Continued Significance of the Iraqi Elections

More support for the Iraqi elections as a Mideast Turning Point. Mark Steyn observes, in the Telegraph, the impact of the Iraqi Elections on positive developments in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Saudia Arabia:

“Why is all this happening? Answer: January 30. Don't take my word for it, listen to Walid Jumblatt, big-time Lebanese Druze leader and a man of impeccable anti-American credentials: "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Berlin Wall has fallen." Just so. Left to their own devices, the House of Saud - which demanded all US female air-traffic controllers be stood down for Crown Prince Abdullah's flight to the Bush ranch in Crawford - would stick to their traditional line that Wahhabi women have no place in a voting booth; instead, they have to dress like a voting booth - a big black impenetrable curtain with a little slot to drop your ballot through. Likewise, Hosni Mubarak has no desire to take part in campaign debates with Hosno Name-Recognition. Boy Assad has no desire to hand over his co-Baathists to the Great Satan's puppets in Baghdad.”

Changes are mounting; today Lebanon’s government resigned.

Spring is Coming

It got up to the low 50’s today. Sun was out. Everyone in the neighborhood was out. Our family put the yard in order – cleaning out leaves stuck in the garden, sprucing up. I pruned the grape vines (every year I think I’ve cut them so far back that they won’t recover but I’m vindicated at harvest time). Were now accustomed to the Northern Utah climate; in San Antonio spring didn’t start until it was 72 degrees (of course that was the end of January…). And to think I was camping in a snow storm last week.

Turning Point

The significance of the Iraqi Election becomes larger each passing day. Its immediate effect was to topple the idol of despair the media high priests and the council of liberal elders had erected for Western masses to revere. The millions of Iraqis who defied terror’s vaunted thousands now appear to be a catharsis for Lebanese who tire of their Syrian overlords. Will the Persian empire to the east also be affected by the tremors.

(link via Powerline)

Item of Interest Today

Property rights on trial at the Supreme Court (Bainbridge via instapundit). Professor Bainbridge links to SCOTUS with a disappointing assessment.

It's Great Having Two Papers

I guess you can say the Salt Lake Tribune corroborates the Deseret New’s headline (mentioned below) with this quote regarding Rocky Anderson:

Cox [Rep. David Cox, R-Lehi] also believes Salt Lake's mayor is anti-LDS. He points to Anderson's past statements about the religious makeup of the city council. "He has a definite religious bias and is using his position to further that," said Cox, who, like an estimated 90 percent of his fellow Utah legislators, is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Cox's comments infuriate Anderson, who said "It gets to the point of being personally cruel and hurtful." "I find it extremely troubling that a person would accuse someone of essentially being a religious bigot because that person calls for a greater valuing of our community's diversity."

This is news?

Deseret Morning News: Rocky denies church gives him orders

Actually the editors must have been smiling when they wrote that headline.

Winter Campout

My assistants and I took the scouts camping in our district’s Klondike derby. This was my first, intentional, lets go camping in the snow trip (I’ve camped in below-freezing and snowy weather before, but only because the forecast wasn’t up to par).

The ten of us rolled out of home base at 4:00 pm – a half hour past schedule; some scouts are still coming to grips with the motto “Be Prepared”. Most of the district was already in place when we arrived at camp, requiring us to haul our venture further into woods. An advantage of that distance was to be isolated from the other camps.

We set up camp and had an uneventful evening, other than our camp stove didn’t work. We resorted to cooking our stew on an above ground fire pit. The boys stayed up till 11:00 pm and even in their tents continued to talk into the night. Everyone was dry and comfortable. I settled down for a pleasant rest in my one man backpacking tent with my trusty holo-fill sleeping bag and foam pad. My tent was on about two to three feet of snow resulting in a perfect surface - no rocks to worry about.

It started to snow just after midnight. It was heavy and sounded like rain lightly tapping the tent. About 5:00 am the wind picked up. It poised little problem for my tent, but the boys were sleeping in two huge spring bar tents. The combination of wind and snow on the roof caused both tents to collapse about 5:30 am. We determined it wasn’t worth putting them back up (the wind and snow were really getting difficult).

We started the day in a snow storm. It was difficult to cook (the assistants had fixed the stove after dinner last night). Snow was blowing side ways. One of the assistant’s tent blew down and rolled several yards away. The snow was wet and we became wet. The pleasant trip was now becoming miserable. Still we plugged on with breakfast, using only one burner to concentrate heat on the reaming portion of the griddle. We got the sausages and bacon cooked but only managed to get about one pancake for each boy.

We weren’t the only troop having difficulty working in the weather. The Klondike Derby events were cancelled and most of us pulled up camp shortly afterwards. We hit the road at 10:00.

The camp was a good experience. It will give the boys bragging rights. I would like to try to go lighter next time; take a few more two men tents instead and less troop equipment. We spent a lot of time hauling equipment in and then hauling it out again. A camp like this underscores what I like about about backpacking. Of course, this was my first winter camp, and we brought a lot of extra items to compensate for inexperience. I look forward to future winter camps.

Utah Legislature Website

While looking up information on the Utah Legislature’s Senate Bill 61, I came across their website. They have done a great job making information accessible to the public. You can access PDF or HTML files of proposed legislation or track the progress of bills. Here is information on S.B. 61 (note there is also a substitute S.B. 61). At the bottom of the page one can enter an email address to get a notification these bills are updated.

Death Spiral for MSM credibility?

I am somewhat surprised at the main stream media’s (MSM) reaction to bloggers regarding Eason Jordan’s resignation from CNN (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, start here). Steve Lovelady, with the Columbia Journalism Review, reflects their attitude with this quote "The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail” (as reported by the New York Times). Much has been written about this mischaracterization of bloggers (see Glenn Reynolds), so I won’t bother adding my two cents.

My observation, instead, is how many people readily bypass the MSM to dig into available information direct from bloggers. I understand the phenomenon, because I’ve long not trusted the MSM; I just didn’t realize how widespread this attitude is. It underscores an underlying credibility gap that automatically starts the MSM on defense. But the MSM chose to make matters worse. Their soft-pedaling of Eason Jordan’s comments and subsequent vilification of bloggers only served to widen the credibility gap as more folks read the blogs for themselves and compare them to the MSM’s reporting of the same. I’m betting most will conclude they don’t match. Thus continues the MSM credibility death spiral.

Rights of Parents to Home School Children

I've never met Jon Yarrington but he writes a clear opinion in the Deseret Morning News "My View" section about the rights of parents to home school their children without government interference. The paper identifies Mr Yarrington as the President of the Utah Home School Education Association; they made a good choice in a President.

I've Added Trackback

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Failure of Bill Moyer’s Logic

John Hinderaker, of Powerline writes a piece in the Daily Standard about Bill Moyer’s slander of former Interior Secretary, James Watt. Mr. Hinderaker points out the slander is used to mischaracterize evangelical Christians as welcoming environmental pollution since this sign of the last days would hasten the second coming of Christ. Powerline already pointed out this assertion is ludicrous based on most Christian’s understanding of stewardship. A further point to consider: How does Mr. Moyer square his belief that right wing Christians favor environmental pollution while they adamantly oppose other “signs of the time” also ushering in the last days. To follow Mr. Moyer’s logic one would also expect these same Christians to drop their opposition to abortion and homosexual marriage.

Evacuated Wednesday

A burning tanker truck with a load of butane caused the neighborhood to be evacuated. The truck reportedly went through a red light, T-boned a turning van, then overturned on a highway about a half mile from home. Leaking fuel collected in a nearby house and finally reached an ignition source there about two hours after the accident.

The accident altered my commute home, as it did my son, who actually got off the UTA bus at the same intersection of the crash, just as first responders where arriving. He had an adventure getting home since police quickly cordoned off his normal route.

We watched the news report, discussed the excitement during dinner and then separated into our various routines. About an hour later I smelled a rotting cabbage smell. My wife noticed it also. We checked the trash and kitty litter before I thought to check outside; when I did, not only was the smell coming from the tanker, I saw the orange glow from fire lighting the sky.

Sometimes you don’t realize when a situation is dangerous. My first reaction was to call the kids to the patio to look at the fire. About a minute later sirens could be heard arriving. A fire truck began driving through the neighborhood; the driver using a loud speaker, directed us to evacuate immediately.

I told the kids to put their shoes and coats on. My wife grabbed a few things. As I opened the garage to put the emergency 72 hour kit in the car, I noticed the house across the street was lit up in an orange hue indicating the flames had grown much larger. This spurred me to have the family stop further gathering immediately and to get in the van. We probably were out of the house in three minutes from first hearing the evacuation notice.

We spent the night at my parents, about 25 minutes south of home, watching the news reports of the fire and evacuation. We were able to return at 8:00 the next morning.

Notes on President Bush’s State of the Union Speech

Reminiscent of his inaugural speech, President Bush's State of the Union Address was cast in terms of what the nation should do to ensure “a better world for our children and grandchildren”. He stated we had three responsibilities to our posterity:

1. Be good stewards of the economy
2. Pass on Values
3. Leave an America safe from danger

He presented the following proposals:

1. Holding growth of “discretionary” spending below inflation
2. Make tax relief permanent
3. Reduces/Eliminates 150 government programs
4. Help 200,000 workers trained for better career
5. Urge Congress to pass legal reforms on frivolous lawsuits
6. Health care agenda (tax credits, community health centers, medical technology, association health plans for small business, health savings accounts, and medical liability reform)
7. Energy legislation
8. Reform tax code
9. Guest workers/ immigration reform
10. Social Security Reform
- no change for 55 above
- 4% of payroll tax into personnel retirement accounts (with government controls
11. Marriage protection amendment
12. Faith based community group focus to keep young men out of gangs
13. Reauthorize Ryan White act
14. DNA training for defense counsels

He took the following stands:

1. Prevention of human embryo experimentation
2. Up or down vote on judicial nominees

He singled out the following countries to increase democracy:

1. Saudi Arabia
2. Egypt

He singled out the following countries as sponsors of terrorism:

1. Syria
2. Iran
He singled out North Korea as a country proliferating nuclear weapons.

He outlined our goals for Iraq and stated that he would make no withdrawal timetable, as it would be artificial.