..didn't he just say we didn't compromise?

Chafee added, however, that he does not believe a victorious U.S. assault on Baghdad was necessary to get China and North Korea into nuclear-arms talks. More emphasis on U.S. diplomacy might have either averted the North Korea problem or got the talks going earlier to solve it, Chafee said.

No way...the little dude in N. Korea was waiting to see if we would follow through with our threats. Once we showed we would, he came to the table. Otherwise, there would be no reason for him to do such a thing.

Chafee said he developed one persistent worry during his trip: Chinese officials from President Hu Jintao on down seem to reserve their "passion" for the issue of Taiwan, while appearing less fervent about the goal of keeping nuclear weapons off the Korean peninsula.

Chafee inferred from the words and the demeanor of Chinese officials that their essential bargaining gambit on any question -- from trade, to SARS, to the threat from North Korea -- is to attack the longtime U.S. ties to Taiwan. On this trip, Chafee said, Chinese officials devoted great energy to an issue that seemed to him more symbolic than substantive, a U.S. effort to grant Taiwan limited ties to the World Health Organization. Chafee said he is inclined to go along with Chinese requests that the Senate postpone consideration of a measure to grant Taiwan the ties. But he said Frist is inclined to proceed with a Senate vote.

Ah, yes. There it is. Let's compromise and back off of our support for a bastion of democracy which we've supported since World War II. Placate the bully, first.

Chafee said U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are also a touchy issue with Beijing, although not as inflamed as it might be, because Taiwan's new administration is preoccupied with economic problems and appears unprepared to act on tentative plans to buy ships from the U.S. -- possibly including diesel submarines built at Electric Boat.

As opposed to Chinese arm sales to N. Korea, Iraq, and others?


THE VISIT TO BEIJING, Chafee said, helped him to put SARS in clearer perspective. The outbreak "deserves all the attention it's getting," he said, and efforts to control it have plainly been hampered by the Chinese government's "deliberate decision not to be forthcoming" about the extent of the spread of SARS. Nor did Chinese officials directly acknowledge this fact in their meetings with the U.S. senators, he said.

The heavy blow of SARS upon the tourism business in China was also evident. "Our hotel was almost completely empty," said Chafee. "When we went into a restaurant, we were the only people there."

But on the brighter side, Chafee said, there were signs that the Chinese government understands and has learned from its mistakes of secrecy. For example, Chafee noted the firing of a key official. "The new health minister had only been on the job two days when he met us," Chafee said.

Furthermore, Chafee said, there is none of the sense of panic in Beijing that some reports here seem to suggest. "Business is still going on, people are still going to work," he said.

Ok, whatever.

Chafee also said he returned home with a more vivid sense of what a "corrupt and brutal regime" runs North Korea. Kim Jong Il, he said, is "a cruel and despotic tyrant" who presides over an impoverished nation surrounded by relatively modern and prosperous nations. "We should turn our focus on North Korea, as we apparently are doing now," Chafee said."

No kidding, Senator. Doesn't this all sound a little familiar? Do you think that maybe, Li'l Kim saw how Saddam got away with acting belligerent and playing the UN game for 12 years and thought maybe he'd give it a try? That is until he saw that this President was not one to attach himself or the nation to an endless process of "diplomacy"? Diplomacy is all fine and dandy if it accomplishes something, and rational people can come to agreements using traditional methods of diplomacy. Unfortunately, the wild cards out there, like Saddam and L'il Kim, understand one kind of diplomacy only... brute force. They had to be shown that real consequences would occur if they don't wise up. Saddam directly, and L'il Kim in a second-hand manner. Senator Chafee still relishes the diplomatic process over actual results. He acknowledges a "corrupt and brutal regime" run by a crazy man but insists that this same regime and man can be dealt with in a tradional way. Not so. The bottom line is that Senator Chafee gets antsy when tough talk is used. He is "uncomfortable" by strong words and actions that achieve the goals of his nation. He continues to exhibit a certain kind of passive agressiveness when it comes to the Bush Administration's diplomatic policy. He condemns them for not engaging in diplomacy enough, but then quibbles with the diplomats and methods used. The fundamental problem appears to be that the Bush team assumes that the U.S. stance is right and it's up to the other side, be it Iraq, China or N. Korea, to compromise first and then we'll talk. Senator Chafee always wants the U.S. to blink first. Maybe it's because that's how the Senator can relate to diplomacy in general. He always blinks first.

I watched The Ring last night. Not a bad creepy flick. A good creepy visual angle. It's effectiveness at scaring the bejesus out of you relies on how much you're going to buy into it. Similar to Blair Witch in that, I guess. Gets pretty good reviews at Rottentomatoes, as I linked to above. Maybe I ought to start throwing more movie reviews in here...I also watched Road to Perdition, the Tom Hanks/Paul Newman Irish gangster movie. Pretty good father/son "road" movie. The kid is pretty good. Hanks is good in a rather untraditional role for him. Jude Law is also real good at being a creepy dude, too.

First, a brief draft wrap up. A few insta-grades are in. We have Len Pasquerelli at ESPN.com giving the Pats an "A". (Mel Kiper does too, according to what I heard on the radio. To get Kiper's official grade, you have to pay for it.) ESPN's poll has most fans grading the Pats at A or B. I also heard John Clayton said the Pats had the second best draft weekend of all, giving them another "A". On to CBS... Pete Prisco gives them a B+. Finally, GIl Brandt at NFL.com, who has forgotten more about football than I'll ever hope to learn, makes a point of saying the Pats did a good job. The common themes in all of these national takes seem to be that 1) The Pats came out of this with 2 #1's and 2 #2's and 3 #4's in next years draft and 2) Next years draft is believed to be much deeper than 2003's. Plus, for what the Pats do, they got the players that they need. This is contrasted on the local pundit front. It does seem that the local media is a bit more down on the draft. This has to do with the "who are these guys" problem with an over-hyped event where everyone reads every pre-draft pub and then gets surprised when well written up players get passed over for relative unknowns. The worst offender is Nick Cafardo, and Ron Borges to some extent, of the Boston Globe. I won't even link to Cafardo, because when it comes to the Pats, he is ALWAYS taking a pessimistic angle, except when he wrote a book about the Superbowl win, that is...and there was some money to be made. Anyway, I'll keep my eyes open for more analysis as we go. As far as what I think? I'm smart enought to know that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Sure, I like the sexy picks too, but Bill B. and company have a bit more cache than yours truly.

I don't usually blog on the weekends, but this latest from Sen. Chafee is ridiculous. I'll comment more later.

Mark MSNBC'sAshley Banfield down as one not to trust, folks. What a baby.

Stanley Kurtz on Rick Santorum & Andrew Sullivan on National Review Online. The debate rages on...

If you've noticed, I tend to agree with most things that Andrew Sullivan says, and always enjoy reading him. That being said, while I generally agree that Sen. Santorum may be espousing an over-reach of government into our private lives, I think Sullivan is getting a little hysterical over the whole thing. He's now taken to posting some emails from people who now say they won't vote Republican because of Santorum's remarks. To me, this kind of knee jerk reaction is ludicruous and intellectually pedestrian. There are a few things that I don't agree with the Republicans on, but in general, a single issue isn't going to make me desert the party. A single candidate, maybe. I think that Sullivan's problem is that the issue hits too close to home and is also something that has been thrown right into his commentarian wheelhouse. As a gay Republican, he is almost uniquely qualified to speak to the issue. His POV has to be considered as the POV of the average gay/lesbian, but it just seems he is getting pulled along by the media hysteria that he usually is so adept at identifying and routing out. Sen. Santorum does not have the signal ability to enact such a police state mentality, even if that's what he really meant. And with Senators like Olympia Snowe and Lincoln Chafee around, you can be sure that the Republican Party as a whole won't condone such action either. Andrew, chill out.

Note: I agreed with Sen. Chafee on this one.

Here's a review about the aforementioned White Stripes/Loretta Lynn/Blanche show last weekend at the Hammerstein in NYC. Newsday.com - White Stripes' Burden: Savior or Poser? I'd call them more of the former.

The controversy du jour surrounds Sen. Rick Santorum's purported "attack" on homosexuals. Here is the unedited transcript of his comments on homosexuality in an AP interview. It's clear that the original report was lacking in proper context as well as in actually misquoting him, as pointed out by Andrew Sullivan in his blog today. I don't believe that this signals the coming sexual police state that Sullivan is worried about, but I agree with him in that I also think that the difference between generally accepted, consensual sexual acts and bigamous and/or lewd sex acts with animals and such are two totally different things. As such, I agree with the point that this seems to be a contradictory stance by Santorum.

Essentially, as a conservative, Santorum is for less intrusive government in all aspects of life. To draw a line at private sexual activity strikes me as hypocritical. Is there no more private act than what two people (or more?) wish to do consensually and in private? I understand Santorum's concern regarding illegal acts, but, again, those acts which are generally accepted, especially within heterosexual relationships, are no business of the government's. Finally, I don't think that "anything goes" is proper either, but if the people involved are both consenting adults, the government has no place inserting itself into their lives.

Wait, you mean...you mean...you mean that not all anit-war types have motives as pure as the wind driven snow? How could this be?

Simply put, Andrew Sullivan.

Finally, in preparation for the Boston Marathon on Monday, I point you to the ever-funny ESPN Sport's Guy and his Idiot's Guide to the Boston Marathon. It's a good chuckle.

Happy Easter to all, and please remember it's about a little more than bunnies, ok?

If your in the New York area and can somehow score some tickets I'd recommend that you check out the White Stripes at the Hammerstein. Plus, opening for them will be Blanche, an interesting alt country outfit that I've followed since their inception and whose founder, Dan Miller, was the Goober of the cult band (at least in the Detroit Metro Area) Goober and the Peas. Loretta Lynn will also be a special guest of the White Stripes. If you're into weird music experiences, I'd bet you couldn't go wrong at this show.

I guess it's time to turn up the heat....today we talk about the predictable stance of Sen. Chafee on tax cuts. I reference a recent Projo article about a visit from Hector V. Barreto, administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Let's start with a quote:

"Although members of the regional and local SBA offices were happy to hear Barreto's message, Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee is one of four senators who have refused to support the cuts if they are more than $350 billion.
'The senator would hope that the $350 billion would include the small-business provisions,' said Stephen Horuahan, press secretary for Chafee. 'He feels that the tax cut itself should be very targeted . . . because he's concerned about the deficit.'

This is a classic example of the good Senator believing that it is incumbent upon the tax-payer to make up for any spending deficit rather than the responsibility of the Senate and House to pass spending bills which don't run deficits. In other words, he has forgotten that it is OUR money, the taxpayer's, not the Government's. Besides, the budget deficit argument is a straw dog. If they, the Senate or House, really cared about it, they'd reign in their spending. The issue is also about fundamental fairness. The majority of this tax cut is a reduction in the Dividend taxes and is an attempt to address the inequity of the well chronicled double taxation on dividends. But, since it is the PERCEPTION that only the rich will benefit, and not the retirees and others who currently have money in the stock market, the demogoguery against "THE RICH" is being played to the hilt. Notice Sen. Chafee's "concern" for small businesses and his Clintonian use of the phrase "targeted tax cut". I also share his concern for small-businesses, and hope that his concern is consistent with past stances on issues such as Health Care and the minimum wage. (I'll have to look into the latter two...) As usual, his perspective on this issue is at odds with the majority of his party, and is intellectually dishonest. He plays the "evil Rich" game, though only sublty, but jumps into the bugdet deficit babble with both feet. It is the U.S. government which should learn to live with less, not the U.S. citizenry.

I have two articles linked in this blurb, first is a link to a USA Today article about a few of our brave soldiers who died in Iraq. Second, and on a more personal note, is an article specifically about Cpl. Kemaphoom Chanawongse, who died in Nasiriyah. I was a business associate of his step-father, Paul, and while I never met "Ahn", as he was called, his father is a tremendous guy. Bright, witty and hard-working, I can't help but think part of Paul rubbed off on his stepson. Rest in Peace, Ahn. You are an American Hero.

As usual, another excellent piece by Victor Davis Hanson over at National Review Online regarding the unmatched power of the U.S. military and how it has evolved and will continue to evolve. The last 3 paragraphs are the meat of it:

"The United States military is now evolving geometrically as it gains experience from near-constant fighting and grafts new technology daily. Indeed, it seems to be doubling, tripling, and even quadrupling its lethality every few years. And the result is that we are outdistancing not merely the capabilities of our enemies but our allies as well — many of whom who have not fought in decades — at such a dizzying pace that our sheer destructive power makes it hard to work with others in joint operations. In that context, we might reassess the need to take technology to its theoretical -nth degree: How many new sophisticated stealthy $1.5 billion bombers do we need, when the equivalent expenditure would pay for a more mundane but vital mechanized Division for an entire year?

Such unprecedented military power brings with it enormous moral responsibility as the world — its utopians especially — in the decades ahead will vie for a hand in the decisions on how to use it and for what purposes. There quite literally has never been a single nation that has exercised such colossal military force to change almost instantly the status quo, and used it under the auspices of a consensual government to free — Grenada, Panama, Serbia, Afghanistan, and Iraq — rather than to enslave peoples. How long it will last, we do not know, but we should at least realize that we are living in one of the most anomalous periods in recorded history.

Sophocles would warn us that hubris — not enemies in the here and now — is the only real danger to us on the horizon. But so far we have avoided the gods' nemeses precisely because our soldiers have put their power in the service of good by toppling odious despots — Noriega, Milosevic, Mullah Omar, Saddam Hussein — and leaving the seeds of freedom in their wake. We of an often cynical and ironic society at the least owe them a commensurate idealism."

I have decided to make a strategic decision and stop dignifying the anti-war naysayers with comment....after this last one. I will use the words of established big "L" Liberals to do my talking for me. To read these words, I point you to Andrew Sullivan, who wrote this excellent column on those on the Left who supported the war against Saddam. I was most struck by his summary of a book called "Terror and Liberalism" written by Paul Berman, a leftist intellectual:

"Berman's most important contribution is to uncover the real roots of today's political ideologies in the Middle East, from Saddam's corrupted form of national socialism to the Islamist revolutionaries waging war against the West and their own autocracies. He notices less a class of civilizations, than yet another instance of Western nihilism and totalitarianism popping up in cultures that had never known it before. There is nothing in Arab culture or history that should lead political or religious leaders to embrace totalitarian terror, as in Saddam's Iraq, or fundamentalist suicide bombing and mass murder, as among al Qaeda, the Taliban or Islamo-fascist Iran. This fusion of totalitarian politics and the methods of terror were imports from the West, Berman shows, from the nihilists of the late nineteenth century, and the fascists and Stalinists of the twentieth. Who is Saddam, after all, but another Mussolini or Hitler, reborn in Islamic guise? Look at the personality cult, the secret police, the mass murders, the purges, the vast and inhuman wars, the scapegoating of the Jews, the vicious genocide against the Kurds (whose only crime was not to be Arabs). This kind of regime was invented not in Mesopotamia but in Europe. Likewise, the roots of Islamism - in the early years of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood - are also directly linked to the fascist movements in twentieth century Europe. A man like bin Laden is a classic Western figure, educated in the West, with a vast fortune built on Western oil trade, and methods that have far more to do with Stalin than with Islamic tradition.

What Berman is essentially arguing is that the notion that Arab or Muslim societies and cultures are somehow indigenously incapable of liberal democracy, that they should be consigned indefinitely to rule by fascist tyrants is a form of racist condescension that has no place in civilized discourse, let alone on the left. Iraq is no less capable of becoming an open free society than Germany or Japan in 1945, or even post-Soviet Russia in the 1980s. And what did the defeat of each of those tyrannies have in common? British resilience and American military might. The scenario we are seeing unfold today, in other words, is a starkly familiar one. And who on the left now objects to the liberation of Germany, Japan, Eastern Europe and Russia from the totalitarian darkness that covered each for so long?

When Berman looks at the 1980s and 1990s, when Arab fascism grew in power, took over whole cultures, killed millions in wars, and threatened many more with terrorist violence, he wonders what went wrong in the West. why did we not see the danger? Why did we look away? Was it because exhausted from defeating Soviet totalitarianism, beguiled by the notino that history had ended, we couldn't bring ourselves to face a new and perhaps even more dangerous threat?

For Europeans, that question still reverberates. For Americans, 9/11 answered the question. 'What have we needed for these terrorists to prosper?' Berman asks. 'We have needed immense failures of political courage and imagination within the Muslim world. We have needed an almost wilful lack of curiosity about those failures by people in other parts of the world - the lack of curiosity that allowed us to suppose that totalitarianism had been defeated, even when totalitarianism was reaching a new zenith ... We have needed a political left that, in its anti-imperailist fervors, has lost the ability to stand up to fascism - and has sometimes gone a little further down the slippery slope. We have needed a cynical application of 'realist' or Nixonian doctrines over the decades - the doctrines that governed the Gulf War of 1991, the doctrines that even now lead to friendly ties with the most reactionary of feudal systems. We have needed an inability to cling to our own liberal and democratic principles, an inabilty even to articulate those principles.'

I quote at length to show the passion and power of those words. One of Tony Blair's greatest achievements, which the British left has still not appreciated, has been to find the courage to articulate those liberal principles again. One of those principles is that the Islamist movement in the Arab and Muslim world is a real threat to the free West, to our freedoms, our way of life, even our survival. It is also a real threat to the security, freedom and happiness of all Muslims and Arabs. Good liberals, as they did in the 1930s, should not shy away from confronting this new fascism. In fact, given their political legacy, they should feel doubly responsible for confronting it. Liberalism cannot co-exist with terror or totalitarianism. One must vanquish the other. And when you look at what we are learning about Saddam's Iraq - its horrifying brutality, its deep alliance with terrorism, its genocidal core, its fanatical anti-Semitism, its contempt for human freedom and human life - you see what, at the deepest level, this war has been about.

We can only hope that this anti-Islamist liberalism will grow and prosper in Britain and America and even, perhaps, in continental Europe. We need it now more than ever. In the war on terror, Iraq is but a first stop, but a critical one. If we can rebuild Iraqi society on liberal grounds, create a fairer, more democratic culture, rescue Islam from its abusers, and show that the liberal West is prepared to sacrifice and invest to make Iraq a new model for that part of the world, then we will have made a critical start toward a new world. That isn't a task tailor-made for conservatives, although they have a critical role. It also requires an idealism and an optimism that is more naturally at home on the liberal left. Will most Western liberals see this as Berman has and move away from their reactionary anti-Americanism toward the true liberal faith? We cannot know. We cannot tell. But we can surely hope."

Finally, this column by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro provides a nice epilogue to it all.

'Nuff said.

I strongly suggest that you take in William Safire's latest on how a good offense is The Best Defense. First, he starts with the basic underpinnings of the Bush Doctrine:

"That's the essence of our new policy of pre-emption as a last resort. If threatened by a regime harboring terrorists or likely to provide them with mass-murder weaponry, the U.S. will not wait to gain world sympathy as the victim, but will defend itself by striking first.

That power to protect ourselves — and our will to use that power — was established in Afghanistan and driven home in Iraq. Dangerous dictators elsewhere as well as fair-weather friends no longer doubt America's seriousness of purpose."

He then goes on to detail how many countries in the world seem to be edging a bit closer to the U.S.'s view on a variety of specific issues related to President Bush's much-maligned "Axis of Evil". All because of America demonstrating it's resolve with it's "unilateral" action against Iraq.

He wraps it up like this:

"If we steadily introduce free enterprise and the rule of law into a loose confederation; if we expect little gratitude from Iraqis exercising the freedom to complain loudly and a lot of carping from 'the little three' in Paris, Berlin and Moscow — then Americans could possibly achieve what seems as far-fetched as defeating fascism in the 40's and Communism in the 90's.

We could give liberty a chance to take root in the land of Job. Then our children may be able to lay down the burden of a great offense because there will be less need for a best defense."

Less than two weeks until the NFL draft and I'm starting to get geeked for it. The war has taken precedence until this point, but with things simmering down, I can now throw more recreation into the mix here at OSB. If you're into it, go to this site that lists a slew of 2003 NFL Mock Drafts. Good stuff. I'm especially excited because my beloved Patriots have 13 picks this year, more than any other team (actually, the same as the expansion Texans have). They have 5 of the top 100 picks too! Trading up is definately an option and there are plenty of good Defensive Tackles and big Wide Receivers that can immediately fill a need. Also, they might take a chance and draft the injured Willis McGahee from Miami U. Stay tuned!

Yikes! Been busy....but this one sticks out at me today. Looks like at least some in the Bush Administration think that we should move agains Syria quickly, especially after info obtained from Jaffar Jaffar and his magic WMD lamp.

Well, it seems as if CNN new all along. In a piece titled "The News We Kept to Ourselves", Eason Jordan of CNN discusses all of the threats and atrocities committed by Saddam's regime on employees of CNN. But that certainly didn't come across in their reporting, now, did it? It's understandable to be cowed and to not want to risk endangering fellow employees and friends, but an overall editorial slant more in favor of taking aggressive action agains Saddam would seem to have been in order, dontcha think?

Aaaahh yes, Sen. Lincoln Chafee Strikes again. Read this story for the entire Rhode Island delegations latest opinions on the progress of the war. But we concern ourselves with our "Republican Senator from Virginia". I quote:

"Even Sen. Lincoln Chafee, the delegation's sharpest critic of the war and the only Senate Republican to oppose it, expressed satisfaction at 'the ability of our fighting people to engage [the enemy]. The way they performed, I've got to be honest, is really impressive.'

But Chafee expressed skepticism that President Bush would match his pledge for a 'vital' United Nations role in postwar Iraq with the kind of American commitment needed for the U.N. to remain 'a viable entity.' Key Bush administration members 'have been disdainful' of the U.N., Chafee said.

'All over the world, there is a feeling that this was a belligerent incursion,' Chafee said, voicing fear of long-term damage to America's international standing.

'In the short term, it hasn't been good,' Chafee said. 'The Canadians are booing our national anthem at hockey games.'

Under the circumstances, however, Chafee said Mr. Bush is correct to offer the U.N. a role in humanitarian efforts but to withhold any dominant U.N. role in the postwar governance of Iraq."

(Thank you to ProJo's John E. Mulligan for the reporting.)

First, Senator, I'm glad to see that you recognize the brilliance of our military, but you certainly imply that you actually had doubts. Second, you continue to openly doubt the sincerity of our President, a man from YOUR PARTY, nonetheless, who has thus far been proven right in almost every facet of this Iraq crisis. You continue to hang your hat on the proven ineffectiveness of the UN. Your ignorance with regard to the UN as well as your continuing belief that Saddam Hussein with WMD's and terrorist links (remember that terrorist training camp in Norther Iraq?) show that you seem to believe that the world hasn't changed since September, 11, 2001. It has. We can't be Fortress America and wait on UN bureaucrats for resolutions to problems. Argh. It's all been said before. Finally, to base your assessment of our standing in the world on a US hockey team getting booed is plainly sophomoric. That's all I can stomach for now.

So far, the best news I've taken out of the fall of Baghdad is contained in this story about how the Arabs are Shocked, Relieved at Baghdad's Fall. The best news?

Feeling betrayed and misled, some turned off their sets in disgust when jubilant crowds in Baghdad celebrated the arrival of U.S. troops.


"We discovered that all what the (Iraqi) information minister was saying was all lies," said Ali Hassan, a government employee in Cairo, Egypt. "Now no one believes Al-Jazeera anymore."

Looks like a certain propogandistic satellite network may have some 'splainin' to do.

I Know, we own Baghdad, Saddam's missing and could be dead and his regime is crumbling. So what am I most excited about? No, it's really not that UCONN won another NCAA Women's hoops title....it's that my musical obsession of the moment, the White Stripes, has released their new album. For a pretty fair and accurate review, go to this White Stripes' 'Elephant' review at the Washington Post. If you like minimalist rock with blues, metal, punk, and country over/under tones give 'em a try.

Not much time lately, too busy w/ work and school. To see the results of the latter, go to the "My Works" section of this site and check out my paper on Medieval Queen Templates. That's only if you're interested, anyway. It's a tough one, I know....

Today, take the opportunity to check out the historian Victor Davis Hanson and his views about who our future allies will be, post-Iraq. Sounds about right to me.

On a lighter note, the Red Sox went 3-1 in Tampa (they better have!) and the New England Patriot's schedule has been release, along with the rest of the NFL's. Looks like the Pats got an easier road as far as game times, bye weeks, and travel this year than last (no 5 games in 25 days in November this year!). In essence, it's a Buffalo Sandwich with a lot of 1 O'Clock games in the mix.

Busy Busy lately. But I have enough time to put this one up. NY Times has a story about the true view of America as voiced by an Iraqi. "Democracy. Whiskey. And sexy!"

Also in this article is this great quote from a Colonel Deluca, after it was discovered that some of the mines found in Najaf were made in Italy: "Europeans are antiwar, but they are pro-commerce."

Media Embargo

While not in effect, per se, I have decided to scale back news consumption and commentary for sanity's sake. Big Picture vs. snap-shot. Remember that.

No links, no nothing today. To get my feelings about what is going on, please try to scout up the text of Rummey's afternoon Pentagon Press conference. He's going at the gaggle with both barrels. It's a keeper.

A few things today, first up is Jed Babbin on National Review Online who has a good running war blog and today brings up the role that special forces, and particularly sniper/scouts, are playing in Baghdad with little or no fanfare. I listened this morning to the press conference given by three wounded soldiers detailing the action in which they received their injuries. It was highly illustrative of the quality of the men and women in uniform and should make every one of us confident that the "grunts" are confident and extremely able. Of course, CBS news radio chose to parse the one line by a soldier, Moran I believe was his name, about how he expected the Iraqi soldiers to roll over and was surprised that they didn't. CBS conveniently chose this singular quote rather than the paragraphs devoted to the heroic effort of these guys in killing and capturing these same Iraqi's during this engagement. Not to mention the fact that while the Iraqi's are actually putting up a fight, once they are confronted with face to face combat, rather than taking potshots dressed in civilian clothes, they are either killed or surrender pretty quickly. This is just another example of the media focusing on the tactical side of the news and not the strategic. We must always remember that the nature of news is to report the out of the ordinary. The fact that we have superior forces is not news, as such, and only when we encounter resistance, no matter how relatively light, does the press seem to get interested. Not to mention the fact that operational security has probably dictated that some of our more successful maneuvers are not going to publicized at this time. At least logic would seem to dictate this.

If you're tired of celebs spouting of, I can give you one real rock band that actively supports our troops. Their name is 3 Doors Down and they have toured extensively for USO and even include the military in their "When I'm Gone" music video. I have to confess to getting a lump in my throat myself when I saw it while channel surfing the other night. So, if you like rock music and want to support a band worth supporting, give 3DD a try!

Finally, regarding my comments yesterday about the size of the force we have in place, please realize that I have complete confidence in the forces in place and that we will win with what we have. Also, I know that more troops are on the way and this is all part of the "rolling start" outlined by Secretary Cheney and the DoD. I just think that more is always better and that those troops should have been in place before engaging. It would have been a lot easier to "roll" those troops in from Kuwait after a week than from Texas, Colorado, and via the Suez canal in my opinion. Hopefully, this will cause us to rethink this strategy a bit. But you know what? History will be the judge. God bless America and Protect our troops.

I just started reading Ralph Peters, a guest columnist in the NY Post. Good, common sense approach to the war on Iraq. He does have one quibble, though, and that's with our seemingly undermanned ground forces. I've maintained that as soon as the Turks cut out on us, we should have begun moving those 30 ships full of 4th Army equipment immediately to the Gulf and started flying the troops to man that equipment in from Texas. It appears they are finally going to be deployed this week. I don't think it's necessary to field a million man army, but it seems more would have been better. But we'll win, it just may take a bit longer.

FOX News has a bulletin that the Shiites in Basra are joining the fight. Looks like they just needed a little more reassurance that we meant it this time.

I've been pretty busy at work and home, so not much time to blog lately. However, for a status on the war, and my implied "here here", go, well, HERE.

And let me get this straight....while some protest in America, Iraqi's cheer our arrival. Why don't those protestors live awhile under a despotic regime and then decide to protest "American Imperialism?"

So we're rolling! Seems as if we managed to kill two birds with one...missile in Baghdad. I was entranced by the real time reporting of our troops rolling into Iraqi territory last night. I'm not a war monger, but it was still pretty darn cool. The wonders of technology.

So it has begun. The "International Community" has come out with statements of varying degrees of condemnation. Oh well. God bless the troops and the U.S.A.

One of my pet areas of study is Just War Theory. Today, Joseph Loconte of National Review Online has a solid piece on how traditional JWT has been watered down. He begins:

"The mischief began at least 20 years ago, when the U.S. Catholic Bishops issued 'The Challenge of Peace,' a pastoral letter redefining the litmus test for war. Not only must military action be a last resort, they said, but 'all peaceful alternatives must have been exhausted.'

And goes on to explain the slippery slope of the ultra ambiguous last phrase of the above quote. He wraps it all up with:

"Just-war doctrine remains essential to international order, but if it can't sanction action against this menace, it needs revision. Grounded in Christian ethics, the theory guards against warmongerng in the pursuit of national security. But when all peaceful alternatives to war have failed, the doctrine must not become a suicide pact with civilization. "

Not much to say this morning, just waiting for war. Well....OK, and I have to lead you to the excellent George Will column on Tom Daschle, too.

Tony Blair laid out the case this afternoon to the British House of Commons. Simply Eloquent. A must read.

Today, we finally get to the primary reason I decided to start this blog. It's purpose is to provide a running commentary on the statements and shenanigans of the Rhode Island delegation to Congress as well as those in the General Assembly and the Governor. All are Democrats, with the exception of Gov. Carcieri and a negligible few in the General Assembly (something less than 20%!). Oh, I almost forgot Senator Lincoln Chafee, who calls himself a Republican but has yet to verify that affiliation by his stance on any substantive policy issue. Nonetheless, with the President issuing his ultimatum to Saddam Hussein last night, an opportunity to get a glimpse into the hearts and minds of our Congressional Delegation has been provided. All have made statements. For an article on these statements, go to this story in the Providence Journal. My statements follow, now.

We'll start with the easy ones first....
Sen. Jack Reed is a West Point grad, Democrat. His comment is in-line with most of his politics. He supports the action, says it will be successful, but has serious reservations about the aftermath and continues to blame the Bush Administration for ham-handed diplomacy. As a matter of fact, Reps. Jim Langevin and Patrick Kennedy, both Democrats, pretty much fall in line with that, with the latter two additionally blaming France for much of the diplomatic problem. Of these 3, Reed and Langevin seem to be maintaining their consistency best as far as what one would expect from them given their past political body of work. Rep. Kennedy is somewhat of a surprise, he is generally regarded as one of the more liberal firebrands in Congress. It has to be conjectured that, given his relatively close re-election campaign, Mr. Kennedy may be hedging against another run by his 2002 opponent, Dave Rodgers, a conservative Republican, former SEAL. Regardless, he is right on this issue, though he succumbs to his irresistable partisan urges and can't resist criticizing the perceived diplomatic failures. That brings us to Sen. Chafee.

Rather than having me explain his stance on the war, I'll let Sen. Chafee do it himself. From the article in ProJo today:

"But Republican Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee said that the idea that the French veto threat had contributed to a diplomatic breakdown is 'absolute hogwash.'

Chafee also charged that the Bush administration's stance toward Iraq is 'not about weapons, not about chemical weapons, not about biological weapons. It's about the aggressive imposition of our sole superpower status' on the rest of the world.

'My own opinion is that the administration has wanted to pursue this course over the last number of months, if not years,' Chafee said. U.S. policy has included the 'browbeating' of Great Britain and other nations to join the effort against Iraq, he noted.

'It's sad that, in this time of spring and warmth, the sense of vitality that comes with that first scent of spring is darkened by a change in American direction,' Chafee said. 'There was a contrast that I think everybody felt."

That is a Republican? The son of John Chafee, former Secretary of the Navy? Mr. Chafee received my vote during the last 2 elections. He will never receive it again. Unfortunately, I will have to wait for 4 more years before I will be able to voice my opinion at the ballot box. As such, I will endeavor to continue to illustrate in this blog exactly how off the mark our "Senator from Virginia" (as called by Dan Yorke, see link to the right) usually is. In his remarks, Chafee seems to be spouting every conspiracy theory espoused by the average blame-America-first war protestor. How can Chafee, knowing what he knows, think that the President has any but the best motives? No proof of WMD's in Iraq? WHAT!? And even if he doesn't trust the President, then it is generally expected that now is a time to close ranks and maintain a united front for the sake of the troops. I believe Sen. Chafee has just tossed away any legitimacy he may have had with the Bush Administration and expect him to be even further marginalized by his own party. But it's really not about party loyalty. To imply and ascribe the worst motivations to the President is reprehensible. It's reprehensible what some Democrats are doing, such as Sen. Tom Daschle severely criticizing the Bush diplomacy last night at a union fund raiser, but you are a Republican, Mr. Chafee. Your father was a Republican. Like it or not, members of political parties should stand together in times like these. Senator Chafee, you are certainly not the man your father was and it seems you never will be. In fact, it seems as if you are bent on political self-destruction. I'm beginning to believe that you were pressured into filling your father's Senate seat, something you may have never really wanted, and are now trying very hard to make yourself unpalatable to members of both parties in future elections. It's obvious you are far left of the average Republican voter. And an average Democrat would be justifiably reticent to support you if it was perceived that you were a political opportunist should you switch parties at some future date. I suspect you have thought of switching parties, too, especially should the Senate come under Democratic control next election cycle. In short, Mr. Chafee, you have time and again exhibited an unhealthy lack of decisiveness and concomitant resolve on almost any issue of foreign policy. You're as soft as sponge, but don't hold as much water. Get ready Senator....the free ride is over.

The U.N. delays have finally been ended as the U.S., U.K. and Spain pull the resolution, blaming a threatened French veto. Saddam has hours to leave Iraq, a point the President will make tonight at 8 pm. Meanwhile, it looks like the old saying that 'there's nothing the market hates more than indecision' is holding true as the Dow was up over 200 points the last time I checked.

On the brink of war, today I choose to simply provide a link to an annual rite of spring.....The NCAA Basketball Tournament.

So the "diplomacy" continues....... Meanwhile, Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard has a good piece on how we should view the French. That's all I can stomach for now. Later.

Due Diligence time: First, the U.S. Seeks U.N. Vote on Iraq on Friday; Second, Blair says there's no turning back, and Britain will support the U.S. regardless of the UN; Third, it seems that France is to help after war with Iraq, at least according to them. Don't hold your breath, Jacques; Fourth and Final, Iraqi 'secret surrender' negotiations under way, as Rumsfeld hinted at yesterday. By the way, Andrew Sullivan seems to be taking Rummy to task a bit, perhaps deservedly so. That's it on the war front for now. Bonjour!

Notice the sports emphasis today? Well, I've had it with this "diplomacy" tack. It's frustrating and ridiculous that we have come to lobbying 3rd World nations for a Security Council vote. Let's do it and get it over with! Everything that needs to be said has been said. It's time to act. 'Nuff said.

Pats add Rodney Harrison to defensive haul. The news keeps getting better for the Pats Defense. Can you say top 5 in the league?

Good news for a change. My beloved Pats have themselves a playa! Rosey is coming to town! Get ready for one helluva pass-rushing/defending defense coming out of NE folks. And I bet that the run D won't be too bad either. Colvin will allow Willie McGinest to operate solo on the other side and make him more effective. Now, if the Pats can pick up one of those young defensive linemen in the draft and perhaps an offensive playmaker, the Pats could be back in 2003.

Not much to say today, just this document which I wrote up: Iraq: A Just War. It's still under revision and review, but I hope to solidify it soon.

More evidence that Hans Blix may actually be enabling Saddam!

Also, reports are coming out thatAl Qaeda May Target U.S. Forces in Iraq. How come the Administration can't seem to prove any connection between Saddam with al Queda? Oh, I get it, Saddam doesn't know that al Queda is in his own country, right?

What a surprise! In his last report, Blix 'hid smoking gun' from Britain and US according to the London Times. Seems like he tried to bury the discovery of Iraq's unmanned drone program, an undeclared and proscribed weapons program, in an effort to forestall the U.S. and U.K. efforts in the U.N. Meanwhile, Sky News has interviewed an Iraqi defector from the Republican Guard claiming that Saddam plans to use his chemical and bio weapons. But you know what? It seems as if the U.N. and Saddam-enablers have moved past that. They pretty much acknowledge that he has the WMD's, but insist that an inspection regime is the better path than using force. They refuse to acknowledge that without the threat of an ass-kicking, Saddam would have never gotten this far. If you knows said ass-kicking is never going to come, how much cooperation does UNMOVIC and Hans Blix think they are going to get? Again, the process takes precedent over results for these guys.

As we head into, hopefully, the final U.N. presentation by Blix, let's remember that we are a nation in the right and, regardless of what those who value process over results think of our ultimate goals, we aren't trying to be an empire. This quote by Colin Powell is right on.

"We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last 100 years . . . and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in."

FOXNews.com has a report this morning that hints that Secretary of State Powell's stance of going to the U.N. before acting on Iraq may have weakened him within the administration. I'm at the point now where we wrap the U.N. thing up in a week or so, call for a vote, prove what an utterly useless organization it is and worry about ourselves and our friends. There is a theory about an Anglosphere that may be more in line with our future as a nation and as a member of some sort of "world body". I haven't read the whole thing, so if there is anything too wacky in there, remember it was just a site marked for further investigation.

FOXNews.com has a report this morning that hints that Secretary of State Powell's stance of going to the U.N. before acting on Iraq may have weakened him within the administration. I'm at the point now where we wrap the U.N. thing up in a week or so, call for a vote, prove what an utterly useless organization it is and worry about ourselves and our friends. There is a theory about an Anglosphere out there that MAY be germane. I ran across the above a few days ago, but haven't read it fully, though I will endeavor to do so.

Jed Babbin on Military & Politics on National Review Online has a column regarding the Generals appointed by Clinton and now operating under Bush as we pursue this war on Iraq.

Fred Barnes has perhaps the final say on the debate about the coming war. The Peacenik Top 10 is a point by point counter to every argument against the war.

Finally, on the local political front, Governor Carcieri revealed his budget. Now, I haven't gone over it with a fine tooth comb, but all of the usual suspects are already whining about cuts here there and everywhere. Let us remember, to a politician, a cut is a reduction in the EXPECTED INCREASE in spending. The governor is proposing 2% increases. The Dems et al. wanted, expected, and are used to more. So, a mere 2% increase in spending is a "cut" from their expectations. My major problem is the increased reliance on gambling. I think it's a slippery slope when you start to disproportionaly rely on a "vice" for government revenue. But the real problem is the resistance to cutting waste, fraud and abuse in Rhode Island. As long as the majority of the voters in this state continue to elect and overwhelmingly Single Party government, nothing will change. But that's a topic for another day.

Meanwhile, the Mighty Casey struck out: Fossum way off mark in rough outing according to the Boston Herald. Not time to panic yet, but let us remember that it was a refusal to trade Fossum that kept the Sox from getting Colon from the Expos. We'll keep an eye on this.

Starting off with a nice preview of the Hockey East Tournament in the Boston Globe. I'm a college hockey fan, particularly a Maine Black Bear fan, though that may have to change should I become a student at Providence, I guess....

One more here. by Stuart Taylor of the National Journal. Best quote, regarding the anti-American Europeans, South Koreans and others: "Abdicating their own responsibilities to help maintain world order, they are free riding, as my colleague Clive Crook noted last week, on the same U.S. polices that they publicly denounce. Like a spoiled teenager who expects her parents to support her even though she refuses to do any work around the house and constantly mouths off to them, these nations enjoy the benefits of U.S. global policing while refusing to share in the costs and trashing the policeman."

Quick Hits today:
1)U.S. plans to make short work of Iraq -- The Washington Times

2)The Sun Newspaper On Blair getting public support

3)George F. Will: Bush awaits permission from the passive

I'm out!

"When one reads the reports of UNO [United Nations Organization] conferences, or international negotiations of any kind, it is difficult not to be reminded of l'Attaque and similar war games that children used to play, with cardboard pieces representing battleships, aeroplanes, and so forth, each of which had a fixed value and could be counted in some recognized way. In fact, one might almost invent a new game called Uno, to be played in enlightened homes where the parents do not want their children to grow up with a militaristic outlook.

The pieces in this game are called the proposal, the demarche, the formula, the stumbling-block, the stalemate, the deadlock, the bottle-neck and the vicious circle. The object of the game is to arrive at a formula, and though details vary, the general outline of play is always much the same. First the players assemble, and somebody leads off with the proposal. This is countered by the stumbling-block, without which the game could not develop. The stumbling-block then changes into a bottle-neck, or more often into a deadlock or vicious circle. A deadlock and a vicious circle occurring simultaneously produce a stalemate, which may last for weeks. The someone suddenly plays the demarche. The demarche makes it possible to produce a formula, and once the formula has been found the players can go home, leaving everything as it was at the beginning." - George Orwell, "As I Please," December 12, 1946. Thank you Andrew Sullivan

The Sun Newspaper Online claim's that everything; a U.N.S.C. vote, war on Iraq, the end of Chirac is a done deal. Wish I had those sources.....

This morning, Peggy Noonan has a good column, a letter to Andrew Cuomo, on her view of the state of the Democratic Party. Essentially, for today's Democrat, winning at all costs is paramount. It seems, the game is the thing. Meanwhile, WFB thinks the President should "transcend the Security Council". Good stuff.

Onto other things, specifically, SPORTS! Yeah, us "sportos" are currently in that weird twilight zone of the sports calender. The dark times if you will. Football is over, spring training has just begun. The NHL and NBA are mired in their respective useless regular seasons and March Madness has yet to start. But the latter is almost here. For reasons not readily apparent, I am an avid Michigan State University Spartan fan. They are currently embroiled in a tough battle in the Big Ten and, should they win their next two, will probably make it to the NCAA tournament regardless of how they perform in the Big Ten tournament. But we still have time before that happens. I'll keep my gun holstered on that topic for a bit longer. As I will on the NFL Draft and my beloved Red Sox.

It's the weekend, so I'm taking it easy. However, one of the most important events on the war on terror so far has occurred. Somehow, we seem to have captured Al Queda's #3 man, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, even while building up for Iraq and dealing with Turkey and the U.N. How is it possible that the world's last superpower could do multiple tasks at once? I thought that our war on Iraq was/is distracting us from the "real" war on terror? Just lucky, I guess, huh?