PentagOnline

Sun   12 May 2002   9:56 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [Flyover Blogdom]

Fox News says the Defense Department has begun going around the legacy media—even the friendlies—to get its story out via the Internet. Web surfers can actually listen to briefings live through the Web site, as well as selected interviews, and chat with senior officials in real time. Pentagon officials say they have finally figured how viable a tool the World Wide Web is, and now the public can truly benefit from the additional information, especially in this time of war. “We’re looking at a number of ways to tell the taxpayers and the American people and audiences all over the world what we’re up to and the Web is just a part of that,“ said Navy Capt. Tim Taylor, who heads the Pentagon press office. At a time when lily-livered politicians are trying to block public access to public records in alleged fear of terrorists using the information, DoD’s approach is refreshing.

I’m still here
Sun   12 May 2002   9:44 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [Flyover Blogdom]	After Friday’s hours-long War on Cyberterrorism, I decided to take yesterday off—didn’t even turn on the computer. System’s still clean, as are the other computers on the home net.

Down with Vegeterrorism!

Mon   6 May 2002   19:29 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [Flyover Blogdom]

Best of the Web Today takes note of this Times of London article which claims, Scientists at the University of Bonn have discovered that plants do indeed cry when they are cut, moan when they are ill and gurgle when they are well. The more stress we subject them to, the more noise they make. Those dirty rotten vegetarians—sticking up for the underdog when they should be sticking up for the undergrowth! Or, as Taranto puts it, “Perhaps instead of vegetarianism, we should call it ‘vegeterrorism.‘“

Cloning

Fri   3 May 2002   18:05 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [Flyover Blogdom]

Flyover readers may have noticed that not only have I not commented on the alleged controversy about cloning, I haven’t even covered it. Why? I just don’t think it’s a serious issue at this point; it’s been characterized more by tabloid claims by wack-job “scientists” than by real Dolly-style news in recent months. But that hasn’t stopped the pundits of blogdom, most noticeably Glenn Harlan Reynolds of InstaPundit.com, and James Taranto of OpinionJournal.com’s Best of the Web Today, from contributing to an energetic but mystifying spectacle. There is apparently some news on the issue revolving around a bill to prohibit human cloning and President Bush’s statement of support for the bill, and this has touched off all the bloviating. For the record, I don’t think the Constitution protects cloning any more than it protects birth-control-by-infanticide (euphemistically known as abortion), and if there is indeed some greater good to be had from allowing therapeutic cloning to take place, we’ll see evidence of it from animal trials and have the opportunity to reverse a ban on the practice in humans. In the meantime, the issue is more entertainment than anything else, just like the media formats in which human cloning has been familiar lo these many years.

The Soshe
Fri   3 May 2002   15:07 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [Flyover Blogdom]	Texas Rep. Ron Paul (RINO, but in a good way—he’s really a Libertarian) has introduced a bill aimed at putting an end to the use of Social Security numbers as ID numbers by government. It’s a start, but the best way to stop the abuse of SSN’s is to privatize Social Security 100%, something that has yet to find its way into serious legislation. But we can dream, can’t we?

More Wells! More Generators! More Supply! Fewer Wackos!

Wed   9 May 2001   12:00 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [My Two Cents]

With President Bush’s energy policy about to be unveiled, the wackos are out in force — condemning what they anticipate will be an overemphasis on increasing supplies of bad old energy sources and insufficient attention to alternative energy sources and energy conservation.     Do you know where in America alternative energy sources are most heavily relied on? California. Do you know what state’s people use the least energy per capita? California. By the wackos’ logic, the Fugue State should be wallowing in an energy surplus, and the rest of us ought to be shivering in the dark. Yet in the other 49 states, blackouts tend to be limited to old hippies who partook once too often of LSD, heroin or benzedrine — while Californians are fast becoming accustomed to unannounced power outages ordered by that state’s Energy Emperor.     Try pointing out this salient fact to the wackos, though, and they’ll eagerly inform you that California’s blackouts, along with skyrocketing prices for gasoline and natural gas, are the consequence of Big Power, Big Oil and Big Heat all deciding, all at the same time, to start screwing with their paying customers because now “their guy” is in the White House.     Really? And now that “their guy” is in the White House, they’re pissing the electorate off so “their guy’s” party will lose Congress next and then “their guy” gets defeated for re-election two years after that? Diabolical!! Is there no end to their fiendish scheming!!??     All this energy uncertainty facing our nation is no coincidence — it is nothing less than The Clinton Legacy. For eight years there was no energy policy. In fact, for eight years there was only one policy: Exalt Bill. Give him credit for the sun coming up. Shield him from blame if the sunrise is obscured by clouds. Raise him above all the petty bonds and shackles and rules and laws that constrain us mere mortals. Exalt him! Preserve, protect and defend him!     As a result, our energy infrastructure is in a shambles.     There’s natural gas at Point A, but the people who need it are at Point B, and the pipeline that serves them isn’t sufficient to satisfy the demand. Build more pipe? Heavens no, the government won’t permit that!     The demand for gasoline is greater than our refineries can handle. Build more refineries? Heavens no, Washington won’t permit that!     The demand for the particular blend of gasoline mandated for Chicago is too great, but we have a gasoline glut in Memphis. Ship some Memphis blend to Chicago to relieve the pressure? Heavens no, the EPA won’t permit that!     The wackos who created this situation now bemoan the prospect of a national energy policy that will look for more domestic oil reserves, and make them available to the nation; will streamline the process for building more power plants that use conventional fuels; will de-emphasize the kinds of pie-in-the-sky alternative energy schemes that brought California kicking and screaming into the Third World. We can hope that the EPA’s gasoline blend rules will be reviewed, that modern technology will be applied to next-generation nuclear plants to make them more efficient, cleaner and safer than the already excellent record older plants enjoyed before hype shut down the permitting process, that a mature balancing of needs and desires will put the world’s lone superpower back on the road to energy sovereignty.     This isn’t just a matter of helping the economy — which does, after all, need it — it’s a matter of national security. Failure in the vital area of energy renders us vulnerable in a world where we’re in everyone’s crosshairs simply because we are powerful and prosperous.     The only increase in pollution we can be sure will result from Bush’s energy policy is that spewed by the left-wing radical wackos whose extremist philosophy was allowed to run unchecked while Official Washington pursued its policy of Exalt Bill.     If the EPA would regulate that kind of pollution, it might actually save some lives.

For the Record

Sun   17 Dec 2000   10:40 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [My Two Cents]

Years ago, much was made of how Ron Brown was going to be the most senior African-American ever in the executive branch of our government. And until yesterday, Dec. 16, 2000, Brown’s post as Secretary of Commerce was the highest such post ever held by an African-American. He was put in that office by a Democrat, Bill Clinton—neither of whose two U.S. Supreme Court picks was an African-American. The record of Democrats when it comes to giving minority Americans a chance at the reins of power, has not been impressive. Walter Mondale chose a woman to be his running mate against a popular incumbent in 1984, almost certainly hoping that the “wow” factor of having Geraldine Ferraro on his ticket would boost his chances. It didn’t. The “wow” factor of having Joseph Lieberman on his ticket this year may have helped tighten this year’s presidential election, but it’s more likely that scaremongering among the diehard Democrat constituencies was mostly responsible for that. There were complaints, initially, that Gore should have chosen an African-American, but those died down fairly quickly. In fact, the one major breakthrough for African-Americans that came from the efforts of a Democrat, was the placement of Thurgood Marshall on the U.S. Supreme Court. It took a Republican, Ronald Reagan, to put the first woman on that Court, even as radical feminists reviled Reagan for disagreeing with them on those parts of the extremist liberal agenda mislabeled “women’s issues.“ And it’s taking a Republican, George W. Bush, to put an African-American in the most senior Cabinet post even as Jesse Jackson, et al, are threatening that Bush will never be granted legitimacy by African-Americans. African-Americans have little hope of seeing fellow African-Americans hold senior positions in any Democrat administration, nor placed on any Democrat ticket, for one very sound political reason: as long as African-Americans vote 9-to-1 for Democrats, that party’s high rollers have no reason to “shore up” that part of their constituency. If Hillary Clinton were to choose an African-American to be her running mate in 2004, what would that do for her share of that voting bloc? Bump it up from 90% to 91%? It just isn’t worth it, from their point of view. Other American voting blocs manage to get courted by both major parties because they’re “in play”—large segments of those blocs have been known to break ranks and vote the opposite of others in that same bloc. Union voters are wooed by Republicans because many of them helped elect Ronald Reagan in 1980 and were helpful in changing Congress from a Democrat institution to a Republican one; Democrats expend resources trying to keep union voters in the “D” column for that same reason. Republican candidates have to reassure members of their “base” because even though they are unlikely to vote Democrat, such voters have been known to stay home on Election Day out of disgust; Democrats seek to lead Republican officeholders into glaring compromises precisely in order to disillusion conservative Republican voters into staying home on Election Day. African-Americans, though, have very little actual political clout because they are so predictable in their voting behavior. Turnout may fluctuate from election to election, but rarely do Republicans manage to get more than perhaps one in six African-American votes nationwide. And when they do, they call it a victory because it’s usually about one in ten. Democrats, on the other hand, do little to reward such loyalty. They are convinced they don’t have to. It’s up to African Americans, if they want to gain clout, to convince Democrats that their loyalty must be rewarded or it will be lost. And that means convincing Democrats their loyalty can be lost. Such a lesson will never be taught by the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons.

...only more so

Wed   13 Dec 2000   7:11 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [My Two Cents]

Five weeks ago I was planning on writing that “as hard as getting George W. Bush elected was, the task before us all over the next four years is even harder.“ Five weeks and bajillions of court cases later, that assessment still applies, only more so. For Bush himself, the travails of the post-election War of Succession may actually wind up playing into the style of governance that served him so well for six years in Austin—the 50-50 split in the U.S. Senate has led to the emergence of a moderate bloc that could and very well should blunt any attempt by Lost Causers on the Democrat side of the aisle to monkey-wrench Bush’s appointments. In past years I have not been a big fan of middle-ground blocs trying to blunt conservative Republicans’ efforts, and there is always the chance that the Breaux-McCain alliance could exert at least as much effort blocking conservative agenda items such as an across-the-board tax cut and Social Security reform, as slapping down the Hillary wing in its attempts, in effect, to keep Clinton appointees in office well into the Bush presidency. However, Bush’s handling of the War of Succession tells me that he, unlike any number of other possible Republican would-be-presidents who would have quickly sabotaged themselves within days of the election, has the capability to get his program through with support from both the conservatives in the Republican Senate caucus, and the moderates in the Breaux-McCain alliance. Only time will tell, of course, but I am reasonably confident that Bush comes into the presidency with his positives intact and his baggage no heavier than if he had won in a landslide. Indeed, we have learned more truth about the characters of both Bush and Gore after the election than we did during the normal campaign, and I think most people feel that the outcome is right for the nation, however unsightly the means. That by itself ensures a good opening position for Bush. The Lost Causers of the Democratic Party will undoubtedly keep trying to convince America that Bush stole the election. We can expect the party’s last remaining loyal support blocs—Big Labor, Big Abortion, and the New Plantation—to wave their orange ribbons like Confederate flags at every place where two or more diehard Algoristas gather. Speaking as a yellow-dog Republican, the prospect fills me with gleeful anticipation, because if they do not move on from this defeat—as we Republicans have successfully moved on, by and large, from Bill Clinton’s impeachment acquittal—they will go down and take the party with them. However, I have little doubt that as most rank-and-file Democrats have said all along that they will accept George W. Bush as President, the party as a whole will not permit a handful of mouth-foamers to split Democrat voters up and redistribute them to the Republicans and the Greens. The Democrats need to clean house, and I think they know it, and I think they will do it. They may even have the job sufficiently done by 2004 that not even Hillary will have a shot at their presidential nomination—but that may be giving them too much credit this early in the process. For the activists who have come together to support George W. Bush for their myriad reasons, the outcome of the election is no more the conclusion of the job now than it was in 1994. If we allow ourselves to stand back with arms folded and wait for the Bush Administration to give us everything we may believe we’ve been promised, we’ll be letting history repeat itself. As hard as it was working on getting Bush the votes he needed to win, and as hard as it’s been enduring the five weeks of the War of Succession, the work of the next four years will be even harder. If we blow off that responsibility, we will get what we deserve—more of the same.

Believe It or Not

Wed   22 Nov 2000   20:25 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [Wackadoodle] [My Two Cents]

I’m thankful. Yes, even with all the $#!t going on with regard to the presidential war of succession, I’m thankful. I’m thankful that God saw fit to endow me with enough sense to recognize a fraud when I see it being perpetrated. I’m thankful that God saw fit to grant me a sufficiently energetic conscience that I can put the good of my nation ahead of my desire to receive “free” goodies from Uncle Sam. I’m thankful that in all the years I voted the punch card ballot in California I always made sure my chads weren’t left dangling. [Maybe that’s just a “guy” thing…] I’m thankful that, even at the very worst of all possible outcomes, I was born early enough to see America at its best, to see it triumphant over its greatest foreign enemy. And I’m thankful that I can still believe we might overcome our greatest domestic challenge—if not now, then perhaps within my lifetime. After all, I was convinced we could win the Cold War within my lifetime, and peaceably, when all the educated minds of Western Civilization were certain we would eventually lose, in a storm of fire and radiation. I’m thankful that even in its present sorry state the nation I live in is still the freest nation in the history of mankind. I’m thankful for the love and support of everyone in my family, including those whose love and support I may once or twice have foolishly doubted. And I’m thankful for the chance to be able to say these things to all of you. Happy Thanksgiving.

The McGehee Zone Endorses…

Sat   4 Nov 2000   6:40 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [Our Times] [Get Offa My Lawn!] [My Two Cents]

For President of the United States GEORGE W. BUSH Eight years ago, the current incumbent won election on the slogan, “It’s the Economy, Stupid.“ This year, such efforts on that line as may be attempted, have not caught fire. Apparently the American people have decided, after watching the spectacle of American politics under the present regime, that prosperity, while very important, is not enough alone. The nation’s health also requires that our society expend effort on other issues as well, including national security and moral leadership. The Democratic nominee, a high-ranking member of the present regime, cannot be expected to improve much upon the last eight years—and so must be politely told to go back to private life while a serious man takes on the powers and duties of the most powerful office in the world. It’s not the economy anymore—and we’re not stupid anymore. That’s why the Democrats’ attempt to use a non-story from George W. Bush’s distant past won’t work. When Bill Clinton got caught doing wrong (as President), he wagged his finger at us, denied everything, and blamed it all on a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. When Al Gore got caught lying in a debate with Bill Bradley earlier this year, he said “There’s never been a time when I’ve said something untrue.“ When George W. Bush (as a young man misspending his youth) got caught driving with a blood alcohol content just at the legal limit, he took the consequences and made sure it never happened again. Gov. Bush is not only qualified and ready to be President of the United States, he is superior to his Democratic rival in every way that matters.

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