simple solution

so now everyone and every media outlet is expecting Obama or McCain to have an economic plan to solve the current situation. Simple:

1) cut taxes

2) cut Congressional spending

3) and that's it.

We live in such a "Great Society" today that everyone is expecting the President to solve the economy. Don't people realize that that is the last thing we need right now is for the government to take over the economy? The market should be free without the excessive regulations we're seeing today. As for this mother of all bailouts, it shouldn't have happened. Would we see a worldwide economic depression? Sure. Why not? May teach people to be more fiscal and responsible with their activities. The market will correct itself. So what we have here is Bush stuck between a rock and a hard place with this government bailout. Because if he did nothing, then I can near-guarantee you Obama would win in November because it'll unfortunately look bad for the Republicans. I smell 1992 deja vu...

But typical McCain. What did he do? He joined the Obama brigade and crucified Wall Street. What McCain should've done is targeted Obama in how he and the Democrats have a lot to do with what's been happening the last few weeks. Go back to the Clinton days.

Comments welcome.

Michael Yon

I think it was Muz that turned me onto Michael Yon. This guy has been indispensable in his coverage of the Surge in Iraq, and now he is in Afghanistan. Be sure to read his latest report.

I didn't keep up with the news well enough to know just how bad the situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated until I read about it in one of his reports just a few months ago. We're not out of the woods yet in Afghanistan, but the nice thing about having problems there is we will get less resistance internationally and from the Dems at home when it comes to supporting the force we have there.

Cuba

Last night, the U.S. men's national team played its first game in Cuba in over 60 years, beating the Cubans 1-0. While I watched part of this game (holy crap, our national team looks terrible), it got me thinking about our stance towards Cuba.

We've had a trade embargo with Cuba for years, and it made a little sense during the Cold War. But Cuba no longer has its Russian enablers, and yet the embargo still exists. This embargo has been completely ineffective - there have been zero signs of reform in Cuba. Opening trade with a totalitarian country leads to a freer country, as the citizenry can observe what freedom is to the nations they trade with and demand the same things from their government. It's time to lift (or at least ease) the embargo on Cuba.

This is an issue that Republicans are usually wrong on, though, because they are beholden to the mistaken idea from the Cuban-American population in south Florida (that they need to get elected) that this embargo is necessary to be "tough" on the totalitarian regime. In the meantime, their families continue to suffer.

In general, however, the Republicans get it right on free trade. A few weeks ago, I read an article about "reverse illegal immigration" - basically, illegal immigrants in south Texas were going back to Mexico because of more favorable economic conditions down there. This is something that, I believe, NAFTA can take credit for.

Anyway, as an aside, read this story about a Cuban with some honkin' brass cojones.

Western Conservatism

Admittedly, I initially wasn't as excited about the Palin nomination as others, and my gut reaction to it was that it was pandering and tokenism. The buzz about her speech has pretty much passed me by, as I make it a point to not listen to convention or State of the Union speeches, since I think they are full of the typical political boilerplate. However, the more I learn about Palin, the more I like.

This article best sums it up for me:

Hailing from Arizona and Alaska, the Republican ticket has a chance to rekindle a western conservatism different from the old Yankee paternalist sort or the Bible Belt version. They like their guns out there (some still kill their own food) and they are pro-life and deeply pro-America, of course. But at a time of grave challenges, the themes of economic freedom and opportunity, the resistance to the idea that government holds all the answers, could resonate with voters.

If there's a politician that I can identify with in terms of worldview, it's Barry Goldwater. His viewpoints basically mirror mine - a sort of "conservative libertarianism". This sort of "rugged individualist" conservatism seemed on the rise in the Western US, but it is completely foreign to people out here, and it's depressing. To people out here, conservatism isn't something that you can defend intellectually, and it's fruitless to even attempt. I honestly didn't see any hope, as I figured this individualism would slowly be suffocated out by what I see around here (indeed, parts of the west coast are being swallowed by it). But Palin embodies these principles, and is probably the first politician to really do so since Reagan. Bush sure as hell has forsaken them.

Anyway, I'm still not excited about the election, but of course I want to see McCain win so I can mock the dour faces around me with loud, cathartic guffaws of joy.

ironic, but not surprising

McCain accepts the Republican nomination...but attacks his own party several times tonight. Which isn't really surprising coming from McCain...and some of it rightfully deserved I hate to say. I enjoyed Bush's run, but there were plenty of issues, events, etc. over the past 8 years under Bush and the Republicans that made me vomit. They're not fully at fault (especially after 2006), but they still got Washington-ized.

Will McCain really bring change to Washington? Bush said he would in 2000 but it still remains somewhat the same.

My dream is if Palin, Jindal, Rice, Pawlenty, Pence, Romney, Burr, Cantor, Putnam, Thune, Ryan, McCarthy, Kirk, and more, all these "new wave" conservatives to take over. The media is calling them "partisan." That's exactly what we need. Don't pander to the "Hillary voters." We don't need them. They're the N.O.W. feminazis, not real ladies. Reagan won because he was conservative, contrary to what everyone says "he reached across the aisle." They weren't called Reagan Democrats for nothing because they were a different breed like most liberals today. Although most of them hated Reagan.

What happened in Georgia

I think I posted this in my facebook profile a week or so ago, but not here. It's a long read, but a good one, and I wanted to point you guys to it in case you hadn't seen it yet.

Michael Totten meeting with a couple experts on the Caucasus do discuss what happened between Russia and Georgia:

Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.

Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn't start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.

In other words, there was a KGB style propaganda war to cover up a coordinated effort revealing the true imperial intentions of Putin. Surprise, surprise.

Climate Change on the Horizon?

I posted before about how a shock to our food supply could have a devastating impact on our standard of living. While it was in the context of the potential of a catastrophic collision with space debris, the impact that the solar cycle has on our climate is not well understood and could potentially be the source of such a shock.

The sun has decreased its activity greatly in the past month, and prior:

The sun has reached a milestone not seen for nearly 100 years: an entire month has passed without a single visible sunspot being noted.

The event is significant as many climatologists now believe solar magnetic activity – which determines the number of sunspots -- is an influencing factor for climate on earth.

Here's a plot of recent sunspot trends, and a longer term history:























The sunspot cycle has been extremely predictable for centuries, as can be seen on the plot above. If we don't see that above plot start eking up, it could be worrisome. The "Maunder Minimum" corresponded to the "Little Ice Age", a time of bitterly cold, long winters and all the consequences that follow for a population dependent on agriculture.

The relationship between the sun's cosmic rays and our climate is not well understood, but the coincidence of sunspot minima and lower overall global temperatures, I think, shouldn't be ignored. Especially when a few harsh winters (with the concomitant bad growing seasons) could make food scarce enough that while the developed world might consider it an inconvenience, the third world could be severely impacted.