Still More About Bad Bets

James Joyner has a link to a poll that appears to show that the Democratic strategy, as espoused by John "Unindicted Co-Conspirator" Murtha and embraced by Nancy Pelosi, is likely to backfire - badly - on them. I deleted a number of comments today that went well over the limits of the comment policy because the artist formerly known as the Daou Report linked to one of my earlier posts about bad bets. The more hysterical commenters might want to calm down and actually read what this poll is saying.

Public Opinion Strategies* has released a survey [PDF file here] of likely voters’ attitudes toward the Iraq War that finds that most voters think the country is going in the wrong direction (67%) and President Bush is doing a poor job (60%), and that Iraq will never be a stable democracy (60%). No real surprises there, right?

Here are some pretty interesting numbers, though, given those and other indications** that the survey isn’t biased toward President Bush:

• 57% believe “The Iraq War is a key part of the global war on terrorism.”
• 57% “support finishing the job in Iraq, that is, keeping the troops there until the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people.
• 50% want our troops should stay and “do whatever it takes to restore order until the Iraqis can govern and provide security to their country” while only 17% favor immediate withdrawal
• 56% believe “Even if they have concerns about his war policies, Americans should stand behind the President in Iraq because we are at war.”
• 53% believe “The Democrats are going too far, too fast in pressing the President to withdraw the troops from Iraq.”

I am not, as longtime readers know, a big fan of trying to govern via polling, nor am I a huge believer in any single poll being used as a benchmark. Still, these numbers indicate that there is a problem with the execrable strategy of a man who barely avoided being rightfully jailed - if he hadn't been rather transparently holding out for more money later, he would have gone down in Abscam. This is who the Democrats are listening to for strategy? My wife told me I needed to run this picture, so I think this is the right place for it:

Let Aliens Vote

A major push in New York City to make non-citizens legal voters in the city.

A bill that would grant permanent residents and other legal immigrants the right to vote in municipal elections has been stalled in the City Council since last year.

"More than 50,000 adult noncitizen taxpayers in those two districts are disenfranchised by citizenship voting laws," said Cheryl Wertz, of New Immigrant Community Empowerment, referring to today's special election for council seats in Brooklyn and Staten Island.

Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn), the sponsor of the Voting Rights Restoration Act, said that years ago, when immigrants were mostly European, they had voting rights.

My wife walked in the room when I had the article up on the screen, read it and simply stated: "Only if they are from Mars." And she is a Democrat and has been her entire life.

UPDATE: Apparently, New York is attempting to catch up with Chicago, which along with a massive dead vote, also appears to have a substantial alien vote:

Do You Really Own Your Computer?

One of the Crabitat's handy informants, who generally shuns any publicity about the links he sends me, points to a couple of articles of real interest about the Windows Vista operating system. I posted a little about that earlier today. (Yeah, I know posts are a lot lighter than usual, I've had a number of things going on). But one article asks a very good question: if you buy and install Vista, how much control of your PC are you giving away. The answer seems to be a lot. A REAL lot.

The net effect of these concerns may constitute the real Vista revolution as they point to an unprecedented loss of consumer control over their own personal computers. In the name of shielding consumers from computer viruses and protecting copyright owners from potential infringement, Vista seemingly wrestles control of the "user experience" from the user.

Vista's legal fine print includes extensive provisions granting Microsoft the right to regularly check the legitimacy of the software and holds the prospect of deleting certain programs without the user's knowledge. During the installation process, users "activate" Vista by associating it with a particular computer or device and transmitting certain hardware information directly to Microsoft.

Even after installation, the legal agreement grants Microsoft the right to revalidate the software or to require users to reactivate it should they make changes to their computer components. In addition, it sets significant limits on the ability to copy or transfer the software, prohibiting anything more than a single backup copy and setting strict limits on transferring the software to different devices or users.

Vista also incorporates Windows Defender, an anti-virus program that actively scans computers for "spyware, adware, and other potentially unwanted software." The agreement does not define any of these terms, leaving it to Microsoft to determine what constitutes unwanted software.

Once operational, the agreement warns that Windows Defender will, by default, automatically remove software rated "high" or "severe," even though that may result in other software ceasing to work or mistakenly result in the removal of software that is not unwanted.

For greater certainty, the terms and conditions remove any doubt about who is in control by providing that "this agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights." For those users frustrated by the software's limitations, Microsoft cautions that "you may not work around any technical limitations in the software."

Nope - I am not buying or installing Vista. I have been playing around a bit with Ubuntu Linux (so far it has the fewest driver issues of all the Linux distros I have looked at) and am starting to think very seriously about switching away from Windows altogether. I'll leave my Windows XP systems up and running for now at least, but I'm beginning to think it simply isn't worth messing with a company that thinks it is a good idea to decide what I can and cannot do with my property. I've always paid for legal software and don't really feel like getting punished for other's behavior.

Consumer cost-benefit analysis here.

Vitriolic Rhetoric Escalates

One of the things that has been a real concern for me is the escalating vitriolic rhetoric coming from the left these days. Constantly raising the bar almost daily will eventually reach a critical point. Which it appears to have, with someone entering a stranger's home and assaulting the three people inside. Because the assailant had found the name of one of the home's occupants on a Republic website.

A Fredericksburg man was arrested Saturday on charges he assaulted three strangers at their home during a dispute over politics, police said.

According to a Fredericksburg police report, the suspect went to a home in the 900 block of Marye Street about 5:30 p.m. after finding one of the resident's name on a Republican Web site.

The resident and his two roommates engaged in a discussion with the suspect, though none of them had ever met or had contact with him before.

The argument got heated and the suspect learned that the young residents had not enlisted in the military and "put their all" behind the Republican-led war effort in Iraq, police spokeswoman Natatia Bledsoe said.

The suspect refused to leave the home after repeatedly being asked to do so, police said. The three roommates were hit multiple times each as they attempted to get the suspect out of the door, authorities said.

The suspect continued to be aggressive and disorderly even after a city police officer arrived, the report states.

The paper says they have no idea of the assailant's political affiliation. I'm guessing he wasn't a conservative.

Fear Of Clowns

In professional terms it is called coulrophobia, an irrational fear of clowns. But is it irrational if you've had a bad encounter with a clown? Like maybe having one beat you up when you're a little boy?

As a child going to the circus, you might expect the clown to throw a bucket of confetti at you, or squirt you with water from the flower on his lapel.

You certainly wouldn't be prepared for him to grab you by the scruff of the neck, punch and kick you and leave you needing hospital treatment for cuts and bruises.

As these astonishing pictures show, that's what happened when 12-year-old Amos Lutz met Kaspar the Clown at a circus in Leipzig, Germany.

Amos's mistake seems to have been to hurl a carton of his own confetti at Kaspar - otherwise known as Bernd Kalster, 47 - as he strolled by. Clown Bernd Kalster, 47, punched and kicked helpless Amos Lutzer, 12, to the ground at Leipzig, Germany, then claimed it was self defence.

Kaspar clearly failed to see the funny side.

Not a very funny clown, is he? The picture show more than a bit of over reaction on the part of the clown.

What Americans Haven’t Been Told

Michael Totten, who has pointed out the peace and stability in the Northern area of Iraq, which is a de facto state of Kurdistan. Now CBS news actually reports from Kurdistan and paints a picture that Totten thinks captures the area and its potential perfectly. This really is a must-see video. Kudos to CBS for showing something positive about Iraq for a change.

Back To The Cold War

Poland and the Czech Republic appear ready to approve the siting of American anti-missile defenses in their countries. Russia responds with threats to target those facilities. The old Cold War bluff and bluster appear to be back.

Russia threatened to train its missiles on Poland and the Czech Republic yesterday after the two countries signaled they would host a controversial US missile defence shield despite vehement objections from the Kremlin.

The warning came hours after Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek and his Polish counterpart Jaroslaw Kaczynski told a press conference in Warsaw that their response to the US proposal, made last month, would "most likely be positive."

The Pentagon has asked to deploy 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic — two former Warsaw Pact countries that are now EU and Nato members — as part of the first global integrated missile defence shield in Europe.

Yesterday Gen Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces, warned that the proposed locations of the defensive shield would be targeted if Poland and the Czech Republic accepted the proposal.

The US is not placing the missiles - which are defensive - to threaten Russia but to defend against the next generation of Iranian missiles. But they naked power plays by Putin and his mafia don government may start making things more closely resemble 1968 than they already do.

The Annoyances Of Vista

PC World takes a look at the new Microsoft Vista operating system. There is a lot to hate about the new software and really very little reason for a lot of computer users to even want the new product. (I have absolutely no intention of upgrading for the foreseeable future). Heck, after reading this list, I think I may nurse the older computers I have along until they die of old age. People thinking about switching may really want to read this article before they make the jump. I happened to be in Radio Shack a few days back when someone who had just upgraded to Vista came in looking for a webcam that would work with the new program. His old cam would not. The store didn't have any with Vista drivers, apparently, so he left disappointed.

A Dangerous Bet

Brendan Miniter points out the dangers of the current Democratic strategy as plotted by John "Unindicted Co-Conspirator" Murtha and endorsed by Nancy Pelosi. He looks to a few contrarian items to the "conventional wisdom" and argues that all is not exactly - or even close to - what the left would have everyone believe.

What then is next in the war over the war? The House passed its nonbinding resolution last week and won votes of just 17 Republicans. Rep. John Murtha, who's spent more than two decades amassing political clout by doling out defense earmarks, might prefer to "slow bleed" the administration by putting conditions on money appropriated to fight the war. Mr. Murtha, with the support of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, may even succeed at hamstringing the president. But political success of such a strategy depends on two things: first, that U.S. troops will fail to win on the ground in Iraq; second, that a fickle public doesn't turn around and blame Democrats for that failure.

During the government shutdown in 1995, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich learned the hard way that the public can turn on congressional leaders who pick public fights with sitting president for little apparent gain. With the nonbinding resolution, Speaker Pelosi might have signed up for co-ownership of failure in Iraq, with little right to share credit for victory should the surge succeed….

….Arguably, waffling on the war is what is costly for Republicans. In June Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a Minnesota Republican, cautioned other Republicans not to go wobbly. A month later he went wobbly himself. After returning from Iraq, he declared that the U.S. lacked "strategic control" of the country and called for a limited troop withdrawal to "send a message" to Iraq's government. In November the six-term congressman watched independent voters abandon him as he lost by more than 5% to Democrat Tim Waltz. Meanwhile, in a neighboring congressional district, Rep. John Kline, another Republican facing a stiff challenge for his seat, didn't waver. He ended winning enough support from independents to defeat FBI "whistleblower" Colleen Rowley by 16%.

Over in the Senate, Joe Lieberman recently warned that a showdown on the war between the executive and legislative branches risked creating a "constitutional crisis." But perhaps his most powerful political statement is still being in the Senate after losing a Democratic primary last year to antiwar activist Ned Lamont. The antiwar left is powerful enough to prevail in a Democratic primary, but even in deeply blue Connecticut, it wasn't capable of winning a statewide general election.

Miniter points out one thing that should be fairly obvious here. The left is extremely noisy, but the American public does not like defeat. I have said all along that the election results were not a mandate for the Democrats to lose a war.This is a very dangerous bet for the Democratic leadership. The Democrats wisely reject John Murtha for the number two position in the leadership. They would be better off to keep that in mind when he tries his strategy.