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2008-09-11
http://www.michiganmessenger.com/4076/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote
MS to hide Senate race at bottom of the ballot: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/opinion/11thu1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print
MS to hide Senate race at bottom of the ballot: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/opinion/11thu1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print
Brief thought on 9/11
2008-09-11 17:21How you felt when the Towers were attacked, came tumbling down, killing 3000 innocent Americans? The pain and grief and outrage at senseless violence?
Other people feel that too, when we have a little oops, bomb their weddings or schools, and kill their children.
Which is not to say we should do nothing. But there's often a difference between protecting ourselves and killing others, not to mention between killing others *we're really sure of* and killing others we have some sort of intelligence on. Between killing with caution and regret, and killing with joyful bloodlust.
How much have we spent on securing our borders and planes and ports, against *any* attack, vs. attacking a couple of countries, one of them not even connected to 9/11? Spent in money, spent in blood, spent in loss of moral authority.
Other people feel that too, when we have a little oops, bomb their weddings or schools, and kill their children.
Which is not to say we should do nothing. But there's often a difference between protecting ourselves and killing others, not to mention between killing others *we're really sure of* and killing others we have some sort of intelligence on. Between killing with caution and regret, and killing with joyful bloodlust.
How much have we spent on securing our borders and planes and ports, against *any* attack, vs. attacking a couple of countries, one of them not even connected to 9/11? Spent in money, spent in blood, spent in loss of moral authority.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122100226859616967.html?mod=todays_columnists
"Their kids aren't going to go to Ivy League schools. Their sons leave high school and join the military to serve our country. Their husbands and wives work two jobs to make sure the family is sustained."
Generally speaking, though, when husbands and wives work two jobs each it is not merely because they are virtuous but because working one job doesn't earn them enough to get by. The two-job workers in Middle America aren't spurning the Ivy League and joining the military straight out of high school just because they're people of principle, although many of them are. It is because they can't afford to do otherwise. ...
A few days ago I talked politics with Donn Teske, the president of the Kansas Farmers Union and a former Republican. Barack Obama may come from a big city, he admits, but the Farmers Union gives him a 100% rating for his votes in Congress. John McCain gets a 0%. "If any farmer in the Plains States looked at McCain's voting record on ag issues," Mr. Teske says, "no one would vote for him."
"Their kids aren't going to go to Ivy League schools. Their sons leave high school and join the military to serve our country. Their husbands and wives work two jobs to make sure the family is sustained."
Generally speaking, though, when husbands and wives work two jobs each it is not merely because they are virtuous but because working one job doesn't earn them enough to get by. The two-job workers in Middle America aren't spurning the Ivy League and joining the military straight out of high school just because they're people of principle, although many of them are. It is because they can't afford to do otherwise. ...
A few days ago I talked politics with Donn Teske, the president of the Kansas Farmers Union and a former Republican. Barack Obama may come from a big city, he admits, but the Farmers Union gives him a 100% rating for his votes in Congress. John McCain gets a 0%. "If any farmer in the Plains States looked at McCain's voting record on ag issues," Mr. Teske says, "no one would vote for him."