Minor Thoughts from me to you

Proponents for NFL retiree benefits get say before Congress

Advocates demanding improved benefits to retired NFL players will have their say Tuesday before Congress.

Increased attention the past few years about the medical and financial plight of some former players finally prompted Congress to look at the perceived problem. The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law will hold a hearing Tuesday at the Rayburn House Office Building.

I must have missed the clause in Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution that gave Congress oversight of the NFL. How is this any of their business? I get that NFL retirees have a lot of medical and financial problems. I just don't get where Congress has the responsibility to fix it. That responsibility properly rests with the NFL.

The players union is pretty powerful, the league is rich, and the league loves to have a squeaky clean image. Let the league take care of the problem.

The Supreme Court handed down a decision in FEC vs Wisconsin Right to Life today. The case revolved around the McCain-Feingold restrictions on free speech. I'm still in the process of reading the opinion and figuring out what it all means. Since I don't have an opinion yet, I turned to SCOTUS Blog for their analysis.

First though, a note about the makeup of the justices who decided the case. Bomb Throwers and Dismantlers.

Scalia and Thomas seem to be pursuing a different path than Roberts and Alito. The former want to blow things up quickly; the latter want to take them apart slowly. (Kennedy, the swing Justice, does whatever the hell he wants-- because, as a swing Justice-- he can.)

In all three cases, we see that Scalia and Thomas are much more willing to overturn existing doctrines that they oppose. Roberts and Alito, on the other hand, want to chip away at the doctrines slowly, using distinctions that make little sense on their own, but undermine older precedents-- leaving the possibility that they will be ripe for overruling later on.

It is the difference between bomb throwing and dismantling.

Frankly, I'm more of a bomb thrower than a dismantler myself. That's why I like Judge Janice Rogers Brown so much. On the other hand, Roberts and Alito may be able to accomplish more through a slow, gradual chipping process. Take today's decision in WRTL today.

WRTL: A Constitutional Sea Change

The 5-4 decision in WRTL is a blockbuster. Effectively, though silently, it overrules a central element in the Court's most recent prior confrontation with the campaign-finance problem at issue, the 5-4 decision in McConnell, issued only four years ago when Justice O'Connor (and Chief Justice Rehnquist) were on the Court. There is no doubt today's decision reflects a constitutional sea change that is likely to have dramatic effects on upcoming elections. Some will celebrate that change, others will bemoan it, but that the change is dramatic cannot be doubted.

Now, we are likely to see a return of the kinds of ads we saw before McCain-Feingold: ads that contain a fig-leaf of reference to issues that is just enough to give them constitutional protection, even if the ads are close to hard core efforts to influence election outcomes. For First Amendment libertarians, this outcome will be celebrated. For those who fear "undue influence" of corporations and/or unions over federal officeholders, this outcome will be a major blow.

WRTL: Big Win for Campaign Finance Deregulation

In my writings on campaign finance, I have analogized the Supreme Court's campaign finance cases to the swing of a pendulum. We began with Buckley, which was a multi-authored schizophrenic opinion offering something (a ban on independent campaign expenditures by individuals) to those who believe that most campaign finance laws conflict with First Amendment rights of speech and association, and something else (upholding of campaign contribution limits) to those who believe that the government's interest in preventing corruption, insuring the integrity of the electoral process or promoting electoral equality (though the Buckley court itself eschewed that interest). The early post-Buckley cases, such as Bellotti, and NCPAC were deregulationist, and were followed by the period I've called the New Deference, where the four liberals on the Court, joined by Justice O'Connor, upheld a wide range of campaign finance laws, including major provisions of the McCain-Feingold law (the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Act, or BCRA) in a number of different cases. Last year's Randall decision showed Justice Breyer trying to salvage the campaign finance regime and prevent the Chief and Justice Alito from going to the deregulationist side. Today it is clear that those efforts have failed.

What's next? Expect a full, frontal attack on McConnell, likely manufactured by Jim Bopp, as invited by Justice Alito (not to mention Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas). Within a few years, expect the Court to take another campaign contributions case, revisit Randall, and reconsider whether even higher contribution limits violate the First Amendment.

Wisconsin Right to Life in a Nutshell.

Today's decision in effect eviscerates that 60-year-old rule for all practical purposes -- it overrules Austin in all but name, and for the first time in 60 years establishes a constitutional regime in which corporations are entitled to the same First Amendment protections as individuals, notwithstanding that, as the Court stressed in Austin, corporations' "voice" in public debate is magnified considerably by virtue of numerous advantages that state law provides to such artificial entities.

That is to say: This is a very good day for the speech rights of corporations, and for the ability of government officials to engage in speech that favors religion -- but not such a good day for the speech rights of students who would "celebrate" drug use rather than debate whether it should be lawful.

WRTL: The Anti-McConnell

FEC v. WRTL is the anti-McConnell. The majority and plurality opinions -- Chief Justice Roberts's opinion speaks for the Court only in the introductory and jurisdictional sections; the sections dealing with the challenge to electioneering communication section of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) were joined only by Justice Alito — breaks with McConnell at every level in the general approach to campaign finance regulation; in the doctrinal analysis of corporate electioneering communications; and in its specific holding concerning the constitutionality of the electioneering communication restriction.

At the highest level, WRTL rejects the view that campaign finance restrictions can be justified and sustained as democracy-promoting measures that advance government integrity. Where McConnell saw campaign finance jurisprudence as entailing the reconciliation of competing constitutional values — democracy and free speech — Chief Justice Roberts flatly proclaimed that WRTL is "about political speech" only. So much for Justice Breyer's theory of Active Liberty.

Do I know what all of that means? Not yet. But it's clear that a lot changed with today's case. As one of the "First Amendment libertarians", I'm overjoyed at the outcome of this case. I'd have preferred that the court blow up McCain-Feingold entirely, but I'll settle for a simple gutting.

This post is a random grab bag of what I found interesting this weekend.

A Long Line for a Shorter Wait at the Supermarket. A search for higher customer satisfaction (and higher profits) led Whole Foods to revamp their checkout lines.

Lines can also hurt retailers. Starbucks spooked investors last summer when it said long lines for its cold beverages scared off customers. Wal-Mart, too, has said that slow checkouts have turned off many.

And they are easily turned off. Research has shown that consumers routinely perceive the wait to be far longer than it actually is.

Whole Foods executives spent months drawing up designs for a new line system in New York that would be unlike anything in their suburban stores, where shoppers form one line in front of each register.

The result is one of the fastest grocery store lines in the city. An admittedly unscientific survey by this reporter found that at peak shopping times "” Sunday, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. "” a line at Whole Foods checked out a person every 4.5 seconds, compared with 19.6 seconds for a line at Trader Joe's.

Put Kieran on a poster. A student in Saskatchewan, Canada learned that independent learning is a quick route to the principal's office.

King, who is in Grade 10 at a high school in tiny Wawota, Sask., started researching marijuana after he and his fellow students were given an audiovisual presentation about drugs earlier in the year. The presentation, from his entirely believable description, was typical of its kind: short on background facts and long on horror stories.

On May 30, Kieran, who is described as "research-obsessed" by his mother, was chatting with friends around the school lunch table and telling them about what he'd discovered, largely from scholarly and government sources. He argued that marijuana carries a near-zero risk of overdose, that it has been approved by Health Canada for medical use and that it kills an infinitesimal fraction of the people that alcohol and tobacco do every week -- claims so uncontroversial you'd have to be high on something much stronger than pot to dispute them.

But one of the students who'd witnessed the conversation apparently finked to the warden. (From this day forward I'm going to avoid the use of the term "principal." If schools are going to be run like prisons, let's adopt the appropriate lingo.) Boss bull Susan Wilson ordered Kieran to stop talking about marijuana on school premises -- even though he had been outside the classroom, where school officials have to meet a justifiably high standard before interfering with a student's freedom of speech -- and later she called his mother to warn her that "promoting drug use" would not be tolerated. According to the education director of the school division, she was also told "if there were any drugs brought into the school, the police could be involved."

Next up, robots may make arguments over illegal immigrants moot. Farms Fund Robots to Replace Migrant Fruit Pickers

Vision Robotics, a San Diego company, is working on a pair of robots that would trundle through orchards plucking oranges, apples or other fruit from the trees. In a few years, troops of these machines could perform the tedious and labor-intensive task of fruit picking that currently employs thousands of migrant workers each season.

The robotic work has been funded entirely by agricultural associations, and pushed forward by the uncertainty surrounding the migrant labor force. Farmers are "very, very nervous about the availability and cost of labor in the near future," says Vision Robotics CEO Derek Morikawa.

Once again, we see an example of political uncertainty leading companies to make investments and decisions that they wouldn't ordinarily make. Something to keep in mind anytime Congress starts debating something -- the debate itself can affect the real world.

Finally, many men are so afraid of child molestation accusations that they're no longer volunteering for any position that would put them near children. See Daily Pundit » Where Are The Big Brothers?.

The article sets out a number of possible reasons men don't volunteer at Big Brothers-Big Sisters in greater numbers "“ but the fact that the rate at BB-BS is less than the overall average for volunteer-based organizations moves me to throw out an undiscussed possibility: men are afraid of having their lives destroyed by a false accusation, and fear the BB-BS will protect itself by throwing its resources behind the accuser.

In Arizona, almost 60 percent of grade school principals and nearly 90 percent of teachers are women. Six years ago, the majority of principals were men. Some schools have no men, meaning kids may not have a male teacher or principal until middle or high school. It's the same picture nationally.

... Scottsdale's Serna said the fear of being accused of inappropriate touching or abuse has made lots of educators uncomfortable. Many administrators and teachers leave the profession out of fear of lawsuits or false accusations.

Not all of the news out of Iraq is good. Some of it is downright depressing.

But the political situation has deteriorated. The Maliki government may well be on life support. At least eight Cabinet posts are effectively vacant while two key partners in the pro-government bloc, the Fadila (Virtue) Party and Muqtada al-Sadr's group, have walked out. Another key group within the coalition, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, has effectively switched to the opposition and is emerging as Maliki's most outspoken critic.

Thus, the Maliki government now lacks an effective majority in the National Assembly (parliament) and theoretically could be brought down with a no-confidence motion any day.

Worse still, the Shiite alliance, which provided the core element of political stability, has ceased to exist. Even Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the primus inter pares of Shiite clerics, no longer enjoys the unifying clout he did a year or so ago.

It may be premature to speak of political paralysis. But the fact is that the Maliki government has been unable to pass key items of its program. Crucial bills on the oil industry and the distribution of oil revenues remain bogged down in parliamentary committees. Also unresolved are such explosive problems as the status of Kirkuk (a city disputed between the Kurds and Sunni Arabs) and the creation of new federal entities.

The government's weakness also prevents it from setting a date and rules for the municipal elections needed to create local government units to end de facto control by militias in many parts of the country.

Our troops have been doing a fantastic job of kicking out Al-Qaeda and taking back Iraq. Unfortunately, military force can only take Iraq so far. At some point, the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government need to decide that they want to actually cooperate in making their country a peaceful success. Until they do that, little will change in Iraq.

Alzheimer's is one of the diseases that scares me the most. I absolutely hate the idea of losing my memory and being completely unable to function -- or even remember who my family and friends are. That's why I was thrilled to read about an upcoming Alzheimer's vaccine.

A revolutionary drug that stops Alzheimer's disease in its tracks could be available within a few years.

It could prevent people from reaching the devastating final stages of the illness, in which sufferers lose the ability to walk, talk and even swallow, and end up totally dependent on others.

The jab, which is now being tested on patients, could be in widespread use in as little as six years.

Existing drugs can delay the progress of the symptoms, but their effect wears off relatively quickly, allowing the disease to take its devastating course. In contrast, the new vaccine may be able to hold the disease at bay indefinitely.

Early tests showed the vaccine is highly effective at breaking up the sticky protein that clogs the brain in Alzheimer's, destroying vital connections between brain cells.

When the jab was given to mice suffering from a disease similar to Alzheimer's, 80 per cent of the patches of amyloid protein were broken up.

If this pans out, it would be absolutely fantastic news.

One Week of Operation Phantom Thunder

Al Qaeda prepared for the assault on Baqubah. "Days before the offensive, unmanned U.S. drones recorded video of insurgents digging trenches with back-hoes," the Associated Press reported. "About 30 improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, were planted on Route Coyote, the U.S. code name for a main Baqubah thoroughfare." About 15 percent of the western portion of the city is said to have been cleared, and the operation could take up to 60 days.

As operations in Diyala province are ongoing, Rear Admiral Mark Fox, a spokesman for Multinational Forces Iraq, stated Iraqi and Coalition forces are laying a trap for al Qaeda fighters fleeing the hot zones in the belts. "If you've got [the regions] properly cordoned then they're going to flee into somebody's arms. It's a trap," he stated. As we've noted since the beginning of the operation, Iraqi and U.S. forces have been placed in blocking positions along the rivers and key choke points.

Al Qaeda is left with fewer places to hide: Anbar Province no longer a safe haven, pressure has increased Baghdad and the hot operations in the belts, and the Shia south is hostile. Ninewa, Kirkuk, and Salahadin, remain as al Qaeda's fall back positions, but Iraqi and U.S. Forces have prepared for this option. Some of the best Iraqi Army units are stationed in the northwest. These are seasoned units that have recently returned from supporting the Baghdad Security Operation.

... the purpose of the Baghdad Security Plan and Operation Phantom Thunder is to deny al Qaeda Baghdad and the Belts, and to kill as many operatives and leaders as possible in the process. When al Qaeda attempts to regroup, it will be in the hinterlands, and in some cases, in regions less hospitable to its actions.

Militants Said to Flee Before U.S. Offensive

In his news conference, General Odierno offered the broadest assessment yet of the multipronged American offensive around Baghdad that got under way this week, using the additional troops sent to Iraq as part of Mr. Bush's troop buildup. Despite the flight of the Qaeda leaders from Baquba -- a pattern that appears to have been replicated in other areas included in the new offensive, including Qaeda strongholds along the Tigris River south of Baghdad -- he adopted an upbeat tone, saying the offensive held "a good potential" for reducing the Qaeda threat to the point that American force levels in Iraq could be reduced by next spring.

First, he said, American and Iraqi troops would need to sustain their crackdown long enough for Iraqi forces to move into neighborhoods cleared of Qaeda fighters and hold them. This is a pattern American commanders have tried unsuccessfully before, as in a failed attempt to secure wide areas of Baghdad last summer. But General Odierno said Iraqi forces were "getting better," "staying and fighting," "taking casualties" and adding an additional 7,500 soldiers to their overall strength every five weeks.

Addressing the problems facing American troops in Baquba, General Odierno played down the significance of the Qaeda leaders fleeing ahead of the offensive, saying American forces would hunt them down. "I guarantee you, we're going to track down those leaders," he said. "And we're in the process of doing that. We know who they are, and we're coming after them, and we're going to work that extremely hard."

After more than three years of saying publicly that they had all the troops they needed for the war here, American commanders have begun acknowledging in the past year that the ability of the Qaeda groups to establish new strongholds after old ones are destroyed -- and to regenerate their leadership -- has owed much to the fact that American manpower has been severely stretched.

But with all the additional Army brigades ordered into the war by Mr. Bush now in the field, along with additional Marine units, the commanders here now have more firepower than they have had at any time since the American invasion in 2003. With that, the American generals face what they have acknowledged to be the best, and possibly last, chance to persuade critics in Congress and a disillusioned American public that persisting in Iraq is worthwhile.

Arrowhead Ripper: Surrender or Die

The combat in Baqubah should soon reach a peak. Al Qaeda seems to have been effectively isolated. The initial attack on 19 June achieved enough surprise that al Qaeda was caught off guard and trapped. They have been beaten back mostly into pockets and are surrounded and will be dealt with.

LTG Ray Odierno visited Baqubah on the 21st. Odierno clarified that this battle is to be final: we are not going to do this again. Odierno stressed to our commanders that they need to be thinking of an end-state that results in Iraqis taking charge, but that Iraqi commanders should not be given the reins until they are ready, so that the result is we set them up for success. Odierno's timing was remarkable: even before he arrived, the commanders here were talking about end-state daily and, on a more sour note, our commanders have their hands full with the local Iraqi commanders who seem less competent (to be kind) than those I have seen elsewhere, such as in Mosul.

Our guys are winning. Al Qaeda is about to be strangled and pummeled to death in this town, but the local Iraqi leadership is severely wanting. This was most obviously noted in one area in particular, where there were some slight indicators of a possible humanitarian need. "Crisis" certainly is not the correct word, but there are displaced persons numbering at least in the hundreds. LTC Fred Johnson actually took me out there. (The access even to "bad" news is amazing with this Brigade.)

I have been with LTC Fred Johnson for several days. LTC Johnson seems to recharge on sunlight or moonlight and can run a man into the ground. After seeing the humanitarian need building with no action to abate it underway, Johnson was very unhappy. He immediately started jerking choke chains on the people who are supposed to be handling humanitarian need, trying to avert having it build into a crisis.

This is where the inept local Iraqi commanders come in. I've seen them in meeting after meeting, over the past few days, finding ways to be underachievers. The Iraqi commanders have dozens of large trucks and have only to drive to our base to collect the supplies and distribute those supplies to the people displaced in the battle. Our troops are fully engaged in combat, yet the Iraqi leaders were not able to carry that load without LTC Johnson supplying the initiative. The Kurds would have had this fixed yesterday. The Iraqi commanders in Mosul would have fixed this. The local Iraqi command climate is disappointing by comparison.

There are serious technical problems that I have brought up privately to high-ranking PAO officers over the past nearly two years which persist today, despite that any one of them could be easily resolved with better planning on the part of PAO. I've found that communicating with them privately is generally useless. (Obviously, as the problems persist.) A person has got to tell a million people before they are heard. Since it will affect how the news from here gets reported, and since I know the other writers here are often afraid to speak up about this stuff (one senior PAO officer actually threatened to kick me out a few months ago), I'll take the heat on telling the million people:

I could be in combat now, but have been wasting time trying to get a badge to get into the dining facility. Got one. Not a big deal, until you add that up for 20 reporters all wasting part of their very limited time (we are in a war), and soldiers' time (they are fighting it) getting ridiculous paperwork when the Press ID could simply say, "Unescorted access to dining facilities is authorized. Please call DSN 867 5309 with any questions." Simple solution. I have wasted hours on the issue of eating over the past few days. It adds up when your time windows open and close unpredictably and rapidly.

On communications, senior Public Affairs officers knew this battle was unfolding. It would have taken practically zero assets to set up a media shack or tent in advance. The shack or tent only needs to have electrical outlets and an internet dish, along with phone lines. Cots would be nice but I can sleep in the dirt. (Sleeping arrangements here are excellent. I'm in a tent with soldiers and have a cot.) We need a dedicated dish and phone lines because for hours each day our RBGANS are not working, nor are our Thuraya sat-phones. All those reporters flooding out here are about to flood into difficult reporting terrain. Cell phones do not work in Baqubah.

Public Affairs should have known this months ago. Valuable stories about our soldiers and the battle are being lost and will never be filed because reporters, after a long day of being on the battlefield, cannot make a simple phone call, or file a story. Why be here? It's pretty dangerous, and insurance is expensive. I had to skip a mission this morning because I cannot make communications, and am down to filing stories on the fly again without time for editing. There is no other way to keep the flow open, and if you are reading this, it's only after I've wasted hours trying to upload it. Hours I could have been with our soldiers, telling about their days in one of the most important battles of this war.

Otherwise, the battle is going very well. A big fight seems to be brewing. As of about noon in Baqubah on the 22nd, there seems to be a lull in the fighting. A calm. This is about to get wet. At the going rate, al Qaeda in Baqubah will soon have two choices: Surrender, or die.

Wisconsin Congressman Ron Kind wants to reform the farm subsidy program.

Mr. Kind, a six-term congressman, has introduced legislation that would drastically reduce farm subsidies while pouring more money into land conservation programs and rural development. He gathered 200 votes for a similar bill in 2002 and says he believes he has additional momentum this time around.

To no one's surprise, Mr. Kind's crusade has raised the hackles of the powerful farm lobby and its supporters in Congress, who describe his proposal as naïve, ill conceived and even dangerous.

He argues that if Congress is going to overhaul the farm program, it has to do it across all commodities, including the dairy industry. Mr. Kind said his farmers realized that change was inevitable and would welcome more money and programs for beginning farmers.

Under Mr. Kind's proposal, subsidies would be reduced and replaced with "revenue management accounts" that would function like an individual retirement account, with the difference being that farmers could tap into it to pay for small losses that are not covered by crop insurance.

Over the next five years, Mr. Kind's proposal would increase spending on conservation by $6 billion, anti-hunger programs by $5 billion, renewable energy by $1 billion and rural development, $700 million.

I'm intrigued by this proposal. I'm somewhat surprised that a Wisconsin democrat would propose changing the farm subsidy program. (This state practically worships at the altar of farm subsidies.) I'd also like to know more about these "revenue management accounts". Are they funded by farmers or by the federal government? What kind of conservation spending is being increased? What do the anti-hunger programs do? Is renewable energy just a codeword for increased ethanol production? If so, how is that different from the existing subsidy programs that give money to corn growers?

These are just a few of the questions that I'd like to have answered. As soon as I find out more, I'll tell you.

GasBuddy has a nifty map of gasoline prices by county. I imagine that ease of transportation explains part of the price differences. However, I think that most of the difference is explained by differences in state taxes and EPA regulations.

Keep this map in mind the next time you're tempted to blame oil companies for expensive gas.

Hold on to your wallets -- the Senate is in session. Senators Grassley and Baucus plan to make your gasoline even more expensive.

A proposal to hit oil companies with $29 billion in new taxes advanced in the Senate on Tuesday, targeting the money to energy conservation, wind turbines, electric hybrid cars and clean coal technology.

The massive tax package, double what Democrats had discussed as recently as last week, is "designed to promote clean and sustainable energy," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee that approved the measure by a 15-5 vote.

It is expected later this week to be added to energy legislation being considered by the full Senate.

It gets worse.

The American Petroleum Institute, the oil company trade group, said in a statement that the taxes "will discourage new domestic production, discourage new investments in refinery capacity and would lead to the loss of good-paying U.S. jobs."

As I wrote previously, Congress has been discouraging investments in refinery capacity for decades. Our already limited refinery capacity is largely responsible for the current high price of gasoline. We should be doing everything in our power to increase refinery capacity -- not decrease it more.

Baucus said he expects the oil companies to complain, but he doesn't believe the taxes "will substantially change these companies' incentives to produce energy."

Maybe not. But it will substantially change the price that these companies charge to consumers. Senator Grassley doesn't realize that -- maybe he's been smoking something green?

Grassley said the "narrow change" in tax policy "seems likely to have little if any effect on domestic production" or the price of gasoline at the pump.

Uh-huh. Raising taxes by $29 billion will have "little if any effect" on prices. How long has he been out of touch with reality? Also, does he have any plans to return to reality?

How expensive could this all get? The Heritage Foundation did some quick research and put together a state by state analysis for you. Living in Wisconsin, I could see prices rise from $3.29 a gallon (May price) to $3.60 a gallon next summer. By 2016, gasoline could rise as high as $6.62 a gallon. To Senators Grassley and Baucus: "Thanks a lot. I didn't really need that extra $113 in my monthly budget anyway."

As if this wasn't bad enough, Congress would like to make your car more dangerous.

Despite Congress' repeated efforts to repeal the laws of physics in favor of something more politically correct, the fact remains that bigger is safer when it comes to vehicle size. Supporters of increasing Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards ignore what millions of minivan and SUV drivers already know: They stand a much better chance of surviving an accident than drivers of lighter, more fuel-efficient subcompacts. The problem is that significantly improving fuel economy means cutting average vehicle weight. The curb weight of a typical family sedan can be reduced from the present 3,200 pounds to, say, 2,800 pounds. But maintaining the same level of safety with advanced air bags, refined crush zones and other technological fixes could make the lighter family sedan unaffordable for middle-class buyers.

Advocates of higher CAFE standards claim that the smaller vehicles will pollute the air less and consume fewer natural resources. As a result, from a global perspective, such vehicles will do less damage to the environment and fewer people will die or get sick as a result of emissions-related causes. But most Americans with families to transport and businesses to move see a much more immediate and concrete health and safety benefit in driving vehicles that serve their purposes without putting at risk their lives and those of their loved ones. Only through force and coercion will they trade their practical vehicles for the smaller, less useful and often more expensive "green" vehicles favored by higher CAFE advocates.

The land of the free -- she ain't quite what she used to be.

Michael Yon has an update on the operations in and around Baqubah. Operation Arrowhead Ripper: Day One

Our guys are tough. The enemy in Baqubah is as good as any in Iraq, and better than most. That's saying a lot. But our guys have been systematically trapping them, and have foiled some big traps set for our guys. I don't want to say much more about that, but our guys are seriously outsmarting them. Big fights are ahead and we will take serious losses probably, but al Qaeda, unless they find a way to escape, are about to be slaughtered. Nobody is dropping leaflets asking them to surrender. Our guys want to kill them, and that's the plan.

A positive indicator on the 19th and the 20th is that most local people apparently are happy that al Qaeda is being trapped and killed. Civilians are pointing out IEDs and enemy fighters, so that's not working so well for al Qaeda. Clearly, I cannot do a census, but that says something about the locals.

The battle for Baqubah continues. Bill Roggio has an update on how it's going.

Operation Arrowhead Ripper, the assault on Baqubah, kicked off with an air assault. Iraqi Army scouts accompanied elements of the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 2nd Infantry Division. The operation in Baqubah is modeled after the successful operation to clear Tal Afar in September of 2005, which was designed and executed by Col. H.R. McMaster. The plan is to essentially "seal, kill, hold and rebuild." The city is cordoned, neighborhoods are identified as friendly or enemy territory, the neighborhoods are then segmented and forces move in with the intent to kill or capture the enemy. As both Michael Gordon and Michael Yon reported from Baqubah, the goal isn't just to clear the city of insurgents, but to trap and kill them in place. The combat operations are then immediately followed by humanitarian and reconstruction projects.

At last count, three U.S. combat brigades, two Iraqi Army Brigades and one Iraqi National Police Brigade in direct action at Baqubah. The number of Iraqi brigades inside the city may be growing, however. "Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said about 5,000 Iraqi soldiers and 2,000 paramilitary police were fighting," reported the Associated Press. "Iraqi forces said they took control of neighborhoods in Baqouba and were greeted by cheering people." This would equate to two Iraqi Army brigades (2-5 and probably 3-5). The "paramilitary police" is probably 1st Iraqi National Police Mechanized Brigade from Taji.

And homegrown Iraqi terrorist Muqtada al-Sadr isn't being forgotten either.

While the major offensive operation is occurring in the Baghdad Belts against al Qaeda and Sunni insurgent holdouts, major raids continue against Sadr's forces and the Iranian cells in Baghdad and the south. Two major engagements occurred against Sadr's forces since Monday -- one in Amara and one in Nasariyah. Scores of Mahdi Army fighters were killed during both engagements after Iraqi Special Operations Forces, backed by Coalition support, took on Sadr's forces.

The Iraqi government and Multinational Forces Iraq are sending a clear message to Sadr: when the fighting against al Qaeda is finished, the Iranian backed elements of the Mahdi Army are next on the list if they are not disbanded. Also, the Iraqi military and Multinational Forces Iraq possesses enough forces to take on Sadr's militia if they attempt to interfere with current operations.

Read the whole thing.

I'm ecstatic to see that not everyone believes that my iPod is destroying the planet.

Local scientist calls global warming theory 'hooey'

Reid Bryson, known as the father of scientific climatology, considers global warming a bunch of hooey.

The UW-Madison professor emeritus, who stands against the scientific consensus on this issue, is referred to as a global warming skeptic. But he is not skeptical that global warming exists, he is just doubtful that humans are the cause of it.

There is no question the earth has been warming. It is coming out of the "Little Ice Age," he said in an interview this week.

"However, there is no credible evidence that it is due to mankind and carbon dioxide. We've been coming out of a Little Ice Age for 300 years. We have not been making very much carbon dioxide for 300 years. It's been warming up for a long time," Bryson said.

The Little Ice Age was driven by volcanic activity. That settled down so it is getting warmer, he said.

Humans are polluting the air and adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but the effect is tiny, Bryson said.

"It's like there is an elephant charging in and you worry about the fact that there is a fly sitting on its head. It's just a total misplacement of emphasis," he said. "It really isn't science because there's no really good scientific evidence."

Just because almost all of the scientific community believes in man-made global warming proves absolutely nothing, Bryson said. "Consensus doesn't prove anything, in science or anywhere else, except in democracy, maybe."

Psycologist Robert Epstein doesn't like adolescence.

Psychologist Robert Epstein argues in a provocative book, "The Case Against Adolescence," that teens are far more competent than we assume, and most of their problems stem from restrictions placed on them.

The whole culture collaborates in artificially extending childhood, primarily through the school system and restrictions on labor. The two systems evolved together in the late 19th-century; the advocates of compulsory-education laws also pushed for child-labor laws, restricting the ways young people could work, in part to protect them from the abuses of the new factories. The juvenile justice system came into being at the same time. All of these systems isolate teens from adults, often in problematic ways.

The factory system doesn't work in the modern world, because two years after graduation, whatever you learned is out of date. We need education spread over a lifetime, not jammed into the early years"”except for such basics as reading, writing, and perhaps citizenship. Past puberty, education needs to be combined in interesting and creative ways with work. The factory school system no longer makes sense.

Imagine what it would feel like--or think back to what it felt like--when your body and mind are telling you you're an adult while the adults around you keep insisting you're a child. This infantilization makes many young people angry or depressed, with their distress carrying over into their families and contributing to our high divorce rate. It's hard to keep a marriage together when there is constant conflict with teens.

We have completely isolated young people from adults and created a peer culture. We stick them in school and keep them from working in any meaningful way, and if they do something wrong we put them in a pen with other "children." In most nonindustrialized societies, young people are integrated into adult society as soon as they are capable, and there is no sign of teen turmoil. Many cultures do not even have a term for adolescence. But we not only created this stage of life: We declared it inevitable. In 1904, American psychologist G. Stanley Hall said it was programmed by evolution. He was wrong.

He has me convinced. My own experiences reflect this. My parents homeschooled me. By my early teen years, I was ready to get out of the house and start doing more. A mutual friend taught me about relational databases, then offered me a job working for his web startup company. I remember being totally astonished that I had to get permission from City Hall (literally), in order to work at age 15. (Actually, I couldn't work at age 15. I had to wait until I was officially 15½.)

Even at such a young age that policy angered me -- I wanted to work, I wanted to do more, and my parents were supportive of that. The state, however, assumed that I was incompetent and that my parents were exploitative. Thankfully, the waiver was easy to obtain. But it shouldn't even be necessary any longer. Factories no longer thrive on grunt labor. American factories require workers with lots of skill and expertise. Our economy is fundamentally different than it was in 1900. Repealing the overly restrictive child-labor laws would not lead to an increase in child labor -- except in those situations where young adults are hungry for a chance to work.

Ironically, because minors have only limited property rights, they don't have complete control over what they have bought. Think how bizarre that is. If you, as an adult, spend money and bring home a toy, it's your toy and no one can take it away from you. But with a 14-year-old, it's not really his or her toy. Young people can't own things, can't sign contracts, and they can't do anything meaningful without parental permission"”permission that can be withdrawn at any time. They can't marry, can't have sex, can't legally drink. The list goes on. They are restricted and infantilized to an extraordinary extent.

I was also frustrated, as a teenager, by the banking restrictions. I learned to manage my money at a young age. I'm fairly certain that my parents opened my first account when I was 13. Again, I was surprised to find that I wasn't allowed to have my own bank account (my parents were co-signers on the account) or credit card until age 18. I was reasonably mature, I was capable of handling my finances, and I didn't understand why the State insisted on treating me as a child.

If my daughter matures as quickly as my wife and I did, I intend to do everything I possibly can to help her skirt these ridiculous laws and regulations. I'll help her open a bank account, I'll help her get work permits, I'll probably even put her on my credit account -- there's no sense in treating her like a child if she acts like an adult.

The Club for Growth exists to "promote public policies that promote economic growth primarily through legislative involvement, issue advocacy, research, training and educational activity." They influence politics through the Club for Growth PAC. "The primary tactic of the separate Club for Growth PAC is to provide financial support from Club members to viable pro-growth candidates to Congress, particularly in Republican primaries."

Last year, they supported Tim Walberg against a tax-happy Republican incumbent. That support paid off last weekend, when Walberg -- a freshman congressman -- urged newly elected Blue Dog Democrats to support the Bush tax cuts.

Democrats in Congress are discounting advancements made possible by the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts passed by Congress and are trying to slap U.S. taxpayers with a $400 billion tax increase that will slow our economy's current progress.

If Democrats follow through on their budget promises, the American people will face the following:

• A $500 per child tax increase.
• A 55 percent Death Tax.
• A 13 percent tax increase for many small businesses.
• A 33 percent tax increase on capital gains.
• A 164 percent tax increase on dividends.

I believe Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats in Congress must join together to ensure the American economy is not crippled by a massive tax increase. I recently introduced the Tax Increase Prevention Act, legislation that would make permanent tax relief passed in 2001 and 2003.

My bill simply takes away all the sunset provisions of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief packages that passed Congress and provides American families and job-creators the certainty to plan for the future.

If my bill becomes law, the American people will see none of the tax increases Democrats are proposing on things like marriage, childbirth, adoption, earning money, saving money, paying college loans and dying.

Well played, sir.

The entire surge strategy -- to date -- has been a series of preparatory moves. General Petraeus and his staff have been busy positioning all of the pieces on the chessboard. Sure, they've made some changes in the way they patrol Baghad. But most of their plan has remained hidden, unseen, and dormant.

No longer. Yesterday, the plan went into effect. Now we see the strategy that General Petraeus has been waiting to implement. Now we see America's foremost counter-insurgency strategist make his move. Hang on -- this will get interesting.

Be Not Afraid:

Thoughts flow on the eve of a great battle. By the time these words are released, we will be in combat. Few ears have heard even rumors of this battle, and fewer still are the eyes that will see its full scope. Even now -- the battle has already begun for some -- practically no news about it is flowing home. I've known of the secret plans for about a month, but have remained silent.

This campaign is actually a series of carefully orchestrated battalion and brigade sized battles. Collectively, it is probably the largest battle since "major hostilities" ended more than four years ago. Even the media here on the ground do not seem to have sensed its scale.

...

Today Al Qaeda (AQ) is strong, but their welcome is tenuous in some regions as many Iraqis grow weary enough of the violence that trails them to forcibly evict AQ from some areas they'd begun to feel at home in. Meanwhile, our military, having adapted from eager fire-starting to more measured firefighting, after coming in so ham-fisted early on, has found agility in the new face of this war. Not lost on the locals was the fact that the Coalition wasn't alone in failing to keep the faith of its promises to Iraqis.

Whereas we failed with the restoration of services and government, AQ has raped too many women and boys in Anbar Province, and cut-off too many heads everywhere else for anyone here to believe their claims of moral superiority. And they don't even try to get the power going or keep the markets open or build schools, playgrounds and clinics for the children. In addition to destroying all of these resources, and murdering the Iraqis who work at or patronize them, AQ attacks people in mosques and churches, too. Thus, to those listening into the wind, an otherwise imperceptible tang in the atmosphere signals the time for change is at hand.

But now the AQ cancer is spreading into Diyala Province, straight along the Diyala River into Baghdad and other places. "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia" (AQM) apparently now a subgroup of ISI (the Islamic State of Iraq), has staked Baquba as the capital of their Caliphate. Whatever the nom de jour of their nom de guerre, Baquba has been claimed for their capital. I was in Diyala again this year, where there is a serious state of Civil War, making Baquba an unpopular destination for writers or reporters. (A writer was killed in the area about a month ago, in fact.) News coming from the city and surrounds most often would say things like, "near Baghdad," or "Northeast of Baghdad," and so many people have never even heard of Baquba.

Well, if you read the New York Times this morning, you heard about Baquba as our military strikes insurgents' base east of Baghdad.

The American military began a major attack against Sunni insurgent positions here in the capital of Diyala Province overnight, part of a larger operation aimed at blunting the persistent car and suicide bombings that have terrorized Iraqis and thwarted political reconciliation.

The assault by more than 2,000 American troops is unusual in its scope and ambition, representing a more aggressive strategy of attacking several insurgent strongholds simultaneously to tamp down violence throughout the country.

The fighting is expected to be hard. In recent months, Diyala has emerged as a center of the Sunni Arab insurgency as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other groups have made it their deadliest base of operations, supplanting Anbar Province. Violence in Anbar dropped after Sunni Arab tribes joined forces with the Americans to drive out Qaeda fighters.

If you want to know what's going down in Iraq and why it marks the biggest moment of the last four years, read both articles.

The Wisconsin State Journal published a few local reactions to the Wisconsin's ongoing budget debates. One reaction caught my eye.

Christa Decker of Madison said she depends on Medicaid programs for everything from her wheelchair to doctor's visits to long-term care. Decker, 51, who has both physical and cognitive disabilities, said that cuts to those services would have a direct impact on her life.

"You cannot cut out part of my life. This is too important to me," Decker said.

I'd like to pick on Ms. Decker just a little bit, on my way to illustrating a point. Ms. Decker is supported by money that comes from every taxpayer in Wisconsin and taxpayers from around the nation. Ms. Decker's life is sustained by the work of everyone around her. She's making a fairly common blanket statement: "If you cut taxes, you'll cut the money I depend on and throw my life into chaos."

That is a legitimate worry. Many people have come to depend on the money and services they receive from local, state, and federal governments. But there is another worry too, one that's expressed far less often. "What is the real cost of giving all of this money away?" Let me give you an example, straight out of my own budget. First, here's a breakdown of where our income goes.

Mortgage

25.84%

Taxes

21.42%

Tithe

10.37%

Student Loans

8.65%

Groceries

3.17%

Gasoline

3.04%

The remaining 30% goes into a large variety of small expenses and savings. Notice that $1 out of every $5 dollars we earn, goes straight into taxes. $0.20 out of every $1.00. $21 out of every $100. Gone. Straight off the top. That's a significant fraction of our income. We're a young married couple, just 2 years out of college. There are a lot of things we could be spending that money on. Here's a short list.

• Paying down student loans
• Paying down our mortgage
• Replacing the old roof on our house
• Replacing the ancient windows in our house
• Finishing our basement to increase the living space in our house
• Saving for a new laptop, to replace my wife's rapidly aging one
• Saving for a new car, so we won't have to take out a car loan next time around
• Saving for retirement
• Saving for our children's college education
• Saving to visit my parents, in Papua New Guinea

As you can see, paying down loans and increasing savings is a large part of our financial goals. We'd love to be free of our debt. There are times that it seems almost achievable. For instance, if we weren't paying taxes the past three months we could have either paid of 68% of one of our student loans or 20% of our home equity loan. And that's just in a three month period.

That's the cost of those "free" government services that so many people enjoy. Ms. Decker's life is financed by my family's increased debt and decreased savings. Oddly enough, those are the costs that are most likely to make me need a government handout later in life. Ironic, isn't it?

I don't know where the dividing line between necessary and unnecessary taxes is. And I don't have a plan for weaning the public off of the dole. I'm still thinking about that. But just remember that government services aren't free. And that the money I'm spending on taxes is money that I'm not spending on goods and services -- money that could be used to create jobs and wealth.

Senator Lieberman on Iraq. A few excerpts.

The officials I met in Baghdad said that 90% of suicide bombings in Iraq today are the work of non-Iraqi, al Qaeda terrorists.

[Our commanders in Baghdad] point out that the crux of al Qaeda's strategy is to spark Iraqi civil war.

Al Qaeda is launching spectacular terrorist bombings in Iraq, such as the despicable attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra this week, to try to provoke sectarian violence. Its obvious aim is to use Sunni-Shia bloodshed to collapse the Iraqi government and create a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, radicalizing the region and providing a base from which to launch terrorist attacks against the West.

Facts on the ground also compel us to recognize that Iran is doing everything in its power to drive us out of Iraq, including providing substantive support, training and sophisticated explosive devices to insurgents who are murdering American soldiers.

One Arab leader told me during my trip that he is extremely concerned about Tehran's nuclear ambitions, but that he doubted America's staying power in the region and our political will to protect his country from Iranian retaliation over the long term. Abandoning Iraq now would substantiate precisely these gathering fears across the Middle East that the U.S. is becoming an unreliable ally.

Anbar was one of al Qaeda's major strongholds in Iraq and the region where the majority of American casualties were occurring.

When I returned to Anbar on this trip, however, the security environment had undergone a dramatic reversal. Attacks on U.S. troops there have dropped from an average of 30 to 35 a day a few months ago to less than one a day now. ... One of Ramadi's leading sheikhs told me: "A rifle pointed at an American soldier is a rifle pointed at an Iraqi."

In Anbar, for example, the U.S. military has been essential to the formation and survival of the tribal alliance against al Qaeda, simultaneously holding together an otherwise fractious group of Sunni Arab leaders through deft diplomacy, while establishing a political bridge between them and the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad. "This is a continuous effort," Col. Charlton said. "We meet with the sheikhs every single day and at every single level."

In Baghdad, U.S. forces have cut in half the number of Iraqi deaths from sectarian violence since the surge began in February. They have also been making critical improvements in governance, basic services and commercial activity at the grassroots level.

The question now is, do we consolidate and build on the successes that the new strategy has achieved, keeping al Qaeda on the run, or do we abandon them?

Several weeks ago, Pastor John Piper preached a message entitled The Triumph of the Gospel in the New Heavens and the New Earth. I started listening to it yesterday. One portion in particular really caught my attention. I'm guilty of not taking sin anywhere near as seriously as it should be taken. This message really gives me something to think about.

The Unendurable Sight of Suffering

So the big picture in outline form: God created the universe out of nothing; it was all very good the way he made it; it had no flaws, no suffering, no pain, no death, no evil; then Adam and Eve did something in their hearts that was so horrifyingly evil -- so unspeakably wicked, preferring the fruit of a tree to fellowship with God -- that God not only sentenced them to death (Genesis 2:17), but also subjected the entire creation to what Paul called "futility" and "bondage to corruption" (Romans 8:21-22).

In other words, whereas once there was no suffering or pain or death, now every human dies, every human suffers, animals suffer, rivers overflow their banks suddenly and sweep villages away, avalanches bury skiers, volcanoes destroy whole cities, a tsunami kills 250,000 people in one night, storms sink Philippine ferries with 800 people on board, AIDS and malaria and cancer and heart disease kill millions of people old and young, a monster tornado takes out an entire Midwestern town, droughts and famines bring millions to the brink -- or over the brink -- of starvation. Freak accidents happen, and the son of a friend falls into a grain elevator and dies. Another loses an eye. And a baby is born with no face. If we could see one ten-thousandth of the suffering of the world at any given moment, we would we would collapse under the horror of it all. Only God can endure that sight and carry on.

The Horror of Sin Pictured in Creation's Futility

Why did God subject the natural order to such futility because of the sin of human beings? The natural order did not sin. Humans sinned. But Paul said, "The creation was subjected to futility." The creation was put in "bondage to corruption." Why? God said, "Cursed be the ground because of you" (Genesis 3:17). But why? Why are there natural disasters in creation in response to moral failures in man? Why not just simple death for all the guilty offspring of Adam? Why this bloody kaleidoscope of horrific suffering century after century? Why so many children with heart-wrenching disabilities?

My answer is that God put the natural world under a curse so that the physical horrors we see around us in diseases and calamities would become vivid pictures of how horrible sin is. In other words, natural evil is a signpost pointing to the unspeakable horror of moral evil.

God disordered the natural world because of the disorder of the moral and spiritual world -- that is, because of sin. In our present fallen condition, with our hearts so blinded to the exceeding wickedness of sin, we cannot see or feel how repugnant sin is. Hardly anyone in the world feels the abhorrent evil that our sin is. Almost no one is incensed or nauseated at the way they belittle the glory of God. But let their bodies be touched with pain, and God is called to give an account of himself. We are not upset at the way we injure his glory, but let him injury our little pinky finger and all our moral outrage is aroused. Which shows how self-exalting and God-dethroning we are.

The Trumpet Blast of Physical Pain

Physical pain is God's blast with a physical trumpet to tell us that something is dreadfully wrong morally and spiritually. Diseases and deformities are Satan's pride. But in God's overruling providence, they are God's portraits of what sin is like in the spiritual realm. That is true even though some of the most godly people bear those deformities. Calamities are God's previews of what sin deserves and will one day receive in judgment a thousand times worse. They are warnings.

O that we could all see and feel how repugnant, how offensive, how abominable it is to prefer anything to our Maker, to ignore him and distrust him and demean him and give him less attention in our hearts than we do the carpet on our living room floor. We must see this, or we will not turn to Christ for salvation from sin, and we will not want heaven for any reason but relief. And to want heaven for relief is to be excluded.

Wake Up! Sin Is Like This!

Therefore God, mercifully, shouts to us in our sicknesses and pain and calamities: Wake up! Sin is like this! Sin leads to things like this. (See Revelation 9:20; 16:9, 11.) Preferring television to fellowship with God is like this. Desiring relief in heaven, but not desiring the Redeemer, is like this. The natural world is shot through with horrors that aim to wake us from the dream world of thinking that demeaning God is no big deal. It is a horrifically big deal.

I preached this truth at Bethlehem on the fourth anniversary of Nine-Eleven, knowing that there were people in our church dealing with terrible suffering. Two or three weeks later, I was in a pre-service prayer meeting with our folks, and one of the young mothers of a severely disabled child prayed, "Dear Lord, help me to feel the horror of sin the way I feel the horror of my son's disability."

Wealth is created every day. Wealth is created when someone creates something new and fulfills a need that other people didn't even realize was unfulfilled. Wealth is created when someone figures out how to produce an existing product faster or cheaper than it can currently be produced. Individuals innovate for several main reasons: to fulfill a need of their own, to save money, or to fulfill a need revealed by others.

Fulfilling these needs can often make an innovator very rich. Liberals come along and tax it all away for the greater good of society -- but that's another blog post.

Robert Jordan is a recent Wisconsin success story.

Robert Jordan's 20-year career as a long-distance trucker involved a lot more than hauling cheese.

After buying his own truck in 1993, he used the cab as a mobile laboratory to experiment with energy-saving ideas that would cut expenses and put more money in his pocket.

Now those experiments are paying off. Jordan, 51, of Juneau, has patented a battery system to run a truck's electronic equipment so idling isn't necessary. He's started a business called Idle Free Systems and negotiated agreements with Mack Trucks and Chiquita Brands to use his system.

With three employees, Jordan moved this month into manufacturing space in Watertown. He said he hopes to sell about 200 units this year at $6,000 each, which would mean first-year revenue of $1.2 million.

You may think that shoe innovation has gone about as far as it can go. You may think that shoes are the most stable, dependable market available. You'd be wrong. Mark Klein discovered a completely untapped shoe market.

In late July, Mr. Klein's company, Skins Footwear, intends to break the shoe in two, giving it an outer part, including the sole and upper, which he calls a "skin," and a removable inner part, which he calls the "bone."

"The bone is the constant fit and feel," he says. "Then there's this blank canvas for you to express yourself with the skins.""

The idea is that a shopper will buy a bone, for about $60, and several skins, which will range from $125 to $300. People will shift from one skin to the next, depending on what they're doing, much the way they can with other kinds of apparel.

Mr. Klein, who is 33, says he thinks that his patented skin-and-bones concept will eliminate the problem people have with shoes that look good but don't fit correctly, since the bone should guarantee the same fit for any skin in that size. He also says frequent travelers will appreciate the chance to pack only the foldable, lightweight skins, instead of full pairs of shoes.

Sounds good to me. The suggested price points are a little high right now, but if they come down a bit I'd certainly be willing to buy a bone and some skins.

Speaking of shoes, check out Masai Barefoot Technology created by Swiss engineer Karl Müller.

In the early 1990s, Swiss engineer Karl Müller realized that both shoes and backache are unknown to the Masai tribesmen - and that there is a causal connection between these two facts. By walking barefoot on the natural, soft, uneven ground of their East African homeland, the Masai activate also those muscles that atrophy when on walks on hard, even surfaces wearing conventional shoes.

During a visit to Korea he made the startling discovery that walking barefoot over paddy fields alleviated his back pain. Back in Switzerland, Müller began to develop a footwear technology that would make the natural instability of soft ground such as Korean paddy fields or the East African savannah accessible also to those, who have to walk on hard surfaces. In 1996, after years spent on research and development, Masai Barefoot Technology was mature enough to be launched on the market. MBTs are now available in over twenty countries, and approximately one million pairs of this revolutionary footwear technology are sold every year.

Speaking of Africa, the next story caught my eye because it mentioned the ideological division between those that want to help Africa through trade and those that want to help Africa through aid. (I wrote about African aid and trade just a few days ago.) As I read through the story, however, I discovered a great story of risk and innovation.

In 1997, Mr. Conteh recalled in an interview, he heard Laurent D. Kabila, then the country's president, deliver a speech in which he called upon his countrymen to rebuild Congo's infrastructure after the 30-year dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko. Mr. Conteh, who had no experience in telecommunications, said he was inspired. He decided to build the nation's first GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) digital network.

Mr. Conteh said he went, cap in hand, to the minister of communications to ask for the country's first GSM license. In January 1998 he got it "” but he first had to pay the government a license fee of $100,000. Over the years, and with little explanation, he said, the government, which is often terribly short of money, increased the license fee, first to $400,000, then $2 million.

Throughout the early days of his company, Mr. Conteh faced challenges unknown to Western businesses. Once, after equipment providers declined to send engineers to Congo during a dangerous time in the country's unending civil strife, he encouraged the citizens of Kinshasa, the capital, to collect scrap metal and weld them into a cellphone tower.

By the middle of 2006, Vodacom Congo had more than 1.5 million subscribers, according to Vodacom's annual report. Today, Mr. Conteh says, the company he founded has more than three million subscribers who have spent, on average, around $50 for a handset and who prepay about $2 for every five minutes of talk time. He says a recent offer for his shares valued Vodacom Congo at more than $1.5 billion. (He refused to name the interested party.)

Mr. Conteh is building a telecommunications network where none existed before. With 600 employees and 5,000 contractors, Vodacom Congo is one of his country's biggest employers. If he realizes his ambition to create a stock market and offer shares in his company, he will have created new wealth.

Wow. That's impressive. All four of these stories are impressive. All four of these stories are also great examples of how wealth is really created. Be wary of those who would promise wealth through redistribution. True wealth comes from innovation, not redistribution. Rather than focusing on shifting around existing wealth, we should be focusing on creating new wealth. These four men vividly demonstrated how it works.

This is a followup to my previous post on Iraq and political resolve. In the last few days, Gaza has exploded into open civil war, with Hamas and Fatah busy wiping each other out. In light of that, do you really think that leaving Iraq will decrease the violence there?

Wonder what Iraq would look like if we left to morrow? Take a look at Gaza today. Then imagine a situation a thousand times worse.

We need to stop making politically correct excuses. Arab civilization is in collapse. Extremes dominate, either through dictatorship or anarchy. Thanks to their dysfunctional values and antique social structures, Arab states can't govern themselves decently.

We gave them a chance in Iraq. Israel "gave back" the Gaza Strip to let the Palestinians build a model state. Arabs seized those opportunities to butcher each other.

...

Meanwhile, back home, the get-out-now crowd pretends that, if only we pull out our troops, Iraqis will magically settle their internal grievances (presumably, the way the Palestinians have).

...

We're stuck in Iraq, and it sucks. But were we to leave in haste, far more blood than oil would flow in the Persian Gulf. The disaster in Gaza's just a rehearsal for the Arab-suicide drama awaiting its opening night in Iraq.

This is why we have to stay involved in the Middle East. It's about more than just "stabilizing" Iraq. It's about imposing a new culture in the region. A culture that values life more than death. A civilized culture. Call me a cultural chauvinist, if you must. But I firmly believe that our culture is far superior to their culture. Now that we've destablized their country, the least we can do is to hang around long enough to teach them a better way to live.

How, well the Cato Institute's Project for Middle Eastern Liberty is a good place to start. While that takes root, we can certainly provide some security for those Iraqi's that want to learn.