Iraqi elections: vote or die?

reposted from my blog:

"Suspected insurgents held in U.S. or Iraqi detention who have not been convicted of an offence are eligible to vote, Iraqi officials said. Saddam - who is jailed and facing trial for the deaths of more than 140 Shiites in 1982 - also has the right to vote but it was not known whether he would." -Associated Press

Wait a minute... We're spending millions to allow, among others, Iraqi prisoners to vote, but we won't lift a finger to help restore the franchise to released felons in the US?

An exercise in democracy indeed.

Bush is no Reagan

This is a repost of a comment I made on Brian's blog regarding the fiscal recklessness of our current President. I was responding to a Bush supporter who pointed out that our current defecit, when measured as a percentage of GDP is not the highest ever (not the most debt ever! Who would have ever thought a conservative would be using that as a defense 10 or even 5 years ago?!):

The debt of the 80's and the debt of today have two huge differences.

First, Ronald Reagan had a goal in mind that was attainable in borrowing all he did- the defeat of the USSR. He figured if we could just borrow enough to build our military up enough to get rid of the Soviets, America would end up being the sole superpower and we could generate enough wealth to then pay it off. He was correct. After the singular goal of defeating the Soviets was achieved, we were able to trim defense spending and reap the benefits of all these new markets behind the former iron curtain, and pay off unprecedented levels of that debt. Bush on the other hand, has no such goal. Even if we take the hugh leap of faith the Iraq will become a prosperous, stable democracy by the end of the decade, the only savings we'll have are the 100 billion/year we're currently spending there, which only covers about a third of our annual new debt. It won't open up any new markets for us because we already have huge trade with most countries in the middle east. Additionally, that will be the time where we start to face the rising threat of China's military, so we won't be able to cut defense spending anyway.

The second difference is that while Reagan borrowed more as a percentage of the GDP, he did not even come close to borrowing as much from foreign countries as Bush has. In fact, Bush has borrowed more from abroad in the last 5 years than his previous 42 predecessors combined. How can any self-respecting conservative defend that? If our relations deteriorate with China, they could simply ask for their money back and send our economy into a tailspin. Even if they don't, it's not good to be so dependent on any foreign country, especially a potential future rival like China. I just don't think all these potential dangers justify making such huge top-heavy tax cuts. Our taxation system was not broken before Bush took over- we were the richest and most powerful country in the world, and were paying off a ton of debt. Why would you want to drastically change anything about that situation? Any true conservative should be rooting for the democrats to win big in 06, whether it's on economic or military matters.

AIDS Sucks

Today is World AIDS Day. I'm not going to be insultingly obvious by saying how terrible it is. But I will tell you that there is a way that you can fight AIDS at home, on your computer, without doing anything. It's a project called Fight Aids Online, made by the World Community Grid. Basically, a bunch of scientists have all this information on the HIV genome, which must be eventually decoded if a cure is to be found. The catch is that the amount of information is so immense, there is a lack of computer processing power to do whatever needs to be done. But a program on the World Community Grid lets you download a program that lets your computer process the HIV info while your computer goes to screen saver. You can get it here.