Letter to Senator Durbin

Senator Durbin,

The Geneva Convention states that members of irregular militias qualify for prisoner-of-war status if their military organization satisfies four criteria:

(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates
(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance
(c) that of carrying arms openly
(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war

If you think the Al Qaeda, Taliban, or even Iraqi “insurgents” meet the criteria above, then you are seriously deluded. The administration sees these evil men in the proper sense of the Geneva Conventions – Unlawful Combatants. I support that designation because it is true. Not only are your statements that President Bush has ignored the Geneva Conventions false, you sir, are the one ignorant of the laws.

Our nation is well within our rights to not only inter unlawful combatants but to execute them.

Your contention that terrorists held by U.S. forces should be afforded prisoner of war status serves to legitimize their illegal methods and tactics, not only against our troops who do fight by the rules of war, but to innocent civilians who are most often the targets of these terrorists. If you seek any credibility on this issue, you should acknowledge terrorists as the unlawful combatants they are.

Dave Calder

Envy

Powerline’s recent post “Reflections On How Things Keep Getting Better” coincided with similar thoughts I’ve had on the destructive nature of envy. I recalled taking my kids home from Sunday School years ago where two had popcorn balls and one didn’t; the unfortunate one had braces and had to turn the treat down. Naturally this was disappointing. We had an interesting conversation revealing an all too common feature of envy:

“Its not fair”, she said, “they get popcorn balls but I can’t have any!”

“I know you are disappointed, but there are many foods you can’t eat right now” I replied

“Well it’s still not fair and they shouldn’t be able to have them either!”

To make things right for this young girl would require her brother and sister not to get popcorn balls as long as she didn’t have one, never mind the fact that it wouldn’t change her situation. No thought of “how fortunate it is my brother and sister have popcorn balls to enjoy.”

The politics’ of envy embraces this childishness. “The income gap is getting wider” and “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”. If this is true, then does it follow that as far as living in the United States is concerned it was better to be poor in times past then to be poor now? I doubt it.

On the whole, our country has the highest standard of living but envy prevent many from seeing.

Memorial Day

My local news had a story about Memorial day and reported over 1,000,000 warriors had been killed in Americas wars. That figure seemed high to me. From Infoplease I found the following statistics:

America's Wars - Total

Military service during war - 42,348,460

Battle deaths - 651,008

Other deaths in service (theater) - 13,998

Other deaths in service (nontheater) - 525,256

Nonmortal woundings - 1,431,290

Living war veterans - 17,578,5004

Living veterans - 25,038,459


If one adds other deaths (nontheater) to battle deaths and other deaths (theater) the figure is indeed over 1 million, but that figure includes non-combat deaths. I regret so many have given there lives for our freedoms but am grateful for these fallen.

Blog Readability

Juicy Studio Has an readability test index that evaluates the readability of websites. I don’t know who verified the algorithms but I like the results given for Francis Peak:

Summary Value
Total sentences: 87
Total words: 732
Average words per Sentence: 8.41
Words with 1 Syllable: 459
Words with 2 Syllables: 168
Words with 3 Syllables: 73
Words with 4 or more Syllables: 32
Percentage of word with three or more syllables: 14.34%
Average Syllables per Word: 1.56
Gunning Fog Index: 9.10
Flesch Reading Ease: 66.31
Flesch-Kincaid Grade: 6.10

The Rosetta Stone:

Typical Fog Index Scores Fog Index Resources
6 TV guides, The Bible, Mark Twain
8 Reader's Digest
8 - 10 Most popular novels
10 Time, Newsweek
11 Wall Street Journal
14 The Times, The Guardian
15 - 20 Academic papers
Over 20 Only government sites can get away with this, because you can't ignore them.
Over 30 The government is covering something up

Thanks to Uncorrelated

Fox News Goofs Too

In a previous post I linked to an item in Uncorrelated about CNN’s use of a photo that miss-represents the area in Alaska Congress is considering opening to oil drilling. I noticed the same photo being used by Foxnews a couple of days ago.

Free Trade vs Gambling

The Deseret News has a story on an ongoing “trade” dispute between the United States and the island nation of Antigua:

A WTO [World Trade Organization] dispute panel ruled this past November that the United States was in violation of its international trade obligations. In other words, Antigua can't be stopped by the United States. The WTO decision, in general terms, means that laws used by particular states to limit or forbid gambling are considered by the dispute panel as a violation of "market access" principles of the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

The article states that Antigua is developing internet gaming as a replacement for its banana industry (ironically destroyed when the US and Latin American countries won a trade dispute against EU tariffs favoring former Caribbean colonies). Utah is one of two states (the other is Hawaii) were all gambling is illegal. Antigua’s grievance to the WTO focuses on Utah’s law prohibiting internet gaming. A search of the internet located this related story (cited from Business Week).

I am a free trade supporter and a backer of NAFTA but this dispute is problematic for two reasons. The first is it threatens to override the power of states to regulate gambling. The second is the ability of one country to use “trade” as a cover to change another country’s vice laws (though the US may have erred if it included gambling as a recognized “trade”). If the US loses its appeal at the WTO can Utah make a case in Federal court that the Federal government does not have the right to violate the States right in its treaty negotiations?

Howitzer Round Lands in Backyard

KSL TV reports on an errant 105mm howitzer round landing in a suburban neighborhood in Utah County. Appears a Utah Department of Transportation avalanche abatement team accidentally shot this over the mountain they were aiming at. Probably can use some gun control here.

Finally a commentary about the problem of obesity without calling for a Federal program.

Union Falls Yellowstone

Union Falls , Yellowstone, Jul 2004

Started using Bloggerbot to upload photos. This will probably be addicting... Photo of Union Falls taken during Boy Scout summer camp last year at Camp Loll, Wyoming. The camp is located between Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Park. By far the best run camp I've attended - One will have a tough time matching the excellent staff.

A trip to the falls requires an eight mile hike into the Yellowstone backcountry (16 Miles round trip). These are the second highest falls in the park. The troop did well on the hike due to practice hikes leading up to camp. About a half mile away is a creek with a pool warmed by a hot spring - the scouts enjoyed a brief swim.

Sunset on Francis Peak - Sometime in 2002/03
View from my backdoor.